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Universities have a civic responsibility towards the cities of which they are a part. This is typically operationalised through Outreach and Engagement, which aims to share and apply the expertise and knowledge generated by the university with communities. The model is typically a one-direction path from the University to communities, but there is potential for the engagement to take on more of a two-way collaboration, in which there is an intent to generate new knowledge and enact positive change. This paper reflects on the practice of Hands-on-Bristol, a collective bringing community members, architects, trainee architects, and academics together to co-create projects. This practice is conceived as a form of Spatial Civic Agency that empowers a community organization to participate in making and re-making their places. Projects typically involve a process of co-creation, bringing into consciousness the conditions that shape a community’s place in their world and catalysing possibilities that seemingly cannot otherwise be unlocked. The paper analyses the process of the projects using four key civic agency concepts which identify a need to: Involve the citizen as co-creator; Engage with public and community places; Reconceptualise the role of the professional; and Understand democracy as a lived social and cultural experience grounded in everyday life. The analysis suggests that this participatory approach to education questions the primary focus of education as provider of practice-ready graduates and makes a place for the University as civic agent with transformative potential to co-create more sustainable, resilient communities.

The TV series Architecture School depicts entanglements between design (education), urban development, and the complexities of everyday life through its presentation of students in a program of “public-interest” design–build education (wherein students plan and construct homes for low-income families in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans). The series offers a nuanced presentation of the situated difficulties of critical design thinking in the context of creating contemporary homes: starting from the initial stages of sketching and model making, through construction, and finally to managing the occupation of the homes by persons who are typically underserved by contemporary architecture. We provide an analysis of the series through outlining how the show presents its participants (student designer-builders, non-profit housing administrators, potential homeowners). We focus on discussing instances of talk on the TV series to illustrate some of the specific concerns and contexts of these participants. Our aim is to explore Architecture School as a relevant case study in designing and building that reflects a dilemma underpinning much contemporary, urban, and public-interest design: how can socially and economically marginalized individuals acquire innovative, well-designed homes when structural conditions of government policies, financial protocols, and administrative complexity offer sustained constraint? We detail how the series depicts the students, administrators, and potential occupants to consider how stereotypes of architects, bureaucrats, and the working poor are reinforced or challenged. Accordingly, we argue that Architecture School is a cultural text that remains timely and important today for its presentation and critique of both the inside world of design’s aims to design and build for others and also the outside-world challenges that limit design’s capacities to create inclusive and equitable material conditions.

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to present an exploratory study that examined the development of students' entrepreneurial skills over time within live projects.Design methodology approach - In this study, students worked alongside real-life entrepreneurs and financiers. Students' perceptions of their skills were assessed using both quantitative and qualitative data, which were gathered during weeks 1, 6 and 12 of the programme.Findings - The results showed significant changes in students' perceptions of their skills over time. At the outset students were confident about their abilities across the 17 categories of entrepreneurial skills developed by Lichtenstein and Lyons and Lyons and Lyons. Later on in the projects, their confidence in certain skills declined significantly; what these were varied according to the time of data collection. The qualitative data provided more detailed accounts of students' perceptions of their skills and why they had changed over time.Originality value - This study makes a contribution in providing insights into the nature and practice of an experiential learning approach. The results indicate that the development of entrepreneurial skills can be improved by providing a learning environment in which students interact with real business people in live projects. They also indicate that entrepreneurship education programmes may be improved by scheduling skills training in a more structured and timely manner than typically occurs now. Students' perceptions of their skills declined substantially over the course of the projects, with some variations, suggesting that educators need to provide different and more timely learning interventions to cater for the specific needs of students working in live projects.

