An Alternate Curriculum

Barry D. Yatt, AIA, CSI

 

Introduction

Design philosophies run the full range between two extremes:

Design based on the designer’s personal expression , which is seen as the primary determinant of the project's agenda -- the goals of the designer determine the goals of the project.

Design based on a synthesis of the project's multifaceted agendas (including the designer’s personal expression) -- the goals of the designer are inspired by the goals of the project.

Clearly, successful architecture results from a strong sense of self-expression AND a sensitive response to project needs. The ideal curriculum would simultaneously develop students in both areas. For a variety of reasons, most curricula are not so balanced. In many schools, initial efforts are targeted toward developing the students' senses of aesthetics, holding off on communicating a substantive appreciation of a project's needs until later in a curriculum or, for some issues, after graduation. There is a common belief that students must first be grounded in aesthetics before being asked to add "practical" concerns to their design considerations. I'd like to suggest that, perhaps for many students, the blank slate they face when designing an introductory project is very intimidating, and that an appreciative exploration of a project's needs provides a comforting and fertile ground for aesthetic development. Further, the philosophical immaturity of students still in or barely past their teens makes it unlikely that they will grasp the complexities of aesthetic theory.

An alternative education may be drawn from the fine arts tradition. There, students first learn the materials and tools (intellectual, cultural, spiritual, and physical) of their craft, and are asked to propose their own works of art only after mastering them. Stone sculptures would likely be armless, like the Venus de Milo, if their sculptors didn't appreciate, in their guts, the amount of force capable of breaking marble. Giacometti's and Maillot's bronzes depended on their creators' understanding of casting. And all great artists had very deep understandings of the human body (e.g.: Michelangelo, Rodin) and the mechanics of perception (e.g.: foreshortening, perspective). For this reason, art students start by mastering the formative influences affecting their arts, eventually maturing sufficiently to develop original philosophies that inform their mature work. By contrast, architecture students start by being asked to

develop their own philosophies, and are assured that they will learn (at some point) the formative and informative influences affecting their art.

This curriculum proposal will likely be considered radical. It takes the fine arts approach, looking for aesthetic maturity to derive from deep-seated knowledge and understanding of the human psyche, culture, construction materials, and the politics of the construction process. It has four parts:

Foundation : This portion is intended to get all the students "on the same page." Liberal arts and the sciences, including an architecture survey course (also for non-majors). The major ideas of our culture.

Exposure : This portion is intended to get students excited and informed. Students are introduced to great buildings, and major themes in firmness and commodity, as well as delight. Architectural appreciation.

Application : This portion allows students to try it. Students follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, learning and applying tested design approaches.

Innovation : In this portion, students are asked to "fly solo." Students are expected to develop their own architectural philosophy and make an original contribution.

Each of the four parts has four components:

Perceptual Issues : Issues of the spirit and emotions. Pragmatic Issues : Issues of function. Physical Issues : Issues of materiality. Political Issues : Issues of collaboration and communication.

This is only a first try at a curriculum; significant issues such as time allocation, faculty makeup, course coordination, academic resistance, and others have only fleetingly been considered if at all. Please review it and give me your considered opinion.

Proposal 

Foundation

The components described below would be taken in any order a particular student wishes, but hopefully with some degree of intermixing. Whenever all

components are completed, the student would pass a gate into Part II, Application.

General Education

Who we are and why we address design problems in general.

Universal issues : English/literature, philosophy/religion, math, physical sciences, social sciences, economics, electives.

Architectural appreciation : The Human Condition, Architecture & Society - Perceptual/conceptual/cultural aspects of the built environment.

General Skills

How we address design problems in general.

The human mind and problem-solving

Left-brain (conscious/rational processing): Organization, prioritization, outlining, matrices, strategic and tactical archetypes

Right-brain (unconscious/intuitive processing): Iterative thinking, diagramming, sketching and model making as decision-making processes

3D visualization

Communication

Graphic communication: [Working graphics (CDs); Presentation graphics (rendering, photography, model making); and computerization for each]

Written communication

Oral communication (public speaking)

 

Exposure

Bodies of knowledge we use to address architectural design problems.

Topics

Perceptual Issues : Issues of the spirit and emotions

Spatial theory

Perceptual psychology

Cultural iconography

Pragmatic Issues : Issues of function

Behavioral Psychology

Urban and land use planning

Programming

Physical Issues : Issues of materiality

Site factors

Materials, Assemblies (archetypes), Construction means and methods

Building economics

Political Issues : Issues of collaboration and communication.

Regulation (Codes, Guidelines, and Standards)

Construction documentation and administration

Activities/Labs

Field trips  to buildings and spaces illustrating concepts discussed in class and capable of evoking student understanding and appreciation.

Pre-Studios : Critiqued exercises that integrate and synthesize the items listed above

Gate 1: Undergraduate diploma (B. S. in Architecture): 3 years, 90-100 credits

I realize that this doesn't fit any existing academic paradigm. Perhaps it would be combined with the next part into a five year program, or with a specialization in a fourth year to yield a terminal undergraduate degree.

 

Application

Applying recognized solutions [precedents] to new design problems.

Topics

Perceptual/Pragmatic : History of architecture as a perceptual-cultural-social-political response

Physical

A survey of architectural detailing (with a reprise of the physical issues listed above

Allied disciplines: Structural engineering, environmental systems (MEP)

Political : Enabling fields of study that allow for successful building design without generally being a part of it.

Architectural management: Non-billable (business management)

Architectural management: Billable (project management)]

Activities/Labs: Studios requiring application and competence, but not statement-making, culminating in a "major project."

Gate 2: Professional diploma (Arch. Doctor): 2 years, 60-70 credits

 

Innovation

Developing new solutions to new design problems.

Topics

Theory : of aesthetics, of planning, of construction technology, of practice, etc.

History : of aesthetics, of planning, of construction technology, of practice, etc.

Activities/Labs: Advanced studios and theses/dissertations that go beyond application to contribution, beyond competence to insight.

Gate 3: Post-professional diploma (M. Arch: in Aesthetics, in Construction Technology, etc.): No particular time, but requiring a thesis/dissertation at the level generally required of graduate students in other disciplines.

Design Checklist: Basic Rules for Feasibility

Barry D. Yatt, AIA, CSI

 

Architectural designs must be internally consistent and nominally credible, meaning believable as a building. Here is a checklist to help you. Where your design fails to meet any item on this list, redesign that aspect to comply. Your project must be able to honestly satisfy every item on this list. When it does (and it may already), proceed with design development.

General Circulation

All  corridors and stairs are at least 3’-8" wide (3’-0" if residential). There are no dead ends over 20’ long.

Ramps are no steeper than 1:12. For example, a ramp 18’ long is used to get over an 18" grade change.

Doors are drawn in all openings intended to have doors. Doorways that people walk through (closets are exempted) are no narrower than 36". Individual leafs within doorways are no wider than 48".

Every room intended to hold more than 50 people has at least two outward-swinging doors that are at least half-the-diagonal-distance-of-the-room apart. Rooms for fewer people can use inward-swinging doors.

Stairs

Exit stairs are linked to each other by corridors, and are at least half-the-diagonal-distance-of-the-floor apart.

All stairs have risers no higher than 7" and treads no wider than 11". That translates to a 32º angle. (Residentially, that can be reduced to 8¼" risers and 9" treads, or 42º.) The number of risers is determined by dividing the floor-to-floor height (in inches) by 7 (or 8¼) and rounding up. The number of treads is determined by subtracting 1 from the number of risers.

