Between architecture and construction

Abstract

In 1994 the School of Architecture and Construction at Unitec Institute of Technology received its first intake for a new Bachelor of Architecture programme. The co‐location of this architecture degree within a school that contained construction programmes (Bachelors of Building and Quantity Surveying) was seen to be of collaborative benefit. However, within three years, this new theoretically beneficial formulation had split. Contemporaneously, the University of Newcastle, Australia had adopted a one hundred percent Problem Based Learning (PBL) model to facilitate stronger relationships for learning with the local profession and construction industry that ran for 10 years. Recently Unitec MARCP students engaged in an integrated design and technology studio project for a comparatively short period of six weeks. In a contemporary education world where collaboration and cross‐disciplinarity are the language of currency, this examination of the processes of growth and decay in these three events at Unitec and Newcastle provide insights into the potentials and pitfalls of such constructions. This paper will discuss upon these events to draw out issues that might illuminate future attempts to develop integrated learning practices for architecture and construction