Introduction:
There is a complex and plural potential in the Latin American territory, often suppressed by the import of Eurocentric ideas and philosophies, causing the erasure of other cultures that are the direct product of its own territory. Talking about urban space in the context of Latin America presupposes an intersectional understanding of spaces, an understanding that considers the social markers within the territory. In this context, urban inequalities are the reflection of an economic and political reproduction system that hijacks the ways of living and perceiving the city, governing the movements of bodies in place. Thinking spaces, with some exceptions, has been based on a “type” of human being that meets the prospects of maintaining a production model, as Tonucci states: “taking as a parameter an average citizen with the characteristics of an adult, man and worker, and that corresponds to the strong voter1” (2015, 558). As a possibility for the transformation of cities, Tonucci (2015) proposes to take children as a parameter.
Crossed by different cultures, the urban space in Latin America has an enormous pedagogical, even emancipatory, potential if we speak of a liberating education. A pedagogy of these cities, these spaces and territories can serve as a path in the counter-hegemonic struggle, especially if we consider children as subjects in this process, representing the opposite of the “type-man”. It is also the role of architecture and urbanism as an applied social science to be part of this movement to value Latin American culture and the insurgency of a pedagogy that is consolidated in the territory, especially if we consider architecture as politics.
In the Brazilian context, the debate about cities is not usually part of the daily lives of most people who occupy these spaces, endorsing the existence of what Maricato (2002) called “urban illiteracy2”. For the author, the “urbanish”, present in laws and urban planning, does not approach the daily appropriation of those who live in cities. Brazilian cities follow a capitalist model of production and this has shaped our way of seeing and living the city, of managing cities, and above all, it has posed limits to the scope of the effective “right to the city3”. Remembering Lefebvre (2001): the “right to the city” is a clamor, a need for everyone to complain, to outcry, to demand fundamental rights for its reproduction in the city.
A new look at thinking/doing architecture directs us to other ways of acting that make it fulfill its social function, which also presupposes rethinking teaching in this area. Brasília is an example of a city built on a productivist thought, which prioritizes the automobile and reproduces social inequalities, expelling excluded social groups. It is in this context that the need for the Research and Science Outreach Group “Peripheral — Emerging Works” is born. The group proposes a new look at the territory, valuing the social function of architecture and enabling students to get in touch with the reality of the lived space. The group has been working with “socio-technical assistance of resistance” in popular territories and treats Teaching, Research, University Outreach as a continuum, through the development of innovations in teaching processes with active methodologies and social inclusion. These experiences are undergone as a social construction to promote a double exchange of knowledge: between researchers/students and the community, and between the community and the university.
In the “Education and Architecture and Urbanism” research line, the group has also acted in proximity to childhoods and used the school context as a powerful interface in children’s relationship with urban space and the process of the design and construction of spaces. Based on the reports presented here, two experiments implemented in public schools located on the outskirts of Brasilia, Federal District, this article aims to present possible paths, based on these actions in the territory, whose methodology was action-research. The experiences were intended to build possibilities for the insertion of the subject of architecture in schools based on a collaboration between technical knowledge and the popular knowledge of local territories, with new parameters for the maintenance of cities’ spaces. The actions were carried out through a collaborative network between the Peripheral research and outreach group, three public elementary schools, and two undergraduate students in the context of their final undergraduate works in architecture and urbanism at the University of Brasília (FAU-UnB).
Possible new practices — Architecture — Education — Childhoods
The insertion of architecture and urbanism in the formal labor market traditionally collaborates in maintaining a status quo of the profession, erasing its social function and influencing the teaching and production of knowledge in the area, often more associated with technicality and the importation of standards and concepts than with the appreciation of local knowledge. It is not possible to learn about cities, spaces, urban occupation, architecture and urbanism, focusing only on the classroom and theorizations. We must seek in the space of the city, a gathering of symbols, cultures and stories, for mutual learning, to start to build an integrative learning, which incorporates several types of knowledge.
We begin from the premise of Freire’s education that “educating is a political act4”, is to question, problematize, shake, resist this world that is less world, understanding the urban space as a collective construction, and architecture and urbanism as powerful tools in the construction and maintenance of citizenship by the subjects (Freire, 1991). It is in this context that of association between education, architecture, and urbanism as tools of daily transformation and political action, that the experiences reported here were developed, from the transformative potential of university outreach, as a means for building knowledge, and participatory methodologies carried out with children, as a path to the space’s construction.