Stair landings are at least as long as the stair is wide, and occur at the top and bottom of each stair and at least every 12’ vertically (twenty 7" risers) between floors.

Every floor of every project (including the basement) has at least two ways out in case of fire, not counting elevators. Being rescued from windows is acceptable as a second way out from bedrooms only, and then only in buildings four stories high or less assuming that the windows are operable and big enough to fit through. In other words, just about all projects must have at least two fire stairs.

Doors at the ground floor from at least half of the exit stairs in the building open directly to the outdoors. Doors from the other stairs may open to lobbies or foyers.

Spiral stairs are at least 5’ diameter, and are provided in addition to (not instead of) the required fire stairs. Curved stairs used as fire stairs have total radiuses that are more than three times the stair width (at least 11’).

Elevators

Elevators used by the public have interior hoistway dimensions (the size of the shaft) of 6’-8" by 8’-6". The door is in the wider side. In any building over 6 stories high, at least two elevators are provided.

Elevator shafts extend past the top floor slab by the height of the elevator cab + 4’. An elevator pit extends 4’ below the lowest floor slab. For buildings under 6 stories tall (where a hydraulic elevator can be used), there is a closet somewhat near the elevator shaft containing elevator machinery. Over 6 stories (where an electric elevator is required), a machine room is located directly above the shaft. (Unlike the other rules in this checklist, this one is based more on construction needs and general industry practice than on code requirements.)

Other

Somewhere in the building, there is a mechanical equipment room or closet. You need a place to put the furnace, air handler, and water heater.

Sections show conceptual footings (don’t worry about size for now) under load bearing walls. Sections show grade somewhere adjacent to each exterior wall.

Externalized Design:Making New Voices Heard in the Classroom

Barry D. Yatt, AIA, CSI

 

For the first twelve years after receiving my professional degree, I worked exclusively as a practicing architect. Projects in which I was involved included all sizes and categories, including commercial, industrial, institutional, and residential, for firms of a similarly diverse range. Three years ago that all changed, when I accepted a full-time teaching position in an accredited professional degree program at a school of architecture. The transition has been an incredible challenge.

Although I graduated from a program similar to the one in which I now teach, I forgot a lot about the student experience once I had several years of practice behind me. I was in a service profession, after all, where we were expected to fulfill a client's agenda. I forgot how much my teachers had focused on the architect's goals rather than those of the architect's clients. I forgot how the only issue that we were told mattered was how we expressed our own feelings about the project. So I was taken somewhat by surprise, when I became a faculty member, by the limits design education still placed on this aspect of preparing students for practice.

Before my career switch, bridging the education-practice gap was something of a personal crusade. I am still as convinced as ever that the viewpoint of the practitioner, who learns from mistakes through trial and error, must be integrated with that of the academic, who learns through investigation and research, if students are to receive a balanced education. I think few goals are more critical to the future of design, both as a field of academic study and as a profession, than that of acknowledging, and then merging, the strengths of the academic's and the practitioner's viewpoints.

I would like to relate one attempt at bridging these conflicting issues. In my own teaching at The Catholic University of America, I have pursued, what I call, externalized design. In design studios, I find students listening mostly to two voices: those of their critics, and the ones in their heads. For better or worse, the critics' voices generally reflect only their own ideas on design, and the students' voices are too professionally immature to provide much balance. I suspected that student projects would look very different if students were

asked to look at the parameters championed by other voices (Figure 1). This article discusses my efforts at broadening design constituency, along with some of the strategies I have found to be successful.

 

Externalized Design

Design, in its broadest sense, involves generating a series of alternatives which respond to the agenda of the designer and the agendas of other people and conditions, and then selecting the best alternative from the series for later execution. From the designer's perspective, his or her agenda is an "internal" one, and that of the other people and conditions are "external" ones. Using this perspective, "externalized design" refers to any design effort which incorporates issues beyond the designer's agenda. Externalized design involves strategic examination of all aspects of a problem, and uses creativity, imagination, and insight to decide on a plan to be executed. There are two important aspects to this idea.

First, design is a form of planning. Whether eventually implemented or not, design embodies the intent of implementation. When the sense of a product created according to the design is lost, design loses its meaning. Design becomes, not a means to an end, but an end in itself, and need not respond to the needs of the product that would have been its fulfillment. Recently, education seems to have lost sight of this idea. Student work is often a product, rather than a design for a product.

Second, a corollary to the first point, is that the parameters of that future product must be the driving force behind the design. If design is a process of synthesizing forces which are external to the designer, any educational method that encourages students to invent their projects' critical issues leaves them not only partially prepared for the real world, but incomplete designers. We must accept that some of the factors which valid design work recognizes and responds to are totally outside the designer's control. The list shown below indicates some of the factors which take turns as primary issues in architectural design projects.

 

Other Voices: Expanding the List of Constituents

Like most businesspeople, practicing design professionals generally recognize this externalization of design influence. They have had to become more responsive to their clients at the same time that the number of parties which could claim the label "client" has broadened. In years past, only the party

which paid the designer's fees would have been considered a constituent, someone with not only a vested interest but a right to influence a project. Now constituents include many who previously would have been considered peripheral to the process. Given this change, design education not only should, but can, incorporate consideration of multiple voices and eventual design execution. Opportunities for doing this, which would broaden the scope of design education, are numerous.

In the past few years, I have explored several methods for bringing multiple voices into the classroom. In both lecture and studio settings, I have reformatted standard assignments into letters of correspondence from relevant constituents, invited guests to role-play such constituents, and asked students to imagine themselves as recent graduates trying to respond to their newfound externalized settings. The following descriptions of teaching processes and examples of correspondence illustrate these points.

 

Making the Voices Heard in a Lecture Course

I tend to think of the job of an architect as dealing with the art, science, and management of architecture. Two thirds of the triumvirate, the science and management portions, were fulfilled by two of the courses I found myself teaching, described in our catalog as dealing with construction materials, a third course I also teach, in practice management for architects, and required classes in structural engineering and environmental systems (heating, cooling, plumbing and electrical systems). I realized that if the notion of externalized design didn't make it into one of my courses, the students would have to learn it after graduation. This meant the only way they would have for learning it would be from their mistakes, by trial and error. It also meant that they would never have the opportunity to explore, in the safety of an academic setting, the richness that external influences can bring to a design.

For these reasons, I now designate a substantial portion of my lecture courses for predesign analysis, a phase of service in which architects research the question which lies at the heart of their design response. While they are taking my course, most of my students are also enrolled in a design studio, where they are asked to design a project. These hands-on studios have been the emotional, spritual, and hierarchical core of architecture students' semesters since the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris introduced the format in the nineteenth century. I see my course as a balance to their studio course, one in which they explore the multiple voices which clamor for attention on almost any project, focusing on the richness such an exploration can bring to their later design work.

We spend several weeks in lecture considering investors', users', government's, and site's potential concerns with respect an architectural projects, looking not only at what each constituent's value system might be, but also techniques for evaluating, both qualitatiely and quantitatively, such concerns. As examples, we consider issues such as territoriality, psychological, and physiological comfort, which are seen as amenities by a project's users, issues such as street setbacks and required on-site parking, which are seen by zoning codes as maintaining a neighborhood's character, and issues such as urban context and access to transportation, which constitute economic value relative to location.

