ABSTRACT
Today’s global challenges are greatly transforming society’s expectations of architects and designers, and their roles are changing rapidly. In order to tackle these challenges, the educational academic practice has to respond by emerging specific competencies. There is a need to develop strategies for intercultural communication and participatory approaches, following the paradigm that design processes and outcomes should be relevant, appropriate, and sustainable. Public interest design and design/build projects question the current conventional educational practice and try to teach the intangible: Strongly embedded in “real life” these projects do not only bridge the gap to the nonacademic world by identifying actual needs and stimulating discussion. They help as well to overcome the divide between the cultural backgrounds of users and clients, that mostly differ from the ones of the academic students, teachers, and facilitators regardless if they share the same nationality or not. A significant impact is being made on students, clients, and host communities through engagement, which leads to mutual learning, greater respect, and better understanding of cultural differences, beyond professional training.
