lots of registered architects have built anything of their "own."

yes.
no.

i know when i was a student we used to talk about this and deride those tutors that hadnt built anything. must say though that now i really don't think it is an issue with design studios.
there are so many factors that important in being a good tutor and IMO having actually built something isnt one of them.

I can see where practical experience would help for, say, a detailing or code class. Though it doesn't really seem all that relevant when you're dealing with a theoretical issue (design studio).

i think we need to figure out what is to be built...i.e. interiors/building/exhibits/etc......


i had a few professors that i could care less about.... simply due to the fact that they didnt have any experience nor could detail anything

b

rehiggins

why should design studios only deal with theoretical issues??? IMO, a pragmatic framework is needed to respond to in ones design

yes.
no.

i agree w/rehiggins' point. in certain courses it may be useful, in others, not so much.

my most talented and able design studio instructor was a painter without a day of professional architecture experience. he was a phenomenal educator.

you can educate on mind states and the ability to think....but to actually be able to "draw" a section and/or understand the types of fasteners for a design/build project is a whole nother story


b

mdler--the design studio I teach has a fairly equal treatment of the "real" and the "theoretical", but that's nature of my school…didn't mean to imply that studios should only be "theoretical" (though unless you're actually building what you're designing it technically is theoretical)

licensing has nothing to do with teaching. that said, someone with real experience coupled with creativity is generally better than a young instructor who started teaching right out of the joint.

I think it largely depends on the nature of the studio. I am not licensed (yet), nor have I built anything that is "mine". I teach a first-year studio, where the work is largely fundamental design issues, abstract thinking, and learning the design process. I would agree that for teaching upper level studios where code issues and detailing become the focus, that experience in the field is preferred, and I have turned down offers to teach at this level for this reason (I know enough to know what I don't know yet).

However, let's please refrain from getting snarled in the old discussion about teaching in architecture school what one is supposed to gain from a professional internship.

meta I think there is a thread elsewhere that deals with that exact issue. the author is asking a question about the qualifications of an architectural instructor.

but I can't resist asking - is it possible to learn EVERYTHING applicable to a career in architecture during internship anyway? of course not. same goes for academia...we have a limited amount of time to get students to apply their design skills before they need to ALSO develop professional skills. now let's get back on topic.

Ideally the instructor has enough experience to have something to teach.

emphatically yes. Some of my best instructors had never built anything on their "own". Many worked at larger firms and one's got his own practice but it is in it's infancy.

I think the key thing for a student to do is keep an open mind. Every instructor can teach you something, whether it's based on the actual syllabus or their ineptitude forcing you to teach yourself…it's all valid and in the end it doesn't matter how (or from who/whom--I always get these mixed up) you've learned, just that you've learned.

not sure you are gonna learn anything if you got the attitude your profs are wankers for not building anything...but wow, steven holl, rem koolhaas, and zaha hadid never built for years(decades!), just taught and taught, then they got work and are so famous you have to have a trustfund to work for them...and they have built and overseen detailing i guarantee meta nor crzyzko, nor myself, for that mater, would have a clue on where to start (no offence)...

which says what?

nothing really. just that it all sounds a bit like if you aren't with us you're against us or, more truthfully, if you are not an apple you are a banana

these kinds of discussions are hard to understand. sometimes the fervent bashers of constructional inexperience are no more experienced and come off as petty more than anything.

i think if your profs were not qualified your school would lose its accreditation. that is enough for me. the rest is just about being a good teacher or a bad one and i know from experience that has little to do with having a licence.

in my uni all of the profs have their own offices. half of them are starchitects, all of them build and build and build and are published and do the lecture circuit and don't feel shy with toyo ito cuz he is just getting started in comparison...but it don't make them better teachers cuz the approach here is that the kids will learn how to build and how to deal with code on the job. which is i think a good way to do things...architectural education is about experimentation and learning to think. pre-confining the kids into a postion where if it can't be built it must not be considered is a good way to ensure mediocrity in the profession...and to be honest most anything you can think of can be built. FOA's ferry terminal would never have emerged from the conservative approach preached by some above. and that would be a pity.

so.. i.) yes; ii) no

My professional practice course was taught by someone whose own firm had gone bankrupt.