After this conceptual grounding, and with the cooperation of the studio faculty (the "critic"), I give my students the project descriptions that their critic would normally have distributed. In other words, my course shares the same project as the students' studios. I hand out these descriptions several weeks before the date selected by their critics for starting the project. I ask students to take a deep look at these project descriptions during this period, which precedes any design sketching they may do for their studio classes. While stopping short of integration with their studios, I try to relate the two courses by building on the project developed by their critics. The end goal of this process is to have individual students present carefully researched sets of options to their critics, each of which could form the basis for a different design solution while balancing the diverse, and often conflicting, wishes and needs of the projects' constituents in different ways.

As a technique for beginning this process, I give letters to the students which are allegedly written by the projects' users, along with memos through which the studio critics, role-playing the students' bosses in a fictitious architecture practice, ask them to prepare predesign analyses and design agenda recommendations to review with them in advance of an "upcoming client meeting" (Figure 2). This six-step process asks them to:

ASK what the questions are that they will need to address during their later design effort. As there are many, many questions for any project, the students are asked to focus on any three.

DISCOVER what the relevant facts are which inform those questions. This involves code analysis (the government's issues), site analysis (issues derived from the location), program analysis (the user's issues), and value analysis (the investor's issues).

DRAW diagrams which combine groups of facts in coherent graphic images. This requires them to be able to graphically praphrase the issues back to the constituents who raised them, to confirm their understanding of the constituents' facts.

ANALYSE their diagrams to extract issues for design. Asks the students to look at the implications of the facts they've found.

SYNTHESIZE individual issues into several grouped agendas which, although different in character, would satisfy each of the constituents enough to garner their support for that agenda.

PRESENT the potential agendas to their "bosses", with recommendations, for a decision. It is explained that the constituents will be asked to select one of the agendas they propose, authorizing the start of schematic design.

The letters from the users, rather than spelling out "programs" of spaces which include room names, sizes, and adjacency requirements (for example, a 450 square foot exercise room adjacent to the lobby), state simply, in conversational prose, of the users' lifestyle needs for those spaces. It is up to the students to think through the physical implications of those lifestyle needs, and to present and confirm these implications with the users. The externalization doesn't stop there. Students are required to sort through the program, code, site, and value (cost-benefit) options, combine them into several coordinated project agendas, and meet with "the boss" (the critic), who will speak on behalf of the constituents with whom he has supposedly met on numerous occasions.

At this meeting, which is run as a fairly typical design jury (another Beaux Arts teaching technique, whereby students pin up and present their work to their critics in front of their classmates), students present their understanding of the client's intents, the assumptions they made in areas where the client's letter was ambiguous or unclear, and the predesign strategies they feel are appropriate. In the end, the student and role-playing critic jointly decide on a preferred agenda, a reading of the design question which combines the issues in a way which is seen as balanced by mutual agreement of all constituents. Documenting these decisions by writing the meeting minutes concludes the students' work in the predesign analysis portion of my course. In my course, the lectures take approximately eight weeks; the ensuing exercise takes another six weeks while the lectures move on to addressing the more traditional areas of architectural science and management. If their critics want their students to continue with the insights gained during the predesign analysis process, the students' definitive agendas can be allowed to direct their studio course design efforts.

This teaching device has many consequences. Students see the project as having a goal; they see the goal as relating to someone who or something which will be using, investing in, or otherwise affected by, the project. They start to understand that a good designer does not depend on any one particular design agenda, that there are many possible agendas, and that not all of these possibilities optimally fulfill the needs of the client. And they start to get an appreciation of why practicing architects often talk about the idea that great projects don't happen without great clients.

 

Studio Efforts

In the spring of 1993, I team taught a design studio with Donald Little, AIA, a practicing architect. Our goal was to insure that students would be aware of these additional voices. This course was, in every respect, a design studio. Students worked in "firms" of four. They started the semester interviewing each other as potential partners. We stressed the idea that the chemistry between them, the range of abilities, and the diversity or consistency of philosophy and attitude among them would be a potent influence on whatever design work they eventually produced as a firm.

Students were required to confront issues which they hadn't before thought of as being integral to design, voiced by constituents that they hadn't previously recognized or acknowledged. Participating constituents included a three-member building committee, a code official, members of a historic planning commission, and the client's contractor. Figure 3 shows the letter which introduced the client, raising issues of fee and scope, while the Building Committee's full program provided a fuller description of user lifestyle issues. Each of the constituents met with the student firms several times during the semester-long project. The user group met four times with each firm while the code official and historic preservation committee met only once each before the final presentation. At each meeting, where students received constituents in a classroom set up as the firms' conference room, they were encouraged to get to know these various constituents, find out their respective design agendas, and incorporate their attitudes in their final design proposals. Students responded to correspondence with some of their own (Figure 4) which recognized these external factors guiding their design processes.

One significant evolution was that some issues that were initially seen as design constraints were eventually seen as design clues. For example, the project site was too small to fit the program and required parking without major problems, and included an existing 1920's armory building which, although of some historic interest, had little to recommend it architecturally. Although they knew that the neighborhood which included the site was designated as historic, all four teams initially approached the project by tearing down the armory and designing new buildings for the now-vacant site. They struggled to find the right design, trying one scheme after another in the attempt to make just the right statement without seriously considering all the constituents' (including the site's) issues. Many of the designs they developed seemed arbitrary at best, and characterless at worst. Nevertheless, the students maintained their wipe-it-clean approach. It wasn't until the Historic Preservation Committee made it clear that they would reject any scheme that involved total demolition that they first considered the armory's design

implications. In the end, all four teams developed imaginative designs that cleverly leveraged the potentially mundane attributes of the existing building into much richer final designs.

Students often need a little direction to focus their efforts. One student firm had to be "fired" before it buckled down to business. We sent an invoice for the monthly rent after all four firms stopped their contract negotiations short of a signed agreement. The impending need for capital encouraged them to finish discussing the terms of their agreements, which, in tern, gave them much better understandings of who their clients were. One student's approach to solving the client's parking requirements through a zoning code exception which allowed parking off the tight site involved negotiating with a neighboring property owner. Eventually, the dangers of political insensitivity were introduced to the design process when one firm failed to inform the client of its meetings with the Historic Preservation Committee (Figure 5).

 

Conclusions

These classroom exercises lead toward a different set of learning experiences than provided by traditional design classes. It is a broader set, which shifts focus from architects to the wider real estate industry, including the owners, their lenders, the potential tenants or other users, governmental regulators, and the qualities of the site and environment. Rather than teaching design as a discipline which is unaffected by, and has no major affect on, issues beyond the sculptural design of the project's form, these approaches teach the importance of choice and responsibility for a designer. They encourage personal motivation and identification with the project on many levels, reinforce the substantiveness of a student's work, and promote increased depth of investigation, communication, and exploration of options. Through them students can develop an understanding of diplomacy and, perhaps, some skill in that area. They become aware of the potential pitfalls related to reliance on formula, and they learn that constituent research, rather than "busy work" or a distraction from the "real work" of design, is an integral part of it.

