Academic and Teaching Background (My Personal Journey)

My decisions to become an architect and afterwards to move to Singapore and pursue an academic career in architecture at NUS were made under rather awkward and intimate circumstances. In the final year of my high school, I was seriously considering to study medicine or literature. However, I believe I made my final choice in March 1999, when the 78-day long NATO bombing of my hometown Belgrade, Serbia, started. Besides hearing the very first bomb on my way back home from school, I also vividly remember the days walking around the city and sketching under the sound of sirens, while preparing for my entry exam in architecture, as if I was protecting the buildings through my drawings.

After graduating from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, in 2005, and working in an architectural firm, I had an urge to displace myself for some time. This is not unusual for young architects, who more than often look for opportunities to travel, admire their favourite buildings, and experience new environments and new cultures. However, the idea of displacement meant something more to me; it was an opportunity to study places and architecture from a completely different perspective. When in 2006 I applied for the Master by Research programme in architecture, at the Department of Architecture (DoA), School of Design and Environment (SDE), NUS, under NUS Scholarship, I hardly knew anything about Singapore. I will only later realise the full impact of these two ???incidents??? on shaping my learning, teaching and research approaches and practices.

My initial plan to stay in Singapore for 2-3 years unexpectedly and rewardingly turned into a much longer (and ongoing) journey. It started with upgrading my initial Master degree to PhD (2006-2011), after which I joined the Centre for Sustainable Asian Cities (CSAC), SDE, NUS as a postdoctoral Research Fellow (2011-2015). During this period I was also jointly appointed with the Department of Architecture, SDE, NUS (2013-2015) as a part-time tutor (2013-2015), when I first started teaching architectural design studios (AR1101 Design 1, AR1102 Design 2, AR4101 Design 7 and AR4102 Design 8) and conducting seminars for AR2223 Theory of Urban Design and Planning and AR5221 Theories and Elements of Urban Design. Finally, since 2015, I am appointed as a full-time Assistant Professor on research-track, and previous research and teaching experiences considerably affected my teaching approaches.

At NUS, I developed research expertise in urban studies and design for wellbeing discourses, with particular focus on multi-sensorial approaches to urbanism, health-supportive and ageing-friendly urban space and neighbourhood design, arts and public space and community participation. In line with such expertise, I had an extensive opportunity to teach, guide and supervise architecture, urban design and urban planning students at all undergraduate and graduate levels, as part of Urbanism Research Cluster (and previously Community+Housing design track), including both core and elective modules, large and small classes.

Teaching Philosophy

Being on research-track, I felt both a responsibility and a great opportunity to align and integrate my research experience into teaching practices, which became my key overarching teaching goal. Contemporary architectural and urban design/planning practice is increasingly becoming inseparable from research. Issues, such as environmental and social sustainability, ageing-friendly design or total healing environment, among others, demand for evidence-based yet creative and sophisticated design outcomes. However, translating growing knowledge from various disciplines (not only architecture and urban studies) into successful architectural design solutions is one of the key challenges.

Accordingly, my belief is that one of the major objectives in architecture and urban design education today would be to encourage and develop those skills in students that would effectively combine design and research, industry and academia, with an accent on holistic, multi-disciplinary and multi-contextual theoretical and practical knowledge. It is critical to approach cities as complex systems of relationships, conditions and processes, taking into account architectural design, urban design, urban planning and landscape design simultaneously and holistically (urbanism), rather than as separate disciplines.

A successful architectural and urban designer of tomorrow has to be able to think critically and holistically, to identify and investigate both broad and specific design problems, as well as to explore the context and environmentally conscious strategies to solve these problems. A good designer needs to be able to employ multi-disciplinary knowledge and creativity into highly sophisticated user-oriented design outcomes. The design solutions are rarely stagnant and defy the ???one-fit-all??? model, just as cities and human needs change constantly. While understanding the fundamental models in urbanism, acknowledging these temporal dimensions of design, as well as cultural, climate, moral and subjective factors, is of high, if not critical, importance. Therefore, triggering constant urge for creativity, imagination, exploration and self-exploration, enjoyment and self-criticism, plays critical role in obtaining such skills and that is my highest goal as a teacher.

My research experience in a number of multi-disciplinary projects on the topics of urban spaces in high density environment, participatory design and ageing- and health-supportive design (multi-sensory urbanism) provided me fruitful sources for addressing the goal of research-teaching balance. This was translated in development of module curricula and continuous improving and updating of my teaching material and teaching methods (Please see Reflection Narratives sections of this document.).

In line with above considerations, I typically structure my teaching around the emphasis on research by design and design by research as a cyclic or iterative process, which comprises the following phases:
- Reading: exposure to and understanding of the fundamental past and contemporary urban theory and practice (precedent case studies); usually through lectures, guest lectures, mini-lectures by students, food-for-thought flipped discussion sessions, and compulsory and optional reading material; the key goal is to instill the passion for reading;
- Doing: Research/Analysis: deep enquiry into urban/architectural conditions, involving critical thinking and systematic research of urban and architectural conditions; typically through tutorials, on-site investigations and field-trips, as well as various modes of sharing sessions, such as brainstorming, focus-group discussions and workshops, as well as active involvement in research projects; the main aim is to spark curiosity and analytical skills;
- Doing: Making & Writing: synthesis, which involves narrating and creative design conceptualisation (in reference to theoretical position); usually through team-work and individual design or writing/presentation assignments and hands-on experiential learning; the key goal is to instill creativity;
- Evaluation: critical re-thinking and evaluation, reflection and self-assessment; typically through interim reviews, critiques, debates, debriefs, student peer-reviews, exhibitions and design competitions; the key goal is to encourage critical design thinking and build arguments that would lead to becoming responsible and context-sensitive designers.

