Engaging All Disciplines Within the Education Process

In any built project many different disciplines come together to make the project a success, the team concept is critical. Architects, engineers, construction managers, planners, and developers all have underlying truths basic to their discipline and supported by their learning processes. The architect, as this is how I was educated, is required to study all areas with a broad intent to operate as the check and balance between client and contractor with the first priority the public. This role and broad education assists the architect in learning how to balance the many conflicting issues that arise in the act of constructing our built environment in the hopes that the final built solutions will meet as many private and public needs as possible. Other disciplines are more focused on specific issues of great importance related to the over all success of the project. Broad with a general understanding of the details versus more specifically focused to a particular outcome would be a brief way to describe the architectural education versus the education of other disciplines. Comparing the curriculum of each discipline to see how they interrelate and overlap and allowing these interconnections to occur and overlap within the learning process will assist with the multi-disciplinary considerations that occur in the "real world". If each of these learned skills are understood and every skill is valued for its importance to the team a smoother integration of all of our skills toward the goal of long term sustainable environmental success can be achieved. How we engage in understanding the complexity of the issues and the role of each professional during the educational process is one way to create sustaining ethics in our profession. How can more inclusive approaches be supported, encouraged and managed as a respectful learning experience for all within our architectural discipline? This paper discusses some ideas as appropriate ways to enhance sustaining ethics in pedagogy as we respect the ideas of others so that we can truly begin to understand and respect our role in the total world view.