Education is a potential way to combat urban illiteracy and achieve social emancipation and a right to the city. Since the city can simultaneously educate and be an object, through the symbols, signs, and stories it aggregates, it serves, in fact, as an object apprehended by the students, after all, “there is an indisputable pedagogy in the materiality of space5” (Freire 1996, 45). We increasingly need to reconnect the urban issue with the experience of spaces. The proposal to eradicate urban illiteracy is linked to the idea of an education that considers students as multidimensional subjects, and who experience cities as educational territories.
The consciousness of who we are leads us to transforming the world and the awareness is made from a perspective of education counter-hegemonic, capable of transforming cognitive thinking from what Dagnino (2019) calls “sociotechnical adequacy6”. Announced by the author as an “engaged and optimistic posture7” in the face of what is posed as cognitive thinking, socio-technical advice is configured as a social construction, “and can be redesigned through the politicization and internalization of alternative values and interests, as well as the observance of precepts of plurality, internal democratic control and a priori, in the institutions where it is usually produced8” (Dagnino 2019, 49). That is, it is a new thought for what we consider to be science and technology, a new thought for education and performance in the territories.
Learning with/in space, together with children, brings new perspectives to architecture as a science. Acknowledging the city, the urban, as the space of emancipation implies a knowledge and apprehension of this space and the understanding of the concept of territory, of a reconfiguration of thought from the territory. A construction that reveals itself in the manifestation of the “differential space9” described by Lefebvre (1974), in which a “different space” can arise from the differences between individuals themselves, a “space-process, a socially constructed space10” (Haesbaert 2014, 58). A spatial practice that converges with the act of “knowing the existing possibilities and writing a new story11” from the results of the universality present in the experience of spaces. For Haesbaert (2014, 55), the concept of territory is about “looking at geographic space”, with a “focus on space/power relations”, and can be distinguished, according to the subjects in question as a category of analysis, a practical category, and a normative category. The latter responding to what the territory “must be, from certain political interests12” (Haesbaert 2014, 55). With a “material and symbolic” connotation (Haesbaert 2014, 57), the territory has to do with power and possibility, with effective appropriation. The author characterizes the territory: while “lived space-time13” is “always multiple, diverse and complex14”, the “unifunctional15” territory is proposed and reproduced by the hegemonic capitalist logic (Haesbaert 2014, 58).
Since the territory is “immersed in relations of domination and/or appropriation of society-space16” (Haesbaert 2014, 58), we can say, taking the socially produced space described by Lefebvre (1974), that these conceptualizations about space and the place that translate into the materiality and relationship of what is lived in cities, the plurality of the dynamics of space-time, approach the sense of territory, which must be considered in the “multiplicity of its manifestations17”. As a category of practice, the territory can be seen as “an end in itself18” (Haesbaert 2014, 60), as a counter-hegemonic resource, in the manifestation of the “differential space” (Lefebvre 1974), of the space of emancipation, of the territory as politics, constitutive of the symbolic dimension of the territory.
In a sense of the territory as a political practice, and in the search for a reconfiguration of the territory as a normative category that can subvert the dominant logic, we enter here the idea of the educational territory, thinking of the territory as a practice to constitute and/or reconfigure spaces and policies from what is lived. We think of the educational territory as a configuration that can be created, identified and/or strengthened from the built space, from the school space, establishing a dialogical and plural relationship between the school and the place, and between architecture and childhood from this space, a relationship of learning and mutual construction. We must think of space with political bias and educational potential, so that based on space we can constitute, along with childhoods, a new look at the place: an “educational territory19”. Understanding and relating the dynamics of childhood-school-city is fundamental in this process, in combating a typical and reproductive pattern of city based on homogenizing processes. The educational territory educates in and about space, modifies the relationship with the city, with the built space and with education. The possibility of the educational territory from the built space, from the schools, generates dynamics that transform: they modify the space from the political perspective of the place, reconfigure the possibility in relation to what is an apparently set and open space for physical and social transformation.
Azevedo, Rheingantz and Costa (2016, 21) recognize the school as an “artifact20” when considering the subjectivity and symbolic value of the territories, and state: “The school can no longer be disconnected from the city: the separation between both is not appropriate to the current reality21”. This notion of artifact understands that it is, in a “socio-technical22” perspective, the result of the complex diversity of the relationships it performs: “a mediation with the world, with other people and object23”; in this sense, “to understand the school as an artifact is to emphasize how it performs this mediation with the world24” (Azevedo, Rheingantz and Costa 2016, 21). It is possible, therefore, to constitute, strengthen and/or identify educational territories from schools and with schools.
In the late nineties, Lima (1989, 10) warned us: “We adults, we take over the children’s spaces and transform them into instruments of domination25”. When thinking about the possibility of the educational territory, we made it possible to “return the street to children26” and “return children to the streets27”, as Paulo Freire said. To return the possibility of a political construction of space from the multiplicity of meanings, from the territories. To find in children a parameter for the construction and maintenance of cities, constituting this process with them, building an educational territory and an active, political, transformative, counter-hegemonic territoriality.
