(COPYRIGHT © 2010 MIKAEL POWELL. All Rights Reserved)
Introduction
Concerns about the effectiveness of buildings and therefore, methods of evaluation, were traditionally addressed in research (especially the environment- behavior studies of environmental psychologists beginning in the 1970s as documented in 2006 and 2007 by Pol) and by an architectural assessment called a Post-Occupancy Evaluations or POE (Preiser, Rabinowitz & White, 1988). In the later, evaluation criteria are generally determined apart from the users of the space. Increasingly, building evaluations are highlighting strengths and deficiencies by modifying the framework of conventional POE models. I propose that the common contemporary post-occupancy evaluation, framed by the institutional authority and charged to find a quantitative answer to building performance, is inadequate to gauge the experience of the built environment by the users of the space. Political, social and cultural aspects of the environment – the personal truths experienced by each individual are not voiced within conventional POEs. Tenets of critical pedagogy provide rationales that allow evaluators to analyze their built learning environment to discover elements that influence social change, cultural diversity, economic equity, and political enfranchisement while offering the potential to empower the users of the space. Furthermore, research has shown that building evaluators need instruction to recognize the influence of the built environment on the oppression or liberation of students so that the evaluation itself becomes a practice of freedom.
In the following, I generally outline the need for incorporating critical theories into evaluations of the learning environment. I discuss aesthetics and functionality - the customary values assessed, with regard to critical theories, paying particular attention to didactic and constructivist approaches to education. I review the method of assessment. In greater detail, I discuss the need and composition of a pre-assessment lesson plan. Finally, I provide concluding remarks.
The Need for Critical Theory in the Evaluation of the Built Learning Environment
The major concern about the effectiveness of traditional post-occupancy evaluations is that the institution often commissions the POE. Values of the school administration frame the evaluation (Preiser, Rabinowitz & White, 1988) and the university hierarchy itself serves as the primary recipient of the information (Hewitt, et al. 2005). The aim of critical theories is to empower the individual by encouraging user introspection and recognition of the political aspects of the built environment. Critical theory expounds that architecture is not benign and provides the framework to better discern the emotions that buildings incite. This introspection is part of a process that can become an avenue for personal transformation.
Critical interpretation of architectural forms in the university setting reveals systems that are not neutral. Traditionally the architecture of spaces is judged on aesthetics and functionally (how well the space serves as utility to the tasks within). Hebdige (1979), a cultural critic, finds manifestations of values ubiquitous and inherent in the architecture of modern schools. Hebdige describes “the hierarchical relationships between teacher and taught is inscribed in the very layout of the lecture theatre where the seating arrangements – benches rising in tiers before a raised lectern – dictate the flow of information and serve to ‘naturalize’ professorial authority” (p.13). Functionally, this layout supports a one-way “banking” model of education (Freire, 1970) and demonstrates, even the tacit power of physical elements, but in itself, the architecture is merely complicit. To say, “This classroom architecture oppresses me!”, may be simply an aesthetic statement, but to malign the learning space when it is congruous with the teaching approach, and not to look for the source of distress, leads the inhabitant away from an awareness of the causes of oppression and impotent of real transformation. The use of critical theories when assessing the built learning environment can enable the evaluator to see the building as an aesthetic element and/or as support or hindrance to an empowering or stifling curriculum.
Incorporating critical theories in the building evaluative process helps the reviewer to better discern the emotions that building incite through a structured process of introspection and personalization, leading to awareness. In line with a critical interpretation for higher education, professors of architecture Dutton & Grant (1991) want to: “move the theory and practices of [architecture] into more critical terrain…Architecture unavoidably frame the world. It structures experience, reinforces assumptions about culture and politics, and orients attention toward certain types of knowledge and ideologies… Schools can never be understood as neutral sites…All pedagogy, by its very nature, represents some theory and thus serves certain cultural and political ends.”(p.38)
Liberation philosophies within the framework of a Post-occupancy evaluation provide an avenue for praxis. “Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action [the assessment of their physical environment], must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation” (Freire, 1970, p. 52). Reflective, structured instruction can nurture the awareness of elements that limit one’s ability to be truly human.
