Tag: architecture studios

A checklist to tell if you are in a design studio or architecture cult?

A checklist to tell if you are in a design studio or architecture cult?

Peter Raisbeck

During the week, I watched a documentary on L. Ron Hubbard the founder of the Scientology religion.  It was fun to read about Ronnie and his Sea Org followers. This also made me think a bit about the architecture cults I have known. At the same time, I was also communicating on social media with someone who thought that, the complete lack of interest, or knowledge, regarding money by architects is bred into young architects at architecture school. This made me think that architecture school was also like a kind of cult thing. Lets face it for many of us architecture school was a cult experience. 

My friend argued that at archi-school we learn: it is noble and heroic to “struggle” and “starve” for our vocation; we learnt that we should never “sell-out” to the Money God; and we can only ever be validated through our own architectural integrity. In other words, as my esteemed friend noted, we are taught in architecture school, through the studio system, that the only thing that can validate our existence as individuals is our wonderful designs.

That’s ok if you have decent work or designs that will actually validate your existence. Hard to do if you only ever do bathroom renovations. Most architects seem to struggle to even get one great project designed and built.

My cult memberships 

Yes, I also drank that Kool-Aid at architecture school as well. I drank a lot of cultish Kool-Aid there. I suppose the first archi-cult I fell into at architecture school was the Aldo Rossi cult. I wanted to be in a car accident just like him. Then design a cemetery.  Then it was the Carlo Scarpa cult. I wanted to live half the year in Venice and the other half in Istanbul. Then, of course, the Corbusian cult. I wanted to start a practice in Chandigarh. For a while I was in love with Michael Graves and I wanted to draw classical figures on yellow trace just like him. I wanted to channel James Stirling and go live in the Florey building in Oxford. For a young architecture student from the outer suburbs, where the consumer consumption roller coaster reigned supreme, all of this Modern and Post-Modern architectural goulash was heady stuff.

At architecture school, I also fell in, as a follower, with a few of the local heroes. I followed around a few of these emerging architectural cult figures until they gave me a job. Then, usually, they sacked me. It was almost like every semester I was in a different studio cult. I was always so desperate to fit in.

The problem is that the norms and forms of cult behaviour ingrained into us as architects means that not only are we architects hopeless at money, but, we are also hopeless at management. As a profession, we need to get out of the ever diminishing and downward spiral of cult behaviour. It’s not healthy because most cults rely on charismatic, leaders, bizarre initiation rituals and secret circles of knowledge. Sounds like Architecture doesnt it?

Usually these cults favour those who will do whatever the cult leader says. These architectural cult leaders often take their cultish and bad behaviour into their firms. Maybe thats why architects are crap at management. Architects need to avoid the cultish behaviour. Because it is actually brutish behaviour. In your current studio, office or project team ask yourself the following questions:

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Charles Manson

The architectural cult checklist

  1. Authoritarianism or paternalism without accountability. Only the lead architect or studio leader can make decisions or is empowered to do so.
  2. No tolerance in the group for critical questions or inquiry. The architect or studio leader only likes the followers who ask the questions that affirm the cult. Followers compete for the leader’s attention.
  3. No open and transparent disclosure regarding the project or the client etc. Information “leaks” out to the followers. Some followers or team workers get more privileged information than others. Followers spend time second guessing the leader.
  4. Unreasonable criticism about the broader architectural culture outside of the office or studio. There are enemies and tribes and other architects or styles to envy or hate. A us against them mentality.
  5. There is no legitimate reason to leave: former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even “evil.” They are never seen or spoken to again. They are seen to have made bad career choices.
  6. You work lots of overtime and your remuneration is not aligned with the agreements and awards. You do things that effectively subsidise the office. You are literally paying ypur employer to work where you work.
  7. The charismatic architect who leads you is abusive and may often get angry. The tantrum over “design’ or “aesthetic” issues is all too common.
  8. You feel that you can never be good enough or you will never get it right.
  9. The architect or studio leader is always absolutely correct and never wrong.
  10. The architect or studio leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Most architectural teams and studios (and even bigger organisations) will exhibit some of these tendencies to a degree. But, if there are too many of the boxes ticked in the above list, then you are possibly and most likely in cult territory.

Cult’s never really last

Inevitably these cults implode, they are by their nature self-sabotaging, self-destruction of one kind or another, staff turnover is too high (costly), or things don’t get done properly (implementation issues). Usually, the architecture is actually not as good as it could have been with better less cultish management in place. 

It is an easy thing to do. Being in a cult as you develop has its place but not forever you as you will end up like Gollum living in the shadow of some minor architectural cult leader

When I left architecture school no wonder I wanted to start my own cult. I wanted to be the cult leader rather than the follower. This of course, caused all sorts of problems. I think at the peak of my cult when I taught and was in practice I may have had, 6 and possibly 7, followers. I was on fire. Just like all good cult leaders.

According to my blog stats, and Google Analytics I now have a few more cult followers than suggested above.  So, thank you so much to all of you who follow this blog and watch out for the next blog which will come to you from London as I attend ARCOM 2017 in Cambridge. 

 

Surviving the Design Studio: You will never be an architect unless you make physical models.

Surviving the Design Studio: You will never be an architect unless you make physical models.

Peter Raisbeck

The realisation came about a week or so a go at the mid semester crits in our Colliding Spaces studio. One of the students was presenting and the guest critics and myself were holding up a white cardboard physical model and turning it around. It was massing model and there was a previous version with less massing and facade articulation. The project had curvilinear geometry and in seeing the two models seen together were able to ascertain how the project had developed from the first physical model to the second. Despite the whiteness of the card we could get a sense of possible façade treatments and materials.

I realised that we would never have been able to have looked at the model in this way if it was a computer model.

If it were a computer model we would have seen a schematic volumetric diagram printed and pinned onto the wall. A diagram ready to be filled in with texture and colour to make it look real. If we were lucky, if the student is kind to us, we might be able see this diagram with a bit of context thrown in.

The ubiquitous and depressing digital model pinup  

generale

I then began to think about the number of times I had seen design studio projects where there has not been any physical model design development. In other words, the times when the digital model had been spat out and printed from the computer and stuck on the wall. Looking back they all seem drearily similar, the same lack of context, the same lack of façade development, the same depressing lines delineating volumes, the same annoyingly and inappropriate view point.

