The Program consists of two elective courses.
This set of courses is based on the principle that space as such not only encompasses social constructions, but also corroborates to David Harvey's contention that the spatial and the social dimensions are so closely intertwined that they cannot be seen apart. Space is a social construct; however, once it acquires material qualities, it tends to reproduce the social relations that produced it at the first place. This idea, far from making a deterministic statement, attempts to describe on the one hand both the autonomy and the rules of any material construction — most importantly, the temporal development of social models in constructed space — and on the other hand such notions as mobility, change, and transformation which have always been characteristic of social reality.
The courses taught in the Department of Architecture principally aim at identifying patterns of gender-related distinctions in the built environment (i.e., dwelling, cityscape) in order to then proceed to a more thorough understanding of how these distinctions take shape and inscribe themselves in space in a variety of forms. They also seek to raise awareness of the mechanisms by which gender-based stereotypes of habitation are founded and function as much in the contexts of architectural education as in those of everyday social practice.
Gender identity in space is also studied in terms of its both diachronic and synchronic manifestations. The related research covers space issues as much in pre-industrial societies (e.g., city and dwelling in ancient Greece, habitation patterns in Asian nomadic tribes, etc.) as in gender-related manifestations of contemporary spatial phenomena (e.g., immigrants, new work patterns, telework, etc.)
The courses intend to enhance understanding of gender relations through a systematic study of the ways in which they manifest themselves in space. They also seek to increase architecture students' awareness of the various patterns of social relations that designed space comprises and reproduces. Design defines material relations between public and private space, between what is readily accessible and what is not, between what can be seen and what conceals itself. Seen in these terms, architectural practice bears a peculiar social dimension, besides its aesthetic, functional, and ideological ones.