In many aspects, such an approach finds its inspiration in PAR - Participatory Action Research, which emphasises the collective inquiry and experimentation grounded in experience. PAR is considered an alternative approach to traditional research, as it moves the inquiry from a linear cause and effect perspective, to a participatory framework (Chandler & Torbet, 2003), which involves a cyclic process of research, reflection, and action (Minkler, 2000; Selener, 1997). In a similar fashion, Lydon and Garcia (2015) Tactical Urbanism approach is a form of action planning or planning by doing, which emphasises on small actions towards big change and the non-linear cyclic process of five key design steps, namely: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. Moreover, such a participatory framework assumes active two-way learning, where the teacher is also the one who learns, while the students become the co-researchers and co-teachers.

Different modules and student levels may require slightly modified approaches or may not be able to accommodate all the phases of this process to the same extent. Studio learning (including Thesis supervision), for instance, is the unique platform for applying this process fully, as it occurs at various phases and scales of the design project and is generally repeated several times in order to arrive at a good design outcome. The specific informal nature of studio learning is particularly fruitful for boosting creativity and allowing students to learn and grow at their own pace and in ???trial and error??? manner by making (experiential learning).

Teaching Objectives. It is through this process that I hope architecture students can acquire the necessary skills of becoming truly good designers and sharp thinkers. Three key values that I hope to cultivate in my students include:

- Critical and holistic thinking and design ??? through instilling passion for reading, observing and questioning. It is my personal observation that, in general, the culture of asking questions is relatively weak among the local students, especially at the underground level. Similarly, students tend to present their work in a linear fashion, focusing on the final outcome, while neglecting to discuss the process and being ???shy??? to admit the challenges they faced in the design/learning process. In my opinion, the best students are those who understand that ???there are no ???stupid??? questions??? and who are not afraid of acknowledging their mistakes. Through various sharing sessions and discussions, my aim is to motivate the students to question and challenge both the received knowledge and themselves and in such a way build stronger standpoints and argumentations for their work. At the (post)graduate level, on the other hand, it is expected that students must develop a capacity for self-direction, self-monitoring, and self-generation of ideas. It is prerequisite that students learn how to formulate questions, conduct research, and write in a professional academic manner. Moreover, advanced conceptual learning requires students to construct a conceptual framework in order to integrate and organize newly acquired knowledge into a coherent structure.

- Diversity, customised student-centric learning and empowerment. It is important to allow the students certain freedom to choose what they want to learn and how. In such a way, they reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, I designed the brief for last project of Design 2 (AR1102, AY2016/17) ??? human scale, together with the students (please see Appendix A14). We used the brainstorming session to reflect on all past work, focusing on students key challenges but also highest level of enjoyment, and developed a collective brief for a pop-up community capsule, which would be able to transform from a minimal space/structure (hibernation mode) to a larger installation with a stronger impact on public space and community (???active??? mode). All designs were submitted to the URAs competition entitled MY IDEAS FOR PUBLIC SPACES: POP-UPS (2017 EDITION), which sought for creative ideas to transform public spaces through Light, Quick and Cheap approach. This participatory approach resulted in students being exceptionally motivated and engaged, as well as in high quality designs. The fact that their work would have a greater exposure through exhibition at the URA Centre was another motivating factor, which also resulted in compelling visual and graphical presentations (for Year 1 students). Empowering the students also leads to mutual learning.

- Evidence-based design through research by design and design by research. Boosting curiosity and developing analytical skills to translate research findings into meaningful design solutions are critical for becoming a good and responsible designer. Bringing research, teaching and design together can take various forms, including: learning from experience (fieldwork), development of teaching material, employing design studio and classroom teaching as a research platform (turning students into co-designers and co-researchers), involving students as part-time researchers, using research experience as vehicle for students personal growth, etc.

In the era of globalisation and increasing diversity, being a foreigner with education based primarily on western architectural thought and with cultural origin historically shaped by simultaneous streams of the East and the West of the Balkan region, yet spending over 13 years in Singapore as student, researcher and teacher, are important facts. Such a condition of dislocation and familiar foreignness remained an important ingredient in both my research and teaching, with all its constraints and potentials, providing me an exceptional opportunity to learn and grow both personally and professionally. It showed to be surprisingly fruitful not only in sharing diverse knowledge with students and researchers of different cultural and educational backgrounds, but also in developing my own critical awareness, heightening my perception and sensibility towards better understanding of the local context. Architectural education (and most likely any education) is in its essence a two-way and never ending process, demanding for perpetual verbal and visual exchange, balancing between temporary trends and long-term established values, between teaching and learning simultaneously. I will continue to enrich my skills towards collaborative and student-centred learning with the key focus on integrating research, teaching and design, empowering students through experiential, independent and customised learning and inducing critical and holistic thinking and design.