Why we need physical models 

Physical models are vital to effective architectural design and development and it would be churlish to suggest that I am being an old school troglodyte in asserting this. Many large global offices use models as a way of quickly and efficiently developing massing options. Effective architectural design rests on hybrid practices that move between and combine the virtual and the physical. As the work at the AADRL establishes physical models also allow for the realisation of experimental digital processes. More importantly:

  1. The sooner you make a model of your design in the process the quicker you will understand the complexity of the design. This is because a physical model provokes the important decisions that need to be made at an early stage.
  2. A physical model embodies different design knowledge that may not be captured in a digital model. In other words, the physical model embodies in a physical form more design knowledge than what we might find with an undercooked diagram.
  3. A physical model once made can be easily be changed it is more effective as a tool that can be used to produce further reiterations of the design.
  4. A physical model can be shared more easily with others.
  5. In the studio a physical model can be easily moved around around and apprehend it from different angles and viewpoints.
  6. Physical models are more congruent with the final reality of the project.

How did it come to this ?

In the studio it seemed so simple and easy to turn the model around and look at it from different angles and to try and understand its possibilities. As well as imagine it in its context. After this realisation panic set in and it turned into rant in my head:

How did it come to this I wondered? How did our design teaching and practices become so diminished in favour of the lockstep production of the digital model? When did the physical model as a development tool depart from the design studio? Why did we so easily and unquestioningly welcome the dreams of the computer into our arms as architects and throw away all of the other things essential to design practice? Why as architectural designers have we allowed the proponents of technology, software vendors, grass hopper jockeys, CNC manufacturers, BIM engineers and the systematisers to tell us that everything can be done in a computer and then believe it?

More practically, and less rhetorically, perhaps all architecture students should do a model making subject. It should be in the curricula of all architecture schools.

This is an important debate that needs to happen. We need to ask why have some architects privileged the acquiring of technical skills at the expense of critical architectural thinking? By critical architectural thinking I mean the ability to generate and iterate solutions and ideas in three dimensions. The digital computer model only partially does this and its critical poetics is often diminished unless we pursue hybrid practices,

This weeks blog comes to you from ARCOM 2016 in Manchester. Where I presented my paper: The architect as Gleaner:  Design Practice As Performance In The Architectural Office

Surviving the Design Studio: Bjarke Ingels is evil because he has hair.

Surviving the Design Studio: Bjarke Ingels is evil because he has hair.

Peter Raisbeck

It never ceases to surprise me that other architects, and indeed clients, would continue to promote the cults of identity  that beleaguer the architectural profession and our discourse. It has been exacerbated I think by the celebritization of social media. Maybe the phenomena surrounding identity cults make it easier to brand architects in a global setting.

Be like Bjarke 

Last week or so a fellow blogger whom I follow, and have great regard for, lamented how his studio tutor had told him “to be more like Bjarke.” My friend took the advice wholeheartedly and earnestly and whilst there was for him some merit in being told to be more like Bjarke. I wondered if he was being encouraged to join, in yet another architectural identity cult, centred on Bjarke Ingels.

The cults 

In the 50s and 60s in my city it was the cults of Robin Boyd and Roy Grounds that caught peoples imaginations. Their enmity, if that is what it was, is the stuff of legend. By the time I was at architectural school in the 80s there were quite a number cult’s available for archi-students to join. Firstly and fore mostly there was the Australian Venturi Scott Brown suburbs cult (although Scott Brown was usually never mentioned)? Lesser cults, each with their own local deities that architecture students could worship at where, the mud brick cult (think roll your own cigarettes and Confest), the humanist brutalist cult, and the beginnings of burgeoning  postmodern eschatalogical absurdist architecture cult (which became very successful; and which I was a fully subscribed member of). Another one was the smaller cult centred on the work of Christopher Alexander. Then there was also a kind of offshoot of the AA’s Roxy Music architecture cult (the Raisbeck archive is pretty much sealed up on that one). As a cult member one a few of these cults I felt like I belonged to something, that I was learning about architecture and that the cult leader would keep me safe.

When Peter Eisenman came to our architecture school I remember shouting at the Berkeley trained Christopher Alexander adherents. I was pretty obnoxious thats for sure. At the other main  architecture school the cults seemed to congregate around the Miesian shearing  shed aesthetic (which came to represent Australian architecture’s global brand).  Often these cults were adaptions of overseas trends to the local cultures and layers of Australian architecture. But these days the identity cults now are often global and the poorly mirrored by the local adherents.  Of course its great to have architecture schools were different cults, or traditions, emerge and architectural debates are fostered as a result. But, in hindsight I think the problem is that all of these cults seemed to coalesce around particular figures and identities.

I have nothing against Bjarke himself having never met the man and whilst I might quibble about the simplistic and descriptive dreariness of the “Yes is More” book (not enough room to go into here) and as some of you know I liked this year’s Serpentine Pavilion designed by his firm BIG.

Calling out Bjarke’s hair 

But, I really wonder if it would be better for architecture students and architects to be less Bjarke-like and I thought about it a lot and I think that in some ways Bjarke is evil because he has hair.

Of course, it is not really Bjarke himself who is evil (although he might be if I knew him well enough to make that judgement). It is  and the way that architectural discourse seems to privilege hair. Of course for those in the Bjarky cult he must be great because he has hair and also he did a TED talk. Which you can see here.

But then again maybe TED talks are just another artifice as so described here by Pat Kelly.

 

I guess it is the cult of celebrity that goes with the hair that I am railing against. It is the politics of identity in architecture that leads me to say that Bjarke’s hair is evil and makes me want to Bajrke.  It is a look that says: You will never achieve architectural fame yourself unless have hair that can be styled in a cool photoshoot. Thick and boyish, sometimes parted on the side. A few shots have it flattened down. But mostly it is tossled. He looks like he just got out of the bed of his NYC apartment. An architect who can afford to hang out in bed all day playing Pokemon Go. What a great image for an architect.

Silverfox or Moptop? 

Unfortunately, identity politics tends to coalesce around those architects with hair. Have you noticed that all, I mean a lots and lots of them,  of the star celebrity architects have hair. Gehry has hair (silverfox), Ando has hair (beatles moptop), Libeskind has hair (kinda spikey, but sometimes kind a flat) and of course Patrik Schumaker has hair. The Californian Tom Wiscombe has a great head of hair. His is a kind of swept back and lion like. Together with Schumaker they make a great couple. Patrik is looking at you and I wonder what he wants? Tom is looking into the distance and I wonder what he is thinking? Its slick versus Wild West. Central European, kinda F1 racing with that little stripe,  vs. American Bruce Goff optimism.

PatrikSchumacher_TomWiscombe

Whilst I was writing this blog I did a count at this site in the web swamp lands I found entitled “40 famous architects of the 21st Century” 37 of the 41 pictured architects were men; one firm (Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas )with a male and female director was counted only as one and not two people. Oddly, Zaha is the last image on the bottom right. At least 24 (60%) of these architects have a lot of hair. Notable studio photos are from Portzamparc who has a kind of wavy silver fox look. Steven Holl has hair. De Meuron has hair. Heatherwick has hair. He has kind of curly hair. Viny Maas has hair. Fuck, all the guys are probably using luxuriant hair conditioner.

