Gaming balance

This publication compiles a collective work over the past two years – from the fall of 2011 until the spring of 2013 – at the School of Architecture of Madrid, ETSAM . After twelve years of combined teaching, these pages are the reflection of the teacher do unit led by Professor Blanca Lleó and integrated by teachers  Javier Revillo , Juan Elvira and Fernando  Pino.

At this point we wanted to stop and make a provisional balance of our work , we close this paper with a cycle to start next year with another new approaches.

The teaching project undertaken in these four semesters then account has emphasized in the design process as inquiry . We have always given more importance to the path taken by the student to the results obtained by him . The academic goal, therefore , is in the laborious progress everyday and passionate learning in that case has been insisting consider how to address an architectural project .

As teachers , we place great interest in integrating the difference and open different paths in the classroom, with the ultimate goal of implementing critical thinking and proactive . Aware that each student is different in his career, in his way of learning and their interests , we seek to enhance their skills and unique identity. It seeks to foster student ‘s perspective from an attitude of curiosity and rigor , avoiding models must establish universal assumption.

In Formation of the Scientific Spirit of 1938 , the poet and philosopher of science Gaston Bachelard raises the notion of epistemological obstacle as that which hinders or prevents access to knowledge. The first of these obstacles is the prior knowledge , ie prejudice.

Work from estrangement to banish already known answer. We have tested this strategy with students so that in the initial stages of the project emerges in them the doubt and surprise as trigger powerful engine of its own process. Facing the automatic appropriation and unconscious imitation of past architectures , put into play teaching that encourages students and supports him in his questioning and interpretation of complex and ever- changing conditions of life. We understand that in teaching projects , now no longer be a reductionist view of the world but a holistic view in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts . Only then will get a richer deal with current uncertainties more realistic perception and mode .

Thinking and communicating is the joint task boarded teachers and students in our courses Project . Think and communicate is also the reason why we have encouraged to acknowledge the work of the working group are presented below and contains a series of texts of the professors teaching unit , a selection of best student work , the transcript of a conversation between teachers and an annex with the statements of the courses .