No abstract

It is generally known that architectural practice relies heavily on the interactions between architects and other professionals. However, during their formal education, most students attending architecture schools, and engineering schools for that matter, get very little (if any) exposure to decision making in conditions that involve expertise and/or worldviews beyond those reflected and valued by their own discipline. In the past 10 years, a project-based learning initiative was developed between the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University in an international context involving several other universities around the world. Throughout this experience, we have identified several issues that have shown to be crucial to these interactions. This paper elaborates on three key issues: improvement of communication skills, empowerment through developing strategies of leadership, and recognition of own and others' worldviews. We also make the case to include experiential educational situations that can introduce these aspects into the academic curricula of architecture and engineering schools.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a design strategy that investigates the systematic use of interdisciplinary knowledge through a transparent decision-making process. The study identifies relevant design parameters that should be considered in the development of this design strategy. Design/methodology/approach The empirical data were collected through observations of the design process of two new sport facilities, meetings with sport, well-being and aging experts and through semi-structured interviews with end-users. The development of the proposed design strategy is based on a methodology with elements from “Knowledge to Action (KTA),” “Action research” and a “List of value concepts.” The rigid timetable guaranteed systematic progress, where both knowledge from the end-users and experts were incorporated throughout the decision-making process. Findings The two case studies documented results involving end-users and experts in a systematic way. In conclusion, it was apparent that the use of interdisciplinary collaboration informed the design outcome. Practical implications Based on the two cases, the following advice can be given to the architectural profession: architects should use the KTA model or similar in order to target the search for relevant interdisciplinary knowledge and ensure that relevant evidence is involved in the design process of upcoming projects regarding sport and recreation. Architects should make the design process transparent so that one can see which design decisions have been made through the design process. This must be done to ensure that there is greater coherence between vision and practice. Originality/value The study showed how architects could import knowledge, skills and values from other disciplines such as environmental psychology and active living research to improve the decision-making process of future sport and recreation projects. It was also clear that this design decision process could be made more transparent in the effort to allow the various stakeholders to take ownership of the resulting design outcomes.

This study investigated how two public spaces for sport and recreation were utilized by different user groups, and how this aligned with the initial design objectives for these spaces. Two newly built urban spaces situated in Copenhagen, Denmark, provided the context for this investigation. The System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) was used to examine the physical activity of users in these two urban spaces. The architects responsible for designing each space were interviewed to ascertain the intended target group of each space and to unravel the reasons behind the design decisions. The SOPARC observations revealed that males were more vigorously active than females when using the recreation facilities, and the observed users did not align with the intended target groups. The interviews suggested that design decisions were based on minimal interdisciplinary knowledge, and that expert knowledge was chosen randomly. These findings point to a systematic lack of evidence-based practice when designing sport and recreational facilities. This article has implications for landscape architects and urban planners; a new method must be developed to embed interdisciplinary knowledge in the planning process of future sport and recreation projects. This must be done in a systematic way to make the design process transparent.