Activating Educators’ Territories with Children:
The premise of the experiences presented here is that of participatory research that, based on university outreach, conducts the action research methodology —in which the research subjects not only participate but also develop the project— from the perspective of an educational territory, based on the reality lived and shared by the children in the school context. The methodology used presupposes an active listening where the practice of collective, social, and individual action collaborates in the production of knowledge and awareness that organically contribute to transforming action (Thiollent 1986). The actions constituted a process that was based on cooperative actions with an empirical basis in order to constitute a participatory process that would culminate in the proposition of alternatives to the problems found, resulting in the Final Undergraduate Works; and they took place with the active presence of the students, seeking to establish a relationship between knowledge, action and participation. Other aspects were fundamental in the course of experiences. These included the relationship between formal and informal knowledge seeking to establish and/or improve communication between all the people involved, the learning capacity associated with the research/outreach process, the role of theory in the elaboration of an action plan, and the possibility of experimentation from in-depth contact with the local context.
The concept of “sociotechnical adequacy28”, used by the Peripheral group, was also considered in this process. According to this concept, the subjects of scientific knowledge share their technical codes with organized social subjects, a true “pedagogical and sociotechnical interactionism29” (Andrade et al. 2019; Neder 2016). In the socio-technical scope, the architect and urban planner initially begins by analyzing the physical and social context with the students’ engagement. Thus, the set of impressions of students, teachers, and architects could contribute feasible propositions to the socio-territorial context of the school, from the dreamed scenarios of an educational territory. This whole process was synthesized in two flowcharts, presented below (Figures 1 and 2).
“Imaginary Master”
The experience of the “Imaginary Master” project was carried out in two public schools, located in the Mestre D’armas Housing Sector, in Planaltina, Administrative Region of the Federal District — Brazil, with children aged between 8 and 10 years. The experience was dedicated to children’s rediscovery of the city, in order to contribute to the construction of a more welcoming and inclusive city. Through workshops developed jointly with teachers, volunteer residents and the researcher, activities were carried out in 3rd and 5th grade classes.
The use of language and materials accessible through storytelling, drawings, character creation, reading maps, and physical models motivated children to work on understanding the territory and spatial notion, exploring the local context, discovering its characteristics, potentials and existing problems. Throughout the meetings, the children were encouraged to explore their imagination and remodel the city: transform it into the city of dreams, developing the inclusion of child participation in the construction of local urban spaces.
The project, presented to the CED Pompílio and CEF JK institutions and improved with the school community, proposed playful activities as a way of actively listening to the children’s desires and impressions about the city, encouraging through workshops and games the imaginative potential and perception of the territory. The activities carried out in the school environment enabled recognition and territorial belonging, and helped to revisit the local history.
By drawing affective maps, the children identified and transformed important points in the paths between home and school. The storytelling generated the legend of the “imaginary master”, revisiting historical characters and transforming them into masters with super powers, capable of improving the neighborhood. In groups, students collectively produced their own imaginary masters filled with dreams and proposals. In the word murals, they proposed key questions about the city and pointed out improvements —highlighting topics such as education, security, leisure, and respect for diversity. They discussed the importance of professions, study and community participation for the functioning of the city, in addition to electing and building models from three main areas of the neighborhood, recognizing their potentials and suggesting new ideas. (Figure 1).
All the data collected during the activities allowed the assembly of imaginary scenarios in key locations of the neighborhood. The ideas of the children added to the technical vision of the undergraduate student, teachers and members of the community, resulted in proposals to transform the space, into playful and better quality areas. The premise of setting up possible changes for the place, including the children in the process, was reached by proposing scenarios that could become real, contributing to the construction of the dream city, desired, and imagined by the children. This project was compiled in a physical notebook —donated to the school— by the undergraduate student and presented both to the school community at local events and to the university community.
The project carried out through community participatory processes brought real objectives to academic work, contributing to the children’s citizenship education. It is understood that the role of the architect is closer to the identification of collective demands and propositions overcoming the identity of the architect as the holder of all knowledge and solutions. Throughout this process, it was possible to perceive the existing technical gap in the academic training of architects that allows them to work within schools with quality. The use of the “action-research” methodology (which means researching and acting in a symbiotic way) contributed to reducing the difficulty of working with urban pedagogy. Currently, the Mestre Imaginário Project remains active and has received government subsidies to continue new activities.
