Fragile Foundations: Indonesian Architecture Students’ Struggles in Experiential Learning and Community-Based Pedagogy

Experiential learning in architecture education has gained momentum globally, often framed as a transformative bridge between theory and practice. It takes various forms— live projects, design-build programs, service learning, or community-based design—however the existing scholarship overlooks the systemic challenges students face, particularly in non- Western contexts where institutional instability frequently shape the operational reality of such programs. Drawing on ethnographic research across three university–community collaborations in rural Indonesia, this paper exposes the fragile foundations underpinning community- based pedagogy: blurry institutional support, resource constraints, and unpredictable social dynamics that disrupt students’ expectations of meaningful, structured learning. Rather than empowering students, these programs often burden them with logistical uncertainties, unstructured roles, and financial precarity, forcing them to navigate a structurally flawed system with minimal support. By critiquing the romanticization of experiential learning, this study argues that ‘learning by doing’ in Indonesia often becomes ‘learning by enduring.’ It calls for pedagogical models that acknowledge instability as a systemic issue, rather than an individual challenge for students to overcome. The findings advocate for clear institutional guidelines and supports, financial accountability, active engagement collaborations, towards insightfully experiential learning in Indonesian architectural education and potentially other Global South contexts.