This case study will address attention to creativity in architectural subjects related to the teaching of Architecture in the University of Sheffield. During that course the students should join two main abilities: the one of imagining solutions in three dimensions and the one of bringing those imaginations to the real world, through drawings and models. Different types of exercises are strategically demanded to help the students achieving other related skills, but in most of them the creativeness of the solutions provided is a condition sine qua non to the progress in the course. Despite not being stated clearly, being creative is an educational outcome that permeates all the stated pedagogical objectives in the course.
The definition of the discipline from which this study comes from is that of a pedagogical approach which considers activity and process, rather than of being space-based. Students are assigned to work in studio groups, of between 15-20, working under the guidance of a designated tutor and an eventual assistant for concentrated periods of time on design projects. The projects may be either carried out individually, in groups or in combinations of group and individual work. Reviews and tutorials are the educational strategies used, and a Portfolio (plus a sketch-journal) is the means to record the individual process.
The average of students each year, in the classroom, has risen up to 150. This fact plus the constant need of space to develop the exercises, has led to a lack of appropriate space which will be considered here as a problem that potentially affects the creativity of the students. Analysing the three main activities carried out as strategies to the student’s evaluation (Portfolio, reviews and tutorials) it will be investigate in this research how creativity could be more efficiently addressed through the course, potentially helping to create a more suitable place to learn.
In order to investigate these phenomena, firstly a framework will discuss the characteristics of creativity, relating the concept to an objective approach (Popper’s objectivist theory of art) that permits using the regular strategy of assessment as a mean to focus on the problem. Secondly, the hypotheses interpreting the problem will be introduced, and an investigation guided by interviews with students and tutors will clear the actual state of the problem. Thirdly, an analysis of the assessment’s methods will permit concluding a solution.
2. The focused discipline.
As one can analyse through the short description in Appendix 1, creativity is an essential requirement to the student development in the focused discipline. Through analysing the educational outcomes stated there it is possible to discriminate how each activity holds a concept of creativity, inferring its characteristics and making clear the mechanism where it happens, regarding some spatial and temporal implications. However, only few objectives clearly state a connection with creativity. Mainly, two pedagogical objectives state it clearly:
• to develop imaginative thinking, from the articulation of abstract ideas to the creative manipulation of materials;
• to initiate an understanding of the relationship between creative intentions, their representation in drawings and models, and the reality of built works of architecture;
Apart those latter, creativity is a sort of embedded requirement through the other expected educational outcomes, and the analysis of the assessment terms does not reveal which educational objectives - using the taxonomy of Bloom [2] - would give means to evaluate the creativity of the students. This looks as a general problem in the teaching of Architecture, as I’ve detected in the research “A produção de material de arquitetura didático via web” [3] (“The production of didactic material of architecture to support e-learning”), which has demonstrated that, to Brazilians tutors in Architecture, the most difficult task is enunciating those educational objectives in the Bloom’s style. The same refusal of Bloom’s taxonomy that happens in Brazil possibly happens here, at Sheffield University. That refusal in adopting Bloom’s taxonomy probably is because it allegedly reduces the complexity of the learning process in order to identify, somewhat mechanically, by a description, the criteria to asses the students’ creativity or “Origination” skills. On the one hand, it is understandable that the importance of psychomotor associated objectives to Architectural teaching turns that task a hard one, nearly impossible without personal attendance and temporal observation of the student assessed. On the other hand, it turns the discussion about creativity evaluation one of the most mysterious and controversial task among architects.
