'Building Change, together' - collaborating for transformative change in Irish Architecture Education

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This paper describes co-designed curriculum change initiatives over the last five years at Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) leading to a government funded national Critical Skills and Curriculum Change project led by TU Dublin in partnership with the five other professionally accredited Irish Schools of Architecture, practice and industry stakeholders and the national Professional Registration body. Launched in 2022 the project aims to collectively revise architecture education in Ireland to embed a contextualised approach to climate literacy and advanced technological knowledge and knowhow, underpinned by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To achieve this the project has been structured around three key strands: 1) a dynamic critical needs analysis across all project partners, 2) an ‘Educating the Educator’ programme devised to build knowledge capacity, addressing both practical skills and pedagogical principles and 3) pilot projects in Architectural Design Studio modules acting as testbeds for a new curriculum.
The project uses transformative pedagogy and agile design processes to develop maximum exchange between citizens, local authorities, community groups, industry, and students with this methodology being adapted to generate local ecosystems of impact unique to each School of Architecture. This approach builds on the rich range of skills and research areas available across the six schools which are geographically spread across the island of Ireland. Thus, unique regional contexts and characters: from Atlantic-facing rural environments, special landscape designations, just transitions, farming, forestry, tourism, shrinking and expanding rural settlements, through to larger urban cities with significant building stock and heritage in need of creative adaptive re-use, have all influenced the approach to curricular change. Each school also brings with it an existing culture and set of values, influencing its own distinct priorities for curricular change.
The critical needs analysis with stakeholders (students, lecturers, industry, professional body, local community) has been identifying the key skills & knowledge needs of each of the universities in order to deliver graduates with capabilities in meeting the challenges of the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, national strategic objectives around Climate Action, Zero Carbon targets and Sustainable Housing models, new models of practice and construction delivery and paradigm shifting technologies such as AI.
Original languageEnglish (Ireland)
Title of host publicationACSA Inflections 2024 Conference Proceedings
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 2024

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of ''Building Change, together' - collaborating for transformative change in Irish Architecture Education'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this