The Values to be Assessed
If one concedes that pedagogy and architecture are influenced by the “prevailing ethos” as Frederick (2007) puts it, then determining the parameters and emphasis for assessing the built environment may also be transitive. Both aesthetics and functionality are often cited as primary considerations. Critical theories offer the framework to review the beauty of a space with regard to design intent as well as examine the alignment between the design of the built environment and the tasks intended, and how either restrains or encourages liberation.
Aesthetics
At the start of professional architectural training on the design of educational facilities in America, classical style and ornamentation was pervasive to the degree that, at the start of the twentieth century, engineer John R. Freeman remarked that contemporary work was ”preoccupied with aesthetics”, and “rarely thought through the question of use and function”. This classicism was not borne of the original intent of the Middle Ages, but rather as a modern reaction to the classical time. Tony Ward, an architect and educational theorist said “the aesthetic paradigm is morally vacuous because it excludes social, political and ethical considerations... [Consider] a recent review of Phillip Johnson’s PPG tower in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania…The review goes on to extol the quality of the building’s detailing, its thermal performance, and it’s visual impact…What is interesting about the appraisal is that it contains no reference whatsoever to the experiences of the building’s occupants, to the economic policies of PPG as a corporate entity, to the investment structures which generate such buildings at the expense of high unemployment artificially generated through Reagonomics to keep wages low and profits (for further investments) high”(Ward, 1998, pp.55, 56). Critical theories can provide the impetus to explore oppressive intent through reflective actions.
Functionalism
Functionalism was a reaction to the purported overuse of decoration at the expense of the efficiency of the space ( It is important to note, however, that iconic Modern architects of the period such as Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe are likened to functionalists only to the extent that their buildings were radical simplifications of previous styles and lacked ornamentation). Currently, the “Form Follows Function” 19th century maxim prevails today as the cornerstone of architectural design and the standard to which the built environment is often assessed. Brian Edwards (2000) put the onus on the administration when he remarked that, “Universities have the most unique challenge of relating the built fabric to academic discourse” (pg. vii). Therefore, when evaluating the influence of the built learning environment on the educational processes housed within, it is important to discern alignment with the educational approach. The architectural design of the room is not the lesson plan; criticism of educational approach is best placed with educators. However, the physicality of the educational space as a support or hindrance to teaching and learning plan is fair game.
Didactic educational approach
Culturally, Jamieson (2003) offers that the traditional American university physical environments for learning were shaped for didactic instruction. Classrooms were originally designed for a one-way, formal education, which also mirrored the institutional culture of the university. Indeed, many American universities function on the United States model in which the head of each academic department reigns over a fiefdom of sorts where students traverse interstate to access course instruction (Jarzombek, 2004). Freire (1970) describes this manner of education as narrative as opposed to dialogical. “The teacher deposits and students are the depositories. Students receive, memorize, and repeat… The banking model tries to control thinking and action and inhibits our creative powers. It tries to maintain the submersion of consciousness. In it we are merely spectators, not re-creators” (pp. 58, 62).
Constructivist Epistemology
In Hein’s (2002) description of constructivism, he states that learners create their truths from the world around them and although knowledge can be wholly personal, there is a universality of shared perceptions. Constructivist teaching methodologies may employ independent work, cooperative learning and group lecture within the same lesson plan. Beck’s (1997) discussion of contemporary education includes a democratic philosophy with a student-instructor relationship that is dialogical and downplays the role and authority of the professor. This is much in alignment with Freire’s remarks that “through dialogue a new terms emerges--teacher student with students-teachers. The students, while being taught, also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow" (1970, p. 67).
Assessment Method
A Post-occupancy evaluation is a common, thorough, methodical way of evaluating the room or building after it has been in use. A POE is very much a progressive document and relatively contemporary method (originating around the 1960s in America) to determine whether architectural decisions made by design professionals are delivering the performance intended as evaluated by those who use the building. These assessments provide several benefits including the identification of spatial problems and successes, the opportunity for user involvement and the establishment of prototypical spaces. Preiser, Rabinowitz and White (1988) describe the intent of a POE as “to compare systematically and rigorously the actual performance of buildings with explicitly stated performance criteria; the difference between the two constitutes the evaluation” (pp. 3, 4). Since the latter 1980s in America, the performance method concept has been widely employed as the foundation of the evaluation. Performance criteria are usually developed by the university administration (in response to their goals for the institution); the post-occupancy evaluator determines performance measures (Please see appendix A for an example of a simple evaluation form).
