ARCHITECTURE 'LIVE PROJECTS' PEDAGOGY
INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM 2012

Critical reflections on Live Projects with a view to co-creating a pedagogic best practice framework

Thursday 24th - Saturday 26th May 2012
Oxford Brookes University, Headington Hill Campus.

A three-day international symposium by and for live project educators, live-project community participants, live project students, practice architects involved in community co-design, University management involved in community partnership projects, and live project practitioners and participants from associated fields and disciplines.

Themes include:

Problem-based learning, community-engaged scholarship, co-design, peer-based learning, tacit knowledge, threshold concepts, practice-ready skills, professionalism and ethics, diversity, critical citizenship, education futures, deep and surface learning, live project methodologies and paradigms, architecture curriculum, assessment and validation.

Overview: Why do we need critical live architecture project pedagogy?

Benefits to clients

The recent economic downturn and ongoing restructuring of both the professional training and design practice management, signifies a tipping point in the way we currently teach and practice architecture. As a profession, architects are by definition tasked with serving the interests of the public. Yet many architects would argue that delivering upon this requirement is not without difficulty given the constraints of a sector focused triptych that prioritises time, quality and cost over human factors.

Benefits to the profession

Architecture practices have often voiced concerns that schools of architecture do not provide students with the right set of skills needed in practice. Schools often defend their teaching by emphasising the role of Universities in developing creative and aesthetic capabilities that will produce good designers and ultimately good buildings and spaces. This kind of teaching is usually delivered within a studio environment that presents students with fictional rather than 'real time' challenges considered to be more likely to produce visionary and creative design output.

Benefits to students

The majority of UK architecture students have no contact with clients or with the consultation process until after they graduate. 'Live studio' projects not only address this but they also enable students to gain practice-ready professional experience such as job running, as well as develop a sense of civic social engagement and gain an education that is aimed at nurturing tomorrow's citizens for lives of consequence.

Benefits to Universities

As well as Universities, public sector organisations and charities are facing financial pressure upon their ability to deliver to their clients effectively. Although this presents huge challenges in terms of resources, this is also an opportunity to establish partnerships that provide enduring benefits by mobilising students, faculty, and neighbourhood organizations to work together to solve urban problems that revitalize the economy, generate jobs, and rebuild communities. In the USA, these partnerships are far more prevalent than in the UK. Known as Community University Partnerships, these 'resource units' that are often located on and off campus, provide effective, community-engaged scholarship for students from a range of disciplines. Based upon the success rate of these kinds of learning environments, UK Universities clearly have some catching up to do.

The knowledge gap

The principle aim of this symposium is to critically examine the learning value of live projects to students of architecture and to consider how they are attained and what their value is, particularly in terms of the students professional development and to the shaping of the profession as a whole.

During the symposium, live project 'best practice' will be critically defined in the interests of educators, students and schools alike. Subsequently, delegates will co-author a Live Project Pedagogy Charter, aimed at enabling Live Projects to be validated, academically accredited and formally integrated into mainstream architecture curriculum.

Format of Presentations

Paper sessions will consist of four presenters within each 90-minute session. Each session will be chaired. The session time will be divided equally between the presenters. Workshop presentations will be given a full 90-minute session. Panel sessions will provide an opportunity for three or more presenters to speak in a more open and conversational setting with conference attendees.

Conference highlights:

Two-Week International Live Project Summer School 2012: Montana State University & Oxford Brookes

The symposium will include visits to and presentations by community and student participants to an Oxford-based Live Project Summer School - partnered with Oxford City Council – and involving students from graduate architecture programs at Montana State University & Oxford Brookes University. The Live Project Summer School will be directed by Prof Chris Livingston from Montana State University.

Architecture tours of 'secret' Oxford

Social activities for visiting delegates include organised tours of historic Oxford, including visiting some of the key architectural gems and hidden delights.

Symposium outputs and publications:

There will be three published outputs associated with this conference:

1. All contributions will be published as part of the conference proceedings which will be made available at registration.
2. A Live Project Pedagogy Charter will be published after the event.
3. A selection of contributions will be submitted to a leading international peer-reviewed journal, to feature as a special issue.

Symposium Schedule

DAY 01: Thursday 24th May Live Project Pedagogy Symposium Launch & Exhibition Headington Hill Hall
18.00 - 20.30	Keynote speakers: Professor Jeremy Till (Architecture Depends, 2010) Central St Martins, UK Associate Professor Mel Dodd (Live Projects, 2012) RMIT, Australia Ticketed event only (for further information, please contact the conference adminstrator khughes@brookes.ac.uk)
DAY 02: Friday 25th May Symposium Registration desk opens 8.45am Buckley Building Reception, Headington Campus
9.15	Keynote: Pru Chiles, Director of bureau design + research, University of Sheffield. Author of 'LIVE' (2012)
9.30	Parallel Session 01
11.00	Coffee break
11.15	Parallel Session 02
12.45	Lunch (coffee available in all presentation rooms)
13.45	Parallel Session 03
15.15	Break
15.30	Parallel Session 04
17.00	Summaries from the day
17.30	ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL SHOW + LIVE PROJECT PAVILION PING PONG
DAY 03: Sat 26th May
9.30	Keynote: Professor Ruth Morrow, SPACE: School of Planning Architecture and Civil Engineering, Queens University Belfast, Ireland
9.45	Welcome, summary of events, instructions for the day - formed around session themes from yesterday
10.00	Charter workshop groups
11.30	Break
11.45	Charter co-design (facilitated sessions) what defines best practice architecture live project pedagogy?
12.45	Concluding comments
13.00	Conference close

Session Chairs

Professor David Gloster, Director of Education, RIBA

Jane Anderson, Senior Lecturer & Program Leader BA Architecture, Oxford Brookes University

Suzi Winstanley, Architect and Associate at Penyore & Prasad Architects, London, UK

Chris Rust, Head of OCSLD, Oxford Brookes, UK

Susan Piedmont-Palladino, Virginia Tech, USA

Charlie Fisher, Natasha Lofthouse & Helen Walkington (student-led session) Oxford Brookes University, UK

Professor Mike Martin, Professor Emeritus of Architecture; Faculty in Environmental Design, Berkeley, USA

Associate Professor Lynette Widder, Rhode Island School of Design, USA

Harriet Harriss, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Oxford Brookes Associate Teaching Fellow (2010-12), Winston Churchill Trust Fellow (2011) Oxford Brookes University