Anecdotes of architectural education

ANECDOTES FROM AN ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION EVENT

‘THREE COURSES OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION’

22^nd February 2024

I was invited by Rory Sherlock and Francesca Romana DellAglio to do something around architectural education at the Architectural Association. We decided to do it as a meal around a big table, calling the event ‘Three Courses of Architectural Education. At the end of the first course, when I had set out how the first year of architectural education introduces a set of rituals and codes that initiate students into the culture of architecture, I asked each participant, who came from a wide range of schools beyond the AA, to write down a sentence or two that described a particularly weird happening in their first year. Most of the people present were recent graduates. The following are the unedited stories. Together they present a shocking picture of the state of architectural education.

On the first day of tutorials, I called my tutor ‘Dr.F’ (his name), and he said: “I’m not a doctor.”

I witnessed a tutor eat someone’s model.

My structures teacher stubbed out his cigarette on my (detailed) drawing. 2009.

Didn’t get into any of my choices for unit interviews, with my A4 book compared to everyone else’s A0 portfolios and models. As people all around me cried in the corridor.

Boy passed out during a jury. Teachers didn’t care

Had to design architecture for a ‘cult’ of some kind that would be suspended from a cliff. And to draw all the fruit in my fridge

My tutors mixed me up with another person of the same ethnicity more than once. I don’t think this was part of the initiation though…Generally, there was a continual attempt to get me to draw my ideas (in plan and section). They haven’t got me yet.

Asked to reference films in a project set in ghost towns, we were specifically told not to watch any Oscar winners. Instead we would draw from Tarkovsky and – ahem – “The Martian.’ Confusion all over.

In my first year (1999) YY the XX teacher took me for dinner in an Italian restaurant, which some people might think is weird, but I liked. And maybe that makes me a bad feminist, but I DON”T CARE!!!

At a crit I had two tutors fight over who gets to make the first comments on  a project where the student made their drawings in sharpie.[1] Then they both started laughing

Had a group tutorial (2 of us) and my peer + tutor spoke for two hours about their Year 1 project. It was v.interesting – but very, very long. None of my friends in other courses had ever experimented with this. = I thought it was normal

In our first introduction, our first year tutor said: “In six weeks time you will go round to friends’ houses/rooms and look at their skirting boards.

3am. Making a final model for a project – crying because I got blood on my model and not because I had a deep cut on my hand. 2018

We, first year students at a UK university were told that we must have an Oxford architecture scarf. We were told what shop to go and buy it, that it is not in the shop window, but we should ask for it and the seller would know.

I had made a totem sculpture for one of my media studies courses, all out of scrap material. The totem collapsed straight onto the juror’s head during the final critique; I got a high pass through the power of post-rationalization

First year and first introduction was how to draw a croissant. Having the printer at uni filled with croissant crust. Wondering whether buying a fancier croissant will get me a better grade.

They only asked me two questions at my ZZZ interview. 1. Do you have any hobbies? 2. What is your favourite tea?

I was asked to pose naked inside a pavilion in Bedford Square, then had photos taken by the school photographer and an audience of students and tutors.

Waxed my eyelashes off making a silicone mould of my face…

Waiting in line to find out whether you have passed or failed. The tutors are sitting in a semi-circle to announce the result

Watch someone tie themselves to the wall with resistance bands and run at the wall with a pen. They were trying to be a rabbit.

“Many students like you come into school very ambitious and positive. But you’ll soon find out it’s not like that.”

I was crying in the first year studio when the Head of Year walked in, unaffectedly told me to email the Registrar, and didn’t look me in the eye for the rest of the year.