Performance measures are either quantitative or qualitative. Some aspects of the building examination e.g., the amount of lighting or the performance of building elements and mechanical systems are computable and comparative. Characteristics of the analysis that solicit user opinions of security, comfort, aesthetics, etc. are qualitative portions of the evaluation.
It is important to note the subjectivity of the process (see Figure 1 for an illustration of the Performance model). Actual building ratings are dependant upon the performance criteria developed by university administrators. The performance, derived directly from values the university deem important, are not necessarily the values of the evaluator or the users of the space. Moreover, the building evaluation result is reliant
upon the goals of the evaluator and the performance measures developed to test the criteria. Including a pre-assessment lesson for the POE that is structured upon a dialogical shared exchange will benefit both evaluators and administration. “It would be a contradiction in terms if the oppressors not only defended but actually implemented a liberating education” (Freire, 1970, p. 39). Lastly, the users of the space may give varying responses at different times and different users may give a different response. Preiser, Rabinowitz and White state, “there are no absolutes in environmental evaluation because of cultural bias, subjectivity and varied background of both the evaluators and building users” (1988, p.33).
In addition, since the performance criteria and performance measures are not developed by the users, it is important to critically consider the consequences of false positive or false negative ratings. If an evaluation of a university space is inaccurate, then who will gain and who will loose?
Pre-assessment Lesson Plan
As students need training to develop self-reflection skills and to recognize cultural and political conditions around them, it is also true that they often need specific education to discern conditions in their immediate environment. After de-briefing the research team that conducted a post-occupancy evaluation of state schools in the city of Campinas, in Brazil, Kowaltowski, et. al. (2004) discovered that evaluation respondents are often unaware of key conditions. In the Brazilian schools, students had to be taught the concept of environmental comfort (thermal, acoustic, and functional comfort as well as good lighting conditions) and learn to relate it to their life experiences before they could effectively rate their school environment. These instructors used in-class materials and developed a long-distance training program. For this course, I developed a lesson plan for university students prior to their assessment of the school facilities.
Understanding Goals and Course Objectives
This lesson plan was developed to train assessors (the users of the space) to be critically sensitive to issues promoted and facilitated by the physical learning environment per theories of Paulo Freire (1970) in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. Freire says that the oppressed (students and/or faculty) must be engaged in a dialog with the oppressor (faculty and/or administration) illustrating historical conditions to evoke them to critically look at world, recognize causes of oppression, discover themselves as hosts of oppressors, objectify and create new situation through reflective participation that evokes transforming actions enabling the oppressed to strive to be fully human. This process is divided into five lessons.
Lesson one is concerned with giving general information about critical theories and constructivist education. Students will participate in a structured dialog and reflection. They will prepare a concept map of their understanding of how knowledge is acquired. Lesson two discusses recognition of oppression in academic architecture. Students will be able to recognize intent, control, and oppressive manifestations of power. They will participate in group discussion and journal writing. Lesson three will enable students to see the role of the oppressed as sustaining the oppression as well as express how the model presented of a substantial oppression influenced by the built environment relates to their personal experiences. Students will relate their experiences to constructivist education. Lesson four describes the concept of being fully human and students reflect and participate in group discussion and personal journal writing. Lesson five is a general unpacking of the day’s topic and the preparation to being the post-occupancy evaluation of their learning environment. The lesson plan is attached.
Conclusion
Grannis (1994) points out instances in which effective inquiry would aid in the design of successful spaces for higher education. A review of the Yale University Arts and Architecture building in 1987 gave many examples of a building not designed to fit the behavior of the inhabitants and how the students retaliated by vandalizing, defecating, trashing and eventually trying to burn down the facility. The inclusion of critical theories into the post occupancy evaluation of educational facilities is useful in two ways. First, an effective pre-assessment plan will give the users skills to critically review their environment, while providing a vehicle for a dialogical exchange with administration they has the potential to be transformative. Secondly, incorporating tenets of critical pedagogy into the evaluation criteria may provide questions and answers that enable all to become more fully human.
