Space-Shaping Through Rhythmic Interventions for Teaching and Learning: Pedagogical Perspectives

We explore the challenges and opportunities relevant to rhythmanalytical approaches in teaching and learning through two socio-spatial and design-oriented courses with graduate and undergraduate students. Through the courses we investigate how different understandings and analyses of rhythms-through-space in comparison to rhythms-in-space generate different patterns of interventions. We also share prospects for preparing and structuring future teaching and learning that integrate time-sensitivity through constructively aligned activities supporting the development of different forms of knowledge. This work supports recent calls for greater attention to how temporality and particularly rhythms could be better understood, observed, framed, and conveyed. In the foreground is the need to improve how we guide students’ research through design-oriented learning experiences. For this we provide frameworks bringing together concepts from rhythmanalysis and constructive alignment. We draw on comparative and case study experiences from 2022 and the winter of 2023/2024 involving interdisciplinary bachelor-level and master-level courses, respectively. Our cases wrangle with the relationships between socio-spatial and temporal scales that steer or constrain rhythmic patterns expressed in students’ analyses and design interventions. From an instructional standpoint, this contribution poses the question: Which conceptual structures in design-oriented pedagogy could support rhythmanalytical approaches and capacities for future spatial planners and designers? Our final reflections discuss opportunities for improvement and evaluate how future planning pedagogy research and work could build on our experiences.