An Interview with David Beynon
(“Int” refers to the interviewer, “David” refers to David Beynon)
Int:	David, I'm interested in your Asian Architecture CD-ROM development, and I guess very simply some people might see it as having a whole lot of images on a CD, but I think more fundamentally, it reflects a very strong conception of a new subject being taught in the school—Asian Architecture. I wonder if we could start by painting a very broad view of... what's the nature of the unit, and what's its purpose?
David:	Well, the unit is one of… I guess a suite of units within the history-theory discipline in the School of Architecture and Building. It's a unit which, thus, while it's part of that purely historical unit, it's a unit that's obviously geographical – as the name Asian Architecture implies that; so what the content of the unit is, is essentially, the architecture of Asia. Now, the architecture of Asia is obviously a vast subject, particularly when the brief is to discuss it from… I guess the beginnings of time to I guess… the present day and the future. So, the unit is organised in terms of themes, and then topics which becomes part of those themes. And those themes are partially historical, and partially geographical. And so, the themes run from … there are five basic themes: the first theme is 'cultures', which deals with traditional vernacular, indigenous types of architecture. The second is titled 'civilizations', which deals with the great civilizations of Asia: Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism; and their various offshoots and variants. The third deals with those aspects of architecture that have come from the west of Asia; and this includes both the architecture of Islam, and also the legacy of colonialism and imperialism. And then, there are two further themes; there's a theme which is of nations, which I guess the architecture of… in a way the present-day as a survey of Asian nations, since they've mostly become independent after the Second World War. And then, the last theme is entitled 'futures', which deals with various aspects of architecture construction building in Asia today and into the future. This is everything from: new technologies, such as ecological sustainable technologies, to the very real problems of Asian cities, of overcrowding and squatter settlements. And also of flows of migration, such as a large number say of Asian migrants to Australia. And this is a subject which, because we are, at least very close to Asia, if not part of Asia, then its a subject of great interest and should be of great interest and relevance to Australians in general, and Australian architects in particular. And there are practical reasons for that; a lot of Australian architects do work in Asia, and certainly if we ever have another recession, many more will be. It also should be of cultural and philosophical interest as well. So the unit tries to cover a number of these items by dealing with it thematically, by dealing with a number of examples of each theme, rather than trying to be overly comprehensive, which would involve many thousands of buildings.
Int:	It's really interesting David, because a lot of people take the what and why of teaching for granted, it's not seen to be problematic or contestable, but here you've got a thematically based curriculum, which is a very creative way of actually seeing the subject matter… I mean, where do these themes come from? Do they relate to your scholarly research interests in the field of Asian architecture… do you grab them off the shelf, or is this part of your broader academic work?
David:	It's part of my broader academic work in a way, in that my research is in this area. It's also the... particularly the historical nature of the themes. These are reasonably well accepted categories within the field of Asian studies and the way that Asian architecture is, I guess, stated on a national level in different Asian locations, such as if you were say, in Malaysia, they would look at their own architecture in terms of it's indigenous qualities, in terms of the influx in Islam colonialism and nationalism. What I'm looking at is doing this a pan-national sense, and trying to compare where there are certain aspects of architecture which …as there often are, have cross-links. And this is why the CD is a useful thing; 'cause it's not just a linear history—there are lots of histories, but it's also very much geographical, and there are lessons that can be learnt in areas that might have similar climate, or a similar cultural background, so you can make comparisons of that nature, and if you have a textbook, I'm sure you can actually read it from end to end, you can also look in the index, and move through it in other ways. I guess a CD, because the links are in multiple directions, it should allow you to follow different threads, either a geographical thread —there are maps in the CD; as well as a least of themes. In the… I guess the next edition of the CD, there will be possibly a chronology, which allows you to look at a sort-of comparative timeline… so, if you wanted to understand where a particular building sits within the overall field, you could either look at it within the theme and topic, which would put a building like, say, 'Borobodur' for instance, in Java, in the context of Hinduism, Buddhism… the movement from India to south east Asia. You could also look at it geographically, in terms of looking at a map which has Indonesia, which indicates where it is within that... and then you could also look at it... when we've finalised the chronology part of it, in terms of the history of world architecture, and its comparison, with say, at the same time they were building this, they hadn't yet built the great medieval cathedrals of Europe.
Int:	David, you might want to comment further on this, but, you mentioned in a sense, the internationalisation of the curriculum in your subject, and this also brings to the fore this idea of some of these generic graduate attributes, to do with international perspectives and inter-cultural sensitivity. These things are very easy to say in policy documents, but they are very difficult to enact in terms of curriculum reform innovation. Would you like to comment further on the ways in which you, in a sense, substantively, have tried to make this a strongly international unit in focus.