References
Beck, C. (1993). Postmodernism, pedagogy, and philosophy of education. Canada : EPS/Philosophy of Education Society yearbook essay.
Dutton, T. & Grant, B. (1991). Campus design and critical pedagogy. Academe; bulletin of the AAUP, 77, 4, 37-43.
Edwards, B. (2000). University Architecture. London and New York: Spon Press
Elam, K (2001) Geometry of design: Studies in proportion and composition, pg 48. New York: Princeton Architectural Press
Elmasry, S. (2007) Integration Patterns of Learning Technologies, Page 15.
Endres, B. (1997). Ethics and the Critical Theory of Education. Canada : EPS/ Philosophy of Education Society yearbook essay.
Frederick, M. (2007) 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, pg 83, Boston: MIT Press.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum
Grannis, P. (1994). Postoccupancy evaluation: An avenue for applied environment-behavior research in planning practice. Journal of Planning Literature, 9, 2, 210-219
Hauf, H. & Koppes, W. & Green, A. & Gassman, M. & Haviland, D. (1966). New spaces for learning: Designing college facilities to utilize instructional aids and media. New York: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Hebdige, D.(1979). Subculture: The meaning of style. London and New York: Methuen.
Peca, K. (2000). Positivism in education: Philosophical, research and organizational assumptions. Opinion paper, Educational Resources Informational Center
Hein, G. (2002) The challenge of constructivist teaching, Passion and Pedegogy: Relation, Creation and transformation in Teaching, Ed. Elijah Mirochnik, Debora C. Sherman , NY: Peter Lang
Piro, J. (2008). Foucault and the architecture of surveillance: Creating regimes of power in schools, shrines, and society. Educational Studies, 44, 30–46.
Pol, E.(2006). Blueprints for a history of environmental psychology (I): From First Birth to American Transition. Medio Ambiente y Comportamiento Humano, 7, 2, 95-113.
Pol, E. (2007). Blueprints for a history of environmental psychology (II):
From architectural psychology to the challenge of sustainability. Medio Ambiente y . . Comportamiento Humano, 8., 1y2, 1 – 28.
Scherr, R. (2001). The grid: Form and process in architectural design. Page 11. New York, Verona, Bucharest: USA books.
Shor, I. (1996) When students have power: Negotiating authority in a critical pedagogy, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Strange, C. & Banning, J.(2001). Educating by Design. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. (2008) Modern architecture. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ward, T. (1998) .Phenomenological Analysis in the Design Process. Design Studies.10, 1. pp.53-66.
Student Pre-Assessment Lesson Plan For Higher Education Facilities Using Constructivist Curricula
Purpose of Lesson Plan: Students will learn to critically analyze their physical learning environment.
1) LESSON ONE Topic: Critically Viewing the World [1 hour]
a) Understanding Goals that include performances of understanding
i) Students will understand general critical theories of the oppressed.
ii) Students will understand general tenets of Constructivist learning theory in opposition to the concept of banking education.
b) Class Objectives
i) Students will participate in a dialog about the topic
ii) Student will prepare a Concept Map with Reflection
c) Presentation format
i) Activity – Presentation A: Directed Discussion on Critical Theories of the Oppressed and General Constructivist Learning Theory (See appendix B)
(1) Directed lecture/dialog about fundamentals of Freire. [15 minutes]
(2) Discussion of constructivist learning theories and introduction to concept mapping. [15 minutes]
ii) Activity- Concept mapping – Diagramming constructivist learning within the academic culture at the university indicating ideas, context and relationships.
