An Interdisciplinary Pedagogy for Environmental Design and Community Resilience During the Pandemic

Traditional approaches followed in conventional architecture studios have garnered criticism due to their positioning of the architect at the center of the process. Additionally, due to the emergence of virtual modes of working, teaching and learning during the pandemic, there is a demand for new spatial design pedagogy and frameworks. It is now crucial to generate methods for remote learning that allow students to design for individual contexts that they have access to. In this paper, a spatial design framework that was generated through the context of a studio co-facilitated by the authors at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, is proposed. The studio focused on community resilience and repurposing of abandoned sites. It addressed the following questions: (i) How can this spatial design framework incorporate interdisciplinary learning and ideas originating outside of architecture studies, to address community resilience? (ii) How can spatial design pedagogy move from a site-specific approach to a methodology-centric approach of co-designing, within the constraints posed by the pandemic? (iii) How can study of best practices help develop community consciousness? The framework consisted of hybrid interdisciplinary methods including cognitive mapping, google earth mapping, concept ideation tools, etc. The student work depicts data collected via qualitative and quantitative methods from their respective neighborhoods. Students’ use of this framework demonstrates how the proposed spatial design framework can successfully enable addressal of concepts of community participation and sustainability in spatial design. The paper also outlines possibilities for the use of this framework in spatial professional practice.