Architecture Program Report Tulane University New Orleans ...

2. Critical Thinking Skills
Ability to raise clear and precise questions, use abstract ideas to interpret
information, consider diverse points of view, reach well-reasoned
conclusions, and test them against relevant criteria and standards.
The development of critical thinking skills associated with the comprehensive
analysis and evaluation of a building, building complex, or urban space is
diffused throughout the program curriculum. This occurs across the design
curriculum (DSGN courses). In the initial phases of the design curriculum,
students are introduced to traditional forms of analysis—the formal analysis
methods of often associated with Cambridge and Austin, Texas during the
years of Colin Rowe. Through the use of precedents, students assess and
record the various systems associated with the syntactical aspects of a
building: proportion, circulation, building envelope, figure/ground, etc.
Intermittently, they are asked to assess and record an analysis of their own
design production in this manner, thereby establishing an understanding of
the complicit relationships between synthesis, analysis, and criticism. As
above, the subject of analysis in a critical sense, or “critical thinking skills” is
not limited to visual literacy alone, but is stressed as a discursive mode, that
is, in terms of the relationship between their language skills and their material
production. This occurs with the formulation and development of
representational skills and the critical correlation between words (conceptual
thought, ideas) and things.
Yet representation and criticism are not limited to formal mechanisms. The
literary devices associated with an architecture conceptualized according to
metaphors—a building that “acts like a landscape” or an urban space
conceived of as a “space of public discourse” for instance bear metaphoric
connotations—a classic form of representation extant throughout the
course of architectural education since the Enlightenment and the selfconscious
introduction of criticism as a mode of operation for the discipline
of architecture. As might be expected, the subject matter and methods
associated with the required and elective history and theory courses
support these particular modes of critical thinking; exercises associated
with the recognition of historical precedent and literary devices appear in
the First- and Second-year core studios and the Introduction to History
classes (AHST 110). There are also prominent features of the entire history
(AHST) sequence, as mentioned, and the current “required theory
electives” such as the Contemporary Issues course (AHST 410) and
Theorizing the Real in Contemporary Practice (AHST 411) (students are
required to elect either one of the courses in their fourth year). However,
both of these methods of critical thinking bear a distinct relationship to
qualitative forms of analysis and students become quite familiar with them
in the review of their work.
The RBST series allows students to extend their understanding of Critical
Thinking Skills into the Urban Design Environment.
Other methods of critical thinking and analysis that contribute substantially
to the development of these skills are the quantitative modes of analysis