Urban green infrastructure is not acknowledged in the Global South for the critical social and ecological functions it can provide. Contextual design solutions and innovative approaches are urgently needed to transform the status quo. University-local government collaboration could be a way to encourage new thinking, new roles and design skills to develop solutions to these complex problems. This paper presents a case study analysis of such a collaboration. Qualitative research was conducted to establish the degree to which the exposure to real-life projects stimulates postgraduate design students’ transformative learning. The researchers also inquired into the benefits of the collaboration for the municipality. The participants’ reflections were recorded by means of anonymous questionnaires. The findings show that the live project created a municipal setting for seeking alternative solutions in design processes and outcomes. For the students, the project created rich social dynamics and an interplay of familiarity and uncertainty, which aided transformative learning. The students’ deeper learning indicates greater social empathy, reconsidering the role of the profession, greater design process flexibility, and learning and valuing skills across disciplines. The findings hold promise for a more just and sustainable future built environment through collaborations that transform the design professionals involved, the outcomes they pursue, and the processes they follow.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate trends and themes within the literature pertaining to live projects, and in so doing, highlight possible areas of future exploration and research.Design/methodology/approachThis paper utilises a Systematic Quantitative Literature Review (SQLR) method, wherein keywords and phrases are entered into selected citation databases generating a reproducible list of literature. This is then refined using a specified list of criteria and read for relevance. The resulting literature forms the basis of qualitative and quantitative analyses and review.FindingsThe reviewed scholarship demonstrates a surge in publications since the early 2000s, with 75% of publications originating from the USA, Canada, or the UK Furthermore, themes related to live project definitions, outputs and rationales were examined, demonstrating that common factors such as “community”, “construction” and “pedagogy” are not mutually exclusive but tend to overlap, making the topic hard to define. These results also demonstrate a proclivity for projects with a built output. Barriers to live projects were also assessed, and it was found that administrative hurdles, such as time and budget constraints, were the biggest concern to live project practitioners. Finally, critical voices were examined and showed that live projects need to reflect on the nature of their engagement with the community.Research limitations/implicationsThis method, while capturing a substantial portion of the published scholarship, does not capture all live project literature due to limitations such as language and a strong focus on peer-reviewed publications. Furthermore, this research only captures literature that has been published. It does not reflect the variety and extent of live project activity occurring globally. For reasons such as unfamiliarity and inconsistencies with the use of live project terminologies, doubtless many unpublished live projects are conducted–yet not represented in these findings. This study may help live project execution by providing valuable examples of existing trends.Originality/valueThis paper captures the metadata from 110 live project publications, allowing for wide-ranging analysis, categorisation and discussion on the topic.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of income generation projects as a pedagogic method to assess students’ learning about social enterprises. The authors are interested in how and why this innovative approach might improve students’ understanding of the different aspects and attributes of social entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – The study used thematic analysis of qualitative data comprising the reflective logs of 87 students on an undergraduate entrepreneurship module in a university business programme. The major attributes of social entrepreneurship were identified from a review of literature, and the paper uses the logs to judge whether students had learnt about these attributes. Findings – The results show that students developed an understanding concerning social enterprises’ diverse stakeholder environment, market needs, social enterprises’ ideological foundations, resource mobilisation processes and performance measurement – both social and financial. In addition, they developed skills in reflection and self-awareness, communication, empathy and the generation of new ideas. Research limitations/implications – The study is limited in that it focused on only one cohort of students, undergraduates. The authors cannot claim that the findings are generalisable to other students or contexts. Practical implications – Students are better able to understand the needs and values of social enterprises. However, this is a resource intensive process for educators with implications for curriculum design and management. Social implications – This study sheds new light on how experiential learning helps to raise students’ awareness of social enterprises. Originality/value – This study sheds new light on how experiential learning in the form of income generation projects helps to raise students’ awareness of social enterprises. Its value lies in helping to develop a novel and effective pedagogy for entrepreneurial learning.

Architectural professionals can contribute to efforts at achieving sustainable urbanism. However, the realm of professional discourse is extremely limited. Grounded architectural practice (GAP) is developed as a conceptual framework to explore an emergent form of contextually appropriate architectural practice in the context of a resident-driven in situ informal settlement upgrading project. The exploration takes the form of a descriptive narrative. Each challenge that arose during the descriptive narrative was mapped according to Engeström’s activity system model, an analytical tool emanating from cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). By participating in live projects in informal settlements and analysing these projects by means of CHAT, the authors explored the highly improvising and generative everyday practices of the urban majority. Architectural practice in such a context requires a multi-disciplinary approach which extends beyond conventional professional boundaries, and attention must be paid to building the capacity of all participants to function in such uncharted territory.

COVID-19 calls for new approaches and frameworks for the delivery of work-integrated learning (WIL). Standalone WIL opportunities are also increasingly difficult to realize, with the current economic climate limiting industry resources available for placements and WIL partnerships. The hybridized WIL model presented in this paper thus proposes the scaffolding of simulated WIL experiences into core undergraduate design curriculum to promote deep, authentic, transformational learning, fostering broader student employability. Noting a gap in design educational research relating to embedded scaffolded WIL, the paper refers to examples of scaffolded WIL experiences across core design studio subjects of a four-year embedded honors interior architecture program. Conceived as a way to prepare students for more significant standalone, cross-disciplinary and cross-national WIL, the authors argue that this model develops the professional skills required by industry and better prepares students to navigate the dynamic real-world problems that societies face, particularly during the pandemic. [Author abstract]

Architecture Live Projects provides a persuasive, evidence-based advocacy for moving a particular kind of architectural learning, known as Live Projects, towards a holistic integration into current and future architectural curricula. Live Projects are work completed in the borderlands between architectural education and built environment practice; they include design/build work, community-based design, urban advocacy consulting and a host of other forms and models described by the book’s international group of authors. Because of their position, Live Projects as a vehicle for simultaneously providing teaching and service has the potential to recalibrate the contesting claims that both academia and profession make on architecture. This collection of essays and case studies consolidates current discussions on theory and learning ambitions, academic best practices, negotiation with licensure and accreditation, and considerations of architectural integrity. It is an invaluable resource for current and future Live Projects advocates – whether they aim to move from pedagogy into practice or practice into pedagogy.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review live-client learning activities in higher education, highlighting a lack of multi-stakeholder evaluation of “learning by doing” pedagogies in current literature. It extends existing discussion of employability outcomes, dominated by findings from larger organisations, towards arguably, a more meaningful concept: “employagility”; whereby graduates engage in “agile” life-long skills development, through exposure to learning within small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME), enhancing potential to contribute to local and wider economies. Design/methodology/approach – Findings from in-depth, semi-structured interviews and reflective learning journals, captured from triangulated perspectives, presented as the “3Es”: employers, educators and engagers (in this case, undergraduate marketing students). Findings – Students identified involvement in “real” live-client projects, applying knowledge learned in the classroom to solve a business problem, enabled them to develop skills demanded by employers. Clients noted how student work exceeded expectations, providing tangible outputs and innovative ideas for their business, even through limited periods of interaction. Educators explained how relatively simple changes to curricula and extra-curricular activities can enable the development of SME-relevant “agile” graduates. Originality/value – With SMEs at the forefront of government programmes to lead economic recovery, it is imperative higher education institutions recognise the need for development of appropriately “agile” graduates. This paper contributes a new 3Es model illustrating mutual benefits of collaboration, proposing a “competence-employagility” continuum.