Rhetoric and Reality: The Inernationalisation of Education as Experienced in the Cross-cultural and Cross-disciplinary Studio

Abstract

The rhetoric of most universities now includes goals about internationalisation of the curriculum and the values that flow from that process. Such goals appear to support practice in the design professions, which are now international in flavour, with many students expecting to practice internationally during their professional lives. Can the academy educate graduates for international practice and, if so, how best should it do it? This paper describes a tripartite programme currently under way between design schools from three continents: the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia; I'Ecole d'Architecture et Paysage, Bordeaux, France; and the Faculty of Architecture at Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. The Bordeaux-Melbourne-Bangkok programme (BMB) builds on previous, informal bilateral teaching relationships between the participating institutions, converting them into a formalised trilateral teaching programme, with coordinated field and studio activities involving staff and senior students in each of the three disciplines of landscape architecture, urban design and architecture, in each of the three cities over three consecutive years (2003, 2004, 2005). A distinguishing characteristic of BMB is its programme of teaching research, which tracks whether and how the outcomes identified for students have been achieved through the life of the project_ The results of the first research on student experience (from Workshop 1, Bangkok) are discussed and provide an example of how teaching research might assist in assessing whether institutional goals related to internationalisation are being achieved by the cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary studio.