“the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”
― David Graeber
The criticisms growing louder in voice are not new, as a result universities have been developing strategies to address these issues accordingly. It was important to understand what changes had been implemented and how effective they have been to address the issues previously identified. Currently I work at UAL, UCL, Cambridge and the London School of Architecture, I began by asking each of the heads of the school / department:
Aside from UCL’s Action Group (proposals for future crit experiences) it was surprising to find that none of the institutions had any formal guidelines for The Crit. From further investigations to UCL’s research I was able to meet with Prof Brent Carnell to discuss their research to what they had discovered.
Prof Brent Carnell was able to share that UCL were developing a ‘code of conduct’ for design reviews (architects adhere to a professional code of conduct, ARB sets out the legal framework and RIBA sets out the standards of conduct and practice that they require of its members). These were in the development stage following their action group research findings, he could not go into specifics but agreed that the responses from students and tutors were ‘in-line’ with my own research. He did share that they had developed feedback guidelines which they had started to pin up around the school to encourage feedback before formally updating their Course Handbook. The intention is to combine these with new set of conduct codes following feedback from both students and staff.
This approach of establishing a collective code of practices, rules and boundaries is, I feel, crucial for reforming how design reviews are in future conducted. For example, Sherwood (2022, 20) suggests that to achieve a successful review, it is important to:
- ensure ‘consent and respect’ among tutors, guest reviewers and students,
- draw up ground rules as standard, confirming that all participants take collective ownership of their responsibility to each,
- ask also the student what they would like to gain from the review.
Critical Codes in Practice
It was important to communicate with other institutions who had both established and implemented measures, confirming if they had addressed the concerns raised about crits, making them inclusive and student led. I began speaking with Sheffield University were I have been a guest critic for final reviews in May 2023.
Sheffield confirmed that their ethos of using ‘project reviews’ are, crucially, not ‘crits’, which is a word not used. They aimed to be ‘inclusive and encouraging…student-led as much as possible’, Year 2 Leader. In order to achieve this the order of commentary after each review ‘should be students, guest(s), then tutor. In terms of seating, guests and tutors sit toward the back of each room’ placing emphasis on the students and their work.
The ‘ethnographic present’ interview attempt.
This interview was conducted with Andreas Lang, M Arch Course Leader, the interview took place after a few weeks of planning due to RIBA visits and fund applications, I was grateful for both his time and generosity ok knowledge exchange. I had wanted to meet with Andreas following a recommendation from Dr. Adriana Cobo Corey, Senior Lecturer in Ethical Practice, who drew my attention to a ‘deschooling the classroom’ programme run previously in March. Andreas and I meet online at the end of term, 11.12.2023 at 12.30pm. I explained I will attempt to record the interview utilsing The ‘ethnographic present’ (inspired form previous reading Jones, L., Holmes, R., Macrae, C., & Maclure, M. (2010). Documenting classroom life: how can I write about what I am seeing? Qualitative Research, 10(4), 479-491. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794110366814) confirming I will issue the following text (to him) prior to publishing for his approval. I am transcribing this over the Christmas holidays utilising notes from the Teams recording and my own scribbles (akin to a doctor’s handwriting) speed jotted from the time of the interview:
0:0:5.280 –> 0:1:29.410 McCrory, Donald – I’m researching into crits and the use…..surprising that despite being the sort of very, uh, necessary ritual, and most universities do not have any guidance on how to carry them out. (I explain I have been in contact with Bartlett, LSA, Cambridge, MIT. I confirm I will forward on my findings; I include the MIT research in my email to Andreas) …the idea is to try and collect that information and the way that we have a manifesto in the department is trying to present, I sort of some guidelines, .. confirming to him a lot of people(Kleanthis, Adriana, Fei) have pointed me towards M arch in terms of their approach.
0:1:56.680 –> 0:3:37.550 Andreas Lang – I mean, it’s a much smaller course obviously…we don’t need such big management structures (such as BA Architecture)…lot of the things are more kind of informal and organic, I would say, because of this….always been kind of a sense that it’s a traumatizing moment, and we have to be….one that needs to be rethought, along with other moments…unit system, we don’t have this idea of the kind of unit master or the studio system. (not so enshrined on the M arch as it is maybe in the BA, they don’t run units parallel)… you always complete one.. autonomous thing….and each unit has a slightly different learning format.
