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We should teach a content-rich curriculum that is structured around studio projects. Students will pay attention to relevant lectures because they need that information to advance their design. Projects should have a real-world program and site, informed by a shared criteria of environmental and social realities.
A Content-Rich Curriculum
Architecture schools should teach a content-rich curriculum. Most schools acknowledge basic rules of thumb, but anything more nuanced gets lumped in with "preferences", and it isn't taught. Students know that some buildings are better than others, and they want to know what that is. Adherence to content is the criteria that we use to measure quality.
Adaptability Requires Content
Clients' preferences and site conditions vary per project, but that's why we need to know content, so we'll know what works in every situation. We can't just copy what we like and hope it applies to our situation.
Content doesn't destroy creativity by "boxing us in". Students need to know at least what their objective is, or they have no purpose. Without a problem to solve, what's the point of creativity? Only after mastering content, can we use it creatively. It's impossible for students to reinvent the profession, and even geniuses are better off with guidance.
Student Development
When students lack content, they lack inspiration, and they're stuck searching for answers to questions that they don't know. If feels like being dropped in the middle of an ocean and being told to figure it out. It's more productive to show students how to design, and then let them design. Otherwise, only some students will be able to do it, either because their parents are architects, or because they found supplemental material. We should give all students that advantage. Everyone deserves access to knowledge. Only after mastering knowledge, can we use it creatively. It's more efficient than staring at a blank sheet of paper and hating ourselves for not being a genius. The stereotype is that if you're confused about the assignment, it means that you aren’t cut out to be an architect. It causes students to drop out of the program, or to never go into it. Students need the right kind of resources and the right kind of encouragement to be independent. When schools don’t provide guidance, we're asking students to do something they don't have a basis for, so they end up not trusting themselves. We respond by criticizing them or coddling them, but neither of those things are helpful.
Project-Based Learning
Projects with a long time-scale, such as becoming an expert, require visible milestones along the way to keep students on track. Big questions inspire lifelong goals, but intermediary projects are necessary to get there. Project-based learning takes place at the intermediary scale of learning. The deadline isn't so far away that students lose sight of it, and it’s not so close that they’re unprepared. A short-term project might be a math test or an in-class assignment.
The Learning Circle
Project-based learning has four stages. The stages are either on the guidance axis, which involves teacher instruction, or they're on the independent axis, which involves student reflection.
I. Big Questions: Teachers should inspire students with big questions about how the world works. How do we heat our houses? Where do building materials come from? What does a good house look like?
II. Student Imagination: Students are inspired by big questions to learn more. They consider potential answers based on what they already know. This prepares them for the next stage.
III. Relevant Material: The teacher provides students with what they need to know. Students pay attention because they need the information to advance their project. The material should not be overly-predigested, or else it becomes monotonous.
IV. Repetition and Practice: Once the students learn the information, they test it out for themselves in order to understand it. Only then does it “click”, and they can use it creatively.
Practical Projects
Houses, schools, and offices are good projects to assign because we're familiar with their functions. We all have experience working, studying, sleeping, and eating. Complicated building programs are difficult to do anything with except copy exactly because we don't know their specific relationships. For example, a water treatment plant depends on specific technology, and it's more relevant to scientists. A movie theater innovation would be something for a businessman to decide, or a particularly interested architect.
A Shared Criteria
Is Architecture Subjective?
Architecture, like everything, has subjective and objective aspects. We can measure architecture objectively (in a descriptive way), and we can measure architecture subjectively (in a qualitative way). Both types of measurement are necessary.
Technical schools are not "scientific" by ignoring subjectivity, and art schools are not "artistic" by ignoring objectivity. We shouldn't over-rationalize something to act scientific, and we shouldn't be obtuse to act artistic.
A Subjective Reality
Subjective experience is not "up to us", even though "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Intelligence is in the brain of the beholder, and ethics is in the heart of the beholder. Life has a subjective aspect that experiences reality. The point of learning is to bring our subjective selves up to higher objective standards. Learning couldn't exist without something to learn. That "something" is quality, which explains and "unlocks" reality, which gives it value.
We should explain quality in a scientific way that other people can understand. Asking for more "pizazz", without explaining what that is, delegitimizes our subjective experience. Students won't bother to study if there isn't anything at the end of it.
Studying aesthetics develops our taste in the same way that exercise develops our muscles. We experience the world more fully when we train ourselves ethically, aesthetically, intellectually, and physically. Our subjective faculties become reliable tools for measuring quality.
False Modesty vs. Consensus
We should be open to other people's opinions, but that doesn't mean we should give up on a consensus. It's as equally selfish to accept disagreements with others as it is to accept disagreements with reality. In the latter case, we pretend that we can't ever be wrong because reality doesn't exist. In the former case, we pretend that we can't ever be wrong because it's not worth discussing it with others. When professors give up on explaining something, it's because they don't know enough to explain the situation correctly.
The Criteria Is Measurable
Measuring success in architecture depends on things like health and happiness, which can’t be held in our hand or observed under a microscope. Quality is not physical, so people without a background in science might dismiss it, even though it's proven by statistical self-referencing and physiological evidence.
Developers downplay quality because standards prevent them from doing whatever they want. If residents oppose a housing project, developers can say "that's your opinion, and there's no way to prove it, so you have to give me the building permit."
Architects downplay quality because they don't want to fail. Buildings have to contend with social and environmental realities, even if that makes design more difficult. We can't tell the planet to stop having floods, and we can't tell people to stop being human.
Requirements in the World
Students should work towards a common goal that is socially and environmentally sustainable. Once we discover what works, we can define the criteria further.
Places should have a coherent identity. Buildings are experienced together, and it doesn't make sense to put our energy into a single building if the surrounding buildings don't work.
Architecture Crits
The confusion during crits comes from not defining an objective. The criteria gets disputed more than actual projects. “Good crits” are just as bad as "bad crits" if nobody learns anything. Architecture terminology is pejoratively called “archispeak”, even though it is necessary to define architectural concepts in a way that goes beyond everyday language. Terms should be well-defined, with diagrams and interactive explanations.
Excessive criticism in architecture school is unproductive because students already know that their work is bad. That's why they're in school. We should find the little bit that is right, and encourage it. Students have at least enough inspiration to put pencil to paper. As we learn more, it becomes easier to find value in other people’s work. We see where they are coming from, and we can be more effective in our suggestions. Architects tell clients to think outside the box, and come up with whatever they want, because they are confident in their ability to find what's good in it, and to develop that essence into a beautiful thing.
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