Of course, you might say I am jealous as I dont have hair. But I am not worried. Because, yes, there are those architects on the list who are cultivating the Raisbeck look. It’s a look that is a little bit Italian, I picked up from the style influencer guys working in the Ministry of Finance in Rome. Closely shaved head  a bit of a stubble.  Herzog and of course Koolhaas and Rogers are all following my lead. It works for the ageing male architect. But Nouvel has taken the Raisbeck look further, perhaps too far,  and has a shaved skull (Recently, whilst on hols I spotted him shuffling out of up market restaurant in the hills behind Nice, he waved and thanked me for the fashion tips).

All of these so called famous 21st century architects are mostly white and generally european males. There are no tatts, there are no peircings, no mohawks, or mullets, no Trump-like toupees or much gender diversity of any kind (as far as it is portrayed in these shots).  Perhaps, these are the architects smart enough to get the stylists, the photographers and the interns from the “elite” architecture schools pumping out the stylised and identity driven content. Maybe there isn’t much hope for the rest of us, we cant all live the dream in NYC as Bjarke does, and maybe this is why so many people rejoiced when Assemble won the prize.

The construction of the architectural identity should be regarded as being problematic and contested rather than being seen as a singular, wholistic and a stable domain. As architects in this age of celebrity we need to foster debates around the real laws,  and dilemmas of architectural design our cities. It perhaps goes without saying, but it keeps needing to be said, that the identities that we privilege in architectural discourse need to be more inclusive of difference. The recognition of collaborative practice is one way forward. But in the swamplands of social media a constant critique and dismantling of the rhetorical images that are presented to us is essential and necessary. Otherwise, the rhetorical idealisation of the architectural identity will continue to corrupt our discipline and architectural education.

This week I am the Parlour Instagram guest. You can find me at @_parlour on Instagram and of course more usually at @archienemy.

 

Surviving the Design Studio: 5 ways architecture students can avoid a mental health meltdown.

Surviving the Design Studio: 5 ways architecture students can avoid a mental health meltdown.

Peter Raisbeck

As an architecture student I was a miserable wretch and I was treated as such by my design tutors. At my part-time architecture job I slept at nights under the dyeline machine in the back of the office I worked in. Every week when I presented my studio work at the crits it was torture. My tutors either said nothing at all or said things like, “I am not really sure this is a 4th year (fill in the year) project”or worse still, “you cant put a fucking toilet (fill in the function room name) there or even better, (although often said with some laconic humour) “that is the worst model (drawing, axo, plan) I have ever seen in my whole life” which I think may have often been true. I was a pretty ordinary student and for the most part I was a sullen martyr who just sucked it up.

It was worse for my colleagues the female architecture students. No matter how hard they tried they couldn’t seem to get anything right. They were never going to be golden boys because the were simply not boys. At times it was an exhilarating but also brutal environment. I learnt a lot but I am not sure it did a lot to foster my confidence as a designer or even as a person. Supposedly, in the modern digital age things are better now in architecture schools and  architectural education is a fairer, kinder and less misogynist enterprise. But are things now any better? A recent survey in the UK magazine The Architects’ Journal suggests otherwise.

The Architects’ Journal surveyed 450 architecture students in the UK that just over a quarter of them  (26 per cent) of “architecture students had received medical help for mental health problems resulting from their course, and a further 26 per cent feared they would need to seek help in the future.” Most disturbing was the finding that these issues were “more acute with female respondents, of whom almost a third had sought support for mental health issues compared to 26 per cent of male respondents.”

Details of the entire survey and its results can be found here. It covers working through all-nighters, student debt, working for free, practical training, discrimination and the length of architectural education. The survey identified that for the student respondents the primary stressors are issues related to increasing debt, a culture of crazy working hours and the anxiety about acquiring effective skills in order to be employable at the end of a long course.

As Robert Mull the former Dean of The Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design, noted in Dezeen  “High fees, debt, the fear of debt, low wages, poor working practices and educational models that reflect aspects of practice based on individualism and competition rather than collective action and mutual support have put intolerable pressure on those students who can still study and has excluded many more.” Mull (what a great name) is a noted critic of homogenised and commodified versions of higher education.  In response to the survey the head of the Bartlett Rob Shiel argued that new models of architectural education were needed in order to increase access to architectural education from different backgrounds and to reduce the mental health pressures on architecture students.

Mental health of the emerging generation of architects should be taken as a serious issue in architecture schools and by the profession. Larger studio sizes (recently shocked to hear of one school with 25 people in each studio; 12 to 14 is best) are one significant pressure point in the mix of fee paying higher education, poor and entrenched working cultures in the profession and the need to teach an increasing complex architectural curriculum.

For architecture students mired in the above circumstances there are probably a few things you can do to avoid a meltdown and manage your mental health through architecture school. As I am not a trained clinical psychologist I will keep my suggestions short and simple. They cover the most common things that I have seen in my experience as a architectural design educator.

1. You are not invincible 

Sometimes things happen. Health issues, family issues or even accidents. In my experience it is often not great for those who are grieve. When stuff happens its best to take the time out or at least to change your expectations or aspirations to manage it. Too often I see students think they can just work or push through the rough bit. Only to find later, usually towards the end of semester, that they just can’t do it. That is usually when it may be too late to compensate. No one is invincible.

2. Timing 

Timing is crucial. Design studios are as a much a project management exercise as anything else. Managing and organising your time is critical to your own mental health. You should not have to work all night either in the studio or in an office. This opinion piece on unpaid overtime speaks to some of the complexity of these workplace issues. Architects should not be working 60 hours a week.  Unfortunately bad working habits often start at architecture school. If you think your tutor is mismanaging your time or you are putting in all nighters and not getting much traction then you need to rethink how you are managing your time or speak out.

3. Dont procrastinate 

Don’t procrastinate. As I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog the sooner you get started designing and the more  consistently you work on a design the better. If you get stuck or need help get it from your friends or your tutor. Tackle the hard design task’s first and don’t leave things to the last minute. Dont get sucked into doing text based research and no drawing or thinking that you are working by spinning that 3D model around and around in the computer. Too often I see students putting pressure on themselves by procrastinating, week after week, and then letting it build up and up to the point where their stress levels almost prevent them from actually working.

Procrastination leading to the all nighter, or last few days, in the last few weeks of semester only reinforces this culture.

4. Get help sooner rather than later

Depression, anxiety, grief, and illness can all take its toll. All design tutors are usually extremely sympathetic to these issues and more than happy to help you adjust and get through the crap moments in life. There are lost of resources on the web to help you get through things. Its better to seek help or talk to someone rather than doing nothing at all.

