Context of teaching practice
I designed my intervention for the context of the architecture design studio, more particularly for the vertical studio that I teach together with my colleague Roland Reemaa. I was working with a group of 21 students – a cohort I meet for an entire day almost every week across one academic year. The group consists of 10 second year students and 11 third year students, several of the students have Individual Support Agreements (ISAs), around 67% are B.A.M.E. students.
I identified two core issues with the design studio that hinder inclusivity:
- The individualistic practices (Garrett 2024) inherent to architecture education. These practices enforce the idea of meritocracy (Wong et al. 2021), create blindness to personal circumstances, and remove opportunities to learn from the rich diversity of others’ life experiences and knowledge, i.e. hinder empathy (Rekis 2023, hooks 1994).
- UAL admission policies have successfully helped to increase diversity in the student cohort, but tutors are not provided with resource (most of all time) to go beyond it (re-think teaching, give extra attention to inter-personal relationships amongst students), which means diversification might become a mere box ticking exercise (Tate 2018, Sadiq 2023).
The intervention
My co-tutor Roland Reemaa and myself identified the first month of the design unit (October) to be well suited for an intervention that would encourage inclusivity. During this period, we normally do a series of group visits to the assigned site for the student projects. At this point in the year, the students haven’t yet started working on their individual projects, and have a clear common ground. The intervention brings their individual experiences of this common ground (i.e. the site) together by creating a shared drawing. We relied on a drawing method called ‘Hairy Drawing’ developed by the London architecture office East (East 2009) and on Kim England’s conceptualisation of making geography (England 1994).
‘Hairy Drawing’ is a method for developing an understanding for a site by bringing together the observations and personal experiences of a design team, i.e. group of people working together on an architecture project in the context of an architecture office. It aims not to prioritise ‘objective’ facts over subjective ones, and also brings together existing reality and emerging ideas (East 2009). As a method, it is focussed on the process of making the drawing and sharing knowledge during it. It puts little emphasis on the final artefact. As a method, ‘Hairy Drawing’ challenges neopositivist empiricism and considers reflexivity integral to site research (England 1994).
As part of my intervention, I have developed the method further in relation to inclusivity, and to suit the context of the academic design studio. For example, after pitching the idea of this workshop to Klaske Havik and Jorge Mejia from Delft University of Technology who highlighted that students might have a fear for the blank page, I decided to start the exercise by providing the students with prompts to react to. Inspired by the group exercises we did as part of the PGCert Theories, Policies and Practices unit, I added a time component to the exercise. Students tend to see drawings as a goal rather than a thinking tool, and often aestheticise every line and figure they draw. Giving them only a short amount of time to react to a prompt encourages them to get drawing, and to overcome the fear of an ‘ugly’ drawing. Incorporated into the intervention is also the time to prepare the base map for their ‘Hairy Drawing’. It is a relatively simple and technical task – put together an aerial view from Google Maps, tile it onto A3s, print the A3s, paste them together – but it works well to encourage the group to start working together and to gain a first sense of achievement once it is completed.
Intervention structure
The core of the intervention is the drawing workshop, but it also consists of:
- Site visit to the project area with the group of 21 students;
- ‘Hairy Drawing’ workshop: communal mapping exercise (in 4–5 groups);
- Pin-up and discussion.
Intervention aim
The aim of the intervention is two-fold: on the one hand it is about developing a nuanced understanding of the site and encouraging inclusion in placemaking practices (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment 2008). But perhaps even more importantly, it is about developing empathy, trust (Richards, Finnigan 2015) and peer-to-peer learning within the studio group. The intervention aims to go beyond individual learning by listening to others’ perspectives and by collaborating with them on a shared drawing.
Why and how is it inclusive?
