laboratory of editions in architecture FA UNAM

Bachelor degree at Lea

Current students from UNAM's School of Architecture can become part of LEA while graduating by supporting the laboratory's lines of research. LEA works with an initial group of four lines of research focused on the twentieth century. These lines of research have been defined and chosen for their usefulness in analyzing ideas about Mexican architecture of the period, its relationship with other disciplines, and its "conversations" with the architectural cultures of other countries. They have also been chosen for their value in learning, that is, for enabling students in the laboratory to acquire basic research skills and knowledge.

These lines allow students to work with institutional or private archives ranging from large to small. Some of these archives are professionally cataloged—the larger ones—while others, due to their private nature, lack a systematic organization. This diversity allows students to be capable and prepared to conduct research under a variety of conditions, that is, in the way research is practiced in the national and international professional context.

These research fields allow students to work with libraries, newspaper archives, sound archives, and film archives that also vary in scale and conditions: from large public institutions to small private or semi-private collections. Another characteristic of these research fields is that their archives are reasonably accessible: some are completely open, while others can be consulted with relatively simple authorizations. Students learn the procedures for accessing many of the sources on which they will base their research.

How graduating through a research brief works?

Given the significant changes that have occurred in our country for decades, our university has implemented graduation options that address the social demands arising from these changes and contemporary living conditions. Thus, our school offers ten graduation options based on those approved by the University Council and promoted by the UNAM General Examination Regulations.(3) Of these graduation options that must be promoted in the faculties, LEA implements the Research Activity Graduation option. In our program, this option is defined as follows:

This option proposes that students identify their interest in research by individually joining an ongoing research project within the Faculty or at UNAM. This involves contributing to the development of knowledge on urban and architectural themes through the use of methodologies for analysis, synthesis, communication, and dissemination of research findings. Students may collaborate with a professor or researcher from the Faculty of Architecture or other related departments at UNAM, who will serve as their research advisor. For graduation purposes, this work will culminate in a research brief in the form of a thesis, dissertation, dissertation, prototype, or model, depending on the ongoing research project, or an academic article published in a peer-reviewed journal or approved for publication by an authorized editorial committee.

LEA's students enroll in a graduation seminar and graduate with a research brief that enriches and contributes to the lines of research. In the updated edition of the Basic Notebook of School Administration, 004, “Graduation Options at UNAM,” the DGAPA establishes and publishes for the Faculty of Architecture that students can:

• Complete Thesis I in the 9th semester:

1. With a professor belonging to one of the areas of the degree with a current research project with the authorization and approval of the Academic Secretariat of the Faculty.

• Cursar Teshis II in the 10th semester:

1. With a professor from one of the undergraduate programs, with the authorization and approval of the Faculty's Academic Secretariat, and with the progress of the current research project.

According to these points, students in the LEA program obtain their Bachelor's degree.

2. Faculty of Architecture, UNAM. Degree program 2017. Volume I (Mexico City: UNAM, 2017) 80 y 81.

3. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Degree options at UNAM. Basic school administration notebooks. Number 004. (Mexico City: UNAM, 2019) 10.

Research briefs

Evaluation

According to our program,

“[…] assessment will be oriented as a formative process to plan and foster learning situations in which students discover, construct, and experience the theoretical and practical knowledge they require to achieve the learning objectives. In accordance with the approaches of this program, students are assumed to pose and solve problems, contribute solutions they generate themselves, and construct and reconstruct knowledge in accordance with their cultural environment.”

Also, according to our plan, the research chosen by a LEA student "represents a dynamic process that moves from the sensory to the rational, from the concrete to the abstract, from the systematic to the playful, from the simple to the complex and vice versa. It posits that the teaching and learning process of architecture can be grounded, explained, systematized, and evaluated with the participation of all those involved in the process." [4]

Upon entering LEA, students take a diagnostic assessment with their instructors, which serves to identify the interests, skill levels, and knowledge of the young researchers. Based on this initial assessment, and throughout the semester, formative assessments are conducted so that all those involved in the learning process can recognize the emergence and development of skills, the construction of useful knowledge, and the application of that knowledge to new and more complex tasks. Finally, at the end of each of the two semesters completed at LEA, a summative assessment is carried out, which integrates the preceding formative assessments with a final evaluation. These three forms of assessment are those indicated in our program.[5]

4 Faculty of Architecture, UNAM. Degree Program2017. Volume I (Mexico City: UNAM, 2017) 77 y 78.

5 Ibid. 79.