A Trade-Off of Educational Experience // Chenyu Lou

"A Trade-Off of Educational Experience"

 

Since architecture profession has become increasingly popular recently, an increasing number of students choose an architecture major as the first career step. Architecture is a major that will involve many different fields such as art, psychology, construction and so on. The complexity of architecture determines its specialty and makes architectural education unique. The architecture studio is a synthesizing space where students will need to incorporate their studies from the broader curriculum into their design work. Thus, a different educational curriculum will lead students down a very different path.

 

Typically, architecture studios will have projects with a real site and a hypothetic situation, a story or a job statement that does not really exist. This process is quite traditional but very effective. It gives both the students and professors enough space to teach and learn. Inside the studio, there is no constant role as a teacher or a student. The learning experience can be a mutual way. Sometimes the professor is better at a certain area, sometimes the student can also teach the professor a lesson. The object of architecture and the approach to problem-solving are the critical elements of the educational experience. 

 

The main purpose of architecture studio is to help the student build a wide knowledge, improve the skills, and learn critical thinking to gain a successful career in architecture. As the level of grade goes up, the students will face projects which will be increasingly challenging. Systematically, by accumulating the experience throughout the program, young architecture students will be able to learn how to handle a more complex project. However, the same pattern of architectural education program has already lasted a few decades. Even though students can have a better understanding of some necessary design skills, they are still not ready for a professional career. The reason is because the architectural education system has been so obsessed with keeping current situation that people are ignoring the fast change of the real world. The new essential qualities of being a successful architect are good communication skills, good sense of business, strong collaboration ability and good problem-solving ability. Although these skills are told in the studio, not every student understands the real meaning of them. After all, only students and professors are involved in a traditional architectural education program. There is no opportunity for students to practice their communication skills. The absence of real-time communication with client leads to a lack of professional experience. Thereupon, it is very difficult to simulate reality in an academic setting.

 

After my experience with the Design+Make studio, I gained the opportunity to work on a real project and hands-on experience on other aspects of architecture. The benefit of being a part of the Design+Make studio is having a tremendous advantage to communicate and collaborate with a real client, a real contractor, and several consultants. The project of our studio is not a big one, it is a duplex located in Kansas City. But the scope of work in this process extends to a much broader scale. For this project, we are learning by doing, hands on the programs and cooperating with many other groups. We gain much knowledge about on-site construction, cost analysis and the business of architecture. Thus, the studio is not limited to an educational program, it is also a real working place that everyone in our studio can learn to act like a professional. We keep close cooperation with our client and other institutions to make sure we can deliver the best solution to the project.