5. Take a break 

Know when to take  break rather than beating your head against a wall. A break no matter how short will help improve your productivity in the long run.

Doing and considering the above will help you develop the resilience you need to survive the design studio. Of course, the best architects, and architectural teams, are kind of crazy in their own way. Some of my best and most successful students have been the ones who have worked through and come out of other side of serious mental health issues. It happens to everyone at some stage in life. As a profession we need to harness and foster the creative aspects of craziness that makes our profession unique rather than the toxic craziness of overwork and sullen martyrdom. Our profession deserves better.

 

Surviving the Design Studio: Getting through the last days before the submission deadline.

Surviving the Design Studio: Getting through the last days before the submission deadline.

Peter Raisbeck

Architecture is a desperate enterprise. This is because in many ways designing is a race against time. As a designer you are always time poor. Deadlines are imposed externally. The more time you send on the design the more you burn up your fees. Fees that sometimes have already been cut to the bone. Whats worse is that it takes time to design properly. It is a labour intensive exercise that involves the consideration of different options and the exploration of different design pathways.

Most architects are always designing in a blind panic and this is what you need to get good at. But: too many architects procrastinate and too many architecture students leave things to the last minute. Finally, the procrastination can inevitably give way to blind panic.  Its 5 days to go and you still need to do the layout and print ! OMG !!

As it is almost the end of semester here in my hemisphere I thought I would do a special Surviving the Design Studio blog outside of my normal weekly blogging routine. So here are a few last minute survival points to think about. Enjoy.

1.Dont Panic

Hyperventilating and multitasking and not knowing where to start can lead to conflicted priorities. Its best to sit down and to methodically  plan you way out of things. Make a list. Write down all the things you need to do. Prioritise the list. Decide what you can’t do. Yes everything is interlinked but you can only do one thing at a time.  Put the prioritised list next to you computer and every time you start to panic look at it and stay calm.

Avoid anxiety and your own inner critical negative voice. Be mindful as much as you can.

2. Work back from the end

Know what your layout is (and I don’t mean the layout of your plans). Know what drawings you are going to pin up or publish at the end and how these drawings contribute and support your argument. If you know what you are going to present at the end then you will know more accurately what you have to do. Do an actual mock up and stick it on a wall and see how it looks.  Read this previous blog of mine on layout and this one on verbal presentation.

Timing is critical and working back form the end helps. Too often architects forget to allow for the print queue. There is nothing worse than having a great design but missing the deadline set by the project manager or the studio submission.

3. Plan and resolve your way through problems

The quicker you can resolve issues around your design the better. At the end of the project it usually the medium and little things that need to be resolved.  What is the profile of the roof or volume, where should openings or windows go, what happens at the entry conditions, is the circulation pattern easily communicated. Resolve as much as you can and as quickly as you can.These are design development decisions.  If you think you are getting into a bind about anyone decision. Just make a choice. Its your design.

Know when to design and then when to just produce the images.

4. Figure out what you can and cant do

You cant do everything. Use a prioritised list and a final layout plan to figure out what you need to do.D hat way you won t get sucked into the computer finessing things that you don’t need to worry about and making design development decisions. Concentrate, and complete, the hardest and most time consuming elements of the design and presentation first. Leaving the hard and time consuming things to last is just another form of procrastination.

Your mantra at this stage should be. Resolve, Resolve and Resolve; one issue at a time.

5. Look after yourself

Staying up all night to 5 in the morning hyped up on mother or red bull or coke or amphetamines is really really bad. After 1 am your productivity will drop. It doesn’t matter if you are in your twenties. Take breaks, eat properly and know when it is time to sleep. Get some exercise.

If you are really strapped for time the best you can do is work form 9 am to around 1 am with an hour for lunch and hour for dinner. Then make sure you get 6, maybe 7 to 8 hours sleep. It will help you to make better decisions.

Know when it is not worth it. At the end of the day it is not worth sacrificing your mental health for a better than average pass or wining the selected competition. There will be other design studios and other projects. Stop and get help if you feel your mental health is suffering.

6. Get help

Get your friends in. Get them to do stuff. Get them to lend you another eye when you are not sure about things. Ask your tutor, or a team member, about design and design development decisions. A good tutor or team member will relish the questions and help you to resolve issues more quickly rather than you agonise over something for hours.

Discussing your project s concept and design process with others even at this late stage will help you to clarify and prioritise what you need to do to finish it.

7. When bad things go wrong problem solve and replan again

There will be glitches of course. Once I printed out all of my final thesis drawings and looked at them only to realise they were all wrong. The line weights combined with the particular experimental printing process I employed led to unreadable drawings. It was a total disaster. The best thing to do was to have a sleep and not to panic.

After the sleep I could think straight and look at my drawings with a more evaluative eye. I then replanned my production technique and after a few days had reprinted my drawings. I lost time, but on the second print run my drawings were much better (see 2 above).

8. Don’t sit on the computer for the sake of it

If you are sitting there looking at the screen and not getting much done it’s time to move. Efficiency is good and sometimes that means taking breaks every so often. Don’t deceive yourself by thinking that all because you are sitting in front of the computer you are getting things done. Move on to another task.

9. If it looks good it is good

The above statement is my cardinal rule for deciding when to move onto the next task or micro task. If you are running out of time you need to suspend your own inner critic and inner perfectionist. If it looks good then use that and move onto the next task. There is no point having a great and perfect render if the rest of your drawings and images are awful.

Getting the balance right between different images and representation of your design at the end of semester or project is what will count. You are producing an integrated and wholistic design vision. Making one thing superbly refined at the expense of everything else is always remarked upon by the jury critics. But you will never win the competition if you do this. Jury critics usually want to see that how well your design proposal relates to everything.

Of course it may be too late for you to get the balance right. between the design of different elements on your final images. You may have just run out of time or read this blog too late in the day. If that’s then case you may need to make sure a couple of things are so good that you cant fail. This is what I would call a salvage operation.

10. Take notes

Take notes as you work and different justifications, rationale or aspects of your project spring to mind. Use these notes to frame and articulate your own arguments if and when you have to stand in front of your project and discuss it. You can also use the notes to help you include any explanatory or annotative text that may need to go onto the drawings. These notes will also help you to take lessons and insights onto your next project.

Don’t try and constantly second guess your tutor or the critics. Consider what they might want and then craft your response to it. Use the working notes to do this.

Finally 

All of the above should help if you are in desperation mode and you have kissed your significant others goodbye. You may think you will never see them again  as you go into the vortex of the final days of a design project.  But it will soon be over and then of course there is always the next project and it is actually the next project that all architects yearn for.