(1) Students will sketch their own concept map of Constructivist learning theory and the educational institution. [10 minutes]
(2) Small group discussion of sketches. [10 minutes]
(3) Share main points with whole group [10 minutes]
(4) Write class reflection in lesson journal.
d) Presentation Forms and Access
i) Directed Discussion on Critical Theories of the Oppressed and General Constructivist Learning Theory (Attached)
ii) Students will have online access to lecture/conversation materials.
iii) Scaffolding --Post concept maps and document main points of discussion electronically.
e) References
2) LESSON TWO Topic: Recognizing Oppression through the Built Environment in the Academic Setting [1 hour]
a) Understanding Goals that include performances of understanding
i) For architectural elements students will be able to:
(1) recognize intent and distinguish situations when it is oppressive.
(2) recognize control and identify when it is overbearing.
(3) be aware of surveillance issues.
(4) recognize manifestations of power and when it is oppressive.
b) Class Objectives
i) Student will students will discuss the impact of architectural elements on the educational experience.
c) Presentation format-
i) Activity – Presentation of images and directed dialog. [1 hour] Main Concepts and Background Information:
(1) Presentation B: Architectural intent (Rengal) -
(a) Architecture as an art form always expresses something. The newly-built always comments on the existing environment in terms of what indigenous elements it chooses or refuses to integrate, how important it perceives itself to be, how much it chooses to aid the patron through its structure and the hierarchy it gives to particular spaces, how responsive it chooses to be to cultural concerns, and in many others ways. It is easy to obscure, in these anthropomorphic phrases, the intention of university administrators, department heads or lead professors that expose their agenda in what and how and at whose expense they choose to build. Rengal, R (2006). Shaping interior spaces. New York: Fairchild.
(b) Control as supported by the architecture (Piro, Foucault)-
(i) The Panopticon was proposed by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a Utilitarian philosopher and theorist of British legal reform. Piro, J. (2008). Foucault and the architecture of surveillance: Creating regimes of power in schools, shrines, and society. Educational Studies, 44, 30–46.
(c) Manifestations of power in the built environment.
(i) Foucault, M (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison, Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon Books
(ii) Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punishment. New York: Vintage Books.
(d) Students will be presented with a Case Study outlining the steps for . critical review and ways to gauge the severity of the oppression – The Siberian syndrome in Shor, I. (1996) When students have power: Negotiating authority in a critical pedagogy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
d) Presentation Forms and Access
i) Student availability to lecture conversation materials
ii) Students will have online access to lecture/conversation materials.
e) References
3) LESSON THREE Topic: Complicity as a Host of the Oppressors [1/2 hour]
a) Understanding Goals that include performances of understanding
i)Students will be able to see the role of oppressed as sustaining the oppression.
ii) Students will be able to express their personals experiences on this topic in their lesson journal.
b) Class Objectives
i)Student will students will discuss the roles of participants in oppression.
ii) Students will reflect in their lesson journal.
iii.)Student will prepare a written account of how the architecture aids or hinders learning for them in a constructivist model.
c)Presentation format
i)Class dialog on the Culture of Silence and passivity.
4) LESSON FOUR Topic: Becoming ‘Fully Human’ Within the Context of Constructivist Education[1/2 hour]
a) Understanding Goals that include performances of understanding
(1) Students will understand the parameters of ‘becoming fully human’ in the Freire context.
ii) Class Objectives
(1) Student will students will discuss this topic.
iii) Presentation format-
b) Activity – Presentation and directed dialog. [1/2 hour] Main Concepts and Background Information:
i) “Colleges and universities have a distinct responsibility…If we fail to utilize what knowledge we have about humanization as an educational responsibility, then we risk loosing the [possibility of realizing the potential for total growth in our young. (p 511)”
ii) DeArmond, M., Parker, A. (1968) Becoming human: An educational process, The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 39, No. 9 , pp. 506-511.
c) Presentation Forms
5) LESSON FIVE Topic: Reflection and Participation in a Transformation [30 minutes]
i) Class Objectives
(1) Student will reflect upon and discuss the lesson of the day.
ii) Presentation format
(1) Activity –
(a) Small group discussion. [15 minutes]
(b) Share main points with whole group [15 minutes]
(c) Students will begin Post-occupancy assessment of their learning environment.
(COPYRIGHT © 2010 MIKAEL POWELL. All Rights Reserved)
