Categoria Atlas: Approaches

  • Learning by teaching

    Some words, much more than others, allow us to structure reflections that often run the risk of being taken for granted because they are commonly used or belong to everyday life. Learning and teaching seem, nowadays, to be terms that have lost their meaning; contrary to this trend, however, they preserve the core of the…

  • The architecture of learning

    Two different movements are linked to the concepts of teaching and learning. Often used as synonyms, their etymology tells of two distinct predispositions. In the first case, the action focuses on the person who teaches, instructs, shows and trains (gr. DIDAKTIKÓS instructive, from DIDAKTIKÓS which can be taught, Didaxis lesson, and derives from the same…

  • Reconsidering hierarchies and happiness in the project

    EB: Jason Hilgefort, founder of L+CC (Land+Civilisation Compositions), since we met at the Shenzhen Biennale in 2019, we have often discussed the value of projects, both in professional practice and in university classrooms, as something that should be broader than architecture itself. In your case, these ideas have also led you to develop local activism…

  • Layering Contexts

    Luigiemanuele Amabile in conversation with Maria Conen. Knowing a place, before delving into the complex process of designing architecture, represents one of the first fundamental acts that architects should indulge in. For Maria Conen, observation is a layered practice in which the existing conditions of a place are approached with equal attention, allowing different realities…

  • Teaching from within: architecture as process and practice

    Luigiemanuele Amabile in conversation with Thomas Padmanabhan. In a context of multiple crises like the one we are experiencing, architecture has little room to shape public discourse. The contemporary design process – so complex and shaped by countless variables – makes the coexistence of teaching and professional practice one of the few viable ways to explore alternatives…

  • Architecture as social-material practice

    Luigiemanuele Amabile in conversation with Niall McLaughlin. What distance, or what proximity, exists between the tangible conditions that architecture must address and the possibilities for speculation within a design studio? This question forms the basis of the interview with Níall McLaughlin, which explores the ways in which a project emerges at the intersection of materials,…

  • Architecture within uncertainty

    Luigiemanuele Amabile in conversation with Christoph Grafe. As a historian and theorist of architecture, Christoph Grafe reflects on the design studio as a pedagogical framework in which reuse and adaptation are considered from cultural, aesthetic and technical perspectives. He emphasises the importance of balancing student freedom with a clear, adaptable structure, and highlights the role…

  • Questioning typologies, or the hybrid future of architectural design

    Luigiemanuele Amabile in conversation with Andreas Lechner. Moving between theory, practice and pedagogy, Andreas Lechner describes the design studio as a place where architecture engages with reality while retaining its poetic and critical agency. The project is at the heart of this approach, serving as a medium through which ecological urgency, social engagement and everyday…

  • We don’t have all the answers – we explore together

    Luigiemanuele Amabile in conversation with Marius Grootveld. Marius Grootveld conceives of the design studio as a collective and cumulative process, in which students develop autonomy within a shared lineage of ideas, rather than through isolated positions. At RWTH Aachen University, each studio builds on the outcomes of previous ones. This allows individual trajectories to emerge…

  • Teaching repetition

    Valentina Noce in conversation with Andreas Lechner. VN: The first thing I wanted to talk to you about is my struggle when teaching between two kinds of approaches. The first one is almost like a psychological, psychotherapy approach to students – where you act as a kind of disturbing observer. You let the students do what…