Surviving the Design Studio: 10 ways to fix the plans before the final deadline. 

Surviving the Design Studio: 10 ways to fix the plans before the final deadline. 

Peter Raisbeck

Ok so it’s the end of semester or the project and you have spent your life deep in the Rhino, or the other R model, and it’s time to do your layout. But hey you forget about the plan. The what? Oh yeah, the PLAN !!!

The problem is the plan is the first thing any critic or competition judge will look at. Sure they might glance at the crappy 3D render you have done; so hastily crafted the night before. But it’s the plan they will use as the co-ordinating point of reference for the rest of the drawings. Its probably the thing they will look the most at. In fact an excellent plan will mean that the design jurors or critic (or perhaps even a client) will more easily forgive how bad the rest of the project might be.

The demise of the plan

In this digital word it is easy to forget about the plan. You may have sketched something early on; quickly outlined it in the computer and then constructed a model from that plan. By the end of the project you have actually forgotten about the plan.

We no longer read plans because we are too busy watching the future stuff. This is because everything nowadays is three dimensional or even four dimensional. It’s all about AI, CNC fabrication, robotics, autonomous agents and swarmies (I think I mean swarms). Patterns, processes and parametrics reign supreme. Plans are pretty dull compared to the latest YouTube clip or article on Architizer or Dezeen.

In the age of big data, global analytics, digital diagramming and planetary urbanisation the plan has lost its power to seduce our eyes. The network diagram and digital clip is king (and queen too). Born in the computer the global diagrams of networks, animations of swarms and simulations of a flooding cities are more compelling to watch than those old planny plan things. There are some excellent exponents of these new must-be-watched diagrams: Michael Batty at UCL, Neil Brenner’s mix of geography and global flows at the Urban Theory Lab, Eyal Weizman’s forensic architecture. In the work of these contemporary image proponents its like the ideograms and diagrams of the Smithsons’ have been sped and given life through the joys of accelerated computerisation.

In the past, like today’s digital clips, the plan was a seductive artifice in its own right. It could simultaneously be read as a conceptual diagram, a spatial condition and the history of  place. Plans are stratigraphic in their ability to embody layers of meaning and different narratives; no matter how abstract those narratives might be. But, in the current real world, I fear that plans don’t mean that much anymore. For the merchants of neoliberal architecture slapping up the apartment towers its all about the skin bae. These days the plan no longer seems like it means anything at all.

Ok, so much for the ranting and raving about the lost world of plans.

More importantly, when the critics come in, all jackboot like, and start criticising the plans you know they have it in for you. A good critic can demolish your entire scheme just by looking at, and asking questions, about the plan. Here are some tips to get that plan in shape ready for the submission and the critical onslaught.

1.The plan demonstrates the size of things 

The plan and measuring the size of things is extremely critical in housing schemes. A few years back I ran a studio in to we tried to teach the students all the things they didn’t know about plans and unit planning. Basic stuff like how big is a bathroom, or a bedroom and what’s the best way to design a kitchen. How big is a bed or a table?  How do you do a carpark what do you need for turning circles?  You know when a critic is really out to get you is when they start asking you questions like these. So be prepared this is the sort of stuff you need to know. The plan is the best way to control and convince others that you have handle on the dimensions. If you don’t already you need to get one of these books.  

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2. Conventions 

Don’t forget the drawing conventions. Scale and North points; North up the page. This goes without saying.  The same goes for other things like windows, doors and stairs. Draw them correctly. If you don’t put these on your plans, or get them right, you end up looking moronic. Get the measurements right.

3. Spelling

Spell the room names properly. This goes for just about everything on your drawings. Use a dictionary if you have to. Choose a lettering font that isn’t going to be confused for your actual building or prevent it form being understood. Try and avoid using the standard fonts straight out of the software program.

dezeen_Carlos-Ramos-Pavilion-by-Álvaro-Siza_10_1000

4. Draw it like a section 

Draw it like a section. Yes, for those of you who don’t know, a plan is really a section. But it is a section where you are looking down about a meter above the ground plane. Hence it is good to draw it as if it sis a section. Line weights, whilst seemingly subtle are critical in conveying planimetric depth.

Soleri

5.Show the levels 

Use the plan to design your levels and level changes. Stairs and steps should be drawn in a way that is well crafted and shows that you know that a plan is not simply a flat plane.

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6. Don’t fill your plans with crap 

Don’t fill it full of standard library furniture. It always looks like shit and makes you look like an indolent and lazy idiot.

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7. Plan composition 

After the horrors of the image above it is good to remember that the plan is a composition in its own right. Recognise and emphasise the patterns, shapes and figures in it. It doesn’t matter if these elements are abstract or figurative. Counterpoint and contrast these. Exploit these to generate further design elements, details and iterations of the plan. A plan is in fact a series of plans within a plan.

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8. Inside and Outside 

Pay attention to the plans interfaces both within itself, between rooms or spaces, and where it’s edges meet the outside world or other conditions.What lies just outside of the plans walls. What is its context? How do you get to your plan? What is its realtionship to its surrounding urban context? Or it it just another one of those plans sitting in a kind of blank ether.

dezeen_Carlos-Ramos-Pavilion-by-Álvaro-Siza_07_1000

9. Draw in the detail 

Draw in structure and floor patterns and as many detailed elements as possible. As explained above that is the same as filling it in with stock library elements or banal patterns.Floor patterns well done and with the correct line weight are always good.

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10. The plan is a spatial field 

Never forget this: the plan as a diagram, that describes and implies a three dimensional spatial field in which points, lanes, planes and dare I say to volumes are located.

A well drawn, represented, or crafted plan, can hide a multitude of sins if the rest of the project is a pig-dog.Of course sometimes its too late. No matter what you do the plan is still a pig-dog. Remember Raisbeck’s number 1 rule. If it looks good it is good. In other words if looks good to you it will probably look good to the critics or jurors as well.

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Finally, the plan is never really finished 

For the Italian Architect Carlo Scarpa the plan, such as his plan for Castelvecchio in Verona, was in a way never really finished. The most powerful plans, the ones that will burn a hole in your brain, are those that are iconic and compelling images in their own right. They may look finished but in fact they are not and they are usually the result of numerous iterations. It is best to remember a plan is never complete and even when the project is finally constructed it is still good to remember that the plan, even across the digital archive, has a life of its own.

Surviving the Design Studio: 10 things to do when your design tutor is always critical negative. 

Surviving the Design Studio: 10 things to do when your design tutor is always critical negative. 

Peter Raisbeck

Here at “Surviving the Design Studio” I wanted to title this blog “What to do when your design tutor is a bit Psycho”. But, I thought better of it. Then I softened it a bit and thought I would title it “What to do when your Design tutor is kinda crazy.” But maybe those titles don’t really do anyone justice. Especially, those people with genuine mental illnesses or personality disorders.

