EVALUATING THE ROLE OF PINTEREST IN EDUCATION AND THE PROFESSION OF INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

The number of social media platforms that influence interior architects are increasing and Pinterest is one of these instruments. Parallel to the increased use of Pinterest among designers and students, there is concern about pros and cons of this platform for education and profession of interior architecture. This study aimed to understand if interior architecture instructors, students and professional are engaged with Pinterest and how they evaluate the role of this platform for the profession and education of interior architecture. Accordingly, this study offers a theoretical framework that would underline the opportunities and threats of using Pinterest as a designer. In this scope, data was collected from 225 students, 30 instructors and 50 interior architects. Comparing the findings showed that while most of the students and instructors find Pinterest useful for education of interior architecture, the number of interior architects who believed Pinterest presented disadvantages for the profession of interior architecture were higher that those who found Pinterest useful. Results claim that educating both students and instructors about the dynamic role of the social media in transferring the teaching materials, collaborative learning and efficient academic interaction could enhance the integration of online media development and education. Findings from this study contribute to the existing literature on the role of social media on design-oriented education and professions. Keywords: Pinterest, interior architecture education, interior architecture profession, design, research

Don't Poo-Poo the Toilet: Architectural Contributions to Human Waste

<p>Eliminating waste is a natural bodily function, common to all, yet its protocols are evidence of a strange discomfort in society. This thesis investigates the ways in which this discomfort manifests in the architecture of the toilet, suggesting in the process that the toilet is space that is more significant than the architecture profession might acknowledge. A toilet and its accompanying infrastructure are not typically considered architecture. While a necessary feature of a building, a typical toilet must be discrete, private, with an emphasis on functionality; any particular design flair - unless it is of service to concealment - is considered unusual. Such architectural tendencies cannot be separated from attitudes to excrement, which is generally considered disgusting, worthless or dangerous. These negative attitudes are not strictly scientific or rational in their foundation ; instead, attitudes to excrement and the toilet are culture and context specific. Accordingly, the architecture of the toilet in the West is neither inherently 'correct', nor 'desirable'- rather, it is the product of specifically Western perceptions of waste, which are shrouded in negativity. In this light, this thesis argues that the architecture of the toilet should not be viewed as an unquestionable norm. Instead, the profession should be considering its responsibility to interrogate the place of waste in our society. Don't poo-poo the toilet: architectural contributions to human waste reveals that the toilet is an architectural manifestation of broader societal attitudes towards what is considered dirty. The toilet unifies all of human kind at a common, base level, and yet it reveals much about how the human world is divided into categories of clean and dirty, proper and improper, good and bad. This thesis thus offers a lens for viewing the world we live in, through the dirt of this architecturally neglected space.</p>

Don't Poo-Poo the Toilet: Architectural Contributions to Human Waste

<p>Eliminating waste is a natural bodily function, common to all, yet its protocols are evidence of a strange discomfort in society. This thesis investigates the ways in which this discomfort manifests in the architecture of the toilet, suggesting in the process that the toilet is space that is more significant than the architecture profession might acknowledge. A toilet and its accompanying infrastructure are not typically considered architecture. While a necessary feature of a building, a typical toilet must be discrete, private, with an emphasis on functionality; any particular design flair - unless it is of service to concealment - is considered unusual. Such architectural tendencies cannot be separated from attitudes to excrement, which is generally considered disgusting, worthless or dangerous. These negative attitudes are not strictly scientific or rational in their foundation ; instead, attitudes to excrement and the toilet are culture and context specific. Accordingly, the architecture of the toilet in the West is neither inherently 'correct', nor 'desirable'- rather, it is the product of specifically Western perceptions of waste, which are shrouded in negativity. In this light, this thesis argues that the architecture of the toilet should not be viewed as an unquestionable norm. Instead, the profession should be considering its responsibility to interrogate the place of waste in our society. Don't poo-poo the toilet: architectural contributions to human waste reveals that the toilet is an architectural manifestation of broader societal attitudes towards what is considered dirty. The toilet unifies all of human kind at a common, base level, and yet it reveals much about how the human world is divided into categories of clean and dirty, proper and improper, good and bad. This thesis thus offers a lens for viewing the world we live in, through the dirt of this architecturally neglected space.</p>

Modernity in the wilderness? Architects’ role in developing rural Hungary, 1930–1960

The aim of this article is to survey a longer period in Hungarian architecture starting from around 1930 and into the 1960s in order to investigate how subsequent generations of modern architects related to the social and housing problems of the countryside. It is widely held that although social sensitivity was a dominant feature of the modernist agenda, it was limited to an urban context, with little regard for rural areas unfamiliar to the movement’s leading proponents. Since the most radical and best-organized group of Hungarian architects was a section of the international organization Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, their theoretical work was largely guided by the group’s centre in Zürich. This article traces some of the visions that were set against these ‘imported ideas’ and the extent to which these visions could be realized under the Horthy regime, which was at the time gradually moving towards the far-right. Furthermore, it maps the process that led to the confrontation between modernists and regionalists in the early 1940s. It also shows how the bipolar discourse revolving around social modernization was resolved by the democratic transformations of 1945, which set the stage for temporary cooperation between rivalling factions and led to architects reaching an understanding with reconstruction in mind. However, the hope for a strong and independent farming class and long-term development and planning policies backed by peasant parties was dashed by the communist breakthrough in 1948 As a result, the issue of rural housing would be raised anew only in the 1960s, when the Kádár regime made concessions to the collectivized peasantry. In the final section of this article, I will discuss why both the functionalist modern and regionalist models offered by architects failed. The family house type, which had been spontaneously developed by ‘self-help building’ and was condemned by the architecture profession in a new debate of the 1960s, cannot be explained by mere ideological or cultural discrepancies but through a profound socio-psychological analysis.

