Narratives of Architectural Education

From Student to Architect

James Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351121859
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Narratives of Architectural Education provides an overview of life as an architecture student, detailing how a layperson may develop an architectural identity. This book proposes becoming an architect as a personal narrative of professional development structured around various stages and challenges associated with identity transformation.

Using a case study of aspiring architects along multiple time points of their professional education, Thompson investigates the occupational identity of architects; how individuals construct a sense of themselves as future architects and position themselves within the architectural community.

This book provides previously unexamined insights into not just the academic development of an architect, but also the holistic and experiential aspects of architectural education. It would be ideal for those in the educational field of architecture, to include students, educators, interns, and mentors.

1Becoming an architect today

Architecture’s contemporary context

Embarking on the path of a career in architecture means cultivating an architectural identity, of which there are many. Adopting such an identity requires more than acquiring the requisite knowledge and skills to practice professionally. Such abilities—the doing aspect of design practice—constitute only part of the equation. In actuality, becoming an architect is largely a meaning-making experience, whereby aspiring architects must periodically recalibrate their expectations, aspirations, and sense of self against the field’s pluralistic cultural landscape. They inevitably encounter a certain tension that exists between the discipline’s almost tribal insistence on upholding its academic rituals and the incessant calls for new architectural ways of being. Likewise, the entangled and dynamic relationship between architecture schools and the profession is palpable in just about all aspects of education. Gaining a sense of belonging to the local and global architectural communities is essential to navigating architectural education, yet the meaning-making process is highly personal given that it is separable from one’s life history and individual value system. Indeed, a certain level of psychological resilience is required to remain invested in a career path comprised of so many myths and contradictions. Arguably the most effective strategy for making sense of architectural education, and therefore remaining invested in the career path, is narrative: through personal stories, aspiring architects find ways of connecting their past, present, and future selves, along with the interrelated dimensions of their emerging architectural identities.

How, and how successfully, individual aspiring architects are able to adopt an architectural identity, and which identities they choose, inevitably shape the future of the profession. Educators in architecture programs acknowledge this, to some degree, when they elevate the role of student agency in resolving the profession’s purported existential crisis or its response to external crises like climate change or social inequality. Schools are envisioned as “incubating new forms of professional” with students and faculty collaborating “to think the future of the discipline, the future of our expertise and of knowledge itself” (Wigley, quoted in Taylor-Hochberg, 2014a). Whereas not all programs position themselves quite this way, there is a broad sense that the current generation of aspiring architects is responsible for defining and enacting the future of architectural practice, which is likely to be comprised of architectural identities that are increasingly heterogeneous and distinct from their twentieth-century precursors. Thus, the notion that architectural education is transformative, both for future professionals and the profession, exists in some inchoate form. Occasionally, this gets expressed explicitly (see Box 1.1).

Box 1.1: Quotations reflecting architectural education as a process of transformation

“An architect is not trained. An architect is something you become.”

(Wingård et al., 2011, p. 2)

“More than in many other jobs, being a successful architect means not only knowing but being.”

(Stevens, 1999, p. 55)

“Professionally, there are so many different trajectories our students encounter while at school and as soon as they graduate. It can be challenging to know where to go, what to do and who to become.”

(Andraos, quoted in Taylor-Hochberg, 2015c)

“To strive to be an architect is always a matter of moving forward and beyond, a matter, in short, of becoming.”

(Combs Dreiling, 2014, p. xi)

Architectural administrators and instructors engage with issues of architectural identity often, whenever they consider the ideal character attributes of applicants, students, and graduates/practitioners. Such concerns explicitly guide curricular and pedagogical practices as well as revisions to them. Yet there is little to suggest that such engagement with architectural identity is informed by an empirical understanding of how aspiring architects themselves engage with these issues on a personal level. To put it in narrative terms, in the story of architectural education, we have identified (1) the protagonist and supporting cast of characters (the student and their peers, instructors, administrators, and other members of their social support network) and (2) the setting (primarily the studio, but also the rest of architecture school facilities, as well as home and professional offices), and (3) we are aware of a certain arc of personal transformation (with graduates being distinct from applicants). What remains more obscure, and therefore unexamined, is the plot that connects these narrative components into a coherent story.

