History-Theory Case Studies: Bridging the Universal with the Local

Patrick Lucas (University of Kentucky)

In their encounter with the objects, spaces, buildings, and places in a design history/theory course, students engage a wide ranging source materials to understand the past. With lessons about design from time-tested models and through admiration of great designers, students as novice designers often experiment with studio projects “in the manner of” designers they study in history. With the case study approach, students undertake their studies with a goal of generating skills useful in the workforce, not history for history sake, but realized processes for analyzing buildings and generating multi-modal products to support design practice (Boucharec, 2006; Drexler, 1977; Droste, 2006).

From either tradition, students focus on buildings without dwelling in details. Thus, the high-style architectural sites of the west present only one way of understanding buildings but do little to demonstrate the essence of design. With more active and experiential approaches in teaching and learning history/theory to supplant this model as a “guide on the side” (King, 1993), the faculty of our school have derived alternate methods to meet the needs of twenty-first century students who desire something more than an approach that assumes all students sit as homogenous empty vessels awaiting transfer of knowledge from a singular expert (Miller, Valle & Engle, 2014).

This presentation provides a forum to examine the efficacy of a design history/theory course as a place for students to gain useful skills. As the practice of design continues to evolve, the strategies reviewed will provide useful tactics for individuals to help students come to terms with the built environment. Using our accumulated 30 years worth of experiences from our careers in teaching design history and theory at four institutions, we hope to spur conversation and thinking that helps others to uncover ways of using the past built environment to inspire future design talent.