Beyond the consumption of knowledge: questioning of and questing for future forms of pedagogy in architectural education

This paper responds to some of the negative tendencies that continue to characterize the delivery of knowledge in architectural education. It accentuates the shift from mechanistic pedagogy to systematic pedagogy and outlines the characteristics of each. Building on critical pedagogy and the hidden curriculum concept transformative pedagogy is introduced as a form of pedagogy that can be interweaved into conventional teaching practices. Translating the premises underlying these pedagogies and building on the author’s earlier work on design studio pedagogy and the teaching practices involved, a theory that explores the integration of knowledge in architectural design education is articulated. The paper demonstrates how the theory and its underlying components and mechanisms can be applied to both lecture-based courses and design studio sittings. In an attempt to address the challenges architectural education should encounter, the implementation of the theory would offer students multiple learning opportunities while fostering their capabilities to shift from passive listeners to active learners, from knowledge consumers to knowledge producers, while positioning themselves in a challenging future professional world.