Between knowledge and skills in teaching design courses in architecture integrated in Bologna

Abstract

In the teaching of design in architecture courses integrated in Bologna becomes evident the central importance of the student in the teaching/learning process.

If the antinomy process/product is recurrent in didactic and pedagogical atmosphere in our historical context and teaching experience, others seem to arise with greater acuity, interest and additional platforms to enriching the debate, such as the relationship between problem/solution, knowledge/skills and experience/awareness.

In these scenarios of antinomic problematic is important to understand the special role of the teacher and student, especially, to know how to organize the relative weights of each component during the academic years of two different cycles.

It seems clear that the importance of process and product is not the same along the different academic years. It is also a fact that the teacher's role in the construction of the solution or of the problem is variable in the progression of learning, especially because the student needs to gain greater autonomy and judgment.

Also, the acquisition of skills (reinforcing the disciplinary culture and methodological aspects) must constitute themselves as nuclear (1st cycle) and the knowledge (as global problematic) can be worked when the student has more autonomy and critical consciousness (2nd cycle).

Because the experience of “to do” it isn’t always simultaneous of the awareness of “to know”, the optional courses should only provide eventual specialization in the 2nd cycle of studies.