From a Pedagogical Experience of a Photography
Course on Architectural and Public Space into a
Research Project focused on Communication of
Public Space’s State and Evolution, Architecture and
Urban Cultures
Pedro Leão Neto1, Gonçalo Morgado da Silva2, Bruno Moreira3, Lígia Maria Ribeiro4
1 Faculty
of Architecture, University of Porto, Via Panorâmica S/N, 4150-755 Porto, Portugal,
pneto@arq.up.pt
2 Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Via Panorâmica S/N, 4150-755 Porto, Portugal,
goncalo.silva.arq@gmail.com
3 Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Via Panorâmica S/N, 4150-755 Porto, Portugal,
arq@brunomoreira.net
4 University of Porto, Praça Gomes Teixeira, 4099-002 Porto, Portugal, lmr@reit.up.pt
Keywords
Architecture, arts, pedagogy, digital platforms, Internet, communication, representation, digital
media technologies, collaborative work, public participation.
1.
ABSTRACT
This paper will explain how, from a blended teaching experience1 in CFM (Communication,
Photography and Multimedia) Course at FAUP (Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto) that lead
to several didactic experiences and research projects on architecture and public space (seminars,
workshops, publications and editorial projects), CCRE (Centre for Spatial Communication and
Representation) Research Group has been able to interrelate a set of significant experiences and
results coming from the former work and activities with the on-going R&D project DARC, more
specifically with its City Spaces|Culture module, directed towards the communication of content
related to cultural events and spaces as architectural heritage, identity and historical places.
All these projects, together with CCRE’s communication philosophy, its online platforms and physical
outputs — such as publications and exhibitions — constitute a blend between direct and “indirect”
pedagogy strategies on architecture, public space and the way they are experienced by the general
public.
As we will explain in this paper, all these research projects were fundamental to assess the
possibilities and limits of our pedagogic/didactic philosophy, as well as to trigger new and more
effective ways of communicating and sharing substantial information between students and the
general public.
This paper will therefore explore the blended approach that we’ve taken in CFM classes, how it
translated into the various platforms that we’ve used for it and for other parallel activities, and how
this knowledge is being applied to the on-going DARC research project and to its set of
communication and presentation operators. The goal will be to verify how the combined operators
that we’ve used in our platforms (ranging from geo-referenced maps, images and videos — focused
on visual literacy — and social networking — focused on communication) allowed for a deeper
involvement and participation of both academic community and general public.
1 Blended learning is a pedagogical strategy that simultaneously integrates traditional learning
methods (which require the student’s presence at a given time and direct contact between them and
the teachers) with complementary methods, supported by ICT and the Internet, that further expands
the learning process and provides students and teachers with new channels of communication and
interaction possibilities.
2.
INTRODUCTION
CCRE2 is a research group that belongs to CEAU3 (R&D unit of FAUP) and has been responsible for
diverse research projects focused on using Digital Media Technologies on the web for collaborative
work and for communicating public spaces, as well as any proposed design for them.
This research group structures its activities among three strategic fields, which we believe are
interconnected and interdependent:
i) CCRE is engaged in research focused on the design and study of hybrid spatial environments: ELearning Centers with strong ICT integration. The global aim of these spatial environments is to
create a set of new dynamic learning spaces integrating ICT and able to combine social interaction
and diverse activities with studying.
ii) CCRE's coordinator is responsible for lecturing CFM (Communication, Photography and Multimedia)
and CAAD (Computer Aided Architecture Design) at FAUP, and therefore is involved in research
focused on blended learning approaches for teaching those classes, namely the use of online digital
platforms for communicating and presenting works. Is is worth to mention that CAAD has as it's main
exercise the design of an E-Learning architectural program.
iii) CCRE is engaged in research related to city and cultural spaces and endorses a participatory
perspective that it believes to be the way to cultivate societies’ multiple public interests — a
society-centered view of government and the ability to let pluralism live (Dredge, 2009), making
possible a place for subjective rationalities of individual citizens within the planning, design and
communication process of their cities. Through its on-line platforms, CCRE also envisions to improve
communication techniques and methodologies for the interchange of information on architecture
and cityscapes, exploring several digital media, especially photography, to inform the general public
and contribute to open university/academic researches to society and its city. These online
platforms constitute a powerful medium through which diverse collaborative studies are
accomplished inside and outside the academic environment.
This paper will explain how, from a blended teaching experience in CFM Course at FAUP that lead to
several didactic experiences and research projects on architecture and public space (seminars,
workshops, publications and editorial projects), CCRE Research Group has been able to interrelate a
set of significant experiences and results coming from the former work and activities with the ongoing R&D project DARC4, more specifically with its City Spaces|Culture module, directed towards
the communication of content related to cultural events and spaces as architectural heritage,
identity and historical places.
2 CCRE is an open project that aims to hold the interest of different people and research coming
from various institutions and fields of study. The work is focused on using Digital Media Technologies
on the web for collaborative work and for communicating public spaces, as well as any proposed
design for them. Its website constitutes the main medium where all these different collaborative
studies take place.We have been exploring the potential of this platform for learning in Architecture
and want to extend it to Art and Design courses.
3 Research Centre on Architecture and Urbanism (Centro de Estudos de Arquitectura e Urbanismo).
4 Digital Architecture Representation Communication (http://darc.pontopr.com/) is a research and
technological development project (RD&T) supported by FEDER in the terms of the Portuguese
National Strategic Reference Board 2007 – 2013. This online compound of interconnected platforms,
that is currently under development, intends to be a product – the software – that will allow: i) to
structure, represent, promote and disseminate diverse content aimed at the market of Creative
Industries, Planning and Environment and Cultural City Spaces and Tourism; ii) to structure and allow
sharing of information and representations for interactive collaborative work in the construction
industry (Architecture and Urbanism) and in University Education (related to Architecture and Arts).
DARC consortium is comprised of two public institutions of education and research (University of
Porto; Faculty of Architecture of U. Porto) and three private companies (PontoPR, Publicidade e
Robótica, Lda.; João Castro Ferreira Arquitectos, Lda.; Né S. Design Unipessoal, Lda.). This
interdisciplinary team is able to generate synergies to produce planned research and criticism in
order to obtain new knowledge and skills to produce and develop the DARC product and its specific
applications.
