3. Teaching concept: To encourage independent discovery and innovation

As a design course for graduate students, “Informal Living” agrees with the integrity and complexity of selected topics. The teaching concept is to enhance students’ ability of independently discovering problems and solving problems. The features are open and research-based teaching. This course neither pre-defines specific users or construction places nor restricts a uniform construction scale or requirement to achieve. The purpose is to leave a room of sufficient research and innovation for students as far as possible.

●Discover life, return to life

In teaching, students are required to walk outside the campus to make analysis and exploration in social activities. The topics may arise from people, places or events, etc. covering every aspect of social life. The whole design process synchronizes with social investigation, during which students are encouraged to keep long-lasting communication with and attention to research objects in multiple forms, and make feedback about both ultimate results and by stage to verify social significance of the research.

●Encourage questioning and introspection

Questioning and introspection serve as the source power to promote the professional development. “Informal Living” gives priorities to the research on special population and specific residence. What’s to do first is to break too many “conventionalities” that have been already formed during former urban development. Hence, the determination of research topics generally starts from “why” and “why not”.

●Highlight the introduction of interdisciplinary studies

With rich connotation and wide-ranging extension, housing problems involve many disciplines including planning, society, economy and humanity. Teaching of “Informal Living” attaches great significance to the introduction of interdisciplinary studies. To this end, we set the learning requirements for interdisciplinary studies in key links of this course respectively and employ experts of urban planning, sociology and even from departments of urban management and development division to participate in teaching and guidance, so as to expand the research vision of students.

●Advocate the enlightenment and seminar-based teaching

The education of graduate students focuses more on the cultivation of working method, than on indoctrinating design techniques. Namely as the old saying goes, to teach others the way of fishing is far better than to present them fish. This course emphasizes the process of logic thinking and empirical derivation, and adopts the enlightenment and seminar-based teaching method to help students change their established ways of subjective assumption. Students are required to undergo multiple rounds of questioning and debating for their chosen topic, so that the subject can become clear gradually. In the whole process of designs, teachers are more like questioners than initiators, who drive students to deepen their thinking step by step through continuous questioning and enlightenment, and finally come up with the reasonable and appropriate solution.