Teaching collaborative and interdisciplinary service-based urban design and planning studios

Abstract

This paper describes a collaborative interdisciplinary studio approach to teaching practice. These studios have engaged students, faculty and, in most cases, clients in real-world problem solving activities ranging from an integrated plan-design-build urban redevelopment projects to regional scale analyses and plans. It was found that integrated service-based learning projects were of benefit to students and communities alike if a specified set of criteria were met at the outset. Lessons for future pedagogy and research are derived from the findings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. According to strict scientific methods, this hypothesis was not ‘proven’, just as there is no hypothesis of any kind that can be proven and only ones that can be disproven, according to Karl Popper’s famous axiom. In these eight cases the preponderance of the evidence, of which only a small fraction was provided, even for the two cases presented, clearly suggested that the hypothesis is valid, for these eight cases.

2. “Unforgettable”, “life-changing”, “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” were typical student end-of-semester comments about the field trip and the project, extracted from student evaluations of the course.

3. Required reading on the functioning of the Mississippi and Atchafayala Rivers and the extensive coastal wetlands of Louisiana, along with other materials related to the Louisiana coastal region and ecological planning and design, was contained in the course syllabus, including McHarg (1969); McPhee (1989); Benyus (1997); Chapin III et al. (1997); Daily (1997); Forman (1997); Vitousek et al. (1997); Camazine et al. (2001); Capra (2002).

4. The author has over 25 years of experience in researching, teaching, practice and writing about conflict resolution and negotiation in complex, multi-stakeholder circumstances, contributing to this capacity. Excellent sources for these approaches can be found in Susskind and Crump (2008), Forester (2009), Innes and Booher (2010).