We will start by introducing our pedagogical experience and philosophy of CFM Course at FAUP, which
will help to understand our blended-learning approach towards teaching and how digital and
interactive platforms on the World Wide Web can help us accomplish our objectives. This can be
seen at chapter 3: “CFM PHILOSOPHY AND PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCE”.
Then, we will present those platforms in a more detailed way: some are third-party platforms that
we’ve used to accomplish some of our objectives and that are normally accessible to anyone on the
WWW; others were imagined and created by ourselves as a response to other projects where we
were involved and therefore constitute a more personalized and throughout way of addressing our
needs and objectives. This will be addressed in chapter 4: “DIGITAL ONLINE PLATFORMS USED OR
DEVELOPED BY CCRE IN TEACHING AND RESEARCH”.
After that, we will make a brief comparison of all the platforms that we’ve used or created in order
to understand their qualities and weaknesses and to acknowledge whether they were effective or
not and in what terms. This comparison will be presented in chapter 5: “COMPARISON OF THE
DIGITAL ONLINE PLATFORMS USED OR DEVELOPED BY CCRE”.
Finally, we will conclude by answering our main research question: how did these experiences
influenced our current main R&D project (DARC). This will be discussed in chapter 6: “DARC – Digital
Architecture Representation and Communication” and chapter 7: “MAIN CONCLUSIONS”.
3.
CFM PHILOSOPHY AND PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCE
CFM’s Pedagogical Experience is an evolving and upgraded methodology for teaching technical and
artistic aspects on photography and for discussing photography projects, as well as the structure and
communication strategies of the visual narratives, with the intent to promote critical awareness
about architecture and public space. It’s a comprehensive approach because it implies, in the
learning process, a time for analysis of a determinate object, with the right set of conceptual and
technical tools, and the time to structure and explore the best way to communicate it to an
expanded audience.
This approach will allow our students, on one hand, to consolidate and communicate, through visual
narratives and text, their own critical visions of a set of problems related to architecture and public
space, and on the other hand, to encourage pubic awareness and debates trough the presentation of
these works.
We support the idea that through a communicative action it is possible to develop a discourse5 and
rationality capable of arriving at more equitable or universal social norms and in this way guarantee
a more representative and democratic public space. The term “public space” is understood as being
capable of a broader definition that includes artistic, architectural, technological, geographical,
mental, and ideological dimensions. We also think of public urban space as the event of assembly in
the sense that Panu Lehtovuori explains “ ...the experiential, particular weak places come together,
suspending their potential conflicts and thereby opening a horizon of political discourse and of a
community.” (Lehtovuori 2005). Moreover, the concept of “public space” as a public forum6 is guided
by the ethical text and actions of Habermas’ theories of communication (Habermas 1998) and by
ideas of other authors who study the cultures of cyberspace, the Internet, the information society
and the potential and changes that web systems brought to the public Agora, such as Manuel Castells
or Donna Haraway (Bell, 2006), W. Mitchel (Mitchel, 2003) or Malgorzata Hanzl (Hanzl, 2007). It is
important to state that, for this “public space” to be genuine, people have to feel the need to
participate in a rational discourse, where all are fully aware of the other's perspectives and
interpretations – a time and space allowing the more conscious sprawling of the ideals of democracy
and public participation. All this gives force to the thought that public participation and other public
5 Michael Mason (1999, 8), “Discourse refers to modes of communication between people in which
understanding rests upon, or presumes the possibility of, agreement motivated by convincing reasons
rather than by any form of coercion or deception.”.
6 “Porto Redux ou (re)habitar a cidade” is an example of how it is possible to create a public forum
in the city. Several public participation events that integrated seminars discussing the city, heritage
and architecture themes were held in an abandoned space. An architectural workshop was also
organized for promoting new design ideas for an important eighteen century market (http://
portoredux.blogspot.com/).
or private citizenship exercises are really both personal and political and that citizenship means not
only established rights, but also a performance through which these rights are put into practice and
in this way democratically (re)defined and (re)affirmed, as explained by Liette Gilbert and Catherine
Phillips (2003).
It is also significant to refer that, even though we are aware of the limitations of this process of
communicative action and rational discourse, we believe that it is the most democratic and fair
approach for arriving at a consensus in our present democratic societies. The limitations have to do
with the fact that, for arriving at a consensus, there has to be necessarily also some kind of
exclusion. This is so because in a free society there is always the potential for conflict and diversity
of ideas and this consensus will mean, off course, the exclusion of some ideas in favor of others, as
is referred by authors that argue against Habermas rational consensus, such as Chantal Mouffe
(2000). Nevertheless, we believe that this communicative action and rational discourse of Habermas
is the best way for trying to reach the maximum common denominator from the different
perspectives and interpretations that naturally may occur in democracy. In fact, the rational
consensus ensures that the minimum damage will be caused to democracy’s plurality and to the
ethical-political principles of our liberal democracies, which are liberty and equality.
CCRE also believes that the public and participative characteristics of the web systems are
themselves contributing strongly for the increase of public participation and other related actions.
Contrary to other more traditional media that are a lot more closed and only accessible to a
minority, in societies where the web is disseminated, the public’s space original democratic meaning
is not subverted but reinforced. The web systems create communication channels that are more
public, more accessible and a lot freer than many other mediated spaces before them. In fact, CCRE
trusts that by using these web systems it can contribute for a more democratic and responsible
society, enriching awareness and giving space to many new ideas and positive critic in relation to
how the city and its public spaces are lived, transformed and designed (Neto 2005).
Within this context, our goal was to use photography, jointly with the CCRE’s collaborative platform
in Internet, as a way to strongly involve students in creating visual narratives for appraisal, analysis
and perception of certain public spaces and architecture. Thus we adopted a blended learning
approach and a pedagogical strategy that could secure more flexibility for students and teachers to
communicate and work without the constraints of traditional classes, timetables and space location
and an approach that could strengthen the relation between teacher and student and that would
support the use of photography as an instrument of inquiry and critical analysis of city’s public space
and architecture (Neto, 2008). All this pedagogical work with students, jointly with the critical visual
narrative exercises completed by them, gave significant information and knowledge about many of
present public space problems that imperil our cities and encouraged students to participate
actively in many of the events and actions that were organized with the objective of opening
university to them7 (Neto, Vieira, Pereira & Ribeiro, 2008).
