Part II. Relational, Spatial, and Sociomaterial Conditions of Agency

Abstract

This chapter considers the impact of emerging technologies on the cognitive, cultural, spatial and relational forces that affect how people learn within contemporary architectural education. Traditionally, studio-based learning has been at the heart of architectural education. Studio-based learning is a pedagogical approach that usually facilitates one-on-one learning for students and peer-to-peer learning, supported through tutor-students conversations. In addition, studio-based pedagogies revolve around students' engagement in practical design projects, which includes interactions with materials and opportunities for reflection-in-action. This chapter explores how increasing digitalization and reliance on GenAI systems in higher education are influencing learner agency, and how a change in the qualities of materials is re-shaping studio-based learning. Drawing on a vignette by an architectural educator, working with a group of postgraduate architecture students, the chapter explores the notion of Postdigital Learner Agency (PLĀ), and speculates on the relational, collective, and situated forms of agency that are emerging, continuing and being transformed in studio-based learning in postdigital architectural classrooms.