Closed-Loop Design Pedagogies

Abstract

“Amid the clamor of modernity’s ceaseless march, there exists a lamentable loss, one not often heard but profoundly felt - the gradual fading of the architectural narratives that once wove the tapestry of humanity’s existence.”1  – Dionysopoulou 2017

This essay reviews the integration of closed-loop design pedagogies in the architecture curriculum at a Historically Black College University (HBCU) towards implementing environmental narratives. We hypothesize that this shift introduces the students to concepts of buildings as “systems” and material banks and plays a role in implementing this concept in students’ projects. 

As digital design tools are becoming more prevalent, the question is whether environmental tools could shape conceptual dialects and lost narratives across the curriculum. This qualitative research explored student project outcomes in ARC Design 4, Design 5, and Design 7, applying observation and analysis methods. We then investigated the impacts of  discussions on circularity in beginning design and energy resourcing in the upper-level as concept tools on student narratives. 

Incorporating inspirations from Critical Pedagogy by Pelsmakers on designing for climate emergency and Circularity by Felix Heisel dissolves the boundaries between tooling and environmental dialects. In this work, beginning design is seen as the foundation to introduce the students to the rationale of environmental tools. For instance, the students learn and research subjects of circularity, healthy materials, and energy in buildings as conceptual tools. As part of this curricular shift, the upper-level students get introduced to adaptive reuse and energy modeling to assess their early design decisions. One of the innovations in this pedagogical approach is implementing design at different mass and enclosure scales concerning climate requirements. 

Student learning outcomes represented climate-conscious discussions and designs based on shifts in architectural concepts. This contribution illustrated the significance of a climate-based curriculum through shifting concepts inspired by environmental remediation in an era of energy crisis.