NICOLA ANTAKI

This research explores how architecture can be considered an educator. How is architecture - as activity and setting - pedagogical? More specifically, it investigates how children can be involved in (re)designing their environment as a wide-reaching learning activity that encourages multiple intelligences, in a bid to democratise the city and develop practices of responsible citizenship... Situated in Mumbai in collaboration with the education NGO Muktangan, my research process uses a series of pedagogic experiments to examine the socio-political contexts of a simultaneously global and local city and its potential to house active citizenship practices by children. I use critical pedagogy and co-design practices to include children in activating what Henri Lefebvre has called their right to the city. Combining Paulo Freire's critical pedagogical praxis and constructivist theory of education, I propose the development of a collective design practice that fuses learning with the city...

Primary location: Contact United States