Challenges of Architectural Education in Mexico: Globalization, Peri-Urban Semiotics and Social Responsibilities

The recent urban and architectural development in Mexico has evidenced extreme contrast between public planning policy, aiming at creating imaginaries and images of global cities as icons of vigorous economic and technological development, and vast peri-urban territories with great socio-urban problems but also with strong cultural traditions. Through dynamics of Experiential Learning, the Department of Architecture at the Universidad de las Americas Puebla (UDLAP), Mexico, is introducing architectural practices widening the stance of architectural education beyond the construction technologies and canonical aesthetics, to understand forms of meaningful socio-spatial organizations. Facing these challenges, place-sourced workshops informed by Semiotics of Habitable Space [1] and Critical Realism [2] have been carried out to trigger the re-thinking of architectural teaching and learning. Following Halliday's ideas [3], design workshops introduced students to experiential perception of the context as a narrative of its socio-human environment; informed by semiotic approaches and critical and creative thinking [2].