Description:

The course focuses on tools and techniques necessary for effective dialogue with non-traditional client groups: communities, the poor and the generally excluded middle income. The purpose is to expose future professionals to a new paradigm of service-oriented practice and to develop a rudimentary awareness of interactive processes.

The course is biased toward the notion that dialogue - not monologue - is essential for an efficacious and creative design process. It accepts that active user involvement is essential to good architecture. In this context the design of tools and techniques is integral to the design of the building itself.

The course will provide an introduction to a new paradigm for practice and provides hands-on experience in dialogue with client groups. The course will explore both indirect dialogue tools (handbooks, how-to-do leaflets, videos, and home-user computer design programs) as well as direct interaction with clients and appropriate tools and techniques - drawings, models, design kits.

We will study: New Practice Paradigms; Past Experience; Future Alternatives.

We will review: Handbooks; How-to-do Leaflets, Self-Help Videos.

We will experiment with: Interactive model games; Community workshop techniques.