Embedded participation in the architectural curriculum towards engendering urban citizenship in graduates

Abstract

Instilling ethical development and a regard for the production of urban space through vertical and horizontal curriculum participation may equip architectural graduates with the capacity to engage with the complexity and temporal fluidity of urban citizenship. Creative outputs of four academic year groups in an Architecture department who engaged with a particular township community in South Africa were considered in terms of Perry’s Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development and how this relates to Lefebvre’s notion of lived space. The students’ levels of engagement and recognition of the complexity of social structures were reflected in the levels of ethical development presented in the models used. In this paper we argue that it is necessary to distribute curricular participation vertically throughout the curriculum to ensure that students are able to transcend from one level to the following in order to resolve the complexities they are confronted with in the spatial and ontological challenges inscribed within urban citizenship.