“Project Rima (Rhyme): making the city a great learning experience”
Project Rima (Rhyme) ran between August 2017 and July 2018, at CEF Doutora Zilda Arns, in the public school located in Itapoã, peripheral region of Brasília, Brazil. Students in grade/year lag between 14 and 18 years of the last years of the second stage of the basic education cycle participated.
The territory where they studied and lived is where the activities were carried out. The pillars of these activities were creativity and interdisciplinarity. A tool was experienced at each activity to awaken and raise awareness of their artistic skills, autonomy, place of speech, belonging, rights, and duties as citizens. The meetings were weekly in places beyond the school walls in order to map other learning spaces together with the students.
Activities were carried out with methodologies adapted or created for the context, based on the age group and the particular interests of students, which were discouraged from attending school due to their age-year lags and their socioeconomic vulnerabilities. The experience was carried out in an organic way, based on the action research methodology, in a continuous search to facilitate the understanding of the perception of young people about the social and urban issues of the place where they lived, with horizontal and multidisciplinary learning, including geography, history, Portuguese and arts, stimulating students to attend school. Most activities were developed in groups following the principles of cooperation, collaboration and autonomy (Figure 2).
Educommunication was one of the instruments that most aroused students’ interest. In it, they spontaneously and authentically portrayed and interviewed, both their own classmates and the people they crossed in the street, on the topics dealt with. The students themselves recorded many of the activities in photos and videos throughout the meetings.
The listening and the data collected during the course, plus the technical vision of the undergraduate student, resulted in the decoding of local spatial parameters and the proposition of feasible scenarios for transforming the region into an educational territory. Rap music and cultural movement proved to be the most effective instrument of urban pedagogy in that context. We explored the writing and improvisation of rhymes from their perceptions of the urban space around the school. This practice expanded the meaning of the students’ act of learning through poetic-musical language of reflection and denunciation on urban issues linked to the expression of identity, social recognition, and the formulation of socio-political demands related to the daily life of the peripheries. Thus, the project could corroborate that those adolescents developed more attentive looks and more critical perceptions about the socio-spatial and economic reality where they lived. A citizen education that has managed to awaken them to demand and propose urban improvements to the local government.
The project was compiled in a physical notebook, presented and exposed to the school and university community, together with the participating students. The purpose of teaching the students to view the area in which they live and study more critically, consciously, and politically was achieved. The project also helped them consolidate a greater sense of belonging.
Analysis of Experiences
The association between research and outreach, along the lines of action research, as the activities within the scope of the Peripheral Group have been developed, can serve to develop the “consciousness of the collectivity in the political and cultural planes regarding the problems” (Thiollent 1986). Not only in terms of problems, but in project design, a collective and political perspective, can give rise to solutions through architecture and a pedagogy of the territory. It is about enabling the experience of education that values the individual and their relationships with the context in the learning process.
The reading of the world in which the students live precedes the reading of the word, in Freire’s view, the act of reading this world implies a reading inside and outside it (Freire 1989). The experiences reported include the urban space as a collective construction, integrating architecture, education, and childhoods. It explores the generalist character of the architect educator and its transdisciplinary potential to dissolve disciplinary barriers in universities to integrate areas of knowledge and other perspectives.
Both works respond to the demand for an understanding of architecture, also as a tool in raising awareness, showing that a dialogue between architecture and childhoods in the school context is possible, modifying the relations with the built space and with spatial propositions. From the perspective of Sociotechnical Adequacy, the experiences revealed two fundamental points: the pedagogical potential of the spaces from their decoding, through a differentiated pedagogical approach and the need for a transformation in training in architecture and urbanism that considers the degree as a possibility of training and performance.
Conclusions
We must include children in the debate, in the construction of learning with/in and about cities, in the project processes, creating new codes from them and with them: let us learn to decode space with them! Territory as a political practice manifests itself in the social space, also as an educational territory. The educational territory can be configured from the school space and have its construction in childhoods, as a key to think and rethink the built space and the way to build it.
Seeking alternative paths to what is set, thus expanding the spatial, and territorial notion through architecture is possible and necessary. It brings the area of knowledge closer to society, questions the status quo and enables a more embracing and diverse architectural dimension. This path can be given by the learning of/in/with cities, with the insertion of the architect and urban planner in the space of schools and in the approximation with the plurality of existing childhoods, towards the possibility of a transformation of the field of architecture and urbanism and other areas of knowledge on interactions in space, and the possibility of the emancipation of knowledge. We present the idea of a degree in architecture and urbanism as a possibility of transformation not only of what is set for the training of professionals, but as a path to a more humane action that enables the social function of architecture to enhance local knowledge, dialogue with the territories, and a more comprehensive dimension of the management and politics of cities.