Project library coordinated by Jean-Pierre Chupin

with the contribution of the research members : Anne Cormier + Bechara Helal + Olivier Vallerand + Carly Ziter + Carmela Cucuzzella + Izabel Amaral + Ipek Türeli + Thomas-Bernard Kenniff + Virginie Lasalle + Ursula Eicker + Stephan Kowal + Samia Henni + Christina Contadriopoulos

and the contribution of the PhD students : Yolene Handabaka Ames + Cyrille Jérôme Tchango Ngamaleu + Shantanu Biswas Linkon + Paloma Castonguay-Rufino + Théo Pagé-Robert + Lucas Ouellet + Joëlle Tétrault + Marc-Antoine Fournier + Andy Nguyen + Lucie Palombi + Mandana Bafghinia + Alexandra Paré + Anna Torres + Adrienne Costa + Cheryl Gladu + Alessandra Mariani + Marie-Saskia Monsaingeon + Juliane Alexandre Colmado

The digital library for architecture, urbanism, design and landscape architecture projects designed in the context of competition in Canada designed and updated by Université de Montréal Research Chair on Competitions and Contemporary Practices in Architecture (Jean-Pierre Chupin).

Title of Project :
Cartographie théorique des enjeux et stratégies durables dans les concours canadiens de design pour l’espace public (2003-2011)

Grant Organization :
Fonds Quebecois de recherche société et culture

Project leader :
Carmela Cucuzzella

Research Abstract:

In 1998, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) introduced Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). In 2003, this environmental standard was launched in Canada by the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC). Since then, architectural projects and in particular, architectural competitions in Canada have increasingly adopted this standard to address sustainability. However, as this standard only focuses on the environmental pillar of sustainability, the question that arises is: how have architects and planners dealt with the other pillars of sustainability in their projects? More specifically: how have the questions and strategies regarding sustainability evolved since 2003 in Canadian architectural competitions – in the competition brief, in the proposals by the competing architects and in the way these projects are finally judged in order to select the winning project? The objective of this research is to chart out these developing questions, concerns and strategies by constructing a map (cartography) and categorizing these within the four sustainability pillars (culture, social, environmental and economic) for the period of 2003-2011. This mapping will provide a first perspective of how public planners, architects and the jurors of public design competitions address the sustainability concerns in Canada. The pertinence of this research is that the results may help improve the way in which the sustainability issues are addressed in upcoming Canadian design projects for planning public space through this mapping – a mapping which provides an understanding of the current direction.

While many architectural historians work in campus settings, and despite the campus being a verdant site for architectural experimentation for architects, campuses have attracted relatively little attention in architectural history writing. Paul Turner argues that the campus is “an American planning tradition”: He explains, “campus sums up the distinctive physical qualities of the American college” (Turner, p. 4). Though it may have originally been intended for the socialization of white American men, Stefan Muthesius shows how the typology became transnational in the post-war educational building boom of the United States, England, Canada, West Germany, and France. Earlier, colleges abroad with missionary roots (Bogazici in Turkey, AUB in Lebanon, AUC in Egypt, Dōshisha University in Japan, EWHA in Korea, Ginling in China, etc) translated the campus typology into non-Western contexts as part of their founders’ attempts to influence local populations, a form of “soft power.” Recent outsourcing of metropolitan universities’ brands in the Global South, in the Gulf States, in Singapore, China, etc., has once again lead to the creation of new campuses as well as heated debates on the implications and impact of such satellite campuses on home bases in North America and Europe.

Spaces of education are examples of Foucault’s “swarming institutions.” Organized education was never intended to “liberate” society. It was always for pragmatic concerns, e.g. for disciplining society, inculcating ideology (e.g. religion, nation states, imperialistic agendas) or maintaining social, racial and class distinction. Today, commercial interests seem to steer the planning and design of knowledge institutions; from the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain to new American campuses and museums in the Gulf States or in Singapore (Yale) and China (Liverpool). Whatever their initial motivations may be, contemporary institutions of transcultural learning can never be simply transplants of foreign formal attitudes or vehicles of imposed ideology, or “outposts of empire.” They are also constituted by locally driven change, and, as such, act as independent cultural agents that work transnationally.

What kind of pedagogical models does the design of campuses suggest and promote? How do campuses work as part of larger networks of knowledge institutions? What do we know about the campus typology as it has been translated globally? Crucially at this time of globalization and digital distant learning, are universities developing self-conscious spatial models that align with their pedagogical missions? How does campus design impact architecture and cities beyond the physical limits of the campus?

This research examines the relationship between pedagogy and spatial imagination in campus landscapes.

2 projects :

• Spatializing the Missionary Encounter funded by the SSHRC 2013-2017.
• Building Architectural Networks: American Missionary Schools in the Eastern Mediterranean funded by the FQRSC 2013-2018.

Ipek Tureli, Jean-Pierre Chupin et Carmella Cucuzzella
recherche subventionnée par le Conseil de Recherche en Sciences Humaines du Canada et le Fond Québecois de Recherche en Science Sociales 2013-2018