Approaching Architecture: Three Fields, One Discipline

The study of the architectural discipline suffers from an increasing disconnect between its teaching and its professional practice. In this edited collection, 18 architectural voices address this disconnect by reflecting on the ways in which they exercise the architectural discipline in three ways: research, teaching, and practice. This book argues that the totality of activities encompassed by the architectural profession can be best fulfilled when reconsidering the critical interactions between these three fields in the everyday exercise of the profession.

Split into three parts, "Architecture as Research," Architecture as Pedagogy," and "Architecture as Practice," each section focuses on one of these three dimensions while establishing continuity with the other two. In doing so, the book not only favors a more fulfilling interaction between academia and the profession but also reinforces the implementation of design theory and research in everyday teaching and practice. The contributions come from 18 teams of architects operating from geographically diverse locations, including Pezo von Ellrichshausen in Chile, Kengo Kuma & Associates in Japan, Barclay & Crousse in Peru, Shift in Iran, Heinrich Wolff in South Africa, and People’s Architecture Office in China, opening the design conversation to larger contexts and framing continuity and inclusion in time.

Written for students, instructors, and practitioners alike, the inspiring reflections in this volume encourage readers to grow as architects and play an instrumental role in transforming the built environment.

Miguel Guitart is an architect, author, and academic. Guitart is Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture at the University at Buffalo-SUNY, Buffalo, New York. Guitart obtained his PhD in Architecture from ETSAM, Polytechnic University of Madrid, and his Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University as a J. W. Fulbright Scholar. His research focuses on the experiential intersections between matter, perception, and memory. Guitart has been awarded by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), the Architecture + Design Program at the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA), and the UB Humanities Institute as a Faculty Fellow. He is the author of Behind Architectural Filters: Phenomena of Interference (Routledge, 2022).