0:4:0.450 –> 0:4:12.290 Andreas Lang – For example, the construction unit which is currently run by material cultures, it’s very much about group work, hence on and that sets its own pedagogy….the way you learn is structured differently and that is also then the way you meet your tutors, the way you revise or scrutinize work is different. (I envied this approach, not simply for the consolidated chronological structure, also the opportunity to readdress learning methods after / before each unit)…what is an appropriate way for this unit to be assessed, reviewed?
0:4:50.980 –> 0:5:47.140Andreas Lang
the second year is what we call a major project, so it’s like the big thesis project that starts in the summer and goes then for about 16 months….there you write your own brief, but you’re in what we call tutor groups…..you have small groups of eight people, one tutor for half a day week….always understanding that this space is porous, that you also can move to other tutors for conversation, but also that each tutor gets to know your work throughout the course of the year….we’ve always encouraged tutors to be to put the work in to think about how crit looks
0:5:47.770 –> 0:6:4.980
Andreas Lang first unit Unit 1, (40 credits 14 weeks),studios where the shared overall brief, so everyone has the same brief, <Tutor> teaches that he would interpret it through a queer lens…. I would interpret it through the Forest School, for example, but there is a kind of always a kind of encouragement and open conversation to think how, how you structure a review and how the individual is heard as well as a group is understood
…it’s completely always in students hands how that setting is designed, and there’s always an encouragement that that is part of the design task in a way you have to put work in.
it’s kind of nurtured from a very early stage onwards that it the way you present should embody your work and the ethos of how your work should look like, you know, ….. it should embody should be somehow performed as well in in that spirit…..the tutors are encouraged to support this, so it’s about creating that.
(crit / review) Ownership within the students of that moment and not as something that’s imposed on them. (that carries throughout the whole 2 years)….this idea that, OK, you’re you’re as much responsible for the situation as I am….. giving them (students) the kind of permission and to do so there is always.
0:7:59.200 –> 0:8:5.0
Andreas Lang (goes on to explain the struggle of conformity in crits possible from previous learning) Students are all often, you know, primarily concerned with their own work and how it looks on the wall…And they fall into this….Patterns of printing it, or quite conventional patterns they’ve learned either in previous schools or in in work, and to undo this is extra work and then also make space for work. That collective, it’s also extra work that takes all takes away from this….my project moment and getting that getting that registered with them as kind of necessary work to be done….Both for themselves, but also for the group is always.
…needs to be taught or meet needs to be made space for at least, and when the space gets tighter towards the end of the second year or towards submission, that sometimes they just want to present in the most normal way most conventional way and that’s fine. (I agree that this is what I have experienced in my BA and March teaching)….deliberate decision from them.
0:9:15.980 –> 0:9:52.650
Andreas Lang (discusses methods on March to circumnavigate this experience) we always have a symposium in the second year, which is…..with the situated learning that we encourage we there’s always a conversation around what is your community of practice? Who is in it with you?…creates a kind of an authentic way of learning…you do a project around Indigo dying, you should speak to it…..always an encouragement to go out and form a community of practice. (moving the conversation awy from your tutor to other stakeholders)an encouragement we have with students that they look beyond producing work purely for the institution, but also actually that becomes life in that sense so by. This is something I have been keen to explore with my teaching, reflecting my own practice.
0:10:21.920 –> 0:10:37.570
Andreas Lang By getting this kind of audiences involved, other audiences or other stakeholders, we also try to make space for where these audience can enter CSM, and that’s at the symposium that we used to run this year. might not run it, but again), where students take over the school on a Saturday. It collectively create a public event and share their work, and they’re takes off in the form of an exhibition or lecture or whatever, or quite mixed….a kind of strange festival….opening yourself up to a much broader audience, but also collectively producing that event with the kind of shared identity of a group of 30 odd people….that’s an important thing. (I found myself strongly agreeing, and both regretting not previously attending due to work conflicts)
At this point I redirect toward the ‘Deschooling programme, how that come about, apparently covid was a significant factor 0:11:27.760 –> 0:11:42.350
Andreas Lang We had to reduce the placement, so we suddenly had four weeks to play with and we introduced a project called Deschooling the classroom where for four or five weeks, we actively sought with them like, this is your course….How would you design it like each aspect of it?….we supported it with lectures, we had kind of talks on Bell Hooks, (our PG Cert regular!) et cetera, and students were tasked to in groups to design A component of the education. I opened up everything (budget) so you know everything …..they (students) came up with the kind of little publication called Deschooling the classroom, which gave a series of ideas and how we want to talk with each other, was part of it.
