Studying abroad helps EVDS students see through the eyes of someone else

While thousands of students are heading up Crowchild to get back to school, dozens of architecture students in the Faculty of Environmental Design (EVDS) are navigating the streets of Tokyo and Barcelona to start the semester. Before getting down to work on projects and gaining technical knowledge, the students in Tokyo are climbing Mt. Fuji and learning a few traditional dance steps at a local festival in a nearby village.

“They open up a slot for us and we dance through the streets of this small town,” says Dr. Brian Sinclair, PhD, the architecture professor who has led the EVDS study abroad program in Tokyo for four years. “Japanese people from this small community will get up and dance with students and show them the moves they have to make. It’s an incredibly emotional welcome for the students.”

Living in Tokyo for three months helps students learn to see “through the eye of the other,” says Sinclair. “Even with small things like buying produce at the grocery store, students slowly begin to see through the eyes of the local people.”

For example, how people in Tokyo view public versus private space. “They have some really interesting practices,” says Hayden Pattullo, who spent a semester in Tokyo last year. “They have really constrained land and property because of high density. Spaces between houses and apartment buildings are technically public but people store all their stuff out there,” says Pattullo, a graduate research assistant at The Laboratory for Integrative Design. “There’s an unspoken rule about private space. Where we would have more physical boundaries they have more implied boundaries.”

Liyan Wong, who spent a semester in Barcelona in 2012, still remembers being wowed by the Sagrada Familia, the world-famous basilica by architect Antoni Gaudi. “His style is so unique for his time and ours, and seeing it pushes most architects to think outside of the box.” Wong, an intern architect at Calgary’s Mckinley Burkart, says she and her peers spent time away from Barcelona’s main tourist attractions “appreciating” residential neighbourhoods and seeing how Spanish people live day-to-day.

“It's important for students to get out of their comfort zone and experience design and life in other parts of the world,” says Rafael Gomez-Moriana, an EVDS adjunct associate professor who has taught UCalgary students in Barcelona since 2006. “Barcelona is the opposite of Calgary in many respects. Whereas Calgary is a sprawling prairie town built mostly since the invention of the automobile, Barcelona is a dense seaport with ancient Roman origins. Students learn how architecture can contribute toward making a city more livable and more humanly scaled.”

Long after the students return from their semester away, they find the experience reflected in their practice. “It’s been easier for me to recognize which design decisions are part of a western normal practice versus those that are a little outside of that and more adventurous,” says Pattulo.

Studying architecture and culture in Spain was “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” adds Wong. “Architects should always be open to learning, exploring and being awed.”