Knowledge spaces in architecture and urbanism – a preliminary five-year chronicle

Abstract

PurposeCommemorating the 15th year anniversary of discourse, knowledge dissemination in architecture and urbanism through the contributions published in Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, since March 2007, this article aims to capture, unpack and categorize the key content of published research outputs during the last five years into knowledge spaces.Design/methodology/approachWhile referring to key statistics of various recognized databases in order to highlight the journal growth, development and performance, the approach to the analysis is inspired by Crysler's Writing Spaces: Discourses of Architecture, Urbanism and the Built Environment. This is established through a preliminary conceptual content analysis that enables the development of specific content categories representing knowledge spaces based on the overall contributions to the journal since its inception in 2007 and then mapping the recent contributions, developed over the past five years (2017–2021), to these knowledge spaces. The thrust of the analysis is to instigate a structured understanding of Archnet-IJAR role in the development and dissemination of knowledge in architecture and urbanism.FindingsThe examination of the content and the analysis reveal two broad categories of knowledge spaces: established and evolving. Established knowledge spaces are recognized in terms of theorizing architectural and urban production; the public realm and assessment of designed environments; housing, the informal and the vernacular; urban heritage and historic environments; and architectural and urban politics. Evolving knowledge spaces were acknowledged in terms of architectural education and design pedagogy; collaborative planning and community design; architectural and urban sustainability and resilience; health, wellbeing and engaging with nature; and COVID-19 spatial and pedagogical implications. Characterized by clear definition and at the same time transparent borders, the identified knowledge spaces have the potential of generating further possibilities for future knowledge spaces.Research limitations/implicationsIn addition to a holistic analysis based on the scrutiny of contributions as they progressed from submissions to reviews to publishing, future work would involve more systematization, in-depth engagement with metadata and should benefit from IT applications and data mining software packages.Practical implicationsThis article is regarded as a cognizance platform and an enabling mechanism for researchers and future contributors to identify the unique particularities of their research, the nature of the content they aim to develop and the way in which that content may contribute to one or more knowledge spaces.Originality/valueEstablishing an understanding of the knowledge spaces which represent contributions published in Archnet-IJAR, the knowledge spaces identified demonstrate diversity and plurality; diversity in ontological interpretations of the nature of reality and plurality and pluri-epistemology in terms of how methods are pursued and the way in which such interpretations are developed, recorded, documented and communicated. These are knowledge spaces of possibilities and anticipation of growth, evolution and development.

Applying active learning method to improve teaching outcomes in architectural engineering courses

“…Particularly, it pairs Musa's research (2020), which aims to give students in the same architectural engineering program, as well as other architectural programs, the capacity to improve their learning experiences through active involvement in studio juries. It advances the discussion of the significance of active learning techniques in architectural pedagogy that have recently been highlighted in major review papers, such as that of Salama (2022).…”

“…Maziar and Imani (2018), for instance, explored the impact of the active strategic teaching model (ASTM) on the innovative and critical thinking skills of architectural students. In a comprehensive survey of a chronicle of publications in the leading Archnet-International Journal of Architectural Research , Salama (2022) delivered a helpful and valuable overview of the most recent discussion and debate in the past five years on active teaching and learning in architectural and urban knowledge spaces. A summary table of the passive and active teaching/learning methods mentioned in the literature review of this article appears in Table 1.…”

Embedding sustainability and SDGs in architectural and planning education: reflections from a KAP survey, Egypt

“…Concurrently, the contemporary movements of New Urbanism and New Classical Architecture advocate a sustainable approach to construction that values and cultivates smart growth, architectural tradition and classical design (CNU, 2015;Traditional ARCH 17,3 Architecture, 2020). It contrasts modernist and globally uniform architecture, individual housing estates and suburban sprawl (Salama, 2018(Salama, , 2022Fitz et al, 2019).…”

Sustainable Development Goals and the future of architectural education – cultivating SDGs-centred architectural pedagogies

“…In a recent article published in Archnet-IJAR , the evolving knowledge spaces were articulated to demonstrate the growth of a number of thematic areas. Among these were two areas relevant to the scope of this paper: (1) the knowledge space of architectural education and design pedagogy and (2) the knowledge space of architectural and urban sustainability and resilience (Salama, 2022). An outline of these two knowledge areas, and the way in which they have been articulated in Archnet-IJAR , is important for contextualisation purposes.…”

“…The architectural and urban sustainability and resilience knowledge is a wide-ranging knowledge space with significant contributions. These are either exclusively focused on aspects relevant to this knowledge space directly or situated within other knowledge spaces with key elements relevant to sustainability or resilience (Salama, 2022). This has expanded over recent years with in-depth research approaches that address context specificities.…”