David:	Well I guess because it does that the actual subject matter is outside where we are located in Australia then in a certain standard it isn't… you know its internationalised by virtue of that, so it makes it easier to say internationalised it and talk about globalization or it as a globalised form of… globalise discipline that it does say if your looking at a pure mathematics or something. So however on the other hand we are looking at it from this particular perspective, so for… you know if we're looking at graduates who can one operate in the world, the wider world and two are actually knowledgeable enough with it to be able to I guess interact with people of other cultures, to interact with people who've grown up under other types of systems then this should also as well as providing great number of fascinating buildings, also give people a sort of an appreciation of the kind of cultures that produce those buildings I mean some of these would be well known some of these would be somewhat lesser known to an Australian perspective. Then we also talked about, I talked about the end, at the end of the lecture it is one of the themes in on the CD is the position of Asian architecture of the architecture of Asian migrants in Australia which is actually some of what I've also been researching back from when I was doing my PhD. And so this then gives a sense of depending where the students come from cause some of the students are Australian, some of them are from Asia, some of them are from other parts of the world.
Int:	Now the way you've structured it organise this CD reflects the structure and organisation of the unit overall, I guess you've given use some very interesting insights into how you see effective teaching and learning in this type of subject matter. Would you like to comment further on, you know, what you are trying to achieve as a teacher, and what you want to bring forth in regard to good quality student learning of the subject?
David:	Well I think the thing with a subject like this is, I'm not expecting the student to learn all this material, there's a vast number of buildings and then a mind boggling amount of terminology, and the CD goes with the printed reader which includes selected readings from various experts in Asian architecture, and there is also a study guide which has various assignments which ask people to explore other aspects. So apart from there are some basic principles from each theme which I would like students to be able to take forward and to apply if they can, but I guess the gaining of appreciation is an important thing and also I guess through doing the exercises its also important that they learn. There are basic skills of firstly being able to analyse a subject and secondly not just analyse a subject like a building which they can visit, but also analyse what a text on a subject, cause this is an area which is quite contested, you know lots of these structures have been written by both Europeans, Australians, Asians, the histories particularly in a sort of post colonial period are quite contested. So getting the students to be able to read anything with a critical eye, both so that they can understand what the author is trying to say when they talk about the subject, but also understand where the other is coming from; I think these are important skills that people have to have so that when they can actually read as much as the document is textual, with the architects in particular, you know being able to understand how you articulate ideas about buildings, you know it a sort of a fundamental skill really.
Int:	So let's get to the CD and we open up the CD and we are presented with a home page, but could you paint a picture of what's happening on the CD? What are students doing? How have you designed that CD?
David:	Ok well, with the CD when you've open it up, once you've got pass the copyright notice, you get to the first page and the first page has firstly an introductory essay which gives an outline of what …of the subject both in a summary form and also in a more extended passage. It also provides direct links to the five themes and the maps. And when we come to the next version to the chronology as well, so then you got three parallel ways which you can actually navigate to the material. Now if you are to go to the themes, which is basically the order in which the lectures are given, then each theme will then develop into between two and four topics. Now each theme will have an introductory text, so you can have an idea as to what that theme actually entails, and then the topics again, they have their own text summarised so people could get some snapshots of what they are looking at. And then with each topic there are between five and six current examples which are building, which are an illustrative aspect of that topic and there are … each one is illustrated by one, two or three images and a text which is specifically about that. Now, so you can move through it in the linear way like this. In the second way you can move to the maps from the main page and from the maps there are both historical maps, Asia at various junctures say 750, 1500, 2005 and look at how the Asian continent was... How the boundaries were designated at these times. And then when you look at the contemporary map, you can see the contemporary nations and you can then look at each nation. When you blow it up it comes to its own large amount, and in this large amount there are, there're little blue squares. Each of these blue squares indicates where one of the buildings actually is, so you can make your own geographical comparisons, and not only do you just get the names of the buildings it links you back to the actual file which describes it in context, so you start to understand it within that broader geographical context as well as within the themes. Because obviously the themes are… there's a certain cross disciplinary quality to that, some of them are based upon particular historical traditions that move from one area to another and so the geography helps you understand that.
Int:	Now David as a teacher maybe the integrative or facilitator role, I'm a student I go to your lectures, there are tutes, I've got the printed material, I've got the CD-Rom, how do you try to integrate that? How do you present the key messages to students about, this is what I want you to get from the lectures vis a vis the tutes and the print material and the CD, how should it all come together?
David:	Well I think, the CD will, one of the things about this unit is that this semester is only on campus. This time next semester we will be moving off campus, so for the on campus students; the CD is a resource which is partially supplemented and overlapped with the lecture material and the tutorial material. Essentially what I talk about in the lectures follows the thematic order with some more elaboration some of the images which we … because there are lots of images which we could use with more copyright and more time, so in an elaboration of those item and then when we get to the tutorials the students then from the readings and from using the reader as a major resource, what I think is important about this as a resource is that while our library is developing its collection on Asian architecture its at the moment, one of the reasons why there is a printed reader is that there is no real anthology that's been printed and published on the subject which would cover what I need to cover. So the students are perhaps more reliant upon the material that I give them than they might be for certain other subjects which are taught in the school.
