Reconsidering architectural education based on Freire’s ideas in Iraqi Kurdistan

Abstract

Paulo Freire is undeniably a prominent figure who greatly influenced 21st century higher education. More specifically, architectural education been greatly affected by Freire’s thinking in relation to producing a design project with dialogue and consciousness. This study aims to implement Freire’s thoughts in contemporary design studios, where the core courses of architectural education occur. This study employs a narrative methodology and in-depth interviews with third-year students from the design studios of two universities, one public and another private. The study investigates the impact of the concept of ‘dialogue’ on student creativity, and ‘banking education’ thought of Freire to determine how this idea affects students’ consciousness of their learning process. Therefore, this research attempts to apply three of Freire’s key thoughts that have been discussed in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed: ‘dialogue’, ‘consciousness’, and ‘banking education’. As a result, banking education applied by local-experienced instructors in the public university has confused students when applying given information to the theoretical part of their projects, which directed them to show fewer creative concepts. On the other hand, the students had greater consciousness of their learning process, awareness of their strengths and weaknesses in regard to the concepts of their design projects, and involvement in their classes when they felt a dialogue by the abroad-experienced instructors in the private university. This study shows that architectural education in that region requires a serious consciousness of Freirean theory.

Keywords:

• Architectural education
• Paulo Freire
• banking education
• dialogue
• consciousness

Acknowledgement

We wish to show our appreciation to Tishk International University, Erbil, Iraq, as this research is supported by its Research Center.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hozan L. Rauf

Hozan L. Rauf is a Ph.D. holder in architecture at the Eastern Mediterranean University in North Cyprus. She also obtained her MSc. in Interior architecture at the same university. She is an instructor at Tishk International University-Sulaimani, Interior Design and Architecture Engineering departments. Her main research interest are architectural education, pedagogical methods, self-advocacy issues in education, interior design, and materials sciences.

Sardar S. Shareef

Sardar S. Shareef is a Ph.D. holder in the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture at the Eastern Mediterranean University in North Cyprus. He is now a lecturer at Tishk International University-Sulaimani. Sardar has several publications focused on innovative methods and pedagogies applied in architectural education and teaching/learning technical courses, designing interior spaces for autistic children, semiotics in architecture, and materials sciences.