Extreme studio & Aotea studio: Experiments of environmental, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary projects in New Zealand

Aotea & Extreme Studios were design based projects for 4^th Year Architecture students taught in 2007 and 2008 in New Zealand. The first project centred on the design of a research facility at Tongariro National Park (UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage site). The second project was centred on the design of a creative arts educational facility in Aotea harbour - Waikato (the Aotea canoe arrived first in Aotea harbour about 1300 AD). The principal pedagogical agenda for the studios centred on the notion of interdisciplinary and intercultural explorations, in which environmental design as applied research was an integral part of the process. During the extreme studio experience, students were asked to respond to the condition of being in extremes, learning about the tolerance of human response and understanding their perceptions to such conditions as much as the environmental responses to such conditions. The Aotea studio took advantage again of its surroundings of historical and environmental significance, inviting students to incorporate ideas from thinkers and philosophers (e.g. R. Tagore, P. Freire), where there is the questioning of the role of creative arts in education, correlated with the environmental and holistic architectural approach to design. Students questioned the outdated vocabulary that holds together the stable and enclosed borders of the educational facilities. As quoting from one of the students submissions "...human freedom is not only in our minds: it is a state of grace, natural to us, but too often prevented by the physical environment in which we live"... This paper will focus on the methodological approach and on the student's responses to these projects.