Hybrid Hermeneutics
The Routledge Companion to Architectural Pedagogies of the Global South
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Hybrid Hermeneutics
Extract from the introduction by
Extract from the introduction by
Harriet Harriss, Barry Curtis, and Ashraf M. Salama
Harriet Harriss, Barry Curtis, and Ashraf M. Salama
The final section of the book captures hermeneutical alternatives to established pedagogical approaches - ranging from pedagogies situated in conflict zones that resist the political overwriting of the occupying forces, to pedagogies situated in diasporan communities that contest colonial erasures by engaging Afrosurrealism as a means to offer an imagination-driven, alternative future for black communities who are otherwise denied a means to co-author architectures that are indicative of their identity.
Reflecting on their long-standing design studio teaching, based within the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Murray Frazer, Nasser Golzari, and Yara Sharif call for hybrid forms of pedagogy that offer a more equal cultural exchange between ‘East’/‘West’, ‘Global South’/‘Global North’, that combine learning-in-action and design research. Entitled ‘Loudreaders,’ the design studio of Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski responds to the context of the Caribbean and seeks to decentre Eurocentric pedagogies and epistemologies while fostering discourses and practices at the intersection of anti-colonialism, anti-racism, transfeminism, and other forms of human emancipation. The impact of internationalization is explored in the chapter by Karine Dupre who looks at the international experiments speaking to the Global South through an Australian case study. Her work reveals that “despite a healthy level of diversity amongst the cultural background of the educators, there is no direct link between the international experiments they lead and the location of these experiments”.
Examining their design studio at the Valparaiso School of Architecture and Design in Chile, Patricia Guaita, Raffael Baur, Dr. David Jolly, and Victoria Jolly examine the role that ‘making’ plays in enabling students’ engagement in a unique cultural setting for in-practice learning, and the extent to which experiments in resilient construction and economies of material form the basis of a pedagogy that is more firmly rooted in place. Reflecting on a series of intervention projects undertaken at both graduate and undergraduate levels over a period of seven years at Qatar University, Anna Grichting presents a pedagogy that focuses on the challenges of food production in desert environments, and how a localized enquiry can encourage students to engage in meta-questions of climate crisis, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and food insecurity.
Nelson Mota and Dick van Gameren discuss how the pedagogy of the design studio can be utilised to decolonize architectural education in India, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia, by engaging students in an interplay between accommodating indigenous knowledges and tackling the challenges of planetary urbanization. In a similar vein, John Harris, Christopher Lê, and Maria del Guadalupe Davidson reflect upon their Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)-integrated design studio teaching in Zambia, where power asymmetries between students, practitioners, and community members are disrupted as a means to ensure that goals and outcomes are co-designed and co-produced in an effective collaborative process. In Venezuela, Alejandro Haiek and Xenia Adjoubei consider what would constitute a Latin American Architectural Pedagogy able to generate real infrastructure, new cultural rituals, and labour economies by uniting communities and strengthening society.
This fourth and final section of the book concludes with a chapter by Jeffrey Hogrefe and Scott Ruff that discuss the role that an Afrosurrealism curriculum could play in directing students towards design studio outcomes that make physicality manifest the erased and forgotten histories of those designated as ‘Other’ for a new imaginary world to come. Their approach repositions Blackness as central to surrealism and offers an alternative curriculum that is embodied, self-referential, and relational.
Harriet Harriss (RIBA, PFHEA, Ph.D.) is a qualified architect and Dean of the Pratt School of Architecture in Brooklyn, New York. Her teaching, research, and writing focus upon pioneering new pedagogic models for design education, as captured in Radical Pedagogies: Architectural Education & the British Tradition, and for widening participation in architecture to ensure it remains as diverse as the society it seeks to serve, a subject she interrogates in her book, A Gendered Profession. Dean Harriss is also recognized as an advocate for diversity and inclusion within design education and was nominated by Dezeen as a champion for women in architecture and design in 2019. Her latest book Architects After Architecture (2020), considers the multi-sector impact of an architectural qualification. Visit here for more information
Ashraf M. Salama (FRSA, FHEA, Ph.D.) is Full Professor in Architecture and Director of Research at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. He has led three of architecture in Egypt, Qatar and the United Kingdom, two of which he has founded and was Head of the School of Architecture at the University of Strathclyde (2014-2020). With experience spanning across many contexts, he has been the director of research and consulting at Adams Group Architects in Charlotte, NC. He has published 14 authored and edited books including Demystifying Doha, 2013; Architecture Beyond Criticism, 2014; Spatial Design Education, 2015; Building Migrant Cities in the Gulf, 2019; Architectural Excellence in Islamic Societies, 2020; and Transformative Pedagogy in Architecture and Urbanism, 2021. He is the UIA 2017 Recipient of Jean Tschumi Prize for Excellence in Architectural Education and Criticism. Visit here for more information
Ane Gonzalez Lara is an assistant professor of undergraduate architecture at Pratt Institute School of Architecture. Ane is the co-founder of Idyll Studio. Her professional work with Idyll balances social and cultural concerns with extensive formal and material research. She has developed academic research initiatives as part of her studio teaching that have examined the United States-Mexican border and the Korean demilitarized zone. She received her Master equivalent degree from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Navarra, Spain. She is a registered architect in Texas and Spain. Prior to working at Pratt, she taught at the University of New Mexico and the University of Houston. Her research interests include pedagogy, and social and climate justice topics as they relate to the built environment. Visit here for more information
Barry Curtis is Associate Director of Doctoral Programmes at University of the Arts, London. He was previously Professor and Head of Arts Research at Middlesex University, and has taught at the Open University, the London Consortium, The British Film Institute, Birkbeck College and the Royal College of Art. Barry is Experienced Tutor with a demonstrated history of working in the design industry. Skilled in Contemporary Art, Museums, Research Design, Lecturing, and Cultural Heritage. Visit here for more information
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