One inescapable fact of post-eighties practice is that many architecture students will graduate to jobs outside the profession of architecture, either through deliberate preference, or simply because there aren't currently enough positions for all the graduating students. For them, these exercises emphasize the larger value of design education. They reframe the design school experience as a right-brained alternative to traditional liberal arts or science education. Rather than flooding an overcrowded profession with recent graduates, we can fill the ranks of business and industry, the future constituents of architecture, with insightful generalists.

Figure 1: Class handout

 

Constituents' Design Priority Areas

The job of designers is to conceive physical realities that answer the needs and desires of a project's constituents, those with a stake in such realities. These constituents, through the issues they voice, determine the nature of a project's design and the hierarchy of issues to be met. The list is often dominated by a very limited number of such issues, or even a single one. In the end, all issues must be satisfied, as they can not be ignored indefinitely.

The following is a list of some of the voices and the issues they care about which can and often do appear in practice. Whether and when a particular issue appears is a function of the relative business, political, or social power of the constituent voicing it.

The Owners' (Investors') Issues

1. Market Demand (What will foster business?)

A. Typical Examples: Retail shop, any development, speculative offices

B. Considerations: Image, materials, program, amenities

2. Budget

A. Typical Examples: Affordable housing, "third world" project.

B. Considerations: Up-front costs on structure, finishes. Codes, program (efficiency), design fees. Use of available materials and skills, mass-production.

The Users' Issues

1. Program Function

A. Typical Examples: Hospital, hotel, school

B. Considerations: Influence of human tasks, acoustics, climate.

2. Culture and psychology

A. Typical Example: Civic building, community center

B. Considerations: Human (cultural) behavior and interpretation

3. Aesthetics (How will being there make the users feel?)

A. Typical Examples: Museum, private house

B. Considerations: Form, perception, human expressiveness

The Designers' Issues

1. Aesthetics (How can it explore and express the designers' philosophies?)

A. Typical Examples: Museum, private house

B. Considerations: Form, perception, human expressiveness

2. Risk Management

A. Typical Example: Reroofing of local public school.

B. Considerations: Simplicity of construction, terms of contract, warranties

The Governments' Issues

1. Health, Safety and Welfare

A. Typical examples: High rise construction, theaters.

B. Considerations: Providing for emergency egress, implications of materials chosen.

The Construction Materials' Issues

1. Technological Dictates

A. Typical Examples: Hospital, factory

B. Considerations: Implications of required infrastructure and equipment.

Figure 2: A Note from the Boss: Assigning a predesign analysis project while simultaneously establishing role-playing rules.

 

The Architecture Guys1 Crough Plaza, NE

Washington, DC 20064

MemoTo: (Imagine your name here)

From: (Imagine your studio professor's name here)

RE: New project for Mr. Will Uzit

We're about to start a new project. Our client, Max Gain Development, Inc., wants us to start right away, and I'd like you to do the preliminary work. I know you've only been with our firm a few weeks, but I like what I've seen of your work and I think you're ready. Besides, if you need any assistance you can talk to Barry Yatt, our senior project manager. He's got plenty of experience with this sort of thing, and I've briefed him on this project.

Like most developers, Mr. Gain's organization sees this project as an investment. Since they won't be occupying the building themselves, but plan to lease it to an organization run by Mr. Uzit, we've been asked to design the project for the latter's needs. I'm attaching a letter I just received from Mr. Uzit explaining his organization's requirements. Due to the complexity of the situation, I want to make sure everybody's agreed on the design goals for this project before we put any time into the design effort itself.

So here's what I want you to do: Develop a range of design strategies for this job, along with the predesign analyses neccessary to justify them, and present it all to me when I get back from my trip to L.A. If I can answer some of the issues you bring up based on my knowledge of the client, I will. Other issues will need to be presented to them directly. After you and I meet, I'll meet with Messrs. Gain and Uzit to get their answers, their decisions and, I hope, their authorization to proceed with Schematic Design Phase work.

Figure 3: First Client Contact: Using Corrspondence to assign a project.

 

MCMP Architects3 Mezzanine Row

The Catholic University of AmericaWashington, DC 20064January 22, 1993

Dear Architect,

Our church began over one hundred years ago with a few families gathering for Sunday services. Since we bought our present building in 1926, our congregation and mission have expanded. It is time to embark on a major expansion of our facilities.

One member of our congregation and Building Committee, Mr. Dennis Cross, is an architect. He has helped us identify local firms, including yours, which are young, energetic, and interested in religious architecture. We would like to discuss the possibility of having your firm provide architectural services to our congregation.

We are looking for an architecture firm that:

Has credentials to do a project like ours Understands us and our needs Understands the construction process, since, in our group, only

Mr. Cross is familiar with procedures for this type of undertaking. We would prefer if your firm would coordinate this project, and advise us of our options at each step.

We will be interviewing several firms in the next few weeks in the hope of finding a firm with which we are comfortable working. If you are interested in this project, please meet with us February 10 at 2 p.m. We's also like you to send us a written proposal by February 8 for us to review before we meet. We'd like this proposal to address the points listed above, plus the following:

1. A short Project Description listing the following:

a. a list of the parties you expect to be involved in this project, and how you propose organizing these various parties.

b. a description of your understanding of our site, program, budget, etc.

c. a short, preliminary zoning and building code analysis and list of proposed materials or construction systems.

2. A contract for your services.

Obviously, you will need to know quite a bit about us and our project in order to do all this. Our committee has spent quite a bit of time deciding what we hope to accomplish with this expansion, and the general congregation has approved our effort. You will find our report attached.

If we do not hear from you, we will look forward to receiving your written proposal on the eighth, and meeting you on the tenth.

Sincerely yours,

Sam Gilston,

Chairman of the Building Committee

Figure 4: One Team's Response: Recognizing and Deferring to an Owner's Agenda

 

Rondo Allegro Architects1 Mezzanine Row

Washington, DC. 20064Mr Sam Gilston, ChairmanThe Church of the Golden Rectangle3710 Mitchell StreetKensington, MD 20895 March 28, 1993

Dear Mr. Gilston:

This past week we met with representatives from the Historic Preservation Committee, General Contractors, and a building code official from Montgomery County. We have discovered that there are potential problems with your program and budget limit.

The Historic Preservation Committee have not approved complete demolition of the existing building. In fact, they have not issued permission for complete demolition for the past twelve years since they have formed the committee. We are currently working on ways to satisfy the Preservation Committee while still meeting your requirements for the program. The new scheme that we are developing with the information from your last letter will need to incorporate some parts of the existing building to meet approval from the Committee.

The meeting with the code official went well. We need to know if you are willing to invest in a sprinkler system for parts of the project, for this would allow for a greater choice of materials and a less restricted design, but would add to the construction cost.

The contractor was very informative regarding budget costs. It is apparent that complete demolition of the existing building would cost considerably less than making additions or renovating it. Unfortunately, this does not coincide with the intents of the Historic Preservation Committee. This is a design problem we are going to have to solve. The contractor also informed us that on-site above ground parking would better fit your budget than under ground parking. This would obviously mean that your initial program

would have to be altered in order to satisfy the zoning code requirements for parking. Your contractor's estimate is as follows:

Under ground parking: $28.00/sq.ft. Partial under ground parking: $19.00/sq.ft. Above ground parking: $7.50/sq.ft.

One alternate solution would be to possibly purchase the neighboring property to the south of your site. The cost of purchasing the additional land might be less than building an underground structure on your site. The neighborhood committee hinted that the people who live on that property have made complaints about too much noise coming from your services. If you inform them of the construction and expansion on your church, you could persuade them to sell you their property for a relatively low market price. This would allow more space for your church's program, parking, and get rid of a nagging neighbor.