Int:	Would you actually play aspects of the CD-ROM in a lecture to re-enforce the value the CD; so that when I come to a lecture, they know that you got the CD, you're actually showing parts of it and they go gee that must be an important resource, he's using it in a lecture. Do you actually use a CD that way?
David:	Ah... Yes I do that too … I started… I'd only given two, 2-hour lectures so far. But last week I basically started with the CD and demonstrated; this is where we are on the CD, this is what I'm going to talk about today, this is the text on the CD which is this topic, which is part of this theme and I looked at the maps which give some of the others…. and have an overview and then I launch into the lecture. So they can immediately make the connection between the two, at those points. With the tutorials because the tutorials is after their first tutorial, the students generating the discussion from their own readings and class papers, it comes up perhaps a little more the informal way.
Int:	And stepping back David, reflecting on the whole project at this point, you mentioned things you'd like to see happen in further developing the CD, there is the online component of what you might do with the off campus students so; have you got ideas about where to from here, with both CD and online?
David:	Obviously there is some aspects that well with the CD that I've already mentioned, which would elaborate it. Also online I think, one of the major things other than the fine tuning parts of it and of the exercises, at the moment the exercises for it as well as being on DSO, on the WebCT Vista. The other thing which hopefully will build up is that, one of the assignments and exercises that I asked people to do; there are three exercises, one is a class presentation, one will involve writing an essay and one will involve doing a modelling or empirical measured drawing exercise. Now I would like these to be an ongoing resource, so that in the future years can be added too, at list the good ones, can be added to the material, so that then students can start to actually learn from each other, so the development of techniques could be brought into a real resource and database which is not… this is actually the seed hopefully for those things that are undeveloped, and they should be an increasing sort of quantity of those which then allows people I guess down the track to be able to start with other types of materials, which you know, one that they can see how students have done before them and two they can also add to this material sort of accumulates rather than being repeated from scratch each year.
Int:	And David finally what advise would you give to staff who are embarking on this type of digital media resource development, as some are now in your own school? What are the lessons you've learnt from doing this project to date?
David:	Give us plenty of time….. It's both… having … I was always a little worried about having the whole of the lecture material written out and well inscribed into a disc, prior to actually giving any of the lectures. Some of the lectures I've given are in different forms in other places but, essentially you got a course structure which unlike a little less than in traditional units where the first year things were tweaked as they go a bit, but here essentially it had to be at least an essence it cant really alter that much once the student had the CD and you've set the ground rules, you can't then go alter them in a fundamental way. So you have to actually get the structure of what you want to do in advance enough certainly cause your also working with people who had need to be given enough time to actually do the work.
Int:	Just also on the copyright, David, it's so important in regard to having the lead time to work through copyright issues, now the images you have might be ones you've taken or your colleagues have taken or they are coming from the internet or from books, I mean each one has a copyright implication. I mean have you tried to minimise copyright clearance issues to get the maximum number of images up on the first edition of the CD?
David:	Well I've tried firstly to use as many images where the copyright is either readily available, I've taken the photographs, or my colleagues have taken the photographs or sometimes my own relatives have taken the photographs on their various trips. So I tried to make as large a number of photographs from these kinds of sources. Now this is of course, you can't do that and compromise the sort of buildings that we talk about .So there is architectural units, particularly history units, and other types of units as well tend to be very image dense, you know there is a lot of images that need to be looked through, now actually it seems I'm not sure how the machinations worked down at Learning Services but Catherine who sort copyright for many of the images, seemed to be able to find the images for more than I originally, or that she originally thought she would be able to. So we actually ended up with the good cross section of images.
Int:	Would you like to comment on the aescetics of design, I mean architects are about designing, built physical environments but here you're designing a virtual media rich environment the student learning; what ideas did you bring to designing that kind of virtual media rich learning space based on your professional background?
David:	Well what I would bring to it was… what I was aiming for would be that it would be clear to navigate, actually a lot of architects' web sites perhaps suffer, if you look at architects' own professional websites actually suffer from being a little to clever in the graphics and a little too difficult to navigate; whereas this has been first and foremost a tool for a student to use needed to be easy to navigate, it needed to be straightforward while retaining the complexity that's within it of the content need to be as straightforward as it actually could be achieved. Now Ian Fox who did the graphic did a great job with this, I think, because basically what we did was discuss the way in which you would navigate through it, and so the actual ways in which you can see that, you know, you realise it was probably more due to him than me.
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