Abstract
Among the different ways we approach teaching planning, studio courses offer an enviably wide scope of instructional possibility. A quick survey of recent course offerings reveals that our planning studios engage an impressive array of issues, subjects, theories, geographies, and media. This widening scope is a welcome departure from the origins of planning as large-scale architecture, freeing us from the tradition of planning studios that engage normative plan making informed by comprehensive rationality.
Many innovations have been born of this broadened scope. Recent scholarship on planning studios describes an equally impressive array of new approaches, including variations that introduce new ideas about the role of planners. Mirroring some of these transformations evident in contemporary planning practice, our studios are increasingly likely to be aligned with university outreach programs, with advocacy and service learning, or with the experiential or project-based approaches that have come (or come back) into fashion alongside heightened awareness about educational outcomes.
What is less clear, in both course syllabi and extant scholarship, is why studio courses are a good way to educate planners. Many recent innovations in studio formats, for example, rarely articulate the educational theory that informs their objectives and hybridized formats. New or old, the primary objective of studio courses remains to replicate practice, thus mimicking the practicum element found in social science disciplines that focus on principles and norms of community practice. Emphasis on the practicum approach can oversimplify the task of planning studio instruction and subvert critical thinking about important theoretical and methodological questions.
In response, this symposium aims to reinvigorate studio as a space to engage central questions of planning theory, to test new analytic approaches to thinking about planning problems, and to find new ways of producing planning knowledge. Themes of particular interest include rationales for the development of studio pedagogy in educating planners, investigations of studio models in other disciplines, and examples of new models that may bridge multiple disciplines.
The symposium is an outgrowth of three highly attended sessions at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) in 2009 and 2010, titled “Contemporary Debates in Studio Pedagogy I, II, and III.” These sessions revealed a sizeable constituency of planning faculty interested in studio pedagogy. They also demonstrated a need for better, and shared, understanding of this unique approach to educating planners. Two of the papers presented at these sessions are included here; several others have been previously published.
To begin the symposium, Long reviews the definitions, histories, and theories that have informed studio pedagogy in planning over the past century. What, Long asks, is the unique value of studio pedagogy in educating planners? The article situates this question within contemporary education theory to argue that the boundaries of studio pedagogy can be expanded beyond teaching practice and positioned as a space for new kinds of learning, new models of knowledge production, and new modes of practice.
The next two papers each present an innovative approach to studio course design. Senbel describes a hybridized studio course that is a carefully calibrated mix of design and planning instruction, grounded in education theory. Intended for studio instructors teaching early in the planning program course sequence, the paper describes in detail a set of exercises to advance design literacy, spatial awareness, procedural knowledge, and phenomenological experience.
Balassiano and West consider the lessons for academe when the traditional studio format is adapted for use outside of formal coursework. They detail and critique a student-run club that uses a studio-type format to identify, develop, and execute their own volunteer planning projects. They argue that studio pedagogy can be a useful framework for creating broader and more meaningful work experiences for students outside of their program requirements.
Rounding out the symposium, Németh and Long develop a model for assessing learning outcomes in studio courses. The model is specific to studios and involves enumeration of outcomes, types of assessment approaches, and modes of evaluation design. Since educational outcomes are increasingly important in the performance-oriented context of higher education, they position the outcomes perspective as a useful way of thinking about what makes studio pedagogy a unique and valuable way to educate planners.