Designing with care and maintenance: A pedagogical approach to sustainable architecture

This research introduces a new pedagogical approach to architecture that emphasizes design as an act of care and maintenance. Recent educational shifts have led to the creation of courses in Switzerland and Japan that focus on holistic, onsite, and interdisciplinary solutions. These courses challenge conventional practices by prioritizing site maintenance and social connections over mere object creation. By repeatedly engaging with the same sites through different student groups, these courses foster an incremental process where each intervention contributes to a collective evolution of the project. This approach shifts the focus from individual authorship to a shared narrative, highlighting the value of teaching architecture through making as a means to build continuity, memory, and adaptability in design practices. The paper highlights commonalities and specificities between the three courses through a crossanalysis focusing on the relation to time, the material environment, and the social environment.