Observations and Provocations: Towards Inclusive Online Design Feedback and Assessment Practices

As the signature pedagogy for architectural education, the studio and its practices must respond to contemporary conditions and challenges, through transformation that considers a radically inclusive approach to learning. This publication builds on our current work in process towards a radically inclusive studio (https://theradicallyinclusivestudio.org/). Drawing on Williams et al’s IE framework, we formulated a 6-S Framework for Inclusive Contexts (Delport et al., 2020). In this research, we use the 6-S Framework for Inclusive Contexts to reflect on our recent experiences participating in final portfolio presentations across four continents and several institutions. We share our observations and formulate provocations, for each of the six inclusive contexts, namely systemic, structural, support, social justice, symbolic and spatial (Delport et al., 2020). The systemic inclusive context references our capacity to respond in real time, to a changing global context, and existing and new barriers within academia and the profession. In the structural inclusive context, adaptability and flexibility are foregrounded as the underpinning conditions for transformative practices towards a radically inclusive assessment approach. The support inclusive context reminds us that it is essential that students are placed at the centre, to ensure their collective mental health and well-being. The social justice inclusive context foregrounds the necessity to implement a decolonised curriculum that challenges the roots of oppression and injustice. Through the symbolic inclusive context, we recognise that architecture education is a producer of culture and has the unique potential to communicate through design and its representation. Finally, through consideration of the spatial inclusive context, we recognise that exclusionary boundaries, such as geography, time, knowledge practices and power relations, should be transcended (Delport et al., 2020). Through this exploration, we suggest durable and sustainable strategies for radically inclusive feedback and assessment practices in a post-pandemic world.