The following is a program breakdown of cost and area for your project which you requested at our last meting. At that meeting, you informed us that our estimates are considerably higher than the other firms which you have hired. I have personally checked the amount of square feet needed for each of your program needs, and the costs per square foot are based on the construction and demolition, and renovation for each of the spaces.

SPACE AREA REQD COST TOTAL COST

Sanctuary 8,500 SF $125/SF $1,062,500

Social Hall 5,000 SF $90/SF $450,000

Day School 5,000 SF $90/SF $500,000

Rectory 7,000 SF $75/SF $525,000

Guest Housing 3,000 SF $75/SF $225,000

Tenant Space 2,000 SF $25/SF $50,000

Site Work $250,000

TOTAL: 305,000 SF $3,062,500

MUST DECIDE ABOUT PARKING OR PURCHASING ADDITIONAL LAND.

Note: All parking estimates are based on 80 parking spaces (32,000 SF)

Above ground parking 32,000 SF $ 7.50/SF $240,000 Partial underground 32,000 SF $14.00/SF $448,000 Below ground parking 32,000 SF $28.00/SF $896,000

Please contact me as soon as possible with regards to your reaction to the costs of your project and what your budget can meet. It may be an alternative to cut your costs by cutting some of your program and elevating the shortage of space on your site.

Enclosed is our contract with our basic compensation rate and our end of the month invoice for our services to date, our work schedule, and our original square footage

estimate for your review. I look forward to hearing from you. Please respond as soon as possible and feel free to contact us at any time at (202) 635-9805 during regular business hours or at my home at (202)529-3093.

Yours Truly:

RONDO ALLEGRO

 

Figure 5: Introducing politics: The voices that students expect will simply "tell them what to design" don't often agree.

 

MCMP Architects3 Mezzanine RowCrough Center, The Catholic University of AmericaWashington, DC 20064March 31, 1993

Dear Mr. Myers,

It has come to our attention that you have been presenting your designs for our church to the Historic Preservation Committee. We are somewhat concerned that we have not been kept informed of decisions that have been reached at these meetings. To be more specific, we heard through the grapevine that you agreed with this committee to leave all of the existing buildings on our property untouched. How are we going to get the expanded facilities that we asked for if we don't do any renovation? I haven't had a chance to review this with Mr. Cross yet, but I will be rather concerned with the process if it is normal for architects to make decisions affecting our project without involving us. If these rumors are false, please demonstrate this by sending us the minutes from your meeting with the HPC.

Sincerely yours,

Sam Gilston,

Chairman of the Building Committee

Critical Thinking for Architects:Developing a Project Premise and Concept

Barry D. Yatt, AIA, CSI

 

Introduction

What does an architecture student do when assigned a design project? Get paper and start drawing? Well, not necessarily. There are two very different ways to approach the design process, both of which work, but for different types of designers:

1. The "Implicit" approach (known as the "Atelier", or "Black Box" method):

a. Concept: Design is a holistic and creative process, and unlike engineering work, is inhibited by the application of too much logic. As one of the arts, it is mysterious and springs from the depths of the designer's subconscious.

b. Process: As an implicit and graphic process, design is best learned by watching. A teacher will tell the student when the design isn't yet "working" based on experientially-developed sensitivity. Once a student's sensitivity is developed, his work will be more sophisticated.

c. Effect: It suggests the design process is best taught through implication. The right design is achieved through recognition based on intuition rather than invention based on issues analysis.

2. The "Explicit" approach (known as the "Inquiry" method):

a. Concept: Design is only valid so far as it addresses the problems underlying the process. As such, sketching can't start until the designer understands, in a fully conscious way, the human problems to be solved by the design.

b. Process: The designer's first effort is to think about, and ask questions of, the problem until it loses its mystery. If necessary, he can gather additional information about the problem. In considering the problem, the designer should know (and be able to concisely express to others) three things about the project:

1) What the project's Premise is. "What is it?"

2) What its Program Concept is. "How will it work?"

3) What his Design Concept for the project is. "What attitude of expression will I use to guide design direction?"

Only when these responses are known can one start design work.

c. Effect: Although solutions may be found through intuitive insight, the level of understanding on which they are based must grow from careful analysis. This is the basis of critical judgement, vital to enriching a project, since one can't really know if it's good unless one knows what it set out to accomplish.

No architect or architecture student can develop a truly convincing and substantive design without a well-considered approach. For some, it is easier to incorporate all the relevant factors through an Explicit approach. For them, starting right-in on design sketches before thinking about the project is likely to yield disappointing results. A building's architecture needs to understand and fit the character and behavior of its occupants and the characteristics of its site in a way almost analogous to the way a tailor must understand and fit, not only the height and weight, but also the lifestyle of the customer for which an article of clothing is intended. Until the customer is understood, any work done on the clothing is wasted. It is therefore necessary to find an approach for understanding the architectural equivalent of the tailor. If a designer can achieve the required depth of understanding through an intuitive grasp of the situation, the Implicit approach will work well. Otherwise, a more analytic methodology may be called for. One way to understand design problems in a focused manner is discussed herein.

By itself, every design problem has numerous possible solutions. When combined with a specific designer, however, a project has only one best solution. This occurs when the designer knows himself well (his values and design priorities, which are different for each unique designer), and the design problem is perfectly described and understood. These two ingredients, the project's parameters and the designer's values, constitute the "Premise" and "Concept", respectively, referred to above. Therefore, an understanding of the project's Premise and the designer's Concepts must precede any attempt to describe a project's goals.

 

The Inquiry Approach

Before starting work on a project, it is necessary to understand where the problem starts and stops, what its borders are (the project's parameters). When a project is described in only the broadest, most general terms, the borders are too loose to mold the form of the project that will be produced. Goals are defined by describing borders, fences or criteria, that limit the possible solutions to only those which answer the significant problems. Unfortunately, irrelevant borders will just as effectively fence out alternatives as relevant criteria. It is therefore vital to fine-tune the selection of borders.

One approach to this describes borders in terms of a Premise and Concept. The Premise describes what the client (or in architecture schools, the design studio critic), the users and the site want the project to be. It is developed from

conversations (or other fact-gathering techniques) with the client (or teacher) and users, often in response to questions posed by the designer. Additionally, data is gathered about the site. The second part of the process, the Concept, describes the approach, philosophy or attitude which the designer wants to pursue in developing the Premise into a Design. It is based on the designer's unique way of interpreting the Premise. It might be best to further break down the Concept into Program and Design Concepts. To describe them concisely:

Premise: What is at the heart of the project? Defines the problem without consideration of possible solutions.

Program Concept: What light does the Premise shed on the program? Looks for order, emphasis and relevance in the program.

Design Concept: What attitude of expression will the project have? Defines aesthetic mood or philosophy.

What follows is a description of the Premise and Concepts, and how to develop and use them.

