PRESENTATION OF CASE

This chapter initially presents University College of Northern Denmark (UCN) as the context of interest for this PhD, where the education of Architectural Technology and Construction Management (ACTM), is the primary case. University College of Northern Denmark (UCN) is one of seven university colleges and two engineering colleges in Denmark that have existed since 2007. UCN includes 23 academy and bachelor programmes in business, pedagogy, health and technology. UCN works with higher education, research, development and innovation within the four main areas.

Also, UCN offers courses and continuing education for in-service practitioners, again within all four main areas.

The PhD project is focused on the educations that exists in the technology programme:

Architectural Technology and Construction Management (ACTM), Energy and Environment, Design and Production, and Information Technology. The specific case of this project will be the education of ATCM, where the fourth semester in particular is the primary focus. The three other areas of education in the technology programmes are included in the pre-study of the project (see Appendix A).

2.1. THE EDUCATION OF ATCM

ATCM is a bachelor degree rated for three years and six months of student work with the purpose of teaching the students about managing and handling technical and administrative work within the design and execution of building and construction projects. An education within Architectural Technology and Construction Management provides the students with an in-depth and interdisciplinary knowledge of all the phases characterising the process of constructing a building. The interdisciplinary approach allows the students from ATCM to act as a vital link between thought and action, which is crucial as the construction industry consists of many different actors with very different inputs and competencies. Thus, a student from ATCM becomes the person who collects and ties together all the threads from all the phases ‒ a consistent figure, who has responsibility and an overview from start to finish. The interdisciplinary profile enables the students from ATCM to handle many different types of jobs in many different industries (BEK nr 715, 2009; www.konstruktørforeningen.dk; www.ucn.dk) The core professionalism of ACTM is difficult to define, as it stretches across other professions, such as engineers, architects, craftsmen, etc. This means that the professionalism of ATCM can be defined as the ability to combine, process and develop a large number of elements from other professional disciplines and subsequently communicate it all through drawings and sketches. It also includes involving relevant authorities in the dialogue on construction details and the design of the building. The

students from ATCM is thus the key person in terms of obtaining knowledge from the architects and engineers translated into a practical understanding. Thus, the field of knowledge of ACTM is volatile and changeable as regards society’s trends and innovative solutions for the future (BEK nr 715, 2009; www.konstruktørforeningen.

dk; www.ucn.dk).

Within the construction industry, increased globalisation and technological development have in recent years affected the domain of ACTM. Generic competencies have become essential, as the future vision of construction calls for holistic solutions with high aesthetic value, sustainable responsibility and competitive prices. These new trends are already a reality in the education of Architectural Technology and Construction Management through the growth of new topics, such as BIM design, digital processes, industrialised construction, sustainable construction, energy design and integrated building design. Common to these new topics is a high degree of complexity combined with a lack of professional demarcation. These changes have increased the complexity of students’ semester projects tremendously, which creates a pedagogical challenge in terms of making teaching much more process-oriented (BEK nr 715, 2009; www.

konstruktørforeningen.dk; www.ucn.dk).

2.2. DESCRIPTION OF FORTH SEMESTER

The PhD project is based on the fourth semester in the education of ATCM at UCN, Technology. This semester has been selected as the primary case as it contains a great deal of complexity that requires an analytical, reflexive and explorative approach. Also, the teaching is based entirely on a group project, and the teachers have stated that it is difficult to capture the students’ interest in the more academic and process-oriented disciplines within a project-based curriculum. In this semester, the students aim to demonstrate and understand an interprofessional collaboration within the construction industry while dealing with the planning of an apartment and a commercial building.

This means that, at the end of the semester, the students should be able to demonstrate the ability to analyse, discuss and integrate economic, technical and production topics in a multidisciplinary context. Thus, through group work, the students must develop a building that takes into account relevant social, environmental, economic and technological aspects. Four semesters are divided into several phases, with this PhD project being based on the first phase, which focuses on the early development of a building concept. In this phase, the students will work through an integrated design process to create a building with a connection between aesthetics, technique and function. Each student’s project aims to create an understanding of the theories, methods and models that together contribute to developing relevant solutions for an integrated architecture/design project. Through the development of an architectural building concept project, students will thus, using an architectural and engineering approach, describe and create a relationship between form, space and construction,

in a problem-based context. For the students, this means that for the first time in their education they must become acquainted with academic topics such as urban design terminology, architecture theory, design and representation. Also, through the project phase, they will work with several design tools they have no previous experience with.

The semester project thus requires the student to work in a problem-oriented way with both academic and professional topics through reflection processes and an analytical approach. They are also required to be able to communicate their conceptual vision for the project through various media.

2.2.1. SELECTION CRITERIA

A broad diversity characterises the students at ATCM in terms of age and previous educational background. Figure1 shows the distribution of the students’ age as well as their previous academic background. In particular, the proportion of students with craftsman backgrounds constitutes over 50% of the total. As described in the introductory section of this PhD project, these students, in particular, pose several challenges regarding the educational organisation of the semester’s teaching processes.

These challenges are described in more detail in section 4.1 and Appendix A. In the first iteration, five project groups are randomly selected out of the 11 possible, whereas all students in the fourth semester participated in the second and third iteration. For all iterations, characteristics of age and background distribution have been represented.

Also, seven teachers participated in both the development of the project’s game design and in the running of the teaching process. Of these, four of them have been through-going persons in all three iterations. The teachers have all previously worked with fourth semesters and therefore have an in-depth knowledge of the academic content as well as the educational challenges. None of the teachers has previously worked with games as a tool for teaching. Likewise, none of them has a natural interest in playing computer games and hence no experience with the terminologies that characterise the gaming world.

Age

Previous Background

Figure 1 - Schematic overview of the distribution of age and academic background

Below 25 Between 25 and 30 Over 30

56.2 % 27.4 % 16.4 %

Craftsman Upper secondary Other

51.4 % 33.8% 14.9 %