Keywords

1 Introduction: The Research Question

In this paper, it is claimed that risk-taking is essential in architectural education. Yes, according to the authors’ experiences as educators at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), risk-taking is in fact a requirement for the reshaping of the role of the architect that is so urgently needed if architecture is to be societally relevant now, in our times of crises. The paper builds upon previous publications by the authors, see especially Johanna S. Gullberg's doctoral thesis [1] and an article by Gro Rødne and Leif Martin Hokstad [2]. The paper is meant to provide educators, in particular those who teach in architecture and other aesthetic fields in higher education, with instructions for how to implement risk in curricula. It is therefore guided by the following research question: How can learning spaces in architectural education be set up to encourage risk-taking, and so that the effects of risk-taking can be processed and appreciated? The paper is based on the idea that architects may contribute to educational research by developing perspectives on material and spatial dimensions of learning spaces.

2 Risk: Why It Is Needed, and Why It Tends to be Avoided

In architectural education, risk-taking is needed because it makes learners develop abilities at critical thought and action which enable them to take part in forming both the curriculum and the professional field of architecture. These abilities are essential, because the only thing certain is that the future is uncertain. According to the World Economic Forum 2023 [3], resilience, flexibility and agility are among the top five skills growing in importance by 2027, with creative thinking on top. Architects need to feel at home in complexity and manage a multitude of parameters, often completely contradictory, in order to achieve holistic solutions that create value for societies in a rapidly changing world.

It is therefore problematic, as educational researchers show, that universities reduce uncertainty. Gert Biesta [4] and Ray Land [5] are both worried that standardization of higher education leads to that learning becomes associated with smooth success while we lose sight of what it actually is: a practice that is slow and full of risks. The idea of the student as consumer can, says Ronald Barnett, be seen as a logical consequence of that universities exist in a market-oriented society [6]. But also, universities themselves, Barnett continues, inhibits free thought, for instance by pushing neighbouring fields to compete, and by rigging assessment systems where the survival of courses depend on benevolent feedback from students. Barnett thinks that these external and internal circumstances contribute to that many educators avoid putting students in “challenging situations”, and, in turn, to that students get fewer opportunities to practice their ability at criticality [6].

Architectural educators should embrace challenging situations instead of avoiding them. There is a common understanding, exposed for instance at the EAAE conference in Torino 2023, that a paradigm shift must come within the field of architecture. However, the myth of the individual master architect still lives. It does so although architectural practices do much more than serve the market of the building industry [7], and in spite of repeated calls for that the spatial settings and pedagogical guidelines of architectural education must be changed to reflect the fact that architecture is a collective practice full of compromises [8]. Changes to architectural education are more urgently needed than ever. As Beatriz Colomina and her colleagues say in the introduction to the book Radical Pedagogies, we live in a moment of “global crises, ecological catastrophe, and rapidly increasing inequities [when] the challenge to inherited disciplinary hierarchies can, and must, happen in the spaces of education” [9].

When established curricula for design, history and theory courses as well as learning spaces and professional habits are to be questioned, both learners and educators will be presented with risks. It is well known that although individuals and systems may be aiming for change, resistance to risky experiences of learning, will occur. For instance, in addition to facing their own habits, educators will most likely need to help learners tackle “design fixation” phenomena where learners are stuck with an idea or design darling where good ideas or previous successes with similar challenges may in fact block better solutions [10, 11]. Figures 1 and 2 are based on experiences made at NTNU and may function as somewhat strange reminders of why it is important to conquer resistance to learning and move towards student active or even student-driven learning, where learners pose questions rather than gather information, look at problems creatively and flexibly from several perspectives, communicate with clarity, and cope with challenges [12].

Fig. 1.
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The linear design process – where learners collect information, develop a design and then present it – seen as the body of a fish, with the fish to the right showing that students tend to feel comfortable with hoarding information and thereby shrink the design process, Trondheim, 2023 (Illustration by G. Rødne, after B. O. Braaten).

