Public defence in Art Education, Architect Toni Kauppila

Title of the thesis: Turning the Tables: Emerging Practices of Pedagogic Architect

Doctoral student: Toni Kauppila
Opponent: Principal Lecturer and Subject Lead for Interior Architecture, PhD Ro Spankie, University of Westminster
Custos: Professor Paula Hohti, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Art and Media

In my thesis I propose a complementary professional agency, a pedagogic architect, who has the will to appreciate the inherent ambiguity within the current architectural practices, as to empower oneself to act in the unpredictable socio-spatial conditions. I wish to contribute into discourses of spatial practices with auxiliary perspectives to teaching and learning, providing awareness of responsibilities and power structures and opening potentially expanding fields. The proposition is to offer students to envisage alternative professional futures, complement broader pedagogical debate and challenge the conventions of professional practices. 

I bring forward the discipline of interiors, and its education, as providing a peculiar entry point to comprehend the spatial qualities of social spaces. My research is motivated by probing; How can the pedagogical practices within interiors, as encounters in spaces of learning, inform the spatial practices themselves? Could these provide new agency to address contemporary and future challenges within the expanded fields of the profession? I approach the processes of learning from design educator’s perspective. 

I consider practice as research, where my pedagogic activities are seen as part of my artistic practice. My research material are the live pedagogical situations (spaces of learning) within higher education of design over the past 10 years, which I use to examine and disseminate the diversity of spatio-pedagogical conditions. Through my diary-like writings (novellas), I have reflected in action the qualities of those situations. With my architectural notations, I further analyse the emerging findings, and present for scrutiny a table-installation. 

I contextualise my work within the relevant historical and theoretical discourses on spatial interiority and dialogical learning. This thesis is a response to ongoing paradigm shifts in the fields of architecture and design, and their respective higher educations. Here both their processes and outcomes are under dispute, due to ever-complicating operating environments. Transformative design processes include social negotiations with diverse actors, cultures and agendas. I query whether complementary practices for the professions could be more apropos to address the related socio-spatial concerns, partially shifting the emphasis towards the need for a new kind of polymath whose expertise is the curiosity to learn from those manifold, uncertain professional encounters.

Keywords: pedagogic architect, practice-led research, artistic research, ambiguous architecture, dialogical learning, spaces of learning, novellas, architectural notations, school of unforced errors, critical spatial practice

Thesis available for public display 10 days prior to the defence at: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/doc_public/eonly/riiputus/

Contact information:

Doctoral theses in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/54