3. Creativity
3.1. Space and process in the discipline
Analysing the philosophy of the course through all its documented statements, it is possible to infer that creativity is regarded there as process. This process comprehends all the students activities in the dealing with tutors and others students during the year, in order to create individual solutions to architectural problems. It means that creativity is a process of working - a process of creation - which method comes from individuals guided by a common time and a common place: the classroom. In this sense, working groups and formative assessments use the common time to happen as well the space is used in the development of models needed by the individual expression. A concept of abstract space (mentioned in the handbook as a “flexible space” of the course) is given by the understanding that some activities can take place in situ, that means, in some outside areas in which a building, an social event or a community is. This concept is here being considered abstract because it is a metaphor to the architectural and urban problems covered by the course, that means, problems related to the site, the neighbourhood and the city: however the fact is that the students use the common physical space of the classroom to develop their three-dimensional models of solutions or bi-dimensional drawings, as well to engage in reviews with colleagues and tutors. Being a process of creation, creativity is particularly attached to such spatial conditions, and the more comfortable those spatial conditions are, the more supportive they will be to the creative process.
3.2. Rejecting generalities about space and time
But to analyse more consistently how creativity is embedded to the everyday practice of learning and teaching, some consideration needs to be done in order to clarify its mechanisms. This means that the Design Studio I has a peculiar way to unfold creativity in all its pedagogical tasks absolutely distinct from common conceptions about the term.
As mentioned by Laduke [4], the concept of creativity has generated uncountable researches and has also generated uncountable mistakes. An explosion of research about creativity took place in the 1950s and spread out to all sort of fields. It has been studied from the perspectives of behavioural psychology, social psychology, psychometrics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, history, economics, design research, business, and management, among others. However, creativity has been regarded not only by the scholarly interest but also by the laic opinion. According to Ostrower [5] common people in western society tend to associate youth and expertise to creativity. To her, that association tends to see a creative person as a genius, which causes more prejudice and block the understanding of the phenomenon than clarify it in a accesible terminology. Laduke [4] argues similarly that “creativity, as genius, has long held a high, or even divine, position among human endeavours; too mystical to explore, too magical to understand, too lofty to reach, too complex to explain.”
Also based mainly in behavioural studies from the 1950s, Geoffrey Broadbent [1] has addressed attention to the way architects are creative. In the chapter “The Architect as Designer”, he provides a deep study about creativeness and the personality, deducing a complex panorama. Many times architects are regarded as a complex genius since the ancient Greek period. He exemplifies this with the comment of the architect Vitruvius, in which Vitruvius specifies a broad educational program to the architects:
“Let him be educated, skilful with pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens.” (Vitruvius quoted in Broadbent [1], pg 4)
Broadbent [1] and Ostrower [5] equally dedicate efforts to make clear that the genius idea normally blurs the understanding of creativeness by introducing prejudices in the classifications of expertise. Ostrower mentions that the laic idea of genius is normally associated with ideological values that normally promote only the consumerism[6]. According to her, some of those common mistakes associated are:
• being a genius is requirement to be creative;
• Invention and creation are the same;
• Young people are more creative than older;
• Youth is the best period to be creative;
• Competition stimulates creativity;
• A good artist normally suffers incomprehension from his own time;
• Tradition does not lead to creativity.
Ostrower [5] dedicates her first book to analyse, in simple language, how those values are committed with the alienation of the young people in one moment of their life when their personalities are being moulded. At the same time, the exploitation of such moment as a profitable deal in the consumerist society is very profitable. She concludes that the perspectives are sadly bad nowadays to who dedicates himself to an artistic job, as creative activities are hardly profitable and consequently far from providing a comfortable and integrated life in the society. This situation makes the understanding of an alienated and mechanic world as that place where is better to live, but living without a soul.
While Broadbent verifies the prejudices inside taxonomy given mainly by psychologists, Ostrower considers her experience as a Brazilian artist and teacher to negate the common sense and the ideology inside it. Analysing both approaches of those authors, it would be said here that they reject those ideas by arguing about the necessary association of creativity with action in the everyday life, as it comprises time and space of engagement into a creative labour and not only by general attributes of the subject’s behaviour or about the objects as a result.