Twice.

I learned a little from him, but not anything more valuable than what I later learned as an intern.

Also, to misread rehuggins' first post even further, I don't think someone who IS licensed and has built work CAN'T teach theory. I'd hate to think that the day I becamse licensed I suddenly became qualified to only teach building codes!

should anybody be allowed to teach architecture studios these days who has no experience, training or interest in sustainability?


and many licensed architects I've worked with should never be allowed near a classroom. that said, several of my professors should never be allowed to practice or build.

It's odd, but those professors who at the time had the least to show in terms of a built portfolio, conversely had the most to share in terms of introspection and theory. If it is a technical course, then practical experience should prevail - if it is a theory or design course, then often times practical experience gets in the way.
There is a certain innocence that is lost in the architect who is jaded by the real world / industry. Academia is precursor to all of that....then you get out of school and hopefully retain some of that spirit while WORKING towards licensure. Books help too.

there was one prof that taught a design/build furniture class that i proposed a few years earlier....well...at the time i was the shop manager and ran the shop....well, those students of that class would come ask me for ideas on how to build/design their projects/etc..... i told them to get their professor to help them since HE was the PROF of the class......

i left the school after 4 years of being taken advantage of for shit pay...sure i like helping students in the late hours...but it was getting to me that i was declined in teaching a shop studio/etc...in my last year they finally let me teach a model building class....but i had to go find students since they labelled it wrong in the course book...wtf...

i have more respect for those that get bloody knuckles over the years and can actually whip out a sharpie at anytime and make it happen

i got tired of the bullshit art masters professors that talked out the side of their neck...... i wouldnt even consider them professors really.... just art people trying to teach a higher level of systematic ideals...

i'm sure i cant detail everything...but i can detail enough to prove myself and actually get it built........ i might not know even type of brick course or different parapet details...but thats why there's spec'd books for the products.... copy/paste really...

b

many less experienced people than me would be much better instructors.

i also had the painter professor, the professor whose thesis was a written document (no design), the ones who had never even participated in the putting together of cds. one professor in undergrad thought that a license was not something to which a serious designer should aspire. they were all good instructors. so the meaning of 'qualified' must be qualified.

school should be about THINKING and practice about DOING.
Now, those are not mutually exclusive, and one does help with the other (which goes both ways)

However, I would say that the adage that those who can't DO...TEACH goes both ways in that there are a good number of practitioners out there that are completely awful teachers.

IN the end it depends (like most things) on the individual.

It may also depend on what level and focus of studio someone is teaching --- a non-practitioner teaching a sophomore level undergrad studio vs a graduate-level design-build studio would make a big difference. Alternately, a practitioner focused on the CD/CA back-end of projects in their practice would equally not make sense teaching a studio or level focused on front-end planning and schematic design.

so, as seems the going vote here: YES; NO

some are good at teach, some are good at designing, some are good at business, etc., etc.

From what I've seen, it's usually those that build less that push harder in the direction of design. That's good and bad, of course.

My vote goes YES YES. There are no absolutes - great designers can suck as teachers, horrible architects with lotsa experience can be horrible teaches, the intern with a year experience could be a great teacher.

when we have this continuing debate here, I find it odd that so few recognize how the academy seems to a) condition graduates to despise practice, and b) fails to prepare students to earn an adequate living.

this makes me very sad.

architecture happens in firms - not in the schools. if the academy does not see the value of helping students embrace - if not celebrate - the full reality of practice, then god help us.

oh ... before you jump on me for highjacking the thread, my comments above respond to the earlier writings suggesting that firms have the primary obligation to teach all the non-theoretical, non-mind-expanding stuff.

i took kieran timberlake too, and spent many hours in their back shop producing my thesis for my research studio, it was hell, both doing it with and without them so i feel for you meta, sorry personal moment there

