Architecture Education: The Latest Architecture and News

Urban planning and design as programs of study emerged at professional and graduate schools in the early to mid 20th century, but did not become an option for undergraduate students until the 1970s. Today, urban studies associated with every social science have become a part of regular discourse in colleges and universities throughout the United States. As Andrew Wade, professor for the International Honors Program (IHP) points out - "Urban studies programs are sprawling faster than the cities they critique. The qualifier “urban” has become ubiquitous: where once stood geography, politics, and ecology now stand urban geography, urban politics, and urban ecology."

As urbanism becomes a larger part of our colloquial vocabulary - describing more specifically the way cities emerge, develop, thrive, and collapse or endure - it has become clear that "cities are a source of problems and solutions for contemporary life" that require a deep level of exploration and understanding. The "Cities in the 21st Century" study abroad program offered by the IHP is a unique opportunity that incorporates a hands on and observational approach to an urban planning education. In an essay via Urban Omnibus, instructor Andrew Wade shares his and his students' experiences in the program. Read on after the break for more.

What are Live Projects? A UK term, it refers to collaborations between architecture schools and real clients on real projects. In the US, for example, these are merely referred to as industry collaborations. Clients are widely variant, from municipal governments and youth organizations, as well as galleries and community-based gardens.

There are many iterations of this teaching model in the UK so the issue is, how to determine a good fit for prospective students? One issue that is increasingly at the fore of students’ minds is how to balance idealism with practical skills. At Birmingham City University’sBIAD (Birmingham Institute of Art and Design), the program is structured precisely to help students achieve that balance.

In its third year, the AA Istanbul Visiting School, Vertical Interventions, in collaboration with Istanbul Technical University, will continue to rediscover verticality through novel generative design techniques and large-scale physical prototypes. Abstracted as a fusion of various sub-systems, each subsystem of the tower will be investigated in relation to their various performance criteria. The correlations between the separate sets of performance criteria and evaluation methods will be analyzed, leading to the generation of unified design alternatives for a vertical system typology. In addition to the custom-made digital design and evaluation tools supporting the core methodology, Vertical Interventions will also highlight the fabrication and assembly of a large scale working prototype integrating the performative characteristics of each system in examination.

As in 2012, the design agendas of AA Athens and AA Istanbul Visiting Schools will directly create feedback on one another, allowing participation in either one or both Programmes.

Phil Bernstein is a Vice President at Autodesk and teaches at Yale (see our interview with him here). Last week, we published his "5 Pearls of Wisdoms for Architecture Grads," originally written in 2011. This week, Phil is back to talk to Architecture students again, but this time with some updated advice for the grads of 2013.

It’s been a year since my “Winter Commencement” discussion, and just a few days since I gave my annual talk to our graduating students about the state of the construction economy and what that means for their spring job hunt. And since ArchDaily decided to repost that blog recently, it seemed timely to reflect a bit on how things have changed since December of 2011, and what those changes might mean for job prospects going forward.

And what a difference a year makes, at least for this year’s graduating class.  The elections are over, most of the economic malaise, while not lifted here in the U.S, is certainly lighter, and designing, building and, most importantly, hiring seems to be on the rise again.  In fact, for the first time since 2009, I suggested to our students that prospects for their employment are the brightest of the young decade.  

Here’s my reasoning...

Find out why Grads in 2013 are facing far rosier circumstances, after the break...

Following the initial challenge of amplifying connectivity, adjustability and interaction for its Correlations cycle, AA Athens Visiting School scales up its design intentions in order to investigate links among discrete individual architectural systems in its 2013 version, Recharged.

Recharged with interconnectivity on different levels, the theme of investigation will revolve around the design of semi-independent design prototypes acting together to form elaborate unified results. The driving force in Cipher City: Recharged is the synergistic effect behind complex form-making systems where interactive design patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple rules. 

Phil Bernstein is a Vice President at Autodesk and teaches at Yale (see our interview with him here). This post, originally published in 2011 on his blog as "Winter Commencement," offers timeless advice for architecture students about to enter the job market.

As December now rolls around it's the eve of my last lecture in my professional practice class at Yale. Although I've been teaching for almost twenty-five years, I still can't believe how quickly the semester accelerates into Thanksgiving, and suddenly it's all over but the shouting (or, in our case, final projects and juries). About the same time as the term slammed to a closed I received a note from a student at Prarie View A&M, asking many of the existential questions that must be facing architecture students nearing their degrees. Seemed like a good time to speculate a bit about that future, and what this year's graduates might be facing as they confront the job market in the spring, with enough time between now and then to contemplate their options and plot their strategies, so here goes:

Read on to find out Phil Bernstein's 5 tips for future grads, after the break...

Opportunity. Challenge. Innovation. These words form the backbone of RMIT University (Melbourne Institute of Technology University) in Australia. Too often, architecture schools become enamored of the aesthetics in the field to the detriment of all else. Not so at RMIT. Here, the approach is an ideal combination of meaningful research with design solutions. The architecture program achieves this by teaching design skills based in their practical application and framed by social idealism and cross-disciplinary training.

Yesterday's article "Forget the Rankings, the Best US Architecture Schools Are..." argued that students should judge architecture schools for their strength in areas that are relevant to the profession today (not for their rankings). Today, we bring you an Editorial from Architecture Professor at the University of Melbourne, Stanislav Roudavski, who takes that argument one step further - suggesting that architecture students should look for education opportunities that embrace the architectural world of the future.

Those who look to the future understand architecture as a dynamic system of relationships. These relationships blur the distinctions between digital and physical, natural and artificial, simulated and observable in the wild. Such an interpretation calls for broader collaborations and a commitment to explorations outside established “comfort zones.” But the life outside disciplinary comforts can be harsh. With old certainties left behind and new potentials not yet discovered, one can feel overwhelmed by the richness and complexity of available information and practices. In the contemporary condition of constant and accelerating change, what should an architect know and be able to do? From where should this knowledge be acquired and updated, from whom and in which way?

Innovation (and the learning of the new, needed for innovation to occur) can be encouraged through various strategies. [...] Innovation can also be augmented outside existing professional territories via other types of critical, open-ended learning that is deliberately oriented towards uncertain futures. In striving to address unknown demands, such learning is necessarily speculative and risky. What strategies can be adopted to benefit from such risk-taking?

More on the future of Architectural Education, after the break...

Every year, when DesignIntelligence’s latest rankings of the Best US Architecture Schools comes out, most of the anticipation is centered around one question: who’s number 1?

But despite our laser-focus on the rankings, the report is actually much more. It is also a survey of hundreds of design educators and professionals, an invaluable insight into the current state of architecture and architecture education today.

So with this in mind, and with the rankings aside, which universities are really producing students best equipped (and most marketable, in this competitive market) for the architecture profession today? When you look at the data, only two Universities stand out from the pack.

Read more to find out which two Universities are best preparing students in 2013, after the break...