Project as one argument

Project as one argument is a pedagogical and didactical experiment that focus on providing better tools for the architecture student in order to navigate and focus on their projects, through exercises with argumentation models (primarily Toulmin).

Working, studying and teaching in the larger scales of architecture (urban design, landscape architecture, landscape and urban planning) requires a great overview in order to frame, focus and conduct a strategic reaction or a design proposal. In large scale projects an array of parameters creates a high degree of complexity to be taken into account in the project and to be utilized as generative aspects. The learning – and teaching challenge occurs when the students move from the analytical or mapping phase into the synthesis of proposal phase. The challenge derives from prioritizing elements in the analysis in the process of establishing an overview and hierarchy between the findings from the analysis.
The paper presents the design and results of a didactic experiment, in the form of workshop that included exercises that asked the students to apply Toulmin´s model for constructing a valid argument and invited the students to consider their research and design process as parts of one overarching argument for the design proposal.

The workshop aims to establish a meta-awareness of the role of the different parts of the project and how they are utilized in development of the main argument. The results of the workshop; student posters and the evaluation of the learning outcome by the participating students show that the exercise contributed to an improved overview, and thereby empowered the students to work with a greater degree of autonomy. Furthermore, it was a good didactical tool to open up for process discussions in plenary.