Even though photographic images can be used to illustrate the character of certain places or of the
people that inhabit them with the objective of confirming a certain point of view or opinion, we try
to go beyond this illustrative approach and encourage a more significant practice. Photography can
also be a powerful research instrument that allows discovering new perspectives about places and
people. Accordingly, the aim of this course is to make students explore, question and problematize
the potential of digital photography and Internet for representing, communicating and questioning
urban reality. Thus, the students’ visual narratives must be created in such a way that they
simultaneously (i) communicate the problems and characteristics that define the character of
diverse city places and (ii) give new perspectives about those public places and of how people live,
perceive and understand them.
Therefore, the theoretical and empirical bases of this photography course had as goals: (i) to give
students theoretical and practical knowledge about photography and its use in interactive
collaborative platforms in Internet; (ii) to give students analytical instruments that allow them to
create critical visual narratives about our cities’ public spaces and architecture; (iii) to point out
specific attributes of photography images; (iv) to make students explore photography and digital
tools in a creative way; and (v) to make students understand the potential of using digital online
platforms as collaborative systems.
7 Visible in “Porto Redux ou (re)habitar a cidade”: http://web.ccre.arq.up.pt/projectos/show.php?
projecto_id=296
Finally, we reinforced the strategies that encouraged students to be active participants of the
learning process, an idea supported by many authors (Shao, 1997; Broadfoot, 2003; Salman, 2008)
and inline with the learning, reflection and change theory of Donald Schon (Schon, 1988), taking
advantage simultaneously of the Web 2.0 potentialities, such as the CCRE platform, for collaborative
work. This had as result, besides other things, the creation of a learning environment that
encouraged students to exchange ideas and that made them adopt an active role in the learning
process.
Taking all this into account, the pedagogical process was structured across three main lines: the
traditional teacher-student classroom communication; the academic photography projects
understood as group and individual construction of visual narratives; the use of digital online
platforms for collaborative work, public communication, social networking and information sharing.
As can be inferred by the CFM philosophy and pedagogy previously described, we intend to
contribute for a more democratic and responsible society, enriching awareness and giving space to
many new ideas and positive critic in relation to how the city and its public spaces are lived,
transformed and designed (Neto, 2005), while simultaneously making students and teachers part of
this process.
4.
DIGITAL ONLINE PLATFORMS USED OR DEVELOPED BY CCRE IN TEACHING
AND RESEARCH
Our main objective, in line with our philosophy and pedagogical strategy, was to continue exploring
the collaborative online platforms for supporting CFM’s photography course in both a physical and
virtual design studio environment. We wanted, through this course, to make students and teachers
closer to the emergent problems of their city and to encourage a way of teaching that would allow
the creation of a community of inquiry that could be applied to a different set of problems and
studies. As a result, we have used several platforms to structure and develop our pedagogical
experience; some of them were third-party applications, already available on the market, but others
were created by us in order to overcome some of the limitations that we’ve encountered.
After starting with Moodle, the institutional platform that is used by the University of Porto, we felt
the need to evolve to a platform/software that would allow us to deal with visual information
(Photography, Architecture and Art) within a more efficient communication and operational process.
This lead to the creation of CCRE Platform.
From that point on, and at a certain stage, we became aware of a more direct, quick and informal
communication tool brought to light by the social networks (such as Facebook), which made us
follow and take advantage of their potential. This lead to the creation of CFM and Espaço F-FAUP
Facebook Pages.
Finally, we understood that it would be relevant to the pedagogical process to have an online
platform where a set photography, architecture and public space theoretical issues were to be
discussed by an extended group of people, coming from different disciplinary fields, allowing an
easy way to comment and discuss it’s contents. This lead to the creation of Espaço F-Faup Blog,
which used the Wordpress platform.
4.1.
Experience with the usage of third-party online platforms: Moodle,
Facebook and Wordpress
Moodle is the official e-learning platform of University of Porto. It is being used by us mainly as an
information repository, storing diverse kinds of multimedia resources such as Powerpoint and Flash
presentations about lectures; it is also being used for the upload and download of exercises and as
an official channel for public feedback on group work through its forum tool.
U. Porto’s Moodle has been, for several years now, unable to captivate the students (especially in
Arts and Architecture fields) for a closer communication involvement: it lacks appealing visualization
tools for graphical contents (such as video players and image galleries) capable of efficiently
answering the needs of these areas of study; it’s unable to handle large files, commonly used by
these fields; it has no automatic email notifications to the primary email used by the students; it’s
very limited on comments, annotations and synchronous/asynchronous communication; finally, its
visual environment is limited and non-appellative.
These limitations made us consider the use of the recently created 8 Facebook network, for it’s
simplicity, popularity, and because it was, as Moodle, free software. Therefore, our first experience
of Facebook in CFM was through a ‘Closed Group Forum’9, accessible only to teachers and students,
which was mainly used as a communication tool in CFM’s pedagogical experience in 2011/2012.
This strategy revealed itself as extremely positive. As a starting point we noticed that the intuitive
operators of the application, as well as its broad current use for socialization purposes, generated a
familiarity of the great majority of the students with the platform. It’s compatibility with almost all
kinds of media made it a powerful vehicle for synchronous and asynchronous communication.
CFM’s Facebook page allowed the publishing and disclosure of diverse media contents such as
images, videos, audio, both embedded and linked from other sources on the WWW (such as YouTube,
Vimeo, or Issuu) which allowed a graphical and image-based communication, more adequate to the
dynamics of teaching Photography and Art related courses.
Facebook allowed, among other things: effective commenting on teachers and students’ posts and
links, expressing satisfaction and asking or clarifying doubts on the course functioning; asking or
clarifying doubts on technical and artistic issues related to photography and architecture; sharing
links and contents related to the matter of classes; sharing of events related to photography, arts,
architecture and public space performances (enhancing a proficuous cultural background); sharing of
links to student’s own work looking for informal critical remarks; sharing of other diverse contents
that would nurture the relations between students and teachers.
Apart from some initial privacy concerns, students were added to CFM’s Facebook group at their own
initiative and the ones that didn’t want to expose themselves publicly used the private message tool
instead.
Together with this ‘Closed Group Forum’, CFM and Espaço F-FAUP used Facebook ‘Pages’10 to
disclosure to a broader audience the information uploaded and built on CCRE’s other online
platforms. Facebook proved, this way, to be an effective platform for sharing and revitalizing
content that was already published on other platforms.