Teaching is hard, no if and or buts about it, not every student wants to work, no matter how hard you push or lightly shove them or punch them

Some just dont "get it" your way or most importantly their way

some just dont read, they dont know what has come before or what might come after

they think the internet is the source, unbelievable

some dont speculate, they come with baggage and they wont drop it

some just think they are the hottest thing since sliced bread, (i know shitty metaphor) but seriously have no capacity to try something else other than the current "porn" they are reading

one or two actually are chasing a dream, which might result as shit in the final but have great process

then there is one or two that are able to bring a concept that is not overwhelming to fruition

I cant overstate how hard teaching is, especially if you are writing your own curriculum which is common if the university passes you on a class which just is not on par with contemporary thinking, and that is what the students expect to hear

I dont teach, i once did, im horrible at it because i tell students when they suck, they dont want to hear that, they want help, but they dont help themselves

Sometimes i think teaching is harder than practice, othertimes i dont know which is worse

This is a bit of a psychoanalytical thread for me, sometimes i think I suck, when i look at the "wild" stuff going on, but i know when I work I am genuinely moving my team towards a successful completion, and in the end I find that aspect most important, the ability to work with many people to accomplish the task, negotiate the construction, its never a grand plan, and rarely successful the first time

Its an iterative process and amazing what one student can produce when they do reach that point in their semester if they do get there (if you know what i mean)

truly a point of amazement when you look back on your wall and are dumbfounded at what you did

you know when youve done it, not the best crit but not the worst, more questions than answers

that empty feeling when its all over

The worst feeling for a teacher is arriving at class and the student has done nothing at all

on the first count - i'll suggest that schools have to decide if they want to teach architecture as the art of building or as 'art' itself. if you want to confine the question to the realm of accreditation, then that suggests that the schools have to define architecture in some kind of disciplinary terms. i would think you'd want to have professors, no matter their practical experience, who are committed to a reading of architecture which somewhat aligns with the school's stance on what constitutes the disciplinary core of architecture. this would not preclude students taking other courses or having guest critics who may be much more interested in blurring boundaries between disciplines. also, i think it matters if you are talking about an undergraduate program or a graduate program.

on the second count -no. too limiting in the breadth of talent you could attract. you may have a great researcher who never became registered; i doubt you'd want to run them off because they didn't go a more 'traditional' route.

two great educators who built very little (just to consider); john hejduk, who had very, very little built until late in his career. same with leon krier (who is less interesting in his later work, but who is one of the smartest architects i've ever met). both took a similar stance towards building, which was to refuse on moral grounds. hejduk, because he came to believe that the client (the public) needed to believe in his work enough to want to engage in a kind of social contract and commit to building it. krier because he didn't believe in compromising his own vision of returning architecture to it's 'true' status as the master craft. (he yielded a bit more in his later years, but his little house at seaside really is a beautifully proportioned and detailed space.)

i think that theoretical rhetoric is interesting, but when you are face to face with a student and you empathise with the weakness they feel, it all melts away, you understand what the actual person has the capacity to produce and then the challenge begins

the worst comment i received today at a top-tier ivy league school:

"... I don't know. In the end it doesn't matter, but you have to come up with an argument for it anyway."

so... um... why should i argue for something that doesn't matter? please, can someone spare me a bullet?

on the flipside: is your instructor, who has only ever worked as a professional but has never taught before, qualified to teach?

in the end, i think the question is, without me knowing about what you are doing so, in a way this is a shitty forum for your question (sorry), does your conceptual development lead way directly or indirectly to your final product, but does it get there, have you identified the thread that hols it all together and does it work, perform somehow?

can you explain it, do your physical manifestations of your thought represent these efforts, do your graphic representations explain your thinking, abstract or literal

then you are ready to go, no matter what is said during crit, take your remarks and reflect, no need to fight, no money at stake, even then fighting is a last resort, practice is a delicate struggle

in professional practice, architects have many other factors to deal with, like the "i just dont freaking like it factor" and " how the f will they clean that glass panel that is twenty feet off the floor factor, and the that rounded corner/rounded edge is going to drive the contractors crazy factor, crappy but true

do your best, make it shine, just try to hold your ideas in a bunch whether straight or bifurcated, keep it organized and demonstrable