 

The Premise

Think of the Premise as a summation of your thought patterns about a project's meaning. For this reason it is best recorded in verbal form rather than graphic form. You should be able to say what you're thinking, what you mean, before you start showing what you mean. So do it before you start sketching. Do it even before you start thinking about a design concept. Many of us are more comfortable working graphically than verbally, and this makes it harder. Do it anyway. It doesn't have to be difficult - think of it as the verbal equivalent of sketching on yellow trace. The point is, if you haven't crystallized your thinking about the meaning of a project before you start drawing, your design will reflect the murkiness of your thinking. The following are guidelines to help loosen up your writer's (and thinker's) block, divided into two steps - a Core Premise and a Developed Premise:

Techniques for reaching a Core Premise - The Five Step process:

The goal here is to clear your mind of hidden assumptions you might be making about the project before you even start on it. Your design work won't take full advantage of your creativity if it is restricted with subconscious assumptions. The following five-step process is a suggestion for jump-starting your brain. Try out this technique as outlined, but feel free to modify it thereafter to work best with your own temperament.

1. Ask Questions: Sit down and think about the project. You want to take a simple client statement like "design a high school in Boston" and break it down into its key aspects. Ask yourself what the project means:

a. What kind of project is it, according to the client, according to the users? What do you want from this project?

b. Who are the users? What kind of people are they? What cultural factors should you allow for? Who are you, and how do your temperament, personality and interests impact on this project.

c. Where will the project be located? What meaning does the site give to the project? Think about geography, climate, imagery, context and local attitudes.

d. When will the project be occupied? Daytime or nighttime use? Winter or summer? How will they differ?

e. Why is the project being built? What is the nature of the demand, and why now?

f. How much? How luxurious or economical? How will it be used? How are the proposed program, site, or users different from those you've experienced in the past.

Another Example: If the design intent is to "embody the mood embodied in" a particular painting or a particular architectural precedent, ask yourself what it is about that specific image or precedent that you want to use as the focus of your work, and why.

2. Brainstorm: Write down answers to these questions on paper as fast as they enter your head. Continue working until you feel that you've addressed all the issues.

3. Get Perspective: Walk away from your work for a few minutes to clear the thoughts from your mind. Have a cup of coffee, go for a short walk, but don't think about what you just wrote down.

4. Extract the essence: Come back to what you wrote down, and re-read it, circling or underlining the key words only. Key words are the ones that define the essence of what you had been thinking. Out of an entire page of writing, you may select only 5 or 10 words.

5. Compile: Read over the words you highlighted. They represent the distillation, at this early stage of design, of what you know to be true about the project. Compile the highlighted words into a concise statement describing the Core Premise of the project. A typical statement might contain three to eight

primary points of two or three words each, each point addressing different aspects of the project. This is a preliminary statement, which will be fine-tuned as you explore the project further. It will evolve into a "core of assumptions" which will support all further development.

 

Techniques for expanding the Core Premise into a Developed Premise:

1. Examine each of the key concepts in your Preliminary Core Premise. Think about the consequences of each word and phrase. Apply the same five-step analytical technique described above, but instead of dealing with the global project description, deal with only one component concept at a time.

Example: If your Core Premise states, in part, that it is intended "for adolescent student users", you might ask:

a. Who are adolescents? What are their needs? What are their values? How do their perceptions differ from my own? What aspects do I want to focus on?

b. What are students? What are their needs? What activities do they partake in? With whom do they interact? Do I need to also design for those with whom they interact? Who supervise them? What are the needs of the supervisors? What types of support do the supervisors need.

You can see how one question leads to another, and another, and pretty soon you start to feel like you have a much deeper understanding of the project than at first. Each of these might be answered with a two or three word phrase that hits on the essence of the question.

With this kind of deeper awareness, your design work will flow, almost by itself, from your understanding. It will, as a result of your methodology, be grounded in the true design parameters and not a superficial acquaintance with the project. But let's not jump ahead to the design concept just yet.

2. Look at all the conclusions you've generated from your Premise Development. Are they all compatible with each other? Do any of your conclusions need to be modified in order to be consistent with any of your other conclusions? Do you see any patterns emerging? Anything that begins to suggest itself as a point of departure for your Design Concept?

3. Re-examine your Core Premise to see if it warrants revision based on the conclusions in your Developed Premise. Do you need to widen it in order to accommodate them all? Remember that the Core Premise should contain the seed for all further development, even if certain characteristics of the seed don't occur to you until it starts sprouting (sorry if I'm forcing the analogy).

 

The Program Concept and Design Concept

The Concept differs from the Premise in that it must be chosen by the person who is solving the project (the designer), and it must be based on their own unique way of perceiving, their set of values, their interests and their personality. A Concept which is drawn from within the designer can't be invalid (even though it may be unmarketable). It may be strong or weak depending on whether the energy level or degree of focus of the designer is strong or weak, but it can't be invalid.

That being said, it is important for a design critic to identify weak Concepts and to help students to strengthen them, or even, in an extreme case, to recommend that the Concept be abandoned completely for something stronger. In this context, a strong Concept would be defined as one which not only prompts strong reactions, but one which requires strong graphic and architectural involvement.

The Concept, if appropriate, will go right to the heart of the Premise, and serve as the basis on which all further development will be based. It is important for the critic to provide feedback to the student regarding the appropriateness of the Concept to the Premise, since it is entirely possible that the student's Concept will not address the issues raised by that students own interpretation of the Premise.

It is worth noting here that even after graduation, a practicing architect is still the one who must derive the Premise and establish the Concept, since he is often better situated than the client, the owner, the users or any other involved party to do so, and since he will be the one responsible for solving the Premise. Despite this, it is incumbent on the Architect to ground his Premise and Concept on the needs of, and input from, all parties involved in the project in addition to his own impressions of the project.

A. Developing the Program Concept

1. What: The question is "How do you interpret the client's program?". The Program Concept is what results from examining the client's (professor's) program through the lens of your Core Premise and Developed Premise. Think about the client's ideas for the program. Your own ideas for the project are bound to give a unique "twist" to the program elements. This is the first time that you get to have input on the project's eventual outcome. What do you think about the program? What do you see as its most important elements? How about the least important? Where do you think the most aesthetic emphasis should be placed? Use the perspective you gained from the

Premise work. Write these ideas down also, so that you have, in effect, an annotated program.

2. Why: You need a Program Concept to bridge between, on one hand, the information you're given (the program) and the Premise, and on the other hand, the design work you will soon start. In effect it serves as an abstraction relative to the building design, or a concretization relative to the Premise. It must establish the criteria from which you'll judge the functional appropriateness of your design.

B. Embarking on the Design Concept

Now, and only now, are you ready to start thinking about Design Concepts.

There is a story about Frank Lloyd Wright and Falling Water. It seems that for six months after the first client consultations Wright did no drawing; he only thought about the project. It wasn't until Mr. Kaufman announced that he would be dropping by Mr. Wright's office that the architect began with paper and pencil. The few hours he had while awaiting the client was sufficient to draw what was to become the approved design, since so much time had been spent thinking about the problem.

The Design Concept summarizes the graphic seed of the project. Take another look at your Core Premise, your Developed Premise and your Program Concept. Ask yourself what design "devices", what "parti" might address the issues in manifest in this project? What metaphor, or overriding image, will guide your attitudes toward massing, detail development, facade design and materials selection? The image you decide on should reflect your own personal view of the project. You may try several different Design Concepts before you decide on which one will guide your design work.

The Design Effort

Design work is the development phase of the Concept. This phase results in an architectural solution which can trace its origins directly through the Concept from which it developed to the Premise which gave birth to the Concept. The goal of the design is to make the Concept manifest, in three dimensions, through the use of supportive design decisions (design "devices"). A good design is one where all decisions support and reinforce the Concept. In a weak design, decisions fragment or run contrary to the Concept.