Anyone who has graduated from an architecture school would  like to think they have had Psycho or crazy design tutors or leaders. You would be surprised to know some students think I am pretty crazy. But seriously we of the old Archi-school studio world all have our stories about the jumped on model, the swearing, the tantrums and all of this followed by all the students crying. Not to mention the cronyism and the sexcapades: Architecture school is not what it used to be. But the real problem is not so much the mental health of our design tutors or team leaders. The real problem is when the design tutor or project team leader is actually not that good at teaching design or mentoring our design skills.

Bad design tutors or teachers abound. They don’t neccesarily have to be an architect. Nor do they have to be working in academia. Yes, they could be running your design studio at Archi-school, or embedded in your practice studio. But, they could also be the project architect leading your team. They could be in any of the design fields, architecture, graphic design, interior design or even advertising.  Worse still they could even be a client. In other words a  client who thinks they no something about design.

Bad design tutors normally share a few common characteristics. The key site of contention is how they give, receive and foster criticism in the design studio.  Contrary opinions from week to week is a primary attribute of this type. Always critical negative about your work. So much so you wonder if they were actually your parents in a past life. Hence, you can never be right or never know if what you are designing is right.

Mismanaging your time during studio is another. The tutor has no respect about other people’s time and will mismanage your time if you let them. The night before the hand-in, tender or the pitch they will berate you for getting the smallest detail wrong and thus getting everything wrong. They will change their mind just before everything is due.  In studio’s they will humiliate you in front of the others (especially in the crits).  When this happens you will unfortunately perceive how their lackeys and acolytes will stand by and applaud.

Before you quit your studio or job or wallow in misery by reading DSM-5. Here are few ideas to help you cope with the design tutor, project leader or creative who cant actually teach design or effectively mentor you. The person who never has a good thing to say about your work.

1. Zero Tolerance Issues

Firstly, dont put up with bullies, racism or discrimination. Check your organisation or companie’s policy on these issues. Understand who the right person in your organisation is to talk to if you think this is happening to you. Don’t keep things to yourself. If there is a pattern of behaivour take notes and record these. If necessary seek legal advice. You have to protect yourself in the first instance.

Make sure you are not being set up to fail. 

2. Personality matters.

But more often than not things are more subtle than what is suggested above. If you are having differences with your design tutor. It could be about personality differences or maybe different learning styles. I think all students of architecture should be self aware enough to do a Myers-Briggs test and figure out where they are positioned. It is always helpful to know if you, or your team mates, are a INTJ or an ENTJ or whatever. It is a good ida to be self aware of other peoples personality types. Especially your design tutors, leaders and mentors. 

3. Culture

Your differences with your tutor may well be as a result of cultural differences. In the globalised education market and contemporary workforce this is more of a factor. You need to think about negotiation style in different cultures. What culture is your tutor or project leader from and how is this different from your own culture or sub-culture. Mannerisms, vocalisation, gestures, status, and even dress codes are all communicated differently, and mean different things, in different cultures.

Once you understand some of the differences between you and your tutor it will make it easier to work with them. 

4. Keep producing. 

You might hate your design team leader or tutor and hate the project and wonder why you picked that studio or job. But that is no reason to just close down. The first thing you need to do is to focus on your design and not procrastinate. Keep producing what you think the right solutions or possible options are for your design. Keep talking with your tutor no matter what you might think of them. If you hide a way or become to fearful to produce you will not get anywhere.

5. Do the work 

Then really important thing you need to listen to is if it seems like your tutor is continually nagging you to do more work, week after week after week. I would take that as a warning sign. As a design tutor I hate nagging postgrad architecture students to do more work. My tactic is to say it a few times and if it then doesn’t happen not to keep saying it (until the end of semester of course). By then it is too late. More often than not students fail design because they have not done enough work.

The best thing to  do that is to design, avoid procrastination, and design and redesign. Design confidence is built up via practice. Even if you think your work is awful there is nothing like learning how to polishing up a pig-dog (as we used to call bad designs at Archi school).

6. Listen 

Listen to what your tutor is saying about your design and your design processes. Is it reasonable? What is that they are suggesting? Do they have insights into the project or your own design processes that are valuable or helpful. Part of learning how to design is quickly, and I mean quickly, being able to take on board criticism, evaluate it and feed it into your design processes. If you can do this you will be ok. In fact if you can do this you don’t really need the bad design tutor or project team leader. Which leads to the next point.

7. Criticism

Good design tutors and project leaders create an atmosphere within the studio or the team where it is safe to criticise without fear or favour.  It’s probable, if you tutor is really bad, that whatever you do will be criticised. But if your experience is limited it is sometimes hard to figure out what to do. If you feel that your work is being unfairly criticised seek other opinions form your peers and friends. Create your own design crit circles and networks. Chat about it at lunchtime with your co-workers. Sharing the pain of unfair criticism gets you thinking about what is good and not good in relation to your design process.

8. Get help 

Who needs a design tutor when you have friends and all your friends are other architecture students or architects. Use your friends to try and sort out the good from the bad aspects of your design. Use them to help you judge what your tutor may or may not be saying to you.

9.Do the alternative design 

Do the alternative design either by stealth or in your head. Think about the things that will drive that overly controlling modernist parametric purist you are working for into a design rage. Build those elements into your design and then sit back and watch the fun when you turn up for the crit.

Producing the the alternative design is always a good way to test and explore your own design processes.

10. Remember it maybe not be you that is the problem 

Don’t let a bad tutor destroy your confidence. Protect and nurture your own sense of design, design skills, always try and improve your own design processes.

You should not rely on the good or bad opinion of a tutor or your star-architect employer to bolster your confidence. Work through the issues if tutor feedback is bad. The purpose of architecture school, or any school for that manner, is for your to develop confidence in your own abilities independently. Being overly reliant on tutors to give that to you is fine up to a point but at the end of the day you need to stand alone.

The best way to gain your own design confidence is to be responsible for your own design education. This is a life long process and no architecture school, or the star architect you are working for is going to give you that confidence.

 

 

 

Face to Face vs. Online Teaching: The destruction of culture in architectural schools.

Face to Face vs. Online Teaching: The destruction of culture in architectural schools.

Peter Raisbeck

Why architecture students and even university managers should go to design studio. 

I went to my Archi school reunion recently. It had a kind of 80s theme. It was great. The pitch for it went like this:

If you remember the days of set squares, Rotring pens, dyeline machines, compulsory Charles Jencks text, cardboard models and scratching out your mistakes with a razor blade….