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Fig. 2.
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This paper proposes that the design process should look more like this pulsing creature: start by doing, and let analyses, problem definitions and designing happen simultaneously, Trondheim, 2023 (Illustration by G. Rødne).

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In the pulsing model, Fig. 2, problems will be found and approaches to those problems tested out. This will involve the appreciation of mistakes, or rather outcomes that would be regarded as unexpected or strange by conventional protocols, but which – if they are taken seriously – can lead to innovation.

3 How to Set Up Risky Learning Spaces

However, learners in the Scandinavian context, having been brought up in rich well-fare nations, are usually inexperienced in meeting challenges and resistance. Their reactions to trouble may be characterized by stress rather than creativity, not least because national basic education have taught them linear and causal logics. For the time being, top grades from such basic education is the only entrance ticket to architecture studies at NTNU. One aim with this article, is simply to point out that mismatches in admission requirements at NTNU and other architecture schools should be mapped and adjusted.

Mismatches between linear logics and the need for appreciating experimentation and mistakes become evident in the very first course in the architecture programme at NTNU. It is a month-long design-build course where students complete an entire design process, from idea to full-scale structures, on sites in the city of Trondheim (Fig. 6). Other pedagogical approaches at NTNU which present learners with risk, are the learning perspective Making is Thinking (MT) [13], implemented in various formats across the curriculum, and the Master courses Design in Context (DC) and Experimental Practice (EP). The three approaches all work both on and off campus, and they share aims for student-driven learning processes where hands-on making is a gateway to awareness of oneself as a learner and as an actor in real-life contexts dealing with societal challenges like gentrification and segregation. Not least may hands-on making and a varied use of bricolage techniques be keys to awareness of sustainability logics, teaching students to take care of what there is rather than make perfect plans for a distant future. DC is organized as an architectural office where student teams are exposed to risk by being given the freedom and responsibility to manage real projects from the first client dialogue to completion. Embodied experiences have here shown to be connected to transformed perspectives. As Sami Rintala, one of the tutors, says, the design-build workshop format lets learners who are not used to making start “a physical change that allows mental change to take place” [14]. EP and MT both acknowledge artistic and crafts-based dimensions of architecture. They set up non-linear design processes with hands-on experiments for learners to make practice-based investigations of and responses to wicked problems in a world in radical change.

Based on previous research findings [2] and on what is going on in the mentioned pedagogical approaches, the outlines of three features of risky learning spaces appear, a) Start by doing, b) Work in teams, and c) Work off campus. In order to concretize paths towards the needed systemic transformations of architectural curricula, a, b and c will be further described in the following. In addition, there is a basic prerequisite to keep in mind. Educators must dare to take the risk to d) Leave the students alone. Because, without lived experiences of failures and problem-solving, learners will never become active and critical architects.

3.1 Start by Doing

As mentioned, architecture students at NTNU are thrown into an intense design-build process, a crash course in the risks and possibilities of starting by doing. Yet, this experience does not prevent them from getting stuck in linear design processes at other points during their studies. A basic tactic of MT is to always start by doing exercises, for instance blind drawing or collective model-making, that loosen up tensions and potentially nudge students to trespass any fear of mistakes (Fig. 3). Bricolage techniques enable learners to work with elements considered as garbage or found objects like sand and sticks. To transform an empty space into a shared and tangible learning space by filling it with visual and physical tests is a key to risk-taking. In this process, it is essential to pay attention – for instance to the possibilities of found sand and sticks. It is about saying “yes to the mess” [15], improvising with the richness of unknown resources of people and places rather than sticking to comfortably planned intentions. In an educational setting, such improvisation demands a scheme that is robust and yet flexible.

Fig. 3.
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Workshop Cirka Teater and N. E. Holtan, MT, Trondheim, 2016 (Photos by Cirka Teater and NTNU).

