University extension as praxis in the production of the city

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the current debate on the role of university outreach programs in the fields of architecture and urban planning, based on research conducted at a Brazilian public university. It starts from the hypothesis that outreach practices guided by the principles of popular education can function as mechanisms for the co-production of knowledge, articulating academic and popular knowledge. The following questions are addressed: (a) how does university outreach impact students’ professional training? and (b) how does it contribute to the democratization of urban production? A phenomenologically inspired qualitative approach was employed, supported by a focus group with participants in an outreach laboratory, including community researchers. As a result, five central structures of meaning were identified: its pedagogical, dialogical, and counter-hegemonic dimensions; learning situated in urban reality; the relationship with personal values and trajectories; tensions with teaching and research; and the institutional conditions for carrying out these practices. These axes reinforce that outreach is a formative, political, and epistemological practice with a structural dimension and point to possible pathways for its integration into professional training.