Experiences and potentialities in transitional spaces from Brazilian architecture and urbanism courses
learning environment, university campus, transitional spaces, Architecture and Urbanism Course
Within a contemporary pedagogical perspective on learning in higher education environments, the literature points out that the distribution of transitional spaces on the university campus supports activities that go beyond classrooms, helping to stimulate interactions between students and their peers and teachers. In Architecture and Urbanism, the term “transitional spaces” traditionally used in the context of the immediate street-building relationship, more recently in some references have also started to cover accesses and passages included in the internal areas of buildings. Based on this understanding, it is clear that, despite the advancement in studies on this topic, there is still a difficulty in recognizing and analyzing the socio-spatial characteristics of these areas, especially in schools that host courses with diversified practical activities. Thus, this research questions in what context the ambiences of the transitional spaces of the Architecture and Urbanism Undergraduate Courses (AUUCs) are related to their educational and creative potential, considering as a hypothesis that, although the users and physical elements are different and replaceable, in the transition spaces of the AUUCs the relations derived from the socio-spatial behavior remain basically the same. Therefore, the objective is to identify and describe the environmental characteristics of the transition spaces of Brazilian AUUCs, in order to investigate their educational and creative potential. In the investigation of this hypothesis, we intend to carry out a study of multiple cases with the application of multi-methods involving: (i) prepare a panel of experts through semi-structured interviews with Brazilian AUUCs teachers to select cases to be studied; (ii) collect data from AUUCs schools to investigate; and (iii) carrying out 3 to 5 case studies through on-site observation and face-to-face interviews with members of academic centers (students) and course coordination (teachers). It is expected that the analysis of transition spaces of AUUCs in different Brazilian institutions will contribute to the identification of a pattern of elements that characterize them and some of their properties that can support learning.