Today it is all different of course. No more adjustable set squares covered in masking tape, no more broken 0.18mm Rotring nibs, no more inky hands (with ink smudges all over the house), no more sleeping under the dyeline machine at the back of the Master’s office, no more sniffing the dyeline ammonia to get high, no more scratching, scratching and scratching on thin tracing paper. Worst of all  Charles Jencks and the Language of Post Modern Architecture is now a weird curiosity piece.

Digital and mobile computing has changed everything. Of course, we all love our mobile apps. The speak directly to us.  They deliver content and information specifically tailored to our needs and personal pathways in life. Weather, traffic, entertainment, personal fitness and even relationships (tell me about it). I even did a online Coursera MOOC last year delivered on my mobile phone. Although, I did not finish it. But it all seems a good reason to skip class and opt for the online lecture. Its easier, you can raid the fridge and hang out in your pajamas and watch the course online.

Nowhere is technology  and so called disruption innovation more seemingly apparent than in tertiary education.  For those of us who work in tertiary education the spectre of so called disruptive technologies in the sector is real. There is even a book about it. All the executive managers and Dean types have read the Innovative University by Clayton Christensen which discusses the issues around innovation in the sector.

The narrative is a little predictable and hence easily taken up. As it states in the book:

The downfall of many successful and seemingly invincible companies has been precipitated by a disruptive innovation—that is, an innovation that makes a complicated and expensive product simpler and cheaper and therefore attracts a new set of customers. 

Of course its all about “customers”:

In higher education, online courses now typically offer lower-end and more convenient access to courses that can improve students’ credentials or help them switch careers, which is often precisely what the students customers want to accomplish by enrolling.

All of this is about doing things cheaper and the book claims to establish:

How universities can find innovative, less costly ways of performing their uniquely valuable functions and ensure their ongoing economic vitality, thereby saving themselves from decline and possible disruption.  

Thats enough to scare the pants of any university corporate manager or strategic executive in the ivory tower.

So what does all this imply for architecture? Should architecture students go to class? Or should they work at their low paying retail and hospitality jobs and catch up online on lectures when they can? Why even go to class when you can earn a part-time income and get a qualification from a premium branded institution?  How will architectural education fare given the rise of these so called online disrupters and lower cost educational innovators. Should universities migrate architectural studio teaching, or any of the architectural syllabus, to online platforms and delivery? Will this diminish curricula?

I think architects and architectural educators need to resist and question simplistic calls for whole-of-subject shifts to online teaching. Design studio teaching and design thinking is best taught face to face. I think future architects get more out of face to face teaching for the following reasons.

 Design studio teaching is unique 

For a start, studio design teaching is a mode of teaching that is unique and particular to architecture. It is one of the central elements of architectural discourse and its associated canon. Face to face studio teaching is the strong intermediate link between local and increasingly global architectural practice. The design studio is the crucible of design research. It is also itself a place of disruption where desires, expectations, and ideas are generated, regenerated, critically considered and creatively destroyed. The architectural studio thrives on creative destruction.

With all the talk of customisation via marketing channels and delivery portals its good to remember that face to face studio teaching is already customised to the individual. Nowhere else can individual gestures, vocalisation, tone and temperment be part of learning and the teaching equation. The teaching and learning of design processes is very much an individual, and even emotional, exchange between teacher and learner.

 Face to face collaboration teaches leadership

It is essential that we teach our future architects about face to face collaboration. After all that is mostly what architects do in the real world outside of the academies.  At the moment there are a variety of Project Management and web tools which enable collaboration in the virtual realm. But, in advanced procurement research there has also been a return to physical co-location and face to face relationships. For example, an increasingly popular tool for scheduling collaboration in the new Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) projects are physical maps which allow project teams to discuss schedule sequencing as an integrated team in  large ‘Big Room’ environments as they are denoted. These maps appears to be closely related to the lean construction philosophy where construction processes are conceptualised as “flows.” In the IPD model “value stream mapping” appears to have been borrowed and adapted  from Toyota’s lean manufacturing process. It all hinges on in person collaboration.

NASA’s Team X at the Jet Propulsion Lab is another example of advanced design processes and face to face design innovation. JPL created the first concurrent engineering team in the aerospace industry. Team X as it was called started in 1995 and since then it has carried out over 800 studies, dramatically reducing the time and cost involved, and has been the model for other concurrent engineering teams both within NASA and throughout the larger aerospace community. Team X relys on the physical co-location of different engineering disciplines; alongside, an advanced  networked spreadsheet intensive system with real time parameter updating ( See here and Warfield & Hinh 2009). Architects are not rocket engineers or scientists but again problems are very often solved face to face on building sites and on manufacturing floors directly with craftspeople and tradespersons.

Whether it be done using technology or systems such as those borrowed from Toyota, JPL, or a Building Information Model and rapid prototyping, these tools shift the decision making to integrated teams. These teams, at some point, rely on face to face collaboration. Educators and managers who wholly opt for the virtual dream are doing just that: dreaming. I fear that the current fashion for online teaching and so called university innovation is just another version of corporate managerialism gone wrong.

Mostly, these days my students like to watch the lectures online at a time of their choosing after it is recorded. In this nice new neoliberal age of tertiary education they are too busy to come to class.  That’s because they are probably also working hard to pay their fees. This has destroyed and is destroying the culture of architecture schools.

If as a student you want real value for money then its best to come to class and engage with face to face. You will end up being a better architect.

The same goes for university managers. Most of the university managers I know, with a few exceptional exceptions, have never been to a design studio crit session. Yet they are intimately involved in architectural education. My experience is that often they don’t appreciate, and frankly whilst it sounds harsh, I wonder if they even care about the value of building a culture around a discipline or a cohort. It’s too hard to build a culture, in a discipline you are not trained in, when its is so much easier to cut costs, outsource staff, manage up and apply rules and policy regimes.

For strategic and executive managers further up the food chain in universities it’s easier to opt for the new cheaper lecture delivery technologies and spout off mantras about “innovation” and “disruption” and the “future.” If anything Christensen’s earlier work would show that simply adopting the latest technology does not necessarily ensure success.

Interestingly, enough, Frey and Osborne’s seminal paper on AI and which future professions will be “least (probability 0) or most computerisable (probablity 1) ” ranks Teachers at 48 (.0095) something that is not easily computerisable. Architects are ranked at 82 0ut of 702 (.018) employment categories (Telemarketers are last of the 702 occupations modelled in this study).

In more practical research a recent paper in the Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education asks if  “the use of online video mini-lectures, intended to complement in-class teaching by allowing students to review the more technical aspects of the course (in this case a Washington USA micro-econ0mics course). It is concluded that:

“online lectures improving student achievement, but that this improvement is mostly achieved by the lower achieving students, and exhibits significant diminishing returns to the number of times the videos are watched. As such, the videos are shown to help students who were struggling with the material, but that there is little value to exclusively watching the videos multiple times.”

