RAW Exhibition: “Digital Studio Cultures In Architectural Education: Agile Pedagogies for Distance Learning.”

The Raw exhibition highlights the singular moments, actions and ideas that arise during the creative process. By revealing these moments during the design process, the value of the work and the maker’s craft, care and precision come to light. With this exhibition, the collective Rare moves away from perfectly finished images, detailed plans and coherent ideas, instead focusing our attention on simple drawings, quick notes, models and the variety of different analytical methods used in academia to convey ideas.

Notes:

Bio

Will is a practicing Architect and Senior lecturer in Architecture at Northumbria University where he leads the Year 2 Undergraduate Studio.

A former Project Architect at Stirling Prize winning Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBS), Will has worked a across a range of sectors including, Higher Education, Workplace, Arts & Culture, Residential and Charitable Work. Notable projects include the redevelopment of Lancaster University Management School a BIM Level 2, BREEAM Excellent scheme comprising of circa 20,000m2 of accommodation across 4 buildings.

Prior to practising Will was a full time academic at Northumbria University. As a permanent member of the teaching team and Year 2 Leader, Will contributed towards the development of the UK Top 10 Undergraduate Degree in Architecture as well as supervising dissertations within the Masters programme. With a particular interest in studio culture and teaching, Will developed and ran a range of authentic projects with live regional sites and partners including the National Trust and Ouseburn Trust. Will’s research interests focus on craft and making within architectural education and practice a topic which formed the basis of an MA in Architectural Studies. In addition, Will makes significant contributions to the development and delivery of curricula associated with environmental design and sustainability.

Research question of the project

The 2020 global CV-19 pandemic has undoubtedly challenged architectural practice and education as we know it, throwing into question how a historically studio based, authentic architectural education is delivered and experienced effectively in a remote setting.

Reflection

The sketches contained within this work seek to capture and discuss remote pedagogic models emerging in contemporary architectural education, visually documenting collaborative student led remote studio tutorials compiled over an academic year.

Architectural education has historically operated within a structure closely associated with the apprenticeship model concurrent with medieval antecedents. Throughout this period the guilds and workshops employed a defined hierarchical structure; Master, Journeyman and Apprentice. Skills and knowledge were considered to be collected and accumulated over time as a result of exposure and practice under the supervision of a practised individual, the “Master”.

Learning within the guilds addressed tacit knowledge derived from processes which could not be verbally explained or described; they had to be practiced. The products and processes in question required hands on practice and the kinaesthetic experience of making to establish appropriate levels of understanding and skill.

The master and apprentice educational structure became formalised by the Beaux Arts during the 17th C, and can be associated with curriculum structures for learning commonly implemented in modern Architectural Education. When the academic (master) directs the student (apprentice) in the design studio, Schon (1990) states learning “by practicing the making or performing where they seek to become adept, they are helped to do so by senior practitioners who - again, in Dewey’s terms - initiate them into the traditions of practice…” (Schon 1990, p16-17).