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Teaching Lighting to Architecture Students: Technology as Design Inspiration
LUCIE FONTEIN
Carleton University
Abstract
Using as example a course I have developed in Lighting and Architecture, this paper presents an approach to teaching technology which acknowledges and responds to the culture of the architecture school design studio. The result is a twofold shift in the focus of the architecture technology course. The first shift involves the introduction of a substantial design component to the technology lecture course. The second responds to the student?s desires to explore theoretical and conceptual constructs.
The philosophical program for the course derives from a concern to understand the role of technology in contemporary culture. Recognizing that the residue of ?progress? is a trail of ?obsolescence?, the course focusses on embracing technologies for what they are, not for what they are on their way to becoming. Consistent with this attitude, the students are therefore challenged to see technology as not merely something to be applied to architectural design. Instead, by dwelling on its inherent capacity to reveal something about the world and the way things go together, technology is considered in light of its capacity to inspire design. Student work from three design assignments are presented to illustrate this pedagogy.
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