Certainly, previous attempts exist when it comes to describing the personally transformative experience of becoming an architect. In his guide to the profession, Lewis (2013) contends that, “The inside story of architectural education and practice is one of dualities: success and failure, acceptance and rejection, tedium and elation, fulfillment and disillusionment. The experiences of becoming and being an architect can be sweet and bittersweet” (p. xiv). This understanding of architectural education, which endures to this day and was reinforced by the results of the present study, was emphasized in Cuff’s (1991) Architecture: The Story of Practice. In this significant piece of scholarship, Cuff revealed a set of dilemmas, mysteries, and contradictions that constitute the experience of becoming and being an architect. Hoping to link this experience to the field’s pedagogical traditions and social contexts, she asked:

What does it mean to become an architect? What are the programs, behaviors, rituals, and knowledge that architects must learn? What is the metamorphic transformation of a layperson into an architect? By studying the process of becoming-an-architect, we discover what it means to be an architect, thereby gaining further insight into the culture of architecture. “Architect” is a legal term, but it is not the legal sense that interests me here. Rather, I am concerned with the more tacit, more intricate evolution of an individual through a sequence of distinct periods: as an architecture student, an entry-level architect, a project architect or associate, and finally as a principal. Only in the last two stages can one be said to be a full-fledged architect. Normally, these developmental phases are not described explicitly, even to the novice, but reveal themselves only during the process of becoming. If we envision a black box, into which we place the raw materials of a layperson, and out of which comes the well-informed architect, then the contents of that box, and in particular the way the mysterious production line operates, need to be explored.

(Cuff, 1991, p. 116)

Cuff’s book remains the most holistic exploration of architectural education as a story. Yet, as decades have passed, professional practice and the “mysterious production line” of architectural education operate differently. At the very least, the cultural context that surrounds architectural education has undoubtedly changed—as has much of the discourse emanating from within architectural schools. Thus, this book can be considered a revisiting, one generation later, of the chief questions that informed Cuff’s project but with an updated theoretical frame. By comparing shared themes across the two projects, one can even infer the effects that have resulted from changes over the past generation to the “metamorphic transformation of a layperson into an architect”—and what of this process has remained constant.

Other scholars have pointed to the dissonant or dialectic quality of architectural education. The Boyer Report (Boyer & Mitgang, 1996), still the widest ethnographic survey of North American schools of architecture, noted three “strange” disconnects that underlie and inform dialogue and debates of educational reform: (1) between architecture and other disciplines on campus, (2) between architecture schools and the profession, and (3) between architectural practice and the public. Similarly, Piotrowski and Robinson (2001) proposed a set of contested issues regarding architectural knowledge and its production: authority; relation of architecture to other fields; relation between discipline and subfields; form and content of education; legitimacy of different voices within the field in relation to the social responsibility of the architect; relation between academia and the profession. Generally, this set of issues and dualities represent fault lines inherent to the nature of the field itself rather than problems that can be, or ought to be, resolved. In fact, much of the research conducted on architectural education over the past thirty years has been aimed at “demystifying” its cultural and pedagogical idiosyncrasies rather than vanquishing them. The perceived need to expose the qualities of architectural education typically derives from two primary presumptions. Looking outward, design pedagogy is considered paradigmatically different than “standard” models of education; thus, the presumption is that architecture can offer other disciplines a pedagogical model based on reflective practice and learning-in-action (see Schön, 1987). Looking inward, the presumption is that field of architecture can be improved or better serve its constituents by exposing and elucidating its hidden and tacit educational practices.

Whereas the present study is also intended to demystify architectural education, and certainly builds on this scholarship, it is not directly oriented towards questions of pedagogy, curricula, or even knowledge—at least as these are commonly framed in scholarship. Rather, the purpose of this study is to open up new intellectual territory within the discipline, turning to themes of meaning-making and identity transformation by shifting attention to the voices of aspiring architects. Given recent and ongoing modifications to architectural education—much of it intended to address criticisms raised over the past three decades—now is an appropriate time to carefully consider the ways in which aspiring architects navigate the various environments, experiences, and challenges that constitute the process of becoming an architect.

It is important to contextualize the narratives of aspiring architects presented in this study within current shifts in architectural culture. I will briefly discuss some of these shifts here by referencing recent disciplinary discourse, whereas the next chapter will review the past several decades of literature with respect to aspects of architectural education relevant to this study. In reflecting on changes over the past twenty years within architectural education, Stan Allen (2012) notes how changes within the profession can significantly impact the student experience:

In many cases, passionate academic debates have brought to light a deeper anxiety about the changing role of the architect in society. Architects, as Rem Koolhaas has pointed out, are at once immensely arrogant and massively powerless. That is to say, they are no longer effective in many areas traditionally seen as the domain of the architect, but potentially powerful in other, perhaps unanticipated arenas. One task of schools today is to identify these new arenas and capacities.

This is a task made more difficult by a climate of increasing pluralism. Clearly no single design direction dominates schools today, and while it is possible to map shifting intellectual agendas, the situation is not so much that one agenda supplants another as it is that one is layered over another, multiplying the possibilities and points of view. This can be confusing to a student, who is often thrown back on his or her own resources. Young architects need to cultivate intellectual independence, but students need stable landmarks as well.