Espaço F-FAUP blog11 was introduced to the students in the course’s first class and played two main
roles in CCRE’s pedagogical strategy for CFM. First, it provided a framework for theoretical
discussion by teachers, students and other guests on Photography, Communication and Public Space
questions, building up a continuous and upgraded range of studies and activities related to the use
of photography as a critical documentary tool and as a visual research instrument focused on the
city, architecture, art and technology. Second, it functioned as an information repository, providing
thematically structured links on Photography 12 and image and video galleries, embedded from
YouTube’s CCRE channel13 .
This Blog is managed by CCRE’s research team and has the contribution of a diverse number of
authors with different interests and scientific background, providing a frame for an updated
discussion on contemporary issues related to Photography, Architecture and Public Space. The blog
intended simultaneously to reach CFM students, as well as the public interested in these matters.
8 Facebook was officially released on February 2004.
9 https://www.facebook.com/groups/224329467628831/
10 https://www.facebook.com/espacoffaup and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?
id=100000609235408.
11 http://www.effaup.cityscopio.com/. It was created using the Wordpress blog framework which
provided us with a balance between a rapid development and some customization.
12 The themes consisted on Photography, Photographers, Photography Theory, Photography Blogs,
Photography Publications, and Architects that deal with Photography.
13 Also structured on themes related to: Territory|Landscape, Street Photography, Events, City|
Urban, Education, Documentaries, Photography Communication, CFM 2008-2009, Authors: Work and
Interviews, Art, Architecture, and Anthropology|Ethnography|Social Sciences.
4.2.
Online platforms developed by CCRE: didactic experiences and research
projects on architecture and public space
CCRE’s activities related to the teaching of photography always intended to be based on the
perception of urban space and its social, individual and physical components, as well as on the
production of a visual communication that is pertinent and appealing to several kinds of audience.
Apart from our teaching experiences, we acknowledged that there was a potential and a personal
interest from all of the CCRE team members to further develop our research on Photography,
Architecture, Public Space and Public Participation, which proved to be extremely positive.
As we will see, we intended to involve the students in our research in these areas of study. In fact,
the students were stimulated to join these external research initiatives and to make use of them as
examples for their academic photography projects. By adopting this strategy, students attained a
better personal and institutional relationship between the academic world and the ‘real’ world, as
well as inside knowledge of the research developed by CCRE and by other institutions to which CCRE
is related and works with14.
Some of these platforms also allowed the exchange of knowledge between students and nonstudents, which also allowed us to test different kinds of responses from different subjects while
opening the student community to the broad society.
4.2.1.
CCRE’s platform
CCRE’s platform15 was created to fulfill some of Moodle’s constraints in terms of graphical and visual
communication for photography projects, as well as to provide a public service by disseminating
academic works and other relevant projects on Architecture and Public Space towards a broader
audience.
CCRE’s Platform allowed students to complete a set of critical analysis and exercises focused on
photography that, because of class time limitations, would otherwise not have been possible to
achieve. This platform didn’t replace the traditional face-to-face interaction between teacher and
student and, on the contrary, helped to strengthen their relation and to achieve a higher visual
literacy, helping to integrate important theoretical layers in the course and to allow various online
individual and collaborative activities. We’ve explored several application supports, visualization
techniques, representation methods and interaction levels in order to communicate architecture, art
and public space and to simulate new design proposals.
The site can be divided into 4 main areas: ‘Home’, ‘Projects’, ‘Participation’ and ‘Archive’. The
‘Home’ is, as the name suggests, the homepage of the CCRE’s website (Fig.1).
This page has an important area called ‘Curators Space’ for publishing different types of visual
narratives. These narratives can be made up of any type of images (photography, video, animations,
digital montages and other more) and should be inspired or related to the city space and to how
people live and use them. It is here where different authors have their work published, and the
responsibility for choosing the authors to publish is of the curator who is invited to do this work for a
period of, at least, 6 months. The homepage has an animated footnote showing the recent news and
highlighting a certain event or information.
‘Projects’ is the heart of the site. Here we have extensively used animation for navigating,
structuring and interacting through the projects and some of the menus and operators (Fig.2). Each
communication project is linked to its own ‘Forum’ and these can be accessed individually in each
communication project or globally in another important main area of the site called ‘Participation’.
In fact, all these projects allowed for viewers, designers and authors to interact. This interaction –
with users analyzing the different views, models and representation methods of the proposed design
and posting their opinion on the website – was implemented through ‘Forum’ operators linked to
each project.
14 University of Porto; School of Architecture of Minho; ‘Juventude – Palácio das Artes’ Foundation;
Porto 2.0 – Cidade em Mudança; CityScopio Cultural Association; Guimarães 2012 European Capital of
Culture; etc.
15 http://web.ccre.arq.up.pt/
The ‘Metaproject’ application, inside ‘Projects’ main area, allows the creation of communication
projects with a layout structure close to a linear storyline, with contents ranging from images,
videos, vectorial drawings and flash animations, in an easy and intuitive manner.
Finally, the ‘Archive’ section is an information repository related to several areas of CCRE’s interest.
There we have ‘News’ (where it is possible to access all the news published daily in our web site);
‘Links’ (a collection of url addresses structured by a set of themes in headings and subheadings that
give access to a wide compilation of websites); ‘Publications’ (a collection of url addresses
structured by a set of themes in headings and subheadings that give access to a wide compilation of
articles related with CCRE, especially scientific reports, magazines articles, seminars, conference
presentations, and academic documents).
We believe that at least some of the projects presented in this site were able to achieve an effective
communication by exploring the interactive potential of the site and by carefully and sensibly using
digital representation of space and computer visualization techniques so that their potential would
not be undermined by dumbing down the design communication with excessive emphasis on imagery,
(Richens 1999; Futures 2004) which could actually impoverish design communication (Bourdakis
1997; Koutamanis 1997). Thus the projects presented on the site provide extensive information
about the design proposals program and activities and both realistic and abstract representations are
used to communicate its design (so that specialists and other people can both understand better
what is being proposed). The way these different representation methods and computer visualization
techniques are integrated allows users to perceive different viewpoints and aspects of the design
and to relate them in various ways, and for that a comprehensive online platform was needed. That
was the main reason for developing CCRE.
Figures 1 and 2 – CCRE’s ‘Home’ page and CCRE’s ‘Projects’ page, respectively.
4.2.2.
