Teaching architecture as an intervention in thinking:the Moratuwa experiment revisited

Abstract

Apart from architecture itself,architecture students learn many other things during their course of studies,both factual and otherwise.this is indeed unique since most other disciplines may not be able to claim the same about their courses of study.obviously,as a student ,one may acqire knowledge unrelated to the subject sthey study in the process of maturity and growing up in every discipline ,but most academics would not necessarily consider it a great achievement that their students have learned nothing in their discipline but other things during the course of study .In one year of studies in architecture at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka in fact,quite the contrary was happening and the students took great pride that they are not leaning architecture lper se,at least in one year of their 6 year course.A recent research uncovered that the students believe they learned a great deal of "thinking"but very little in architecture.This paper examines a student evaluation of the t4eaching/learing practice that prevailed in the 5 th year studio in 1998 at the Department of Architecture at the University of Moratuwa ,which is a part of a lprogramme known as the Moratuwa Experiment and discusses its impact upon the student'thinking.