Global Perspectives is a joint, collaborative design studio.

Collaborative… refers to the pedagogical approach. In the joint design studio classes of architecture students of two – culturally/climatologically  differing – countries simultaneously work on a joint research-by-design assignment. Students are guided by the professors of their university but regular moments of exchange of ideas and projects are organized, as well as moments of guidance from ‘the other side’, to widen the perspectives and to root the projects. Two collaborative workshopweeks - online for the reciprocal and sustainable format - are part of the design studio, as well as final juries with representatives of participating schools.

Global Perspectives ... refers to the research-by-design focus. All over the world, communities are facing wicked spatial challenges, rooted in global mechanisms. Problems such as flooding, sprawl, privatization of public space, social isolation, heat islands … are the result of a global system that is out of balance with nature and we can only tackle it in a joint effort.

In studio Global Perspectives, students search for inspiring narratives and acupunctural architectural interventions that address the problems of a specific site or situation, while adding positively to daily life of its inhabitants and to the environment. The projects are embedded in the local context using bioclimatic design principles and regenerative building materials, stimulating local entrepreneurship, craftmanship and economy, creating pleasant and beautiful places for all, …

The holistic approach (looking for an economic-social-environmental balance) with a focus on low-tech sustainability is the strength of Global Perspectives’ research-by-design assignment.

In short, this design studio fosters global awareness and understanding of different challenges of and perspectives on a more sustainable future, amongst its participants in the interchange of ideas, visions, references and the holistic approach of its architectural design assignment.

The overall ambition of studio Global Perspectives is threefold: personal, academic, and societal. 

Firstly, for each student, there is the personal challenge of growth as a future architect by working in an international team. Hence, in this design studio, global citizenship competencies are built (Lenkaitis & Loranc, 2022). The studio is a place of positive interaction, hard work, and an enterprising spirit, but above all of a community.

Secondly, there is the academic purpose to generate positive, local interventions for global spatial challenges, with respect for the sites’ human and ecological capital while reflecting on its identity and its global impact, by means of a research-by-design methodology in the design studio (Devisch et al. 2019). The hidden opportunities of a specific site or situation are revealed in a spatial narrative, using drawings, sketches, models and words.  The wide range of answers and multiple ways of looking at a challenge make up the richess of this studio work. To reach the highest standards, the design studio is a place of focus and empathy, of communication and collaboration, of self-criticism and reflection, of proactive entrepreneurship and teamwork.

Thirdly, the societal goal is ... to inspire. The design proposals are not meant to be ready-for-use answers to the complex situations, its community and its government, they are not meant to be built ... they aim to inspire; to facilitate a dialogue and to bring hope to the community, its government, and other.

 The unique situation of designing in an academic environment,  somewhat protected from daily reality,  gives this process and these projects their leveraging qualities, but also their mission to excel.

In collaborating with peers with different backgrounds and interests to produce and communicate context responsive designs

• the foreign student gains experience in how to familiarize with an unfamiliar environment

• the native student gains experience in how to communicate the local context and local design ideas to foreigners (making implicit knowledge explicit).

In experiencing a diversity of (sometimes even conflicting) visions, approaches and means to tackle them through design

• the foreign and native student widens his/her perspective in the exchange of ideas, references, concepts, … of a shared design challenge

In being immersed in a complex reality and being challenged to develop scenarios for sustainable development by research-by-design in a specific, problematic context (e.g. scarce resources, lack of policy, … ).

• The foreign and native students learn to define the challenges of a given situation and formulate a spatial intervention to answer them

• The foreign student learns from the confrontation with new challenges, and from practices of  local resilience to tackle them

• The native student gains a new perspective on the understanding of local challenges and possible interventions to transform them into opportunities

In looking for inspiring architectural interventions that can add positively to a given situation/site and its inhabitants.

• The foreign student learns about and from elements of the local identity/climate

• The native student gains a new perspective on the uniqueness of a (familiar) neighbourhood, through the confrontation with the observations of the foreigner.

Today’s global challenges urge us to simultaneously deal with two complexities, respectively the here and now:

Here… In today’s world, there is interdependence between everything and everyone. Decisions on materials in local architectural projects can cause carbon emissions on the other side of the globe. Proposed solutions also need to be thought interconnected. Sustainable development presupposes a system thinking, in which elements are never isolated but part of a bigger open system, in which knowledge is never finished and collaboration is key.

Now… The definition of sustainable development also extends stakeholdership to those whom we don’t know yet: towards those yet-unborn humans of future generations. Their voices need to be heard in the debate of how to achieve sustainability. As designers, we need to design with empathy and imagination and open-endedness, to include those unheard voices. Often, this means we need to learn how to design for uncertainty.[2] “Every building is a prediction, and every prediction is wrong.”[3]

Development (all development should be sustainable) needs agents who know how to deal with these 2 complexities of interconnectivity and uncertainty. Education is crucial in forming these agents.

We use the collaborative design studio methodology to create this educational setting, while focusing on Global Perspectives, proposing local solutions to global issues.