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Interdisciplinary Design: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

≠ Abstract

Today’s students are faced with far different challenges upon graduation than those encountered in past years. One of the most significant of these challenges is the need to work within the framework of integrated project delivery where all disciplines work as a cohesive team to produce a project. In 2004, the Construction Management Department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo,CA began teaching a three credit hour design/build course focused on integrated project delivery. That course, taught primarily to construction management students, has now evolved into a true interdisciplinary experience that is taught in a team environment by professors from the departments of Construction Management, Architecture, and Architectural Engineering. The challenges in creating and executing such a course are immense and fall into three major areas; institutional, logistical and pedagogical. This paper addresses these three challenge areas by discussing the specific issues, both good and bad, associated with this course and how they were addressed. It includes assessment data from the course and cites some areas for improvement. In addition, the paper provides a framework for the successful implementation of similar courses around the world.

≠ Introduction

The Architectural Engineering Department (ARCE) at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) is one of the few ABET accredited engineering programs in the United States that exists outside a college of engineering. Housed in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design, ARCE resides with the departments of Architecture (ARCH), Construction Management (CM), Landscape Architecture, and City and Regional Planning. The college has a 60 year tradition of collaboration between the engineering, architecture and construction disciplines. Several decades ago, all students in the college took a common two year curriculum prior to separating into their respective disciplines. Although that model no longer exists, there is a commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration at the lower division level. ARCE students take three architecture studios side-by-side with architecture students. All ARCH and CM students take a five course structural engineering sequence from the ARCE Department. While the college has always excelled at bringing students together in lower division classes, there have only been isolated attempts to bring the students back together after each has learned his or her respective discipline for a true interdisciplinary experience. There have been many excellent elective courses and senior projects that have been interdisciplinary in nature, but no experience required of every student. This paper chronicles an attempt to bring an interdisciplinary experience to the masses – an upper division, project based, team oriented course that every student would take. The challenges in creating and executing such a course are immense and fall into three major areas: institutional, logistical and pedagogical. Institutional issues include university support and concurrence from four different department heads. Logistical issues range from finding open

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Nelson, J., & Nuttall, B., & Estes, A. (2010, June), Interdisciplinary Design: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16260