A. Starting Design Work

1. Look at the necessities of the program graphically: At this point, you can start to look at two dimensional adjacency diagrams, expanding to address

vertical adjacencies. Be true to the program requirements, but also be true to your Design Concept. If you did your work properly up to this point, the two should not be contradictory. Revise your adjacency diagrams until all program elements relate to each other as required by the program in as simple as way possible, while conforming to the overriding organizational system established by your Design Concept.

a. Matrix analyses: A technique for getting a better understanding of the relationships between elements of your program. Good examples of this technique can be found in several books on design methodology.

b. Adjacency diagrams: A technique for expanding the Program Concept into an Organizational strategy. One strategy is as follows:

1) Draw one circle to represent each of the program elements. Scale does not matter at this point, although you may want to draw larger elements with larger circles. Similarly, arrangement does not matter yet, just be sure to include all spaces. Write the name of the space on the circle. Depending on your medium, you may use slightly different approaches as follows:

a) On yellow trace: Draw circles in pencil or felt tip.

b) Cut outs: Cut circles out of paper and lay them out on a desk.

c) CAD: Draw circles with text labels.

Circles may be done in different colors to represent space type.

2) Connect circles with lines (if using yellow trace or CAD, pieces of string if using cut outs) to represent different forms of programmatic linkage. Different line colors or weights should be used to represent different types or hierarchies of linkages.

3) Rearrange circles so that lines are as short and as simple as possible. Ideally, you should end up with no crossed lines.

2. Put aside your analyses and do some freehand sketches: Loosen up your thinking and creativity by sketching some ideas for architectural layouts, keeping both the functionality of your adjacency diagrams and the imagery inherent in your Design Concept in the back of your mind as guides.

3. Look at massing: Look at the implications of your design in three dimensions (massing studies). Revise your plan sketches as necessary. Keep in mind your Core Premise, Developed Premise, Program Concept and Design Concept as the guiding principles for your design work. If your design doesn't satisfy these ideas, you should probably reconsider your design.

4. Design refinement: From here, you're free to go on with detail development, facade studies, materials selection, etc. Remember that you already established directions for each of these in your Design Concept. Each level of design refinement should embody and reflect all the work that preceded it. This just reinforces the importance of getting started with carefully considered attitudes from your initial consideration of a Core Premise.

 

How Critical Thinking ties in with the process of architectural education

1. The purpose of a design critic is first to judge the relative strength or weakness of the student's stated Premise (if he is not, in fact, assigning it to the group), and second to judge the appropriateness of the student's Concept to answering the Premise. Thereafter, the critic's purpose is to provide feedback to the student regarding the degree to which the design achieves the stated Concept. It might involve the critic refering back to the Concept to reinforce the student's sense of self-confidence, encouraging him or her to do more soul searching to make the Design more deliberate and strong. I don't think it is the job of a critic to debate the value of a student's Concept, only its relative strength. Once a strong Concept is established, the critic should act as a mirror, letting the student know if the design devices chosen are, in fact, reinforcing the Concept. If a critic makes a comment that a student doesn't understand, the student should ask the critic to explain how his or her suggestions would reinforce the student's Concept.

2. The purpose of design courses is to acquaint students with the different physical ways in which a Concept can be expressed, to teach students about design devices and how they work in reinforcing or contradicting the original Concept. The reason for learning systems of proportion, for knowing the ways in which different materials affect the expression of a building, for analyzing significant buildings for their systems of order, is to be able to apply these systems to the transformation of our own design premises into full expressions of architectural intent.

This success of this entire issue hinges on one thing: the student's realization that he or she needs to question the meaning of any and all raw information with which they are presented, and successfully probe and analyze that information in order to formulate a Premise and Concept. If this realization is there, the Premise and Concept will be developed properly, and will serve as strong foundations for all design development to follow.

What is the most important single change necessary in the education of architects?

Barry D. Yatt, AIA, CSI

 

Architecture students are taught about architecture, but are they taught in a balanced way, and are they taught to be architects? It is generally accepted, at least at face value, that architecture is both an art and a science. One could additionally argue that it is a practice, because the constraints and complexities required by society, users and clients are critical to the vitality of the architecture. One must therefore ask if students are given adequate opportunity for developing all three of these aspects.

Most schools of architecture, almost all awards programs sponsored by architects, and many professional journals in the United States perpetuate the attitude that architecture-as-art is uniquely exciting, intellectually satisfying, and worthy of recognition. Although skilled job captains are often valued for their knowledge, architecture-as-science is generally regarded as burdensome, something of which we try to learn only the minimum required, and then only because we must. There is almost no recognition of the idea that the science of architecture might involve imagination, creativity, or design skills, or be interesting in its own right. Finally, architecture-as-practice is seen as something to be learned from one's employers after graduation, although the difficulty many firms have stabilizing their work load or providing for lean times suggests that practice is rarely learned adequately this way. Even more critical to the success of any project is the ability of an architect to develop strong working relationships with the clients, users, governmental agencies and other parties who influence the project. Without understanding architecture-as-practice, few architects will be able to produce projects that achieve their design potential. Architects will be neither the generalists nor the Renaissance men and women that they claim to be, so long as they are produced by a system that overwhelmingly, and almost exclusively, emphasizes proficiency in architecture-as-art.

How did this educational imbalance develop? A major portion of an architect's education takes place in "the Studio", an intensive learning format based on the traditional "atelier" method developed at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris from the master-apprentice system used by Renaissance guilds. In this setting, students learn by developing their own projects, guided and criticized by their teachers. The only opportunity given students to learn by experience, to grow by exploration, to integrate all they've learned, is in this Studio setting. Unfortunately, in most programs the Studio is dominated, if not outright

monopolized, by faculty members from the architecture-as-art school of thought. The most important single change necessary in architectural education is the broadening of the Studio to allow students to explore the science and practice of architecture, in addition to traditional explorations of the art.

 

The Educational Process

Any education involves two kinds of learning, both of which are necessary and inextricably linked. For the purposes of this paper I will loosely define them as involving Instruction and Application, described as follows:

Instruction Application

Teacher is active, student absorbs Student is active, teacher guides

Imparts "Body of Knowledge" Imparts "Experience"

Lecture Lab/Studio

Vicarious learning: passes on what others have learned

Direct learning: trial and error, practice

Imparts knowledge to student Extracts knowledge from exercise

The value of Instruction is that it takes advantage of what others have already learned through trial and error, and therefore saves a lot of time. The value of Application is that it gives students a chance for direct learning; lessons learned through personal exploration have the best chance of being retained. Both types of learning must be part of any educational process if students are to make progress and achieve self-sufficiency. For architecture students, Instruction is handled through lecture courses, while Application is handled through Studio. For students to effectively retain what they learn, topics must be addressed by both learning methodologies, regardless of whether the subject is history of architecture, design theory, materials and methods of construction, professional practice, or structures. Instruction without Application may not be perceived as relevant and, at any rate, is quickly forgotten; Application without Instruction may reinforce bad habits or simply be too slow. In most schools, the Studio format gives students a chance for Application only in design theory (through assignment of a design problem) and architectural history (through precedent analysis). Broader design issues are generally not addressed at all.