Women Architects on the Road to an Egalitarian Profession—The Portuguese and Spanish Cases

The 1970s was a key decade in the path towards democracy in the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal and Spain suffered deep social, cultural and political changes, with Salazar’s and Franco’s Totalitarian Regimes ending in 1974 and 1975 respectively. In both countries, located side-by-side in the Western end of Southern Europe, democracy was finally established, marking a turning point in the liberties of all Iberian citizens, but especially in regard to women’s life and work. As the Editorial of the Special Issue ‘Becoming a Gender Equity Democracy: Women and Architecture Practice in Spain and Portugal’, this text aims to briefly present this panorama to appreciate the particularities of Portugal and Spain in relation with the delay incorporation of women to the architecture profession. It explains the gender stereotypes of Salazar’s and Franco’s Regime in order to understand the discrimination against women that they produced and how it maintained women far from the architecture profession. Therefore, it provides useful data on the incorporation of women into architectural studies in order to understand the feminization of this gendered profession in both countries. This Special Issue aims to create an opportunity for researchers and scholars to present discussions and ongoing research on how democracy affected women that wanted to practice architecture as well as architectural analysis of women architects.

Childhood homes of interior architects in Turkey

The design of home interiors is important for an individual, especially in childhood, when one’s character and psychological development is in progress. In this study, the aim is to explore the social and physical aspects of childhood homes of interior architects and their effects on their professional lives, and to understand the possible reflections of these special places on their current designs. Within this framework, the study was conducted with eight internationally recognised Turkish interior architects, with online interviews and sketchbooks, depending on the memories of the participants’ childhood homes, and data were obtained regarding the interpretation of these special places, as well as their influence on their current design approaches and productions. Findings included understanding which aspects of the participants’ homes were conveyed to their current productions in terms of preferences, approach and style. The results have implications on the interior architecture profession as well as interior architecture education. Keywords: Childhood home environment, Turkish interior architects.

Filling History, Consolidating the Origins. The First Female Architects of the Barcelona School of Architecture (1964–1975)

After Francisco Franco’s death, the process of democratisation of public institutions was a key factor in the evolution of the architectural profession in Spain. The approval of the creation of neighbourhood associations, the first municipal governments, and the modernisation of Spanish universities are some examples of this. Moreover, feminist and environmental activism from some parts of Spanish society was relevant for socio-political change that affected women in particular. The last decade of Franco’s Regime coincided with the first generation of women that graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB). From 1964 to 1975, 73 female students graduated as architects—the first one was Margarita Brender Rubira (1919–2000) who validated her degree obtained in Romania in 1962. Some of these women became pioneers in different fields of the architectural profession, such as Roser Amador in architectural design, Alrun Jimeno in building technologies, Anna Bofill in urban design and planning, Rosa Barba in landscape architecture or Pascuala Campos in architectural design, and teaching with gender perspective. This article presents the contributions of these women to the architecture profession in relation to these socio-political advances. It also seeks—through the life stories, personal experiences, and personal visions on professional practice—to highlight those ‘other stories’ that have been left out of the hegemonic historiography of Spanish architecture.

Besides Zaha or Adenowo: Investigating the Visibility Status of Female Architects as Role Models for Students of Architecture

Recent glimpses and revelations from the education and practice of architectural profession suggested that the visibility status of Female Architects as role models for students under tutelage is still hazy [1]. Highly worthy of note is that increasing numbers of female students are enrolled into architecture programs on a yearly basis but when juxtaposed with the high rate of attrition recorded at the point of exit from Nigerian universities, it significantly varies. As stated by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations, the fifth objective is to ensure the attainment of gender equality among people in the societies of the world [2]. This paper investigated and reported the findings of a study on the visibility status of female architects as role models for architecture students. Using a sample of 378 (101 females and 277 males) students drawn from 3 private universities in South-west Nigeria, a survey was carried out to find out how visible female architects were as role models to students of architecture. The data were analysed using univariate analysis like proportions and percentages and results were presented in tables. Findings indicated that only 2 female architects popularised by media were cited as role models by more than half of the respondents indicating poor or hazy visibility of other successful women in the field. This paper recommended that pragmatic steps should be taken by stakeholders of the architecture profession at different levels using the more effective visibility windows of media to showcase the high-stake achievements and personalities of successful female architects as role models to inspire both the female architects in practice and same categories under tutelage.

Teaching history for design at TU Delft: exploring types of student learning and perceived relevance of history for the architecture profession

Historical investigation anchors architectural and urban practice. Analyzing two sets of questionnaires distributed in different class settings, this paper explores two questions: how do design students currently learn about architectural history, and how do they translate this knowledge into their design practice? First, tentative conclusions are that (1) physical engagement with buildings outside the classroom is an important inspiration for the students, (2) (assigned) books definitely influence their (design) thinking, (3) different types of pedagogy–lecture, seminar, thesis, studio–affect student learning in different and complementary ways, and (4) students overwhelmingly see history as a relevant preparation and foundation for design, but this understanding is implicit and often unspecific.