Growing Rhizomes and Collapsing Walls: Postmodern Paradigms for Design Education

The system and structure of architectural education is a resultant of two sets of forces. On one side, we have the inherent characteristics and peculiarities of architectural profession that drive its academic component and remain the same at any given point of time. I will call these factors intrinsic factors. On the other side, we have numerous contextual and environmental (cultural, technological, sociopolitical) factors whose essence is change. I will call these the extrinsic factors. Technology, and in particular digital technology, is one of those extrinsic factors that I will specifically address in this paper. My effort here is to bring a theoretical basis to understand how digital technology impacts the organization, transmission, dissemination, and composition of knowledge that could, in turn, affect architectural education. My proposition in this paper, which is based on Deleuze and Guattariís notions of rhizome and Jean-FranÁois Lyotardís ideas on postmodern pedagogy, is for a curricular direction that opens the walls of the schools of architecture and particularly the design studios. I call for a move toward ìwall-less studiosî that fuel a ìrhizomatic pedagogy.

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