Architectural Design

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1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design

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Ways of learning

Despite the debate, architecture continues to be ‘taught’.

Some schools operate a system where everyone learns

together in a year group, following the same project briefs,

supported by a team of tutors. Other schools adopt a unit

system, where students are assigned to a smaller unit, which

will explicitly follow a process or brief that relates to the skills,

methods, preoccupations and agenda of the unit tutor. These

units are often ‘vertical’ with different year groups learning

together. Everyone in the studio will follow a similar journey,

all getting to different answers.

Group tutorials are an opportunity to learn from fellow

students as well as tutors, by discussing and debating

common themes. They are also an opportunity to test how

well design work communicates to others in an informal

setting. A typical individual tutorial will involve exchanging

a lot of information and ideas; reflecting on the work;

exercising critical judgement; exploring a particular focus

on the design; challenging the brief and so on. It is similar

in many ways to a client meeting or to a progress review with

a colleague in the office.

Workshops are important events in the studio. These short,

intensive studio teaching sessions involve following a task

that relates to a particular stage in a given project. This is

carefully focused and designed to equip students with a new

skill or way of working that will push their design on to the

next stage. In Chapter 3 there are short technique sections

that are derived from studio workshops.

The Bauhaus: preliminary course ›

Architectural education

› Architectural Association: student pavilions

‘The reviews added focus to my project, forcing me to take a step back and

understand my concepts so that I could articulate them clearly to others.

This is also the ultimate sanity check; you want to make sure your project is

watertight and will stand up to questioning.’

Will Fisher, architectural student, Oxford Brookes University

1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design

Job No: PD0710-67/

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