To set their students on the path of becoming ‘architects’, HE Architecture courses have to be accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and by the Architects Registration Board (ARB). The title ‘architect’ is protected by law, so that the public can always be sure that they are dealing with a properly qualified architect.[1] The RIBA needs to re-validate a university architecture course every 5 years. Through validation, the RIBA identifies courses and examinations which achieve the standards (their standards?) necessary to prepare students for professional practice.[2]
On today’s expanded field of architectural practice I wonder, what exactly is protected about the title? Is it aligned with what’s necessary to prepare students for professional practice? Here’s a list of some main jobs architects (who also identify as such) in my personal social circles hold:
– project manager for a housing association,
– associate architect in a 15-people architecture studio working solely on public commissions,
– project architect and associate in a 70-people architecture office/developer working solely on private commissions and coorporate projects,
– sole practitioner working on house renovations and spatial research projects,
– a teacher,
– spatial advisor to Estonia’s Minister of Culture,
– a council’s planning officer,
– self-builder and off-the-grid camp-site owner,
– designer in a museum,
– a researcher.
So what exactly do I need to make sure I teach as part of the design studio?
In “The Motivations of Spatial Agency” in the book Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture, the authors draw out the importance of pedagogy to achieve architecture’s professional reformation from making beautiful stuff to associating the idea of betterment with a more fluid set of processes and social conditions. Relying on Steven Brint’s In the Age of Experts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), they write, “The shift in the professions from their original role as keepers of a particular branch of socially important knowledge into expert agents for an increasingly technocratic society has been accompanied with a suppression of a sense of social duty, and with it a waning of political intent.” Writing in 2011, they criticise architectural education for being under-theorised as an underlying discipline, though intensely theorised as a set of surface actions. They claim architecture education remained largely unbothered by reformist educational movements such as critical pedagogy and its central structures have altered little since the 19th century.[3] With Jeremy Till’s, who is one of the authors of Spatial Agency, appointment as Head of Central Saint Martins and Pro Vice-Chancellor of UAL in 2012, a definitive shift took place towards introducing an ethical dimension to architectural education in the university, which makes students aware at an early stage of their wider social responsibilities. At CSM, the course promotes its “innovative practice” to rethink “the architectural profession and imagine roles beyond the traditional disciplinary limit.”[4] But even then, we are bound by the requirements of the ARB and RIBA, which up until now hold onto the traditional architect skillset.
In February 2023, the ARB launched the public consultation on a fundamental overhaul of the regulatory framework for educating and training architects. This comes, on the one hand, in response to criticism towards the profession’s lack of diversity and inaccessibility, and on the other, to providers calls for more flexibility and opportunities for innovation to ensure students are ready for emerging and future challenges like the climate emergency. The proposed shift includes a move away from accrediting BA courses and could, therefore, mean a more profound re-think of the way we teach architecture in the first years of higher education.[5] [6]
At the top, is an attempt to visualise some of my architect-teacher-student thoughts on teaching architecture on an expanded field. There is certainly a lot to chew through.
References:
[1] Pathways to Qualify as an Architect, Royal Institute of British Architects. Available at: https://www.architecture.com/education-cpd-and-careers/how-to-become-an-architect
[Accessed on 22 March 2023].
[2] RIBA Validated Schools in the UK, Royal Institute of British Architects. Available at: https://www.architecture.com/education-cpd-and-careers/riba-validation/riba-validated-schools-uk [Accessed on 22 March 2023].
[3] Awan, N., Schneider, T., Till, J., (2011). “The Motivations of Spatial Agency”. In Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture. New York: Routledge, pp. 36-52.
[4] BA (Hons) Architecture, Central Saint Martins, UAL. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/subjects/architecture-spatial-and-interior-design/undergraduate/ba-hons-architecture-csm [Accessed on 22 March 2023].
[5] Tomorrow’s Architects. ARB consultation on education and training reforms, (2023). Architects Registration Board. Available at: https://arb.org.uk/tomorrows-architects/?dm_i=GKK,876VH,3BBDI,XMDX8,1 [Accessed on 22 March 2023].[6] A New Regulatory Framework, (2023). Architects Registration Board. Available at: https://arb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/ARB-regulatory-framework-for-education-proposal.pdf?dm_i=GKK,876VH,3BBDI,XMDX8,1 [Accessed on 22 March 2023].