3.3. Who is creative?
It will be useless adopting here any concept detached from real life. For that reason, this discussion will be initiated with the following concept:
“To create is basically to form, to shape something new. No matter in which field creativity is being considered, it is all about new coherent states of organization given by someone to the reality. It means new ways to understand correlations among phenomena: creativity is about understanding the world, relating its phenomena to other phenomena, ordering, configuring and meaning. Making sense.” Ostrower[6] (my translation)
A long discussion about the engagement of creativity with action could be made in this point, but it will be focused the dialectic form to depict that relation. Dialectic thought is the process of thinking by contradictions, providing a first thinking about the condition of the reality (thesis), opposing it to a second condition which should negate that first instance (antithesis) until a new totality appears (synthesis) by means of some transformation which will preserve the essence of the former terms but will elevate the totality made on them into a new perspective. That transformation will be considered here as a process towards one conduces, canny and artful, with the usage of proper tools (in a broad sense), a dealing with the materiality . That means, the action of synthesizing is a process of creation that requires necessarily the conditions of transformability (plasticity) of the reality by appropriate tools. In other words, it requires the condition of the object (matter) as a transformable material and, at the same time, it requires the condition of the subject as that who has the tools and the power to work over the materiality. This conclusion is probably applicable since to small artistic activities till broad contexts, as social and political creative transformations – it is, in fact, a relocation of the scope and domain of creativity, posing an educational issue and its related political context: the criteria of creativity is inside the total movement comprehended by the transformations of subject and its historical context.
This latter concept came from the dialectics through the work of Hegel and Marx, each one of them contributing differently in clarifying the engagement among subject and object, the men and the world and the space and action. Many authors have contributed to a phenomenology of the labour, but remarkably those two were very original in their contributions. The starting point given by Kant [7] was thinking about the world as an irreducible task of dealing with contradictions inside the process of knowledge. To Hegel [8], however the contradictions between subject and object are the motor of the history and are carried with the prominence of the subject, who guides the actions of transformation of the reality. Opposing to Hegel, Marx [9] considers that the object (the world and its social matter) is itself the leader towards social transformations by a revolution in the social structure. Despite being the former references about Kant, Hegel and Marx a cursory way to point out the idea of dialectics, the reference was made in order to situate the reader among those concepts. By analysing those authors’ definitions, seeking for a concept of creativity, one will realize that there is always a fundamental importance given to the labour. Labour is the means through which the relation between subject and object (man and its world) come across new levels in the process of overcoming contradictions. In Hegel, labour is mostly associated with the spiritual way through which the subject transforms the world in order to recognize himself as identified with the transformations that will lead to a complete unity in the future. Marx, by his turns, considers that the subject’s labour is distorted by the social structure, which keeps him alienated and not identified with the world. This situation will generate a new social class which, together, will revolutionize the social structure, transforming the labour again into the ideal of identification of the collectiveness. Following those arguments, many others authors have claimed that labour is the core of humanization to men, comprehending the creative process of transformation of the reality. It responds the answer “who is creative?”: every man and women who is engaged with the labour.
4. Objectivism in the Theory of Art and Architecture
Since Vitruvius, it has been said that architecture has three dimensions:
- Constructive dimension, which embraces all technical knowledge and skills that man develops in order to create functional places. The questions addressed to this dimension are "How to do this?" It is rather obvious that this dimension can be rationally approached and critically discussed and tested. The development of building technology would not have been so great in the XX century without a rational approach;
- Functional dimension, which refers to ordering things in the space for the performance of activities in everyday life. The questions that belong to this dimension are "How does it work?" Functional aspects can also be rationally approached and critically discussed;
- Symbolic dimension or aesthetic dimension - which is related to the universe of human perceptions, emotions and beliefs. The questions that arise in the analysis of this dimension can be summed up in "What is it for?" They comprise the general appearance of buildings (shapes, volumes, and colours). In architectural theory, the aesthetic dimension is considered something to which we cannot approach rationally. It consists of the artistic part of the architectural design process. Most architectural criticism is dedicated to the aesthetic of the buildings, although their authors claim to be addressing the three dimensions all together. The success of a building, its popularity, is generally due to its appearance, to its aesthetic qualities.
