Teaching Co-Design to Promote Students’ Community Engagement

Abstract

The current landscape of architectural education has been predominantly based on studio teaching the mode of teaching that can be traced back in the age of French L’Ecole des Beaux Arts. It was during the Beaux Arts era that studio teaching and jury system first deve-loped, and it continues today. The approach is characterized by the use of atelier (studio) for coaching, where juniors learn from seniors and competition among students are the norm. The approach also presumes that architects are the provider of design services who think that they are more competent than their clients in solving the design problem; which is a paradox to the fact that most parts of the built environment anywhere in the world are the creation of ordinary people. In other words, ordinary people can contribute significantly to the decision making within the architectural design process. They can actually be treated as a partner of architects in designing their building, which is what Co-Design all about. This paper aims to describe the introduction of Co-Design approach in architectural design studio teaching at Universitas Islam Indonesia. The research questions this paper intends to respond: to what extent could Co-Design be adopted in architectural design teaching? What lessons have the students learned from their experience in involving people in the urban design process? The case study methods employed in this research, through which author looks at the Co- Design teaching delivery in the Architectural Design Studio 7 in the past three years. While overall result of the study shows that time limitation has constrained the students’ community engagement, most cases examined reveal that introduction of Co-Design approach has paved the way for students to understand how ordinary people contribute to the shaping of the urban built environment.