I know a few at carnegie mellon that arent......... no debating it really.

when you're in school, does it really matter? when you're in school you don't learn everything all at once. at some point - over the course of a LOOOOONNNGGG process of learning what matters and what might be a good way to approach design for you - you gotta learn to build an argument. if every professor had to extract a great design out of you all the time, you'd never get around to the learning part.

---

i really think that if taboho stopped worrying as much about whether an instructor is qualified and more time focusing that creative criticism on his/her own work, the school experience might be more fulfilling and successful. presumably it's an accredited school with an administration with some history of making competent faculty hiring decisions. sure, there may be some duds, but you can learn from them too.

sometimes the most qualified are the worst instructors, whether because of their own self-interest, distraction, poor communication, whatever. the young, un-tested, and enthusiastic might be more likely to instill in you the passion for good work.

for some reason i thought this thread was about golf and tennis pros...guess i've been out of school too long

i cant even remember my professors names. and i would maybe want one person who i have worked for to teach a design studio.

the comparison of a non-licenced electrician teaching folks to become electricians or firefighter without experience teaching at a firefighting school is misleading. to be more accurate the comparison should be physicist describing electricity to future electricians and building scientist or chemist teaching technical knowledge they have never experienced outside of a lab to future heroes. There are many types of knowledge and not all of it comes from the end of a screwdriver.

as for detailing, meta...i dunno, maybe you do know how to detail things no one has made before. and even how to think of the designs that require such detailing...perhaps you are the next zaha hadid...i rather hope so. that would be very cool. or maybe you are a tech savvy consultant type. neither version, nor any variation in between precludes you from teaching.

in my old life i had to do some fancy detailing for a 4000m2 tent structure and the only person who had ever tried what i had in mind was toyo ito. the folks at my office who mostly were licenced based on experience and not edumacated at any university (common in japan for architects ) did not think it was possible cuz they had not done it before. i spoke to the company that did the work for ito. then i made the detail working with the specialists i met. and they built it, about a year later. the look of the actual building was entirely different than what it would have been had i not been taught to question status quo, and taught also to have an intention beyond technical performance. those attitudes were instilled by my non-licenced teachers, many of whom were not architects, a few of whom were not even designers.

i really do think the archi-world would be worse off if we turned the schools into tech-training schools. ignorance is not a good thing, but precluding intelligent people from thinking would be such a waste. just imagine if jane jacobs had been silenced because she didn't practice urban planning. just imagine the world if we only listened to the robert moses' of the world because they are the ones with the obvious credentials...

Is the practice of Architecture dealing with both the theoretical/abstract and the pragmatic? I think it is, though sometimes it seems that you can get by (in real life construction) only focusing on the pragmatic (which is maybe why architecture sucks). Focusing on one or the other during school is not beneficial because of this dual nature--you need to start learning how to balance both, before you're out in the "real world". I wish more people who can detail also could discuss the implications of say, "Building Dwelling Thinking" on sustainability; and I wish more designers could detail--it makes no sense to me that people who come up with big ideas can't figure out how the things go together--wouldn't this ability make for a better designer??