A good building design must contemplate the three dimensions equally. The balanced situation is obviously more suitable for most architectural projects, although there are many cases in which some technical, functional or aesthetic aspects should be over-emphasized or neglected. As we do not know how to approach architectural aesthetics rationally, we tend to develop complicated methodological apparatus to secure an effective design process. These methodologies are focused on questions like "How does it work?" and "How to do it?” and may lead to the misapprehension of the whole. In terms of teaching architecture, this situation is problematic. As it has been seen, creativity occupies a fundamental position as a process to be learned, in spite not having any objective criteria to be assessed in the exercises in class. However, it will be argued that the question “What is it for?” which unfolds in “What should it be like?” and “How would we like it?” is more adequate to address architectural aesthetic in an objective way.
In her article “An Objetivist Theory of Architectural Creation” Malard [10] has studied the contributions of Karl Popper to the understanding of the design as a process of creation. According to Popper [11], the most important function of the emotions of an artist is the fact that he/she uses it to criticise his/her ideas and this is an objective attitude. In this way the artist uses himself as the main judge of his work; modifies what he/she dislikes and improves what he/she finds good. Like scientists, artists work by trial and error, eliminating errors through self-criticism.
Once looked through this point of view, learning by imitation and by repetition become important elements in the learning experience. However, it could be said that when the student follows up an example he is just repeating something that has already been done. As he/she is not creating anything new, he/she will not be able to become creative. However, Popper [12] argues that when we try to imitate a solution that somebody else has discovered we are not actually learning by imitation. We are rather learning by trial and error, since we imitate a solution and correct the mistakes we made. Instead of ourselves, other people may correct our mistakes, as in the case of children learning by imitating adults and being corrected by them. This is a typical trial and error process, in which we eliminate errors through criticism (self-criticism or other people’s criticism).
If Popper is right, a great artist differs from an ordinary one in mainly in two aspects:
a) The quality of the idea that he/she can think of.
b) The aptitude for self-criticism, which unfolds in other two:
• Ability to grasp what has been wrong, either the representation of the idea or the idea itself.
• Ability to correct, either the representation of the idea (by finding another way to represent or depict) or the idea itself.
Therefore, concludes Malard, if an architect wants to improve her/his creative power, he/she has to improve his/her personal conditions for having good artistic ideas and his/her ability for self-criticism. Other people’s criticism plays an important role in improving architect’s personal condition for having good aesthetic ideas. However, this is only possible in the case that architectural aesthetics can be rationally explained. If a successful architect says that the beautiful effects he/she obtained were just expressions of his/her emotions, he/she will close the door for other people’s criticism and for the possibility of being example for others architects. While generating architectural ideas to solve spatial problems, the architect submits them firstly to his/her own discrimination; selecting the one he thinks is the most suitable. The more accurate his/her selection process, the better the choice will be. According to Malard, a good architect is one who has the ability to choose the alternatives (hypotheses) most suitable, be according to his/her emotions, be discussing the options in an objective way with others architects. Obviously, the larger the universe of options, the more likely the chance he will make a good choice. To enlarge this universe of options, the architect will have to join two abilities, which are the focus on teaching: the one of imagining in three dimensions, and the one of bring those imaginations to the real world, through drawings and models.
Finally, Malard [10] enumerates some consequences of this method when regarding architectural teaching:
1. Creativity depends on the skill of generating hypothesis to be tested: fewer options, poorer solutions;
2. Cooperative criticism plays fundamental role in the learning experience;
3. Knowledge is essential to contribute to the learning. The imaginative thought in architecture is not constructed by the drawings, but it is constructed by the knowledge, it is the knowledge that constructs the drawing.
4. The whole process is objective enough to be considered, in its records, as part of evaluation: it is the process of creation itself;
A logical question, at this point, is whether those consequences provide a basis for a pedagogic design in the teaching of Architecture. For sure this is a big task, and the appropriate forum to discuss such new design would be in the real context of the classroom and in the teaching managing of the departments. So far, what this essay can emphasize is the importance of some evaluations that already happen, like the portfolio, the sketch journal and other means of recording the individual creative process of the students. Inside those assessment activities it would be possible to analyse how the space of the classroom interferes over the individual skills related to creativity.
