SYLLABUS SUPPORT & EXAMPLES

BFA Architectural Design Studio: "Schools and Place: The Transformational Power of Education in Lagos, Nigeria" (Spring 2018)

This studio, which was offered as the sixth and final senior studio in the BFA Architectural Design program at Parsons, adopts architectural design as a strategy to confront poverty, gender disparities, racial inequality, lack of access to healthcare, food insecurity, and displacement in Lagos, Nigeria. The studio considers what it means to build and rebuild the community through the design of schools, housing, and other community facilities.

The studio partner is SERAC, the Social and Economic Rights Center, a Lagos-based non-governmental and non-partisan organization. Established in May 1995, SERAC promotes and protects economic, social, and cultural rights in Nigeria. The primary goal of SERAC’s work has been the democratization of society through active citizen participation in decision-making processes, with the end goal of expanding access to resources like electricity, clean water, housing, healthcare, and education. SERAC has been given a site outside Lagos on the Lekki peninsula to build new housing for displaced communities and to build a range of community buildings, including a school and dormitories. Students acquire an understanding of the site near Lagos from the experiences of our partners at SERAC and through a range of research projects undertaken at the beginning of the semester. This research provides the framework for the semester.

Students will consider both traditional and contemporary African and other architectural precedents for the school buildings and housing. Students will explore a range of media to represent their work, including both analog and digital representation. The partner organization has a limited budget, so building materials are an important consideration in this project. We advocate for the use of local materials that are affordable and healthier. The studio will explore clay-based products, both fired and unfired.

This work has the potential of contributing to new schooling and housing models for the SERAC Organization, promoting architecture as a tool for transformation through public participation, community building and protection of social rights.

Course Outline

Project 1

Research: Physical and Social Context of the Site, Urban context

1A: Research Nigeria and Lagos
1B: Site research Ilasan and architectural precedents for housing and schools (Ilasan, Lagos and Nigeria and beyond)

Project 2

First Scale: Learning and Living

2A: Human Scale of Learning and Living
2B: Communal scale of co-learning and co-living
First thesis proposition

Project 3

The Project Site Analysis (Ibeju Lekki)

Second thesis proposition

Second Scale: the School and the Dorm

Third Scale: the School and the Neighborhood

Assessable Tasks/Activities/Deliverables

Tasks and Activities:

Team-based research
Group site model making
Site planning exercises
Analog and digital iterative ideation, sketching, modeling
Group and individual design critiques
Presentations

Deliverables:

Milestone Reviews
Midterm Review
Final Review
Final Documentation

General Course Context

LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES

FLUENCY

Be able to enter a design driven speculative discussion of ideas as they pertain to the study and design of the built environment and evidence this criticality in the design process.

STRENGTH

Provide evidence of sophisticated research and analysis, approached from multiple perspectives and utilized as the basis of design of Architecture.

DEMONSTRATION

Accommodate programmatic requirements and intricacies of site into an innovative design proposal with tangible and physical consequences.

STRENGTH

Demonstrate a working knowledge of design and construction terminology related to a given building type, installation or construction system.

DEMONSTRATION

Execute a design project to a high level of resolution as evidenced in a complete range of representations and full-scale execution of installations, mock-ups or other material-based work.

FLUENCY

Verbally present work that demonstrates perceptual acuity, conceptual understanding, and technical facility at a professional entry level.

What has been identified by the program as important?

UNDERSTANDING

The student is conversant in the language and importance of the topic in relation to architectural design.

COMPETENCE

The student has the ability to apply knowledge of the topic within the design process consistently, but often in a basic and routine way.

STRENGTH

The student has the ability to apply the knowledge in multiple ways that show an understanding of more subtle aspects of the topic.

DEMONSTRATION

The student has the ability to consistently and accurately apply the knowledge in their own way, making subtle distinctions in where and when the knowledge is applicable.

FLUENCY

The student can apply the knowledge in unique and improvisational ways to support design arguments.

What is the studio based on?

Students in Design Studio 6 develop a final studio project that synthesizes prior learning from the Architectural Design program with a specific focus on the relationship between architecture as a material construction and the human ‘body’. In this case, “body” refers to both the human corporeal body and the human social body (or bodies), that are constructed and framed through the material conditions of architecture, urban fabric and interior space. Projects that make direct connection to existing civic and social entities are encouraged as a way for students to extend their knowledge into and through the city that frames the work at Parsons.

Bibliography: Required Reading and References

All students are expected to use the references as indicated in the project briefs, as well as Bregtje van der Haak and Rem Koolhaas’s documentary, Lagos Wide and Close, shot in 2002 and released in 2004; and visit Toyin Ojih Odutola’s “To Wander Determined” exhibition at the Whitney Museum.

ARCHITECTURE, URBANISM, DEVELOPMENT, AND POLITICAL ECONOMY

Ahonsi, Babatunde “A. Popular Shaping of Metropolitan Forms and Processes in Nigeria: Glimpses and Interpretations from an Informed Lagosian”. ed. Enwezor et al.,

“Under Siege: Four African Cities Freetown, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Lagos”, Documenta11_Platform4, Germany, Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2002

Bregtje van der Haak and Rem Koolhaas’s Documentary, Lagos Wide and Close Documentary, shot 2002 released 2004

Cole, Patrick, Modern and Traditional Elites in the Politics of Lagos, African Studies Series, Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Denyer, Susan. African Traditional Architecture, Holmes & Meier Pub, 1978.

Gandy, Matthew. “Learning from Lagos.” New Left Review 33, May-Jun (2005): 36-52.

Immerwahr, Daniel, “The Politics of Architecture and Urbanism in Postcolonial Lagos, 1960-1986”, Journal of African Studies.

Koolhaas, Rem. Eds. et al. Rem Koolhaas, Harvard Project on the City, Stefano Boeri, Multiplicity, Sanford Kwinter, Nadia Tazi, Hans Ulrich Obrist. Barcelona: Actar, 2000.

Packer, George, (2006), “The Megacity: Decoding the Chaos of Lagos”, The New Yorker, Issue November 13 2006, New York, (online).

EDUCATION AND PEDAGOGY

Taiwo, C.O. The Nigerian education system, past, present and future, Thomas Nelson (Nigeria) Limited, 1980.

Ikoya, Peter O. & Onoyase, D. “Universal basic education in Nigeria: availability of schools’ infrastructure for effective program implementation”, Educational Studies, Vol. 34 , Iss. 1, 2008.
Ogochukwu, Emeka, and Gbendu, Olaowei Godiva, “Extent of Implementation of Minimum Standards of Basic Education for the Realisation of the Second Millennium Development Goal in Bayelsa State”, Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka. Journal of Education and Practice, Vol.6, No.13, 2015 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1080513.pdf

Tella, Adeyinka et al. “Self-efficacy and Locus of Control as Predictors of Academic Achievement Among Secondary School Students in Osun State Unity Schools”, Ife Psychologia; Ile-Ife 16.2 (Sep 2008): 133-147.

Unity Schools in Nigeria http://allafrica.com/stories/201708010587.html

Universal Basic Education in Nigeria, Center for Public Impact, May 17, 2017 https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/universal-basic-education-nigeria/

CLIMATE CHANGE AND CITIES

Mehrotra et al (2001), “Climate Change and Cities First Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network”. Cambridge University Press, New York.

FICTION LITERATURE