Porto Redux
CCRE was involved in the organization of Porto Redux “(re)habitar a cidade”. This activity proved to
be an example of how it was possible to create a public forum in the city. Several public
participation events that integrated seminars discussing the city, heritage and architecture themes
were held in an abandoned space. An architectural workshop was also organized for promoting new
design ideas for an important nineteen-century market. The majority of the attendees of these set
of events were FAUP students and for online communication we’ve used a blog platform at http://
portoredux.blogspot.com/.
4.2.3.
On the Surface: Public Space and Architectural Images in Debate
The International Seminar “On the Surface: Public Space and Architectural Images in Debate,”16 had,
as main objectives, the promotion of a global critical analysis of the relations between architectural
images and public imaginaries; to understand how different types of images build diverse
imaginaries: between fiction and documentary, reproduction and manipulation, or analog and
digital. The event comprised an interdisciplinary Congress and a Workshop that were two distinct but
important complementary events.
The majority of the attenders were architecture students from different schools and young
architecture practitioners that felt the urge to develop their knowledge on the Seminar themes.
The photography workshop was directed to architecture and fine arts students and originated an
itinerary exhibition that was exhibited at several important venues in Porto, reaching a relatively
large audience.
The second edition of the International Seminar "On the surface: Public Space and Architectural
Images in Debate" aims to continue the success of its first edition, which proved to be an important
forum for debate and reflection about public space and architectural images, and whose work can
be seen in Scopio Magazine17 and in the catalog that will be published in 2012. The current event
website can be seen at http://www.nasuperficie.ccre-online.com/.
Figures 3 and 4 – On the Surface: Public Space and Architectural Images in Debate website: first and
second editions, respectively.
16 http://nasuperficie.up.pt/. Several important speakers and known authors in the field of
photography and image representation for architecture and public space were present at this
International Seminar. Thus, we had the attendance of Beatriz Colomina (Princeton University's
School of Architecture, USA); Robert Elwall (Photographs Curator at the British Architectural Library,
UK); Filip Dujardin (Architectural photographer, Belgium); Christian Gaenshirt (Universität Kassel,
Germany), Juan Rodriguez (Architectural photographer, Spain); Carlos Machado (Architect – FAUP),
Daniel Malhão (Photographer), Diogo Seixa Lopes (Architect - FAUTL), Edgar Martins (Photographer),
Fernando José Pereira (Arts - FBAUP), Joaquim Moreno (Architect - Columbia University New York),
João Figueira (Architect - UTLFA), Júlio de Matos (Architect and Photographer), Luís Urbano
(Architect - FAUP), Manuel Graça Dias (Architect, Director of Architectural Journal, Portugal), Paulo
Catrica (Photographer), Pedro Gadanho (Architect - FAUP and MOMA curator), Ricardo Nicolau (Art
Critic, Commissioner of Photography Exhibitions’ for Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art), Sofia
Thenaisie (Architect), Susana Ventura (Architect), Vitor Silva (Arts - FAUP).
17 http://www.nasuperficie.ccre-online.com/
4.2.4.
Scopio Magazine
Scopio Magazine18 is an editorial project on Photography, Architecture and Public Space, sustained on
a partnership between our research group CCRE and Cityscopio Cultural Association19 , which
followed the realization of the On the Surface seminar. Scopio’s first issue had an addendum whose
focus was the outcome of the On the Surface Photography Workshop projects, demonstrating an
interrelation and complementarity between the development of photography projects and the will
to publish and disclosure the work of students and academia.
Scopio’s main interest is to publish visual narratives, texts or other related works coming from
several authors, in which photography is used as a research instrument, using both traditional and
digital online publishing platforms and websites.
This editorial project intends, with this strategy, to promote the awareness and reflection upon
photography image in regards to its conception as (a) an instrument to question the real space and
its experiences, (b) a support and technique for the mediatization and reception of architecture by a
wide public and (c) an instrument for exploring spatial forms and new architecture. The intent is to
present diverse visual narratives that convey a position, argument or story about a particular
architectural problem.
In Scopio‘s first issue we focused on the theme of Architecture, which means we were looking for
authors and works where the concept of architecture was explored on light, form, detail and on how
architecture was experienced through imagination and reality.
The second issue was entitled City and was dedicated to the subject of public space and city life,
trying to show works that characterized the rich multi-faceted world of several public spaces. One of
this issue’s purposes was to make known the richness inherent to the various public spaces so that
elements or features that might have been previously considered fragmentary, trivial, or that were
hidden, could gain a new visibility.
The third edition is called Territory and will be dedicated to the territory transformation in relation
with land art or large-scale landscape architecture, as well as to regional or local planning. The
concern is to think on how the transformation of natural landscape has a great potential to induce a
new balance between built space, nature and man. We present the works of authors in the area of
photographic image using different visual narratives where the transformation of the territory
explores the concepts of science versus art.
Besides the communication with Scopio’s editorial staff, the students had to study the magazine’s
contents and, working in groups, were asked to choose an author from Scopio Magazine issues #1 and
#2 and make a class presentation taking in account the author’s conceptual work and it’s main
artistic and technical supports, as well as the messages it was able to communicate to the general
public about the city’s objects (physical and conceptual) in focus. All this proved to be very
important because it was a good practical experience to get acquainted with a project that actually
sets in motion all the technical and conceptual procedures taught in CFM course.
Figures 5 and 6 – Cityscopio Cultural Association and Scopio Magazine websites, respectively.
18
http://www.scopiomagazine.com/
19
http://www.cityscopio.com/
4.2.5. Alternative
Routes in the Historic Centre of Porto
This project aimed to create on the WWW and to a wide audience a platform for the communication
of contents related to alternative areas and routes in the city, seeking to promote the critical
analysis and discussion about these places, often neglected or unknown, but also rich in terms of
experiences and forms of space appropriation.
Born from a collaboration between CCRE and Porto 2.0 - “Manobras no Porto"20 , the aim of this
project was to use the city of Porto as an excuse to bring people together, to fight stigma and blur
prejudice related to local people and the spaces they inhabit.
The project’s outcome was an online platform21 that hosted several projects from the work of three
groups that participated in “Manobras no Porto”: Porto Próximo, Com.Tacto, and Retornáveis22 – as
well as contents produced by CCRE itself (urban paths/visual narratives developed by students of
architecture and monitorization of the referred group’s work). Even now we consider this platform
as work-in-progress, and CCRE is studying a way to populate it with works coming from CFM classes.
