Changing the Curriculum in Architectural Education: the Case of the Trans-African Dialogues Series

Abstract

The paper describes the authors’ direct experience with an elective module entitled, Trans-African Dialogues: Drawing on existing knowledge, strengths, skills, resources & innovation. It offers a framework on how this module was initiated, developed and delivered in the faculty of Architecture and Urban Design at the German University in Cairo (GUC) during the Spring semester 2021. The module, intended specifically for the 10th semester architecture students with a view to inform their design studio thinking, builds upon the findings of the author’s doctoral research project and primary fieldwork in Ghana (Panta, 2018); it investigates themes such as architectural education, its curriculum, and the need to rethink the discipline and its practice from a broader environmental and cultural perspective.