 

Defining Architectural Design

Perhaps part of the problem may derive from the way architectural design is defined. I suggest that one could look at the tasks of design in two quite different ways:

Solving: Finding or creating answers (including formal ones) which handle a problem directly.

Interpreting: Finding or creating responses (including formal ones) which express personally held attitudes toward a problem.

For a Solver, the key to successful design is understanding the problem; the prime skill demanded is creativity. For an Interpreter, the key to successful design is a personal vision, and the prime skill demanded is expressiveness. Both qualities are important to an architect. The designs of a creative problem-solver who has no personal vision may be passionless exercises in efficiency. The designs of an expressive interpreter who doesn't consider the more pragmatic issues may be exciting but unusable white elephants. Society generally views Solving as more of a basic need, and Interpreting as more of a luxury - wonderful to have when you can afford it. The extent to which society views architects as Interpreters and not Solvers is directly related to the extent to which our profession is losing our market share to contractors, construction managers and other construction industry consultants. The market turns to them since they are willing to supply the existing need, even if they are not as well qualified to do so.

The key is to work toward balancing both aspects in the architecture profession as a whole. This means that there is a need for both creative problem-solvers AND expressive interpreters. Architecture schools tend to strongly emphasize Interpreting over Solving. Students easily accept this, sympathetic as it is with American attitudes of freedom of expression and rugged individuality and images embraced by our society from MTV and pop music to fashion design. Architecture schools may be partly motivated by a desire to distinguish themselves from engineers, who are viewed, with rare exception, as adequate Solvers but lousy Interpreters. By concentrating so heavily on Interpreting, architects are becoming increasingly irrelevant to society.

Society needs architects, not just Interpreters who happen to use architecture as their medium of expression. If we want to know why architects' compensation and unemployment figures are at their current levels, we need only look at the market forces of supply and demand. Society and practicing architects are both looking to employ creative problem solvers, yet architecture schools are graduating self-expressive Interpreters who see only a limited part of the issues involved in a design problem. By the narrow definition most often used by architecture schools, design is the exploration of proportional, contextual and aesthetic possibilities only. A broader view of

design would consider all creative problem-solving skills as valid. In addition to yielding better architects, this attitude would better prepare architects for a broader range of career choices.

 

The Studio System

Many students graduating today have been inadequately prepared for architectural careers. The architect's failing most often cited by clients is technical inadequacy. Practicing architects most frequently cite a lack of basic practice skills as the cause of their frustration with newly-hired graduates. Even when students are taught these subjects in school, they are usually divorced from the Application available through the Studio, and therefore quickly forgotten.

A high proportion of the credits required for graduation, and much of the implied academic status, is vested in Studio courses, and they are therefore the courses most likely to result in student progress. In addition, the reality of architectural Application is that there is time and energy for only one Studio course each semester. As long as this arena is used for applying design theory and history only, other issues can never be fully taught, limited as they are to Instruction formats. This is the contradiction: If non-design courses impose their own Studio problems, students find themselves caught with insufficient time to do any Studio problems adequately. If they don't impose their own Studio problems, students are forced to learn through Instruction only, unaided by Application. The only way around this problem is to share the Studio.

Studio work must broaden to provide a forum for exercising all the skills taught in architecture schools. Further, it must be preceded by recognition by the design faculty of the validity of skills and issues other than form and aesthetics. A few schools are moving toward Studios taught by faculty teams, who jointly formulate the assigned project and work together to create course materials that are mutually reinforcing. If architects are to regain lost ground as the coordinators of the construction industry, they must start by coordinating the educational process.

 

Methodology versus Inspiration

To restate the above arguments, one of the critical differences between being an architect and an artist is that an artist's work need only embody his own attitudes toward his subject matter (we could call these the "Internal" factors),

whereas an architect not only puts his own feelings into his work, but reflects client's attitudes and those of the eventual users as well as the realities of the construction process (the "External" factors). In addition to using the project as a vehicle for expressing a personal aesthetic, he must recognize those issues and problems which exist independently of his aesthetic intention but nonetheless need appropriate and creative solutions. For this reason, one of the tasks of an architecture student must be to learn to recognize and understand the External factors in a design problem, such as human behavior and interaction, urban contextualism, properties of materials, and pragmatic function. For an architect who has a deeply intuitive, right-brained design sense, the use of logic and method may not be necessary for handling the aesthetic, Internal factors of a project. The same cannot be said of the Solving tasks. To define a project's societal, material, political and functional problems and then creatively solve them, even a very capable architect can't divine an appropriate design in one inspired flash of insight, and must augment his comprehension by learning, developing and following valid design processes. Ideally, schools of architecture would transfer to their students the entirety of this complex mix of skills.

 

The Need for Architects

What of the architecture student who is not a brilliant artist, but who thinks clearly, understands the limitations of various construction materials and knows how to work effectively with people? This is the type of architect that most firms recognize as being of vital importance to the work that they do and to their ability to attract and keep market share. Partly because of our dominant emphasis on aesthetics, many potential clients do not associate these skills with architects. This partially explains the reason many of them prefer to pass over the architect, when codes allow, and go straight to the builder. Most firms recognize that their staffs need to reflect competency in many areas, of which interpretive design, or architecture-as-art, is a small if highly visible component. Unfortunately, many architecture schools require all of their students to produce aesthetically sophisticated work. Some even go so far as to forgive Studio work that is technically incompetent if it is sufficiently appealing visually. The student who produces a highly buildable, convincing project of high technical quality or with a high degree of sensitivity to the political or social needs of the site or program is considered unfit for graduation if he does not also demonstrate sufficiently strong aesthetic skills. The corresponding lack of encouragement for scientifically- or practitionally-gifted students, combined with the gruelling schedule demanded by architecture schools, results in the loss to the profession of many students who are desperately needed by society, the market, and the profession, as architects.

Medical schools teach students to be practitioners with the understanding that some will become theoreticians or researchers. Architecture schools take the opposite approach, teaching students to be theoreticians while ignoring that most of those who find employment will do so as practitioners. There is an unwritten stigma attached to the idea of serving clients and users, the myth that the only worthwhile goal is the pursuit of aesthetic perfection - an aspiration which, they feel, gets muddled when material and technical concerns, code issues, or client and user needs are considered. Many practicing architects would disagree with this, deriving fulfillment from their practices as doctors do. Unfortunately, successful freshmen architecture students adjust fairly well to the attitudes held by the schools they attend, often taking them perhaps too much to heart. The academic emphasis on aesthetics leads to graduates who find themselves maladjusted to the mores and values of the working world and the needs of the market.

 

Conclusion

It is critically important to recognize that attitudes about architecture and the education of future architects play a large role in determining our professional relevance. Are there more architects today than market forces can absorb in our market-driven economy? Why do architects face perennial low wages and periodic unemployment? Is it because there is insufficient demand for the services an architect can offer, or because architects are either not interested in offering or don't know how to offer the services needed? If design is defined as creative problem-solving, architects should be well qualified to fill many of society's needs. If architects are interested in solving only formal aesthetic problems or if this is the public perception of the situation, demand for architects and the resulting salaries will remain lower than for any other profession with comparable levels of education, liability and (potential) expertise. It is time to realize that both the science and the practice of architecture are as vital as the art of architecture to the creation of a successful built environment. It is also time to realize that this recognition must begin in the schools. Lastly, it is time to broaden the Studio to allow and require all students to develop their skills in the art, science, and practice of architecture.