The Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture and the Instituto de Empresa (IE) Business School teamed up for an experiment in innovative education. This weekend, a delegation from the AA — including director Brett Steele and tutors João Bravo da Costa, Anne Save de Beaurecueil, Ricardo de Ostos, and Peter Ferreto — conducted an interdisciplinary module, one of the innovations in IE’s new MBA curriculum.
The module consisted of a 6-hour workshop during which MBA students were given architectural design tasks. These tasks served to introduce the business students to the thought and work processes involved in contemporary experimental architecture and were aimed at stimulating innovative ideas, creativity, and teamwork.
The workshops (each of which was led by an AA tutor with the assistance of IE staff and attended by students working in teams) were preceded by an introduction — opened by IE School of Architecture dean Javier Quintana and completed by each of the AA staff, who presented recent investigations of work space design. The importance of how places of work are designed was the guiding theme of the workshop.
The cooperation between the IE and the AA is the result of a common interest in innovation and disruptive learning. By bringing business and design activities closer together, this initiative aimed at developing skills in communication, leadership, critical thinking, and creativity.