But this isn't answering the question posed at the top, well, then again maybe it is…you need both. You need the whacked-out art instructor that's going to challenge you to broaden your conceptual thinking, but you also need that techie instructor that will help hone your skills in actually making your whacked-out designs "real". There's no way around it--if you want to be an Architect (capital A) then you need to be able to do both the tech and the theory, otherwise you'll just be a designer or a technician/cad monkey.

because architecture school 'doesn't matter' you get to experiment and explore concepts/processes that otherwise you would never get to. Just sit back and have fun.

is eisenman licensed yet?

if you really want to be employable take the time to learn how to do old school perspective presentations. you know the kind with the entourage of kiddies with balloons. cuz frankly this is what the developers that your firm will want to use to sell their lifestyle centers. get yerself a mayline today.

today's words of wisdom from my instructor:

"... what enzymatically determines your project programatically?"

i need more than one bullet now.

forgot to add... these brilliant words come from someone who has taught for over a decade but never designed nor built anything of note.

do you have sanford kwinter?

drop the class and transfer to another school

I would say "yes" and "yes." I'm not nearly as concerned with whether an instructor has built one of their own designs (although that would be nice) as I am with whether an instructor (in design studio) is licensed. I think the design studio instructors should be licensed. I don't care if they are licensed in the state where they currently teach, but I think they should be licensed somewhere. The license demonstrates that they have met the minimum requirements (in addition to all of their presumably advanced academic experience) to call themselves an architect.

Accredited architecture programs are supposed to be professional programs similar to law, medicine, dentistry, etc. that prepare a graduate for ENTRY into that profession ("entry" meaning not necessarily competent to start designing real buildings for real clients right out of school). The internship period is still extremely important as a way of bringing that graduate to at least the minimum level of professional competence to provide professional service to a real client (professional service including more than just design). In schools of law, medicine, dentistry, etc., I think you would find it very rare to have instructors that are not lawyers, doctors or dentists. Yes, each of these programs are likely to have a few theoriticians, and I think that is good, but the bulk of the student's exposure during school is to licensed practitioners of the profession they are attempting to study.

While I agree that school is a time for exploration/experimentation, I also believe that it must be done with an understanding of what architects actually do. In my view, this would not preclude somewhat abstract design studio projects, but it would preclude design studio solutions that are not "architecture." What do I mean by that? Well, if we can agree that architecture is different from art, for example, in that architecture is intended to be built for human habitation (even "paper" architecure is generally developed with a theoretical eye toward being built), it therefore has a functional consideration that art does not have. When I was in school, and even now when I visit schools of architecture, I see a lot of good projects. But I also see far too many pieces of "art" that even the most technically savy practitioner could never turn into a buildable structure. Rarely do these types of solutions come from studios with an architect (meaning licensed) as the instructor. They almost always come from a studio with an instructor that has not practiced architecture, at all, or not sufficiently to obtain a license. Architecture in the real world is developed with all kinds of imposed boundaries and influences. It would be extremely valuable for architecture graduates to have an appreication of that reality before they start the internship process.

That being said, I see plenty of room in academia for instructors that are specialists in history, theory, etc., that are not licensed. And, I think they may even have value on a design studio jury, but I do not think they should be a design studio instructor.

what enzymattically splits your infinitive?

or, something like that, in some cases...

i agree with the traditional school strucutre as it stands. But I also agree that there should be a technical based alternate path to licensure, for those who want to forgo theory. I can honestly say most of what I know about architecture history and philosophy was learned in electives in another major, my own extensive library and study, and that at the age of 21 I was ready to go, to train my technical mnd, excercise it realy. Technique is the calasthetics of the mind. Theoretical architecture is a misnomer because anything built is no longer theoretical.

My mind has been shaped much more by working in a dynamic marketplace, excpet for one stint, and my school years maybe were the worst of my personal development so far. Actually, they sucked and I could berely bring myself there enough to pass my classes. I find architecture schools to be pools of desperation.

ledoux's eye

it's very possible to practice architecture for decades without
a license...as long as someone in the firm does. i think the
criteria should be about practical experience..having worked
on buildings...the license isn't really part of it. imo

ep

it's possible for there to be theory behind built form though
right? i guess the actual words 'theoretical architecture' is
truly a misnomer...but theory-based architecture would not
be...would it?

and in the end isn't being in college and an architecture
student partly about thinking you're better than everyone else?
and that you know more than your professors...

and the rest of your professional career is realizing how
little you know and how much you'd like to be back in school
where you didn't have worry about things like hardware schedules
and shop drawings?