The intervention engages with the ideas of critical pedagogy by taking a humanist approach – the students are seen not only as thinking, but also as ‘feeling and doing beings’ (Hill & Singh 2018). This aspect is embedded in the intervention setting communal drawing into its centre, but also in introducing the walk as a learning method and in asking students to reflect on their personal experience of it. England has argued that ‘fieldwork is intensely personal, in that the positionality /…/ and biography of the researcher plays a central role in the research process, /…/’ (England 1994). My intervention takes this as a starting point, and creates a platform for students to share their personal experiences with each other, as well as to consider each others’ positionality.
Positionality in the design of the intervention
As a white non-disabled woman, I am privileged for not having had to experience discrimination due to the colour of my skin or my abilities. I can feel safe in spaces and situations which might be challenging for others. As part of the intervention, the students are asked to consider these aspects of their positionality too. Site visits can be mentally and physically challenging. Like in the case of the site in Enfield that was explored as part of the intervention, project sites are often in relatively hostile environments (e.g. industrial areas, brownfield sites etc.). I always address these aspects ahead of our visits, propose alternative routes for those who need them, and include moments of rest on the visits.
Also, I am Estonian, i.e. Eastern European and non-native to the UK, and I speak English as a second language. I moved to the UK after having finished my studies elsewhere. In relation to that, I have my own feelings of not belonging. I empathise with the feeling of not knowing enough or not feeling confident enough to speak up in a group of native English speakers and/or people who I deem to have more contextual knowledge than I do. As a reaction, I always try to give space, time and encouragement for all students to express themselves in studio. I chose to design the intervention based on drawing because I have found that other means of expression than speaking can create more inclusivity and shift power dynamics.
It also matters that I am a woman teaching architecture. In the UK, the take-up figures for women entering the profession are 40 to 50%, however, among registered architects the split becomes 31 women to 69 men (Morris and Hirons 2024). Moreover, in the construction sector that is tightly knitted to the architecture one, the proportion of women is merely 13% (Bundonis 2024). I always acknowledge my role as a woman architect and the necessity to empower women in this traditionally male-dominated field, and I seek out feminist practices to include in my teaching.
Impact on inclusive teaching and future considerations
I delivered the intervention together with Roland Reemaa on October 25th, preceded by site visits on October 15th and October 8th. The intervention was successful in encouraging more inclusive group dynamics – the students engaged with each other beyond a mere conversation and found new ways of collaborating. They also did not need to be anxious about sharing individual work and comparing themselves with others. This aspect of the session was highlighted to me by another tutor, Inigo Cornago, who was teaching in the other end of the same room during the session and joined us intermittently.
One of the students who has an ISA told me that she normally avoids all group activities, but that she enjoyed the ‘Hairy Drawing’ session. It is my personal reflection that because there was a time limit, and we deliberately created an atmosphere where the groups did not have to be precious about the outcome, that student (and hopefully others too) were able to focus on the process of learning then and there together with others, rather than stressing that they would still need to develop a final artefact with a group outside of studio time. When discussing the intervention with my teaching partner Roland Reemaa, we considered ways that we could assign more importance to the final outcome of the drawing exercise – we were concerned that the students undermine their work and knowledge if they do not value the final artefact. However, the feedback from this ISA student who otherwise experiences anxiety and even panic attacks when having to present to others, has suggested to me that the intervention is best kept to this timeframe.
However, the question for a good way to reflect on the session with the entire group, and to assign importance to all the learning, remains. After reading Kim England’s article ‘Getting Personal’, I started considering a more deliberate discussion about positionality, reflexivity, and objectivity in researching a site as a final chapter of the session (England 1994). This might be something to take on as part of the Action Research Project.
Another revealing instance included a student from one of the groups asking me, whether it was OK to record completely different opinions onto the drawing. This came about in response to the prompt: ‘mark building(s) you would demolish’. It turned out that a particular building was considered the most beautiful by one student, and ugly and useless by another. This disagreement brought about a very fruitful discussion about the differing opinions, and no doubt opened up the multiple perspectives to everyone in the studio. In the future, I aim to pay more deliberate attention to including such prompts but also to discussing them with the entire group.
[1700 words]
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