5. Conclusion: Space to be creative - physical and social dimensions
Analysing the evaluation model in the discipline here studied, it is possible to infer that the conditions to apply Popper’s theory are already structured. Reviews and Tutorials are strategic enough to permit the observation of the principles mentioned in the student’s progress. Objectively, the records about the number of hypotheses generated in order to solve a problem (studies) becomes an essential way to grasp about the student’s engagement with his task.
At the same time, working groups probably will be more efficient resource when their contribution are made clear, instead being considered as attacks. If students are thought that architectural creation is carried out by trial and error - and elimination of errors by criticism - they will develop a more critical attitude towards their projects; they will accept other person's criticism as a contribution for improving their creative imagination, rather than as attacks on their architectural ideas.
Those arguments lead to an appreciation of the real conditions in which they happen as practicalities in the quotidian of the class. A participatory observation and interviews with students were carried out to understand how they observe their own situation. In the questionnaire applied, two initial questions were made to force them thinking through creativity (What is it? and How does the tutor assess it?). However, only the last question was meaningful to grasp their vision: how does the physical space of the classroom interfere on the creativity? The results were discussed with the coordinator of the second year, who gave more information to accomplish a conclusion.
The main hypothesis of this research is that, once the physical space is overloaded with interposed activities, it loses its skills in being an environment to promote effective exchanges during the sessions of working groups, when criticism activities happen. Moreover, the lack of space constrains the engagement process with the labour of student’s life, interfering negatively in the creativity. But what has been got through the questionnaire was pretty different from all sort of expected dissatisfactions with the space: in the opinion of 73.3% of the students, the classroom is a suitable space to their activities, no matter the mentioned constrains. Only 26.7% reasoned about problems related to overcrowding. The appendix 2 analyse those results.
At the first sight, those results could represent a refutation of the hypotheses. They could be interpreted as if the majority of students were simply satisfied with the space. However, analysing the categories of justification that they gave through the answers, it is possible to asseverate that the social atmosphere given by the open floor, where all the students work together, is regarded as the most important characteristic of that space, characteristic that is very nice to creativity, according to students’ opinion. It means that togetherness is still possible in that space, despite the nowadays physical constrains, and when the space elements or activities bloke that quality, it disturbs collective creativity.
In order to confirm this last conclusion, I talked to the coordinator of the second year, and she told me that, in the second year, the scheduling of evaluations and tutorials had been introduced regarding better space to small groups, avoiding overcrowding. However, it generated a high degree of dissatisfaction among the students, probably because the togetherness was broken. This social issue probably can be regarded as an invariant requirement to the learning. It can be interpreted however as if the space interferes over it mainly when activities or things (physical barriers, walls, objects, and noise) break the group in small ones, obliterating the immediate exchange of information. Thus, the space is still the modulation to the perception and creativity of the groups, and all the attempts to organize the space should regard it in a manner to keep togetherness strategically. Through this point of view, it is not a contradictory fact but just add to the space a correct dimension of its importance as an agglutinating factor, and how it interferes over creativity. It opens other considerations to future researches, as concerning to how the social life of the students plays an important role in their performances and how the space of the campus can support it efficiently.
It has been shown in this essay that the actual structure of assessments in that discipline and the pedagogical strategies adopted permit to add up the previous concepts discussed. The spatial organization should be treated not only as a matter of individuality, not only to make easy and comfortable the tutorials or to make more efficient the assessment sections. Impacting over the collective, the space should keep the sense of togetherness which plays a role by giving the students confidence and insertion in the context of the first year of the course. Scheduling the sessions of evaluations can be done in separate space, in order to not interfere in the structure of the classroom. The organization of material and space, their arrangements, should consider their configuration as not being an obtrusive to the flux of information among the students, avoiding breaking spatial contiguity.
Bibliography:
1. Broadbent, G., Design in Architecture - Architecture and the Human Sciences. 1973, London: John Wiley & Sons.
2. Bloom, B.S., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain. 1956, New York: David McKay Co., Inc.
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