MOVING BOUNDARIES

Human Sciences And The Future Of Architecture

This spring program offers an intensive two-week course in the interface between the disciplines concerned with design of the built environment and the scientific disciplines concerned with human perception and behavior. Grounded in the culture of Guadalajara, Mexico, participants will experience the rich cultural landscape of the city, which is the birthplace of the famed architect Luis Barragán, the home of the Tapatia School of Architecture and award-winning contemporary architecture. Participants will be offered tours of buildings by Barragan (including those usually closed to the public) in Guadalajara and Mexico City, and will also tour selected recent works by Mexican masters of landscape, architecture and interior design. The group will be accompanied by a Barragán expert and Moving Boundaries faculty, who knew Barragán personally and who published extensively on Barragán’s work.

The course follows the first edition of our traveling workshop in Iberia, which took place in Spain and Portugal in July-August 2022. This second edition in Mexico will feature several new distinguished faculty members, a deeper investigation of the two topics studied in Iberia, multiple interactive sessions centered on the participants, and numerous learning opportunities during tours in the city, and a focus on practical applications of concepts from human sciences to architectural and interior design. Participants will have a chance to present their work and receive feedback during morning sessions. In addition to learning from the faculty and from one another during lectures and discussions, participants will apply new concepts in design exercises, in small interdisciplinary groups.

The elements of architecture are not visual units or gestalt; they are encounters, confrontations that interact with memory.

- Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin

This course will feature lectures in which an architect or designer will be paired with a scientist, to promote interaction of disciplines in a dialogical format.

The course is open to architecture and design professionals, including architects, urban planners, landscape architects, interior and product designers, historians of architecture and design, environmental experts, health professionals, researchers in neuroscience, cognitive science, sociology, anthropology and psychology, as well as graduate and postdoctoral students in the above disciplines.

We will learn how scientific concepts and methods can help developing new tools and strategies in design, and how scientific results can contribute to design theory and practice. We will also explore the importance of regional culture and identity in the making and experiencing of architecture.

Every participant will receive a Certificate of Completion at the end of the course.