Epistemological Chirality in Landscape Pedagogy: A Dual-Method studio at Angkor Wat Temple

Abstract

Contemporary landscape architecture education remains largely shaped by Western-centric epistemologies that privilege measurable observation and behavioral quantification over lived experience, relational meaning, and culturally embedded ways of knowing. This imbalance is particularly consequential in living-heritage landscapes such as Angkor Wat, where spatial use cannot be fully understood through behavioral counts alone. In response, this paper advances epistemological chirality as a pedagogical and analytical framework for examining two knowledge systems that are comparable yet non-superimposable: a Western-centric behavioral-metric approach and an Indigenous-informed narrative inquiry approach. The central research question is: How does a dual-method studio reveal tensions between quantitative observations and qualitative lived experience in a complex cultural landscape? Specifically, the research aims to: (1) identify the types of insights generated by each method across selected stations at Angkor Wat Temple, Cambodia; (2) determine the degree of convergence, complementarity or dissonance between the two epistemic streams; and (3) establish the value of these divergences for landscape architecture pedagogy. A dual-method studio was conducted with eight Master of Tropical Landscape Architecture students, divided into two parallel groups. Across four stations, each group completed two 10-minute scans per station. One group applied a modified System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) to record observable activity, roles, and environmental conditions, while the other employed narrative inquiry, sensory mapping, and micro-interviews to document atmosphere, meanings, and lived experience. The resulting datasets were synthesized using a Chiral Matrix and interpreted with a Chiral Divergence Index (CDI), which classified the relationship between the two streams as low, moderate, or high divergence. Findings show that ritual nodes produced low CDI, where measured activity and cultural meaning largely aligned; a transitional area produced moderate CDI, where two methods offered complementary but not identical readings; and one station generated high CDI, where quantitative observation suggested activity presence, but narrative accounts described emptiness, detachment or weak cultural resonance. These results indicate that divergence is not a methodological failure but an interpretive resource. The study is limited by its single-site focus and the time-bound nature of the scans, which constrain generalizability. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that integrating chiral comparison into studio teaching can humanize landscape architecture education by strengthening methodological reflexivity, ethical translation, operational empathy, process transparency, co-presence design, and culturally responsive design thinking.