I think the ideas that came up with might not have been so revolutionary because it’s quite a big task to get to hand over, you know, design your own teaching. (at the time I was thinking how this had happened with my own attempts with the cohort, they needed some guidance)…what it did, it sensitized them quite a lot to how they want to be taught or how they want to learn together.resonated through the two years….middle of first year that resonated through that kind of independent project….what we’ve done since we’ve kind of this idea of designing a school and designing how you want to learn or at least making space for how you want to learn together…Become a kind of introduction project….the first exercise they do with it with us, and that again gives a chance of I’m designing a school but also performing it in an acting it and this is the values I wanted…..students would write manifestos…the crit is like often you would have manifesto on the door…These are the rules for today…Or they would introduce them…this is how we want to run this session today.
that goes from who should speak first. a rule that has introduced itself quite naturally over the years…student speak first, so the first person you hear is student, so it’s always encouraging the voice of student to be present and there’s a lot of conversation every year and every year’s slightly different.
Creating an opportunity to create an unique teaching approach to each year generated by the changing cohort
Uh, what were your experience? What are your needs? What do you want to try out?
0:14:20.480 –> 0:14:29.890
Andreas Lang
So it’s a kind of active culture of paying attention to how we talk to each other and that includes the crit.
0:14:34.200 –> 0:14:58.810
McCrory, Donald And that’s this is some fascinating information, from an outsider perspective, umm, I’ve sort of seen that and cause one of my, one area that I’m hesitant (became increasingly so through my ARP research) in is writing sort of a a guideline, a fixed guideline because I ultimately also want the crit or the review itself to be a creative act…don’t wanna be limiting certain parameters and that’s what’s been fascinating to see from the March (I confirm similar approach with work I’ve done with the Council bringing students to meet other teams explaining ‘Architects very rarely present to other architects’)
They present to you stakeholders as they like to call it local ones, the community and other sort of professionals.
0:15:32.30 –> 0:15:38.860 McCrory, Donald Here at this point I turn away from the professional setting to personal, curious to see what has influenced Andreas with his pedagogical approach? You mentioned the word trauma before this investigation of this sort of methodology. Is there any personal? (explaining the sharing with other peers and their experiences) Experience either studying or teaching. That’s led towards this…Or is this just been a natural progression (evolution)?
0:15:51.550 –> 0:15:52.280 Andreas Lang On my side. I would say…my own personal education. I went to a school that that were pedagogy was quite alive and where you didn’t have grades, for example, where you had…actively think what’s a good ways of learning or what is what. Ways of learning could be for different disciplines or subject matters, so I think that kind of was quite informative because it shifted the focus on learning and enjoying learning. I think that was an important experience.
0:16:48.950 –> 0:16:53.880
that’s what the student said to the external examiners this year. ‘I trust my work because I feel the staff trusts’, firstly important is my well-being and then the subject matter, because I have trust that my tutors have my well-being in mind, therefore I have more trust in my work in something it was phrased more elegantly and differently, but the spirit was the same and I think that’s in a way not leading purely with the subject matter continuously, but dealing with, OK, where in nearly kind of the subjectivity of the student, where are you, how are you, what’s going on, what is your concern? What do you want out of it? Opens up another conversation and another kind of journey with them, so it for me personally that that was experience in my high school education, but also I would say through public works, my own practice learning has always been quite an important. Component of how we work….exploring different forms of learning formal, informal in different settings….always been, yeah, part of the practice…that came into the course, I guess through me. (Explains that the world Jeremey Till, former Head of Central Saint Martins, created, enabled and encouraged)
I would say more than in other schools.
Being the end of term, I was conscious of Andreas’ time. I move the conversation to a final intersection 0:19:46.0 –> 0:19:55.730 McCrory, Donald
I tie my teaching with my learning and vice versa. For me, it’s a necessary symbiotic relationship. I need the two to influence each other and push back against each other and either being either too idealized or too conformist with practice, particularly bad practice, which can affect us all.
(Explaining how I will share this (research) with the whole department is and I’ve been allowing our students to do reviews on site directly on the sites that we’ve been having them but the paperwork is frustrating as is relationships (or not) with other departments or other courses)
Are you, is there any sort of constraints at the moment that you’re frustrated by?