A cynic like me, would again say, that the students are probably struggling with the material because they are too busy working part-time to pay for their degrees.

As Frey and Osborne argue creative intelligence and the processes of creativity are difficult to specify. Indeed, the ability to formulate architectural ideas, concepts, schema, systems, forms, compositions, theories and ways of knowing in practice is best taught through a vibrant educational culture. A culture which understands and puts face to face teaching first is central in this endeavour. In our universities and architecture schools architects will need to fight to preserve the integrity of their education systems and their canon against the onslaught of mindless managerialism disguised as “innovation.”

Authentic innovation as most architects will know is about destroying any idea just before it threatens to become a commodified and generic product.

The Four Syndromes: How not to choose your design studio at architecture school

The Four Syndromes: How not to choose your design studio at architecture school

Peter Raisbeck

Yes, it is almost that time of year (at least in the Southern Hemisphere) when architecture students begin class and go about the business of choosing a design studio. This short blog is specifically aimed at that curious class of human beings known as architecture students.  I think in some ways it would be better if the studio leaders interviewed and then selected the students rather than the other way around. I am told that this is the case at some school’s of architecture and I think it avoids the popularity contests that seems to characterise the studio teaching systems in many architecture schools.

The four worst reasons for choosing to be in a design studio are related to a cluster of syndromes: “running with the pack” syndrome, “charisma” syndrome,  “interesting project” syndrome and worst of all the “sounds easy” syndrome.

Running with the pack syndrome. 

Popularity is the most misleading reason to choose a studio on. Don’t succumb to  peer group pressure or groupthink. All because a potential studio seems popular amongst your friends that doesn’t in any way guarantee that the studio will be right for you. A studio which is popular at the beginning of semester may or may not achieve good outcomes at the end of semester. Besides who really wants to be in a studio full of your friends? It might make you feel safe and warm and fuzzy but the studio, its tutors, the project and the skills you will learn may not match your own educational needs as an aspiring architect. Being in a studio with your friends doesn’t really foster what I like call design resilience.

Its great to get into a popular studio and “run with the pack with your friends” at the beginning for the semester. It is not so great at the end of the semester when you realise how unsuited that studio was for you. It’s even worse when the studio outcomes of the most popular studio at the beginning of the semester end up being the most mediocre at the end of semester.All because it is popular doesn’t mean the studio will be good.

Charisma sydnrome

Charismatic architects do not necessarily make good studio leaders or teachers. Of course they looked great at the studio presentation, they have been published a lot, won a few awards and have a great website. But, that charismatic architect or the person who gives a great presentation to students about the studio may in fact be one of those woefully inadequate studio teachers. Woeful studio teachers are the ones that are potentially narcissistic, lack the humility needed to teach, mismanage your criticism time, develop favorites in the class and give contrary and contradictory advice to students from week to week. The seemingly charismatic tutor or architect may not be the tutor that you need to foster and build your design confidence.

Interesting project syndrome. 

This is when students choose because it seems like an interesting project. It might be a museum in a far flung and exotic corner of the world, it might seem like a real project with real life clients, it might seem funky because part of the project is to use the robots to fabricate one of those domey things; worse still, it seems interesting because you have always wanted to design a pop-up barista coffee cart.

What architectural or studio project isn’t potentially interesting? Good architects are the people who  make mundane and ordinary programs and problems into something cogent and culturally powerful. So just choosing a studio because it sounds like an interesting project is a really unthinking way to chose.  I learnt the most from the worst and least interesting projects that I did at architecture school. The bourgeois house, the outer suburban primary school, the kindergarten the social housing on the large site. You don’t need an exotic landscape, location or intricate program to learn in a studio.

Of course, its not so great when you get into the “interesting project” studio and find there is no established brief and you spend so many weeks researching the project that you don’t get enough time to design it at the end.

Sounds easy syndrome 

The sounds easy syndrome is usually the choice where the design studio student feels they don’t have to work that hard. The brief is established, the typological complexity of the building is something the student has done before, they know the tutor and they know they are not a hard arse. The student knows other students who have previously taken the studio and they all know that it is not terribly challenging. You can easily tick the box.

Unfortunately, it is easy for students to think they are learning something when they are having a great time in a design studio. In fact the converse is probably true. When the student is challenged by a tutor or a design problem that is probably when they are actually learning something. By doing studios that are personally challenging an aspiring architect is able to learn resilience, not just in the face of critical indifference or negative criticism, but also learn how to pursue a design proposal from start finish with all the various steps and missteps that this normally involves.

After all, once outside of architecture school, the aspiring architect must rely on their own reserves in the face of trenchant indifference to architecture.

Diversity 

A great post graduate, or Masters level, architecture school will present to its students a range of studios. The portfolio of the studios offered in the school should be diverse. It should not be centred around any particular fashion or ideological cause. A range of contexts, projects as well as a range of design teaching styles should be presented to students. Thats pretty much what is on offer each semester at the architecture school where I work at MSD. A school which is only devoted to parametric studios, or is aligned with the particular outlook of the school’s professors I think is a very conservative school. It goes without saying that diversity in both teaching staff and projects on offer is extremely important (I still know of architecture schools where the  design tutors each semester are predominantly male).

Choosing a studio for  a postgraduate architecture student is a personal one. In choosing a studio students should firstly ask themselves the following questions. The primary aim of these questions is to help you figure out what your learning objectives are.

  1. What technical skills do I have and what skills do I still need? Which studio or studio leader help me develop those skills.
  2. What am I yet to do at architecture school? What projects or types or scales of problem should I get experience in?
  3. What do I need to learn about in relation to design processes. Do I have the confidence to experiment? Should I do a studio that allows me to do this and is right outside of my comfort zone?
  4. What do I need to learn or in what kind of studio do I need to be in to grow in confidence as an aspiring architect?

Of course all these questions, or variants thereof, should also be asked by practicing architects with their own studios as well. If as a student you can answer these questions you are half way there. All you need to do then is find out as much as you can about the studios on offer that you think best match your learning objectives. That may mean asking around regarding the tutors teaching abilities and design expertise, and maybe, just maybe, actually talking to the tutors running the studio and asking them questions. If you can it is also good to see what was produced by the studio leaders in their studios in previous semesters.

You cannot rely on Architecture school to learn what you need to learn. Learning and then becoming an architect is kind of like any race in many respects. Preparation is important, practicing on different types of tracks, constantly refining your own training regime and above all taking responsibility for your own education is vital. The global trends that have led to the academicisation and privatisation of architecture education now leaves a lot to be desired. The best architects in the future will always be those architects who are self taught.