The platform was built to answer three functional requirements which were considered relevant: i)
dissemination of images and videos of projects - 'gallery' module; ii) geo-referencing of content "map" module; and iii) integration with “Manobras no Porto”’s Facebook Page - "social" module.
This platform is open to receive new contents that can interest and bring a wider audience to it.
This was an important objective, right from the beginning of this project: to create a platform that
would continue to evolve over a time period after the formal end of the project. Thus, in order to
continue this project, we have to: i) provide the platform with a back-office in order to facilitate
introduction of contents (which currently can only be introduced through specific programming); and
ii) able to attract other groups – such as CFM students, as mentioned – to contribute with more
content to the platform helping, in this way, its disclosure, visibility and influence.
Taking into account the second point of the preceding paragraph, CCRE has already established a
partnership with the Photography Club of the Students Association in FAUP (Faculty of Architecture in
Porto University). This partnership has as aim the development of photographic projects that address
the Historical Centre of Porto. The partnership involves the construction of visual narratives through
photography that are more than the production of a sequence of imagetic singularities, exploring a
specific concept, clear and relevant to discussions on the nature of urban space and its potential
uses. We envisioned all this addressing the imagetic potential that is associated with photographic
images while trying to broaden our architectural and urban perspective by integrating people from
different study areas and academic backgrounds in this partnership. The conclusion of this work will
be accomplished until the end of 2012 and will be available online as soon as the authors and CCRE
agree that they are ready and capable of drawing the attention and interest of a diverse audience,
both academic and non-academic.
This project was a good experience to test the communication of visual information (photography
and video projects) structured as spots, paths and areas over a geo-referenced map.
Figures 7 and 8 – Navigation through projects (“map” and “social” modules) and Project Visualization
(“gallery” module), respectively.
20 “Manobras no Porto” is a program of action and collective construction that challenges ordinary
citizens and cultural agents to intervene in present and future condition of Porto Historical Core
through initiatives of urban creativity, which are intersected the popular and the erudite, the
traditional and the alternative, the ephemeral and the enduring. The result were dozens of informal
events scattered in time and space, with particular concentration in September 2011 and 2012 in
Porto historic centre. Info at http://manobrasnoporto.com/.
21 http://www.percursosalternativos.ccre-online.com/
22 “Porto Próximo” was a project conceived and coordinated by SPOT in partnership with Inês Alves,
Francisco Flórido and Renata Malta; “Com.Tacto” was a project coordinated by Eunice Azevedo e
Susana Milão and developed by the students Márcia Coelho, Liliana Pinto, David Silva, Cláudia
Oliveira, Joana Domingos and Myklail de Ceita; “Retornáveis” was a project developed by Chiara
Sonzogni.
Figures 7 and 8 – Navigation through projects (“map” and “social” modules) and Project Visualization
(“gallery” module), respectively.
4.2.6.
D.T.W. Photography – Rethinking | Questioning Urban Realities
D.T.W. Photography consisted on an event that accommodated debates, round tables and a
photography workshop about the historic centre of Porto.
In the context of this event we gave special importance to the exercise of rethinking and questioning
an area of the city with strong historical roots and identity, drawing attention to the potential of
photography as a tool for communication and representation of architecture and public space as well
as how the public perceives and appropriates these spaces.
It was intended to offer new perspectives about that historical place, looking for details and views
that may have given prominence to characteristics of the place that otherwise would not be
recognized. It was intended to go beyond the obvious, trying to communicate what was more subtle
or complex, taking into account the richness and variety of experiences that those places implied.
Once again, we aimed for the creation of visual narratives from several images – to represent the
photography project ideas through a set of photographs structured in various diptychs, leaflets, pans
or other compositions. The objective was that the ideas of each photo were reported using a
combination of unified images rather than the sum of a set of individual images and/or units.
The results of the workshop consisted in a number of visual narratives simultaneously describing
certain problems and characteristics of the spaces and making known new perspectives on public
space and the way people perceive and live it.
The problems which served as starting points for the study of the work area and its public spaces
were comprised among the topic of: i) urban art and architectural qualities of buildings and spaces;
ii) places and no degradation of the architectural heritage; iii) private and public space; iv)
anonymous architecture; v) experiences outside of touristic tours and distinct levels of socialization
and social interaction of the various public spaces, vi) social exclusion and poverty; vii) differences
in daily and night living of public spaces.
DTW Photography was very proficuous in terms of outcomes/outputs accessible to the general public
and specifically for students. First, the photographic projects gave rise to an exhibition that has
been displayed in different venues. Second, the debates and round tables proceedings, together
with the visual narrative projects, were published in a limited edition (available to participants) and
in a print on demand edition (http://br.blurb.com/books/2901810) available to the general public.
Third, the exhibition opening was the stage for a shared lecture with a geographer and a curator 23 at
FAUP on the subjects of D.T.W. Photography itself and on “Territory” – the subject of Scopio
Magazine’s third issue. Fourth, all the debates and round tables were recorded and the video
material is being edited in order to be released online across the platforms operated by CCRE,
expanding the range of accessibility to information. Fifth, it was created an online gallery (http://
www.realidadesurbanas.cityscopio.com/galeria/) to display the visual narratives. This online gallery
shows georeferenced visual narratives over an aerial map, allowing a geographical interpretation of
the diverse phenomena the authors envisioned to share through their work.
23 The Lecture speakers were Inês Moreira (curator) and Álvaro Domingues (geographer).
Figures 9 and 10 – DTW Gallery website: home page and project page, respectively.
5.
COMPARISON OF THE DIGITAL ONLINE PLATFORMS USED OR DEVELOPED BY
CCRE
By designing, implementing and testing the set of WWW platforms mentioned before we were able
to reach a series of conclusions regarding their performance, qualities and problems. This knowledge
is proving to be essential for us to maintain a critic and informed opinion towards the development
of our main R&D project at this point (DARC) which will be described in the next chapter.
In this chapter, we will draw our attention to a comparative analysis between: i) Moodle; ii)
Facebook; iii) Espaço F-FAUP Blog (Wordpress); iv) CCRE; v) Porto Redux (Blogspot); vi) On the
Surface; vii) Scopio Magazine; viii) Cityscopio; ix) Alternative Routes in the Historic Centre of Porto;
and x) D.T.W. Photography – Rethinking | Questioning Urban Realities.
