Landscape Sensitizing through Expansive Learning in Architectural Education

Anne Kristiina Kurjenoja, Melissa Schumacher and Janina Carrera-Kurjenoja
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Anne Kristiina Kurjenoja: Department of Architecture, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Cholula 72810, Mexico
Melissa Schumacher: Department of Architecture, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Cholula 72810, Mexico
Janina Carrera-Kurjenoja: EIDUM International School of Doctoral Studies, Campus de Espinardo, Universidad de Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-20

Abstract: Expansive learning is a teaching–learning method adopted by the Department of Architecture of Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico, to introduce architectural students to the field of landscape sensitizing. This approach has been especially valuable considering the particular cultural and natural values of the Mexican landscapes. In it, architectural students are introduced to co-configuration strategies along with co-working methods with the participation of specialists and local stakeholders and community on the “barefoot” bottom-up basis. The community of Tochimilco, Puebla, was selected as a case study through which students can learn how vulnerable rural landscapes and their natural environments can be protected, constructed, and developed. Therefore, studying natural landscape and environmental conditions of Tochimilco through data collection, fieldwork and student workshops was carried out to reinforce the understanding of landscape features, values, semiotics, and meanings in a Socio-Ecological System of landscape (SES) framework. In this context, the expansive learning processes revealed the potentiality of architectural students to become environmental facilitators for future design and planning projects to trigger sensitizing and comprehensive approaches. In these terms, architectural education prepares students to recognize and be aware of natural values, landscape narratives and the “barefoot” relationship between the landscape and the human being occupying and cultivating it.

Keywords: landscape sensitizing; Socio-Ecological System of landscape; expansive learning; “barefoot” landscape reader; Tochimilco (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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