BEYOND THE BORDER

METHODOLOGIES TOWARD THE LEARNING AND PRACTICE OF AN INCLUSIVE URBANISM

 

In Euclidian terms, a border is a line dividing elements that meets specific requirements to the ones that do not. However, under the biological perspective the border is inferred as the space on interchanges are intensified and where influences among realities emerge. Thus, while can be interpreted as a limit that isolates and segregates, we rather consider any border as a catalyst that multiplies interrelations over a permeable and porous field[i]. In the architecture discipline it is possible to identify areas that have been understood as evident borders: scales, age ranges, professors and students’ relationship, being -no matter their interdependence- particularly relevant the separation set between the architecture project design and urbanism.

 

Through 3 years of teaching-based research in the course of Architecture Design and Urbanism (Projectes i Urbanisme) at the Reus Architecture School (ETSAR) it has been the endeavour to overcome the borders, both disciplinary and methodologically, working under marginal conditions, from the questions stated to the course program and the established working environments. As a teaching tool and fresh statement, the decision was to work under the conception of a hybrid environment in constant change, able to provide to students a holistic outlook to our conception of a multi-faceted urban reality. Workshops were made to empower students’ leadership, autonomy and development driven by cross-sectional teaching and collaborative exercises. A methodology that required of the contribution of professionals of social and urban sciences, academics and local technicians who actively participated at different work stages of the course providing sharp insights onto the discussed and revealed topics going from economy to geography and anthropology.

 

That being said, the main goal of the course was to recognize the territory and the city like a single complex ecosystem of interdependencies between collective wills, private interests, economic developments, political interests, social problems, technological improvements, climate risks and ecological potentials, that demands for a cross-scale focus and a cross-sectional study. A city was conceived as a collective construction that relies in society as one of the mechanisms to transform our living places and the landscapes we dwell in.

 

This paper aims to sum up the experience gained through three years of academic work on the limits of the urban disciplines. By explaining the developed learning by doing process, we would like to highlight some of the results achieved, and the techniques implemented. Moreover, reorganization of the hypothesis, exercises, and works has been synthesized in form of handbook. A document that will be finally shaped as a digital open-source tool able to improve cross interaction between students, professors and researchers from disciplines related to the urban environment. In other words, we propose a proactive tool to strengthen an integral approach to cities and territories through collaborative development among schools and disciplines hoping to happen an open and useful academic source.

 

Many languages have specific terms to describe this hybrid field. While English makes use of a more general term of interface, Italian adopts the term bagnasciuga to describe the hybrid and ambiguous field where the sea water finds the dry land. It is a place that belongs, at the same time, to the both realities that come along with. 

 

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