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3.2 Work in Teams – With Peers, Educators, Professionals From Other Fields

To work with others involves idea-generation both through friction and playful interaction, where “who did what” becomes uninteresting [2]. As mentioned above, university structures should support exchanges between disciplines although this may lead to unpredictable outcomes. At NTNU, first-year tutors invite art and music students to perform in the students’ full-scale structures. Both EP and MT fuel architectural investigations by enacting artistic perspectives. For instance, workshops on textile art and weaving are held by EP, and MT has long-term collaborations with the theatre company Cirka Teater [16]. In the meeting with the theatre, it has shown to be especially challenging for architects to relax in working with embodied and emotional dimensions of material space [1]. The theatre company's methods and creative bravery do however help learners and educators to step out of their comfort zones. Who can hold on to habitual positions, when the “clients” are The Stick Man and The Oyster Lady, or the site is on a bunker wall?

3.3 Work Off Campus – in Real-World Settings, with Citizens

Working in a real-world setting, with actual stakeholders and complex problem-solving, is important to understand that no design process is free from obstacles. This is a basic idea of all DC projects, teaching learners to handle logistics and communication, but also letting them feel that they can steer the world, project by project, towards sustainability. In EP, links between theory and live projects are enhanced, for instance when permaculture principles guided design interventions at a farm outside Trondheim. In collaboration with Cirka Teater and other actors within the cultural field, MT has set up public events and exhibitions in Trondheim. Another MT example of working off campus is from 2021, when a temporary intervention was set up to make locals care for a neglected area in Larvik (Fig. 4). In spite of negotiations regarding pandemic and other security issues, MT engaged a diverse group of citizens in creating an architectural interpretation of a baroque garden. The intervention sparked the municipality to rebuild the garden and renovate the buildings surrounding the site. The learning outcomes from working off campus involve social and embodied dimensions which are hard to mimic in a traditional studio setting. Moreover, as in this case, students may get a lived experience of that temporary interventions can make a real difference.

Fig. 4.
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MT workshop in Larvik, 2021 (Photos by Larvik municipality and G. Rødne).

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4 Trust: A Precondition for Risk-Taking

As earlier mentioned, this paper stems from a Scandinavian perspective and thus a generally non-hierarchical learning tradition, where teamwork is common and barriers between educators and learners are low. These are great outsets for learning spaces characterized by mutual trust, where educators may dare to engage learners in forming the curriculum, and learners may dare to share mistakes and doubts, thereby becoming able to enter transformative states of learning. As shown, however, architectural educators still have a way to go in designing structures and spaces that allow for sharing experiences. In the following, examples of exercises for building trust in design courses will therefore be briefly introduced, as well as thoughts on how forms of assessment, reflection and feedback may be arranged throughout processes and in relation to those exercises. Because, as educational theorist David Carless says, “without trust, students may be unwilling to involve themselves fully in learning activities which may reveal their vulnerabilities” [17]. Trust, he continues, is built on openness, reliability, honesty, benevolence and competence – and to build learning spaces where risk-taking and mistakes are acknowledged, educators must therefore develop not only professional knowledge but also interpersonal, communicative skills [17].

5 How to Establish Trust

It is crucial that students feel at home in complex and uncertain situations, and that they learn to recognise mistakes as a necessity. In fact, failures are essential for all forms of creative work, and liberating laughter serves as a creative trigger [18]. To work in teams is risky but also a key to trust. To create a collective drawing, for instance, is a fun exercise with the serious intention to conquer obstacles of self-censorship and move towards collective pride. DC encourages learners to take on roles in teams and thereby build their individual competences. As Nina Haarsaker, architectural educator at NTNU, puts it, teamwork can be like being a band – instead of all “playing the guitar”, we should trust each other in developing different means to enrich our joint work. While it is urgent, as mentioned above, that students are left alone, it is also important that educators level with the students. As Rintala says, “learners will trust educators who earn their position by working with the group, making discoveries together and thereby showing that investigations continue also after university exams” [14]. While authority in the traditional master–apprentice model is given through the educator's predefined position, the authority of the educator who participates on equal terms may be described as co-created with the students.

