EXPERIMENTAL PEDAGOGIES for Futures Architectures

Abstract

This thesis investigates architectural education as a political and formative practice that conditions the future of the architectural profession. Responding to the contemporary crises of architecture — including social inequality, environmental degradation, and exploitative labour conditions — the project critically examines how architectural knowledge is produced, transmitted, and institutionalized.

Focusing on the Czech educational context, the research maps five architectural schools, exploring how their institutional structures, pedagogical methods, and cultural narratives reinforce power hierarchies, exclusionary practices, and dominant professional myths, such as the figure of the individual genius architect.

Through a combination of theoretical research, fieldwork, interviews, and institutional mapping, the thesis analyses organisational models, policies, procedures, and spatial conditions within architectural education.

Freirean critical pedagogy and Feminist theory – positionality and Anna Tsing’s concept of the arts of noticing – serve as key methodological and analytical frameworks, enabling a critical examination of how inequalities are reproduced within educational systems and how normative definitions of value,  authorship, and expertise are constructed and maintained in architectural pedagogy and practice. 

The project positions architectural education as a site of intervention. 
By engaging with alternative spatial and pedagogical practices, Freirean critical pedagogy and Wicked Arts Education  the thesis develops a set of experimental pedagogical tools that challenge traditional master-student hierarchies, performance-driven learning environments, and solution-oriented design approaches. These tools propose more inclusive, collaborative, and socially responsive forms of architectural education.

Rather than presenting definitive solutions, the thesis produces a critical study and projections of alternative futures. It aims to initiate debate about the role of education in shaping architectural practice and to contribute to broader discussions on how architecture can be taught, practised, and imagined otherwise.