0:21:4.190 –> 0:21:11.280
Andreas Lang Umm, I think the biggest is time as a resource I would say so. It’s great to have reviews on site, which means everyone has to go there. It takes more time. You have guests more like all. The resources. Time. How much you can give to that?
But no, I don’t know what’s the constraints are. For me, the biggest constraint is kind of grading, assessing. I would love to have just a pass fail grade. (At this moment I wished I had met with Andreas before the Design Charrette to query if the students would be happy to proceed on this basis?)
0:21:42.180 –> 0:21:46.790
Andreas Lang
Umm, because that’s always hangs (assessment) in the room. it’s always the kind of institutional power structure. It’s always present somehow, and that’s if that’s a bit softened by pass fail. That would be really good, because sometimes students see the great and devalues their learning. They’re learning. They’ve done and the kind of experimentation that has gone into it.
I confirm to Andreas that he is not the first person to say that to me, tutors confirming a lot of the questions they get now from students is ‘how do I get a first’ attain something? Grades, not to do with the learning, which, I say I suspect but don’t know if that’s a consequence of the higher fees and a more capitalist system.
0:22:52.110 –> 0:23:1.470
McCrory, Donald If we could end it on one thing, how would you like it to evolve?
What would be your ultimate goal from a student? (I would like to see them take ultimate ownership)
0:24:2.360 –> 0:24:4.870
Andreas Lang
I don’t know if it’s to do with the crit so much. I would like that students, umm like I mean it feels like every year we have to teach it again and so there is a culture that you know people understand.
OK, let’s talk about the crit, and let’s do it differently so that they really see they really take experiment with it more extremely.
Maybe it sometimes becomes still then quite conventional, because students decide, like actually I just want to do it like this, but that would be that would be nice.
To ingest more experimentation into it or keep it, keep the experiment till nature of it present.I think is important to turn to is it’s so much about like this movement. There’s so much about where are you? How do you feel? How do you make it safe? How do you make it empowering the data and that’s great.
0:25:10.570 –> 0:25:11.920
Andreas Lang
And I think it’s really important.
0:25:12.250 –> 0:25:15.390
Andreas Lang
And then who is the community to your work with? You’ll find you create this kind of bubble of shared purpose, but really now it’s so contested the world and it’s so much in conflict. How do we meet even with the crit? How do we meet the kind of violence that is out there? Yeah, I don’t know how where that goes or how that might look like in the crit format.
0:25:58.590 –> 0:26:15.470
Andreas Lang
It’s the personal to the shared, to the very public, and I don’t know if I don’t think I have seen crits, where the very public where maybe nearly where it’s like a kind of debate where you have really charged opinions either side.
0:26:18.760 –> 0:26:20.430
Andreas Lang
Everyone’s still quite fragile. Uh, and I wonder how we get that confidence to really have have that kind of open debate where you have really not polarizing, but you have kind of really opposite views and the students can feel confident enough to hold this.
0:26:38.910 –> 0:26:43.550
Andreas Lang
Maybe it’s too much to ask for in an educational setting, but you know what I mean.
I feel like I know what he means.
0:31:13.650 –> 0:31:33.160
Andreas Lang
Like what you’re doing to raise the conversation more broadly, UM amongst colleagues in the discipline itself, because I think that we’re probably change is needed and I guess that’s what we are quite conscious of, that we are trying an alternative route to say other universities. So it’s not that we are doing it right or the best, but maybe conversation around it with other educators would be quite nice.
0:31:57.560 –> 0:32:3.370
Andreas Lang
So yeah, so I think the that we speak out of our echo chamber, I think that’s important.
I tell him ‘I agree. I think that’s a good sentiment to end it on.’
Bibliography
- Graeber, D. (2004). Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. University of Chicago Press.
- Architects Code: Standards of Conduct and Practice Legal Architects Code: Standards of Conduct and Practice https://arb.org.uk/architect-information/architects-code-standards-of-conduct-and-practice/ RIBA Code of Professional Conduct https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landing-page/code-of-professional-conduct
- Sherwood, Calum. 2022. “Crits and Inclusive Learning at UAL.” London. https://www.arts-su.com/asset/News/6013/Crits-and-Inclusive-Learning-at-UAL-1.pdf.
- https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/2023/architecture-ba#coursedescription