Moodle is a dynamic content platform maintained and customized by University of Porto (GATIUP New Technologies in Education) for the majority of its faculties and courses. That is an extremely
positive fact since it provides the University with a common platform to share resources, that easily
becomes familiar to its users, either students or teachers, even if they change course or Faculty. By
being maintained by U. Porto, this also means that it’s regularly updated and upgraded – for
instance, the “Biography” module that was developed by GATIUP and the server reconfiguration that
they have done, as requested by CCRE, in order to allow larger file uploads by students, since large
files are commonly used by these creative courses. Moodle has proved to be a good platform for
structuring information for the student’s. Our students use Moodle to download tutorials, and
information about exercises or other informative documents, but don’t use it for interacting
between themselves or with teachers, unless that is asked during classes; Moodle’s forum operator
isn’t used mainly because student’s aren’t warned by email24 to responses they might have received,
forcing students to first access the forum to see if there are changes.
This brings us to the evaluation of Facebook. As a global and horizontal social network, Facebook
caused some privacy concerns to a few number of students. Acknowledging that, the use that we’ve
done of the social network was essentially considered a pedagogical experience which didn’t want to
replace but to complement Moodle. In fact, Moodle’s strength at structuring information is
Facebook’s weak point because of it’s linear flow of information, where newer information is
permanently added to the top of the list while older, and some times relevant information is left
behind; curiously, it’s this easiness of information flow that turned Facebook into an effective
platform for quick communication between students and teachers, also allowing an easy way to
insert rich multimedia content such as images, videos, links and sounds, being student’s own work or
other references. This means that a strategy of using both Moodle and Facebook proves to be an
effective solution to complement each platform’s weaknesses.
24 To their personal email. It is a fact that, despite being mandatory, student’s rarely access their
institutional email, and the vast majority of them don’t know that they can forward it to their
personal mail through their webmail application.
As for the blog platforms (Porto Redux and Espaço F-FAUP) they served different purposes: Porto
Redux was mainly produced to inform about the event and also to publish some critic information
about what was happening (what we’ve called a “REDUX Release”); for that purpose the standard
blog platform “Blogspot” (nowadays replaced by “Blogger”) was enough, providing us with the tools
to easily create and publish content. Espaço F-FAUP, on the contrary, used a customized wordpress
installation: this allowed us to customize both the appearance of the site but also its functionality
(we’ve added, for instance, a plugin that allows sharing the blog’s content to social networks). With
this we were trying to increase visibility of the site in order to obtain a greater interaction with its
visitors.
CCRE’s website was a research project developed with the intent to provide a rich and intuitive way
to allow publishing, critic, review and curatorship of photography projects, answering the specific
needs of art and architecture courses in terms of functionality, design, and easiness of use. In that
terms we may say that it was a complete success and has contributed with significant knowledge to
our ongoing research project DARC. However, it’s active use has stopped in 2009 because of an
incompatibility between the platform and the latest developments in server’s software. A solution
for the problem is currently being searched for. This has made us realize that these powerful and
dynamic platforms require a great effort in terms of maintenance, as GATIUP is doing with Moodle.
The last of these dynamic applications is Cityscopio’s website, which was done using Joomla’s
content management system; this decision was taken to provide the website with a set of features
that would have been otherwise difficult to implement at that time: integration with social
networks, a translation and real-time search module, and a back-office for editing contents or
accessing private documents. This was done to provide the association members with the capability
of editing the site themselves, although some training would still be needed. This is the biggest
advantage of having a back-office or a direct way to edit information from a platform’s frontend,
which was the common quality of all the platforms that we’ve compared so far.
The last applications – Scopio Magazine, Alternative Routes in the Historic Centre of Porto, and
D.T.W. Photography – Rethinking | Questioning Urban Realities – were developed without a backoffice. This has proved to be limited in terms of updates, since it means that only users with
programming skills can make changes to the sites. This was considered not so limiting in Scopio
Magazine and on D.T.W. Photography – Rethinking | Questioning Urban Realities websites since they
were created with, essentially, informative purposes. However, in the case of Alternative Routes in
the Historic Centre of Porto, this has limited the application’s usability. It would be more adequate
that users could directly interact with the application adding new projects, markers on the map and
image galleries.
The overall balance of using and developing these applications has proven to be very positive since it
allowed us to become aware of the qualities and problems that all these applications have showed
over time. This knowledge is therefore being applied to our R&DT project DARC, which we will
describe in the next chapter.
6.
DARC – DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE REPRESENTATION AND COMMUNICATION
DARC is a research project on communication of architecture, public space and cultural activities,
that is currently under development and that has been taking in account CFM pedagogical
experience, CCRE’s research activities and the evaluation of its WWW platforms, as it was seen in
the previous chapter.
Taking in account all the research and teaching activities, set together with our proficiency in taking
advantage of new technologies such as online communication and information maneuverability,
much of which consisting in images, CCRE started a joint venture with other three partners to
develop an online collaborative platform.
DARC – Digital Architecture Representation and Communication – is therefore the expected product
of a R&DT and co-promotion project with an important financial support from QREN (http://
www.qren.pt/). Up to now, DARC is the result of a partnership between: i) Ponto PR, the
international E-marketing, software and web design company and leader of the group, with people
linked to research in these areas and having already won several financial programs and prizes; ii)
João Castro Ferreira, Ltd., the architecture, planning and urban design firm engaged in fields such
as housing, urban design and wider urban studies, with people linked to a research program for
obtaining a PhD in FAUP focused on public space transformation of the city of Porto; iii) Né S. Design
- Unipessoal, Lda, the design professional responsible for DARC’s corporative image; iv) Faculty of
Architecture of University of Porto and its R&D unit CCRE; and v) University of Porto, the home
institution where FAUP is integrated.
In brief, we can say that this R&DT project will develop software for the following markets: a) arts,
heritage and architectural communication for city tourism; b) collaborative teamwork for
architecture and engineering design projects; c) architectural competitions; and d) E-Learning
platform for collaborative design projects in arts, architecture and engineering courses.
The objective is to offer the knowhow and instruments capable of fulfilling the needs of these
markets, which means being able to provide them with a set of interactive computer applications on
the Internet to allow structuring, representing, and promoting architecture, city spaces and designs.
It also means offering a platform focused on collaborative design projects for E-Learning and for
teamwork in professional architectural and engineering offices. It is expected to create software to
allow the use of different types of image, sound and spatial/architectural models that can be
interrelated in several ways and linked to alphanumeric data.
