Productive Accident in Student Analysis of Urban Form and Space

Abstract

If as educators we are to expect our students to act with confidence within the city as context, we must define and develop modes of inquiry which directly and successfully enable students to engage and understand multilayered, accidental, and experientially superimposed urban relationships. For without such modes of inquiry, we run the risk that our students will fail to appreciate the accidental relationships which are so central to the American urban experience as sources of profound understanding and inspiration. In this paper, I consider successful methods and techniques which my students in two separate courses presently use to analyze accidental relationships which exist in the American city. One of these courses is the first semester of our institution's undergraduate architectural design studio sequence; the other is a seminar course on visual communication techniques which I offer to graduate and undergraduate students. In both courses, I propose specific modes of inquiry which the students use to make sense of accidental relationships and juxtaposed observations within the city. The techniques invoke structured photography, layered mapping, and multimedia collaging. In presenting each of these modes of inquiry to students, I attempt to frame the acts of gathering and organizing information in support of urban site research so as to heighten the likelihood of productive accident.