(Allen, 2012, p. 228)

Indeed, this question of how aspiring architects navigate such a complex and ever-changing landscape of agendas and personas was the impetus behind this study.

Recent educational reforms in architecture that address the purported rift between school and practice operate under the assumption that the fundamental nature of the profession has transformed as of late—namely in terms of how architects relate to clients, to other members of the design and construction industry, and to the public. The argument is that this transformation necessitates that schools overcome their conservative tendencies to alter the basic model and aims of instruction (see Boyer & Mitgang, 1996; Fisher, 2006; Friedman, 2007; Gutman, 2007; Nicol & Pilling, 2000a; Salama, 2015; Till, 2009; Worthington, 2000). Salama (2015) encapsulates the main thrust of this discourse when he writes: “While the practice of design professions has changed significantly and continues to change, architectural and urban design education has been slow to react to these changes at best or resists change or adaptation at worst” (p. 1). Critics tend to call attention to fundamental shifts in both architectural activity (the doing) and the very notion of what constitutes an architectural identity (the being). For instance, in their response to recent revisions to architectural accreditation standards, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA)—the membership body representing all accredited US and Canadian architecture schools—argued the following:

More than ever, architectural practice takes place within a network of interrelated disciplines. As this network expands, the knowledge needed to practice is becoming simultaneously broader, more specialized, and more diverse in scope. This emerging context translates into a complex, but no less compelling, portrait of an architecture graduate: a creative, responsive, and technically proficient designer, an acute synthesizer of knowledge, and a deft leader and collaborator within a multidisciplinary team.

(ACSA, 2013)

Schools have therefore landed on their objective as the cultivation of graduates able to traverse and ultimately excel in such a complex and ever-changing world of practice. Ensuing academic initiatives have therefore been directed towards meeting this objective.

This study thus comes at an important moment in the history of architectural education, amidst a broad push towards an “integrated” curricular model that aims to expand and adapt to changes in the architect’s role. Within this model, students are presumably given opportunities to encounter, “try on,” and perhaps even begin to adopt nascent professional identities before they graduate. Formalized internship programs are the most obvious manifestation of this model, but other examples include role-play in the classroom (i.e., practitioners sharing scenarios and soliciting potential responses) or research assistantships (i.e., an architecture student being hired to contribute to transdisciplinary projects on urban sustainability). This project’s case study, the accredited Master of Architecture (M.Arch) program at the University of Washington (UW), embodies this ethos of “integration” geared towards graduate employability.

In line with efforts to integrate learning environments are initiatives to shorten the timeframe to licensure. The increasing number of work-based degree programs in North America and the United Kingdom reflect this trend. More than twenty US colleges now participate in the Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) initiative, while several UK schools began offering an apprenticeship program in 2018 sponsored by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) through selected UK offices. Another argument for such pathways is that it will increase access to architectural education to more students by making it more affordable and therefore more appealing. This recent incarnation of work-based learning is in addition to the numerous “co-op” programs across North America, some of which have existed for over a century. As these curricular and pedagogical advances become increasingly prevalent, so too does the need to provide students with self-reflection opportunities that allow them to connect their past, present, and future architectural selves into a coherent life story and thereby position themselves within the profession. One of the basic premises of this study is that today’s more cooperative partnership between the academy and the profession impacts the individual experience of becoming an architect—and that the individual experience in turn shapes the future of the profession.

The recent increase in publicly available literature aimed at helping aspiring architects navigate their education is a welcomed development towards greater transparency and clarity. Most notable are Lewis’s guide (2013), Waldrep’s guide (2014) and associated blog (archcareers.blogspot.com), as well as the new ACSA-sponsored website, studyarchitecture.com, which includes a “roadmap for an architecture student’s journey.” Promotional and informational material is also easily accessed through websites of nationally-specific professional architecture bodies and membership institutions, such as the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), the American Institute of Architecture (AIA), and the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) in the US; the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) in Canada; the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in the UK; the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) in Australia; the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA) in South Africa; and the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) in New Zealand. However, such information is largely meant to elucidate the various structural steps and requirements of becoming an architect—including applying to schools, distinctions between degree programs, and the paths to licensure. Complementing these guidebook-like resources are more descriptive, personal accounts of becoming an architect, such as interviews, profiles, blog posts, and discussion boards on sites like archinect.com, sectioncut.com, theproexams.com, and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS)’ “archibabble” and “in studio blog.” But as with all web-based material, greater access to “data” does not necessarily correlate to a complete or authentic portrait reflective of everyday experience.

The present study’s focus on stories and storytelling is also meant to challenge the tendency in architecture to conflate student work as “education” (see Hejduk & Canon, 1999; ...