The Model for Architectural Design Education (MADE) – an objective-orientated combination of theory and practice

The Model for Architectural Design Education (MADE) deals with the design of buildings. It was developed at the University of Essen. The discussion of MADE presented here is intended to assist teachers in optimising their teaching methods and make learning easier for students. The didactic goals are a project-orientated course, the formulation of educational objectives, planning of teaching and learning sequences, verification of results, group work and individual work, and learning by doing applied to realistic, typical design problems. Starting with a design problem, it encompasses all the activities required for the organisation and production of an architectural design up to and including planning permission.MADE was created as a curriculum concept with the intention of bringing about a fundamental change in the way students are taught to design structures. Its aim is to increase efficiency in teaching and learning, to improve the quality of teaching and, at the same time, when systematically applied in an interdisciplinary context, to reduce the extremely long time students of architecture currently often take to qualify. A departure from the traditional German approach to university education, in which everyone, both teachers and students, can do what they want however they want, is necessary. In its place, “schooling” as performed in the Anglo-American university system is needed. A transformation of teaching and learning habits, namely a shift from teaching to learning in the context of the Bologna process, has to occur. MADE makes a constructive contribution to this. At present, it is the only course for the training of architects and civil engineers which is guided by its systemic structure and which makes the design process transparent step by step from the task to the solution.MADE was taught at the University of Essen from 1973 to 1992 in Department 9, Architecture, Biological and Earth Sciences, and from 1993 to 1995 in Department 10, Civil Engineering. In consequence, there have been many publications in Germany and abroad, including such countries as England, the USA, Switzerland, Austria, Turkey and Slovakia. Furthermore, MADE has been reported on at national and international conferences, for instance at the Technical University of Berlin (“After the Bauhaus”, 1997), North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC, USA (“Research in Design Education”, 1998), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Brazil (PROJETAR 2005, II Seminar on Teaching and Research in Architectural Design: Assemblage, Practice and Interfaces).  

Since the author retired from full-time teaching, MADE has found a place in the digital library DuEPublico, Duisburg-Essen Publications online (http.//DuEPublico.de). This multimedia server is a support tool for teachers and students. It is a cooperative venture between the university library, the media centre and the university computing centre of the University of Duisburg-Essen.  Media and computing centres form now part of the Centre for Information and Media Services (CIM).

 More about the Model of Architectural Design Eduation (MADE) see:

www.made-me.de