5.1 Breed Trust Through Hands-on Collaboration

Before dealing with the risks of real-world settings, learners may need to build up confidence and trust in themselves and others. Within the frame of MT and the research centre TransArk [19], two material settings for such preparation, the FormLab and the Sandbox, have been developed, as well as a cogenerative model for learning through reflection. The FormLab challenges the conventional idea of the design studio by being an accessible learning lab where students and staff may test hands-on techniques, and thereby learn to acknowledge failures as a necessary and productive condition for creativity. The interactive digital and analogue Sandbox is placed in the FormLab and aims to reduce the fear of making mistakes. The distance between idea and hand is reduced as three-dimensional sketches are easily made and remade, while a camera and a 3d scanner document all phases of the sketch process. As they work together around the sandbox, drawing in and placing objects in the kinetic sand, learners may relax in sharing ideas by responding to what their peers are doing. In other words, trust is bred through hands-on collaboration.

5.2 Develop Relevant Forms for Reflection and Feedback

There are several reasons for architectural educators to learn more about structures for reflection, assessment, and feedback. If assessment – instead of being delivered as a final mark – is dialogic and continuous throughout a course, it may contribute to an atmosphere of trust [17]. Moreover, by training themselves in making and communicating judgements regarding both their process and the quality of their work, learners prepare for an unpredictable future [20]. That the relevance of learning to reflect on processual dimensions appears to increase when designers use artificial intelligence as a tool for decision making, is a hypothesis the authors wish to explore in the future. MT and EP consciously work with how forms for assessment and reflection, such as process books and peer to peer conversations, can support the experimentation sought for. Gullberg's doctoral thesis [1] shows how Morten Levin's cogenerative model for action research may be developed within architectural education (Fig. 5). The model was used to make a case study in the Master course collaboration between Making is Thinking and Cirka Teater in 2016. As mentioned above, embodied exercises presented learners with high risk in the collaboration with the theatre company. What was also found, however, was that participation in the sequence of learning arenas for reflection set up by the researcher to constitute a cogenerative dialogue, made learners engage more decisively in the risky exercises of the course. In other words, the introduction of a safe structure such as the cogenerative model promoted risk-taking.

Fig. 5.
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The cogenerative model for action research, 2021 (Diagram by J. S. Gullberg [1], based on diagrams by M. Elden and M. Levin [21], and M. Levin [22].)

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6 Conclusion: Proposals for a Pedagogy of Mistakes

This paper concludes with a list of proposals to educators. Proposals for a pedagogy of mistakes, perhaps, or for embracing the fruitful and contradictory tensions between risk and trust. The list is a sort of to-do list for responding to the research question addressed: How can learning spaces in architectural education be set up to encourage risk-taking, and so that the effects of risk-taking can be processed and appreciated?

  • 1: Evaluate and adjust admission procedures, so that they match what is going on in architectural education. This includes recognising the value of hands-on skills and creative risk-taking, as well as seeing architectural education in the context of national educational systems.

  • 2: Leave the students to struggle on their own and listen to where they want to go. But also, level with learners by working alongside them in real-life situations.

  • 3: Focus on process rather than final results. Set up models for collective reflection and dialogic assessment. What if a process focus may lead to critical ways of working with artificial intelligence in design processes?

  • 4: Work off campus and leave space for the unexpected in course designs. Rebuild the architecture school, both its organisation and its physical premises. Let the FormLab and other in-school premises for experimentation go wild and spread out. Do practice-based research to evaluate and develop learning spaces.

  • 5: Connect demands on sustainability to the aesthetic and material core of the practice of architecture. Use aesthetic methodologies and techniques, for instance the bricolage approach, to enhance creativity while also implementing issues of sustainability and circularity in design processes.

  • 6: Promote risk by establishing theory to support pedagogical undertakings, for instance by combining architectural, aesthetic and educational theory.

  • 7: Have fun. Creative play, idea generation and implicit mistakes may ignite liberating laughter levelling everybody in shared experiences of making big, beautiful results, be they mistakes or successes.

Fig. 6.
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Full scale building by 1st year students in Trondheim, 2023 (Photos by A. Gilberg and Z. Živanović, NTNU.)

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