From these markets, one is of particular importance to this paper: arts, heritage and architectural
communication for city tourism. “City Spaces|Culture” will be DARC’s dedicated module towards
this particular market, a module that reflects all the info we have acquired and research we have
done in the particular projects that we’ve been mentioning in this paper.
6.1.1.
DARC City Spaces|Culture
DARC City Spaces|Culture module is specifically directed towards the communication of content
related to cultural tourism in cities and its architectural heritage, identity and historical places like
museums and cultural venues. The module will be characterized by the possibility to offer significant
levels of interaction and easiness of use, allowing the introduction of diverse types of data for the
promotion and disclosure of city spaces, as well as different levels of interaction with the stored
information.
The aim of DARC City Spaces|Culture is to create an interactive application to use in the Internet to
help preserve the cultural identity of public spaces and bring the architecture of its many buildings
into the realm of public culture, using several computer visualization capacities provided by this
medium.
These spaces can be situated in different types of urban areas and not just in the historical zones:
this means creating an open and interactive platform focused on the use of image and sound,
different visualization and representation techniques and interactive digital models to communicate
more effectively the buildings, public spaces and ambiences of the city, historical zones and other
significant areas from any region or urban setting. We intend to allow people to visit those places
through virtual walkthroughs and make them explore these virtual models where diverse
representation methods, images and sounds are used together. This will allow strengthening the
social and cultural experience of people through the use of DARC in the Internet and in other
supports.
DARC City Spaces|Culture is imagined to serve as a platform for the communication of both
academic works and official/institutional contents about architecture, public spaces and cultural
events. This is expected to help educational and research institutions to reach the wider society and
its professionals, particularly those interested in the communication of space and it’s social dynamic
s: architects, engineers, geographers, photographers, film-makers, sociologists, etc. However, it will
not be required for someone to be part of these professional groups to interact with DARC’s
platform: wide public participation is welcomed as they can provide a different look at the city
spaces – a look deeply influenced by their real-life and everyday experience of the place, something
that professionals generally can’t provide. By combining (but not merging) these two kinds of
content – institutional and public – we will be able to give a more complete look of the territories
depicted in the platform. Users will, however, be able to filter these contents, choosing to see all
content or just the accredited ones.
In DARC City Spaces|Culture three kinds of content are expected to be created by its users: an
object (either architectonic, such as a building, of urban, such as a square), a path, or an event.
This content is expected to be displayed over a geo-referenced map (such as Google Maps or Bing
Maps) to make it more clear and structured, and tools for online collaboration shall be present,
allowing projects to be created by several users. We also expect to integrate DARC with social
networks such as Facebook, Google+, etc. in order to reach a wider audience and help to promote
DARC on the Internet.
Through an indirect pedagogy this DARC module is intended to boost a better city and urban space
knowledge for its inhabitants, enhancing their conscious intervention in urban policies and
characterization of the spaces they inhabit, while simultaneously assisting the promotion of more
democratic and inclusive cultural policies.
7.
MAIN CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we focused on how our teaching experience on CFM was extended throughout several
different research projects and didactic events on architecture, public space and the way these
were lived, and how that knowledge evolved and is being translated to the ongoing R&D project
DARC, particularly DARC’s City Spaces|Culture module.
Thus, the envisioned set of visualization and collaborative work operators of DARC City Spaces|
Culture are not only a result of significant literature review about these types of platforms, but also
coming from the informed knowledge of all the projects, experiences, activities and pedagogical
experience described in this paper, helping in this way to strengthen the proposed DARC software.
As described, a blended teaching experience in CFM Course lead to several didactic experiences and
research projects, interrelating some of the results obtained with the R&D research project DARC,
and all this makes it an ongoing research work. This means that we will be always exploring and
testing diverse platforms and communication strategies for upgrading our platforms, communication
strategies and the DARC software itself. Nevertheless, in a very near future, we will have a
prototype of the software in order to test, refine and debug. The positive experience already
obtained in terms of supporting a set of teaching courses with diverse collaborative platforms, on
communicating photography, art and design and on supporting public participation events, gives us
reasons to believe in the potential of the future DARC software as a platform for effectively support
the following areas and activities: participatory design of public space; design that interacts and
changes peoples’ attitudes towards public space; participatory platforms in Internet as active
mediums for achieving more social responsibility and the inclusion of more citizens in the planning
and design process.
It can be said that the positive results coming from the event of Porto Redux ou (re)habitar a cidade,
with its seminars and workshop, as well as the seminar On the Surface: Public Space and
Architecture Images in Debate, Alternative Routes, D.T.W. and Scopio editorial project proved that it
is possible to perceive, discuss, communicate and acknowledge the city with its important symbolic
and architectonic characteristics in innovative ways. All these activities have been empowered by
the use of diverse collaborative platforms and social networks, as was described in this paper.
A general evaluation on the didactic experiences and research projects described in this paper
allows us to consider them as fructuous experiences on assessing urban realities and visual
communication theories. This ensemble of research projects is important in the teaching experience
because they provide a practical intervention, a contact with reality not restricted by academic
constrains. These projects keep our team up to date with contemporary architecture and public
space constrains, state and eventualities as well as able to inspect and verify the validity of
theoretical issues regarding public space and the way it’s lived. With this provision of awareness we
find it easier to better direct students to study and investigate problems and situations that actually
need a contemporary answer or explanation.
As was seen, all the research projects mentioned in this paper were fundamental to assess the
possibilities and limits of our pedagogic/didactic philosophy and research, as well as triggering new
ways of communicating and sharing substantial information to students and especially to the general
public. In fact, a blended approach between geo-referenced information (focused on visual literacy –
image and video), social networks (such as Facebook) that allow broad visual communication
(embedded or linked), together with institutional and public participation (content creation and
sharing) was the next step for CCRE’s research – the DARC project. This plan envisioned DARC as a
kind of virtual agora: an assembly place; ‘another’ centre for social, cultural, political and artistic
life of the city.
In the near future, we propose that DARC software, especially its City Spaces|Culture module, may
be used for all the activities and research described in this paper, improving their performance
because of its communication and visualization operators, informed by all this experience and
research. As was already explained, an extended documentation on DARC, including City Spaces|
Culture and Architecture and Arts Education (DARC’s module more related to learning) already exists
on other scientific documents, papers and reports.
8.
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