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What the Heck are Universities teaching?
Comments
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sods right on the money.
old architects know how to build?
someone should point out the city falling apart in front of them.
-----that they drew, watched over and saw built.
their bullshit opinions here and elsewhere about the young and universities
distract us from the real issue. -
Hairdresser,
you are correct in your observation- old building new buidlings ..
age does not guarantee competency, just as a piece of paper does not.
I ask this question?
What the heck are Universities teaching?
that is the basis of this discussion.
Now where can I learn about the mistakes that have occurred in the past??... -
<p>i get the lack of good constructive teaching in unis - i'm out about 4 years. we did, however, have a reasonably decent constrcution education (handling materials, visiting factories, going to various types and scales of sites at various stages of the works), and i spent 3 months laying bricks and roofing to get a bit more knowledge.</p>
<p>i'm a bit confused about the 'buildabilty' question though, especially as outlined by RAMIUS. a couple of things i'd like top point out, from my experience: builders can be terribly slack, uneducated and unconcerned with the design and detailing of a building, and they can be very lazy about reading and understanding the drawings and specification in the first instance. that is to say, they are not the last word in what can and can't be done on a building site.</p>
<p>i don't understand where the floating and skyhooks issues come from (is this a starchitecture thing? is this because everyone wants to design something like zaha hadid? i don't often come across this kind of design outside of universities so not sure how it gets in front of clients and builders anyway...); is this a real experience for you, or is it just assumed?</p>
<p>further, builders need to take responsibilty for the <b>building</b> of the works, and if they see the drawings and speci before they begin then they have few people to blame. i am very very sick of builders asking about flashings etc. i know how to put them in and where, but builders should also - what are they being paid for if not to build!</p>
<p>and lastly, with all that said, i still think architecture, designing and building is a totally cooperative venture, and you should be asking as many question sof your builders and tradies and trying to assimilate as much knowledge and experience as possible. i'll back my design abilities mixed with a carpenter's 30yrs of experience to get the right result anytime.</p>
<p>there is also an argument with the 'maintaining past job descriptions' discussion, but that's another thing entirely...</p> -
for what its worth Ramius.
doubt its ever been the charter of universities to teach construction
or the practical as its termed
though many try.
wasn't when I went through in the dim past - nor for my elders.
there was and still is a reliable way to gain that experience.
skip the corporates (save it for later) - go work in a small office.
get paid next to nothing.
usually you will be put right in it.
People who want to be architects understand this blindingly simple concept.
universities are there to teach design.
culture.
history.
theoretical science.
computer rendering - whatever.
all the things opinionated pocket pissers can't be trusted with.
its a good system. if you pick your options with a bit of care.
And as for Phillip.
I hope the universities wipe their arses with his letter.
1- does he find pleasure clamping the testicle electrodes on kids straight out of uni.
perhaps a Crocodile can shed a tear for him.
2- the villian behind an idiot with 2.5 years of wasted life post graduation
is either the moron itself
or the moron office where it had been hiding.
the complaint is dumber than the graduates it aims to take a piece out of. -
Yeah... what t'heck they are teaching?! Just check your... English (spelling and such) guys !
;-))) -
<p>well put, hairdresser.</p>
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<p>LOL. Perhaps, in recent times, the good applicants are seeking work elsewhere, for obvious reasons.</p>
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<p>Good to see you back in the fray hairdresser, pun intended, but your dyed in the wool admonishments of the professional expectation that Universities might teach something practical is more aimed at getting a bit of fur to fly than giving us a trim explanation of the question at hand. </p>
<p>You suggest that they actually teach, (excuse me while I cut and badly paste), Design, Culture, History, Theoretical Science, Computer Rendering and Whatever.</p>
<p>Well really.</p>
<p>What is design if it cant be built?</p>
<p>What is culture if it isn't appreciated in context?</p>
<p>What is history if it is declared reduntant?</p>
<p>What is theoretical science if it can't be applied?</p>
<p>And back to the top, what is computer rendering if it cant be built?</p>
<p>Whatever!!!!</p>
<p>The whatever is why the heck can't a university graduate be given basic construction knowlege along with some practical science and engineering so that firms all over the planet don't have to spend several years getting their entrusted graduates to forget all that high falutin artistic egotistical bullshit and actually be productive and worth paying money to in the first place. You seem to expect that graduates should have to be paid a pittance so as to learn something useful in an architects office and at the same time you refuse to acknowlege that they're not worth anything more than a pittance as a direct result of what universities are NOT teaching them.</p>
<p>I know an architect who nearly went broke having to redo all the crap his new graduate architect was serving up and he had to fire him or go under. That was not his or the graduates fault at all. The fault belonged with the University. Why the heck should an architects office suffer a jumped up little ego tripper and why shouldn't they expect a university architecture course to teach something of practical use to architecture.</p>
<p>Do you seriously suggest that the core elements of an architecture degree should remain theoretical, fanciful and perspex pyramidial just so that you can feel better about your own useless education?</p>
<p>Can you imagine if Universities pumped put engineering graduates who had to then get over five years of theoretical bullshit and learn practical engineering knowlege on the job, let alone those paying a "pretty penny" for a medical degree.</p>
<p>The question remains, what the heck is an architecture degree for if you don't learn architecuture and the architectural office your dumbed down arse arrives at, not only has to teach it to you instead but has to demolish your fortified ego to do it.</p>
<p>First and foremost is the question of design. Do you get taught to design something that will exist in the world around you or do you learn how to design something that exists only in your own head. If you think design<b> is</b> being taught, well which sort of design are you talking about?</p>
<p>As far as I am concerned, design that does not include a practical knowlege of how to bring it into reality is not design. That is what I call almost useless toss jockeying, and that is not what a University should be teaching as a core subject and as an elective, only with much reservation and qualifications that might come under what you call theoretical science and culture.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p> -
<p>simon, i know there was a situation at my university (and i would assume it wasn't an isolated case) where once (70s/80s)the university provided a semester in architects' offices as a matter of course, presumably where the student would not only pick up the construction/reality teachings of architecture, but also the day to day running of a firm. the way it was told to us was that the firms no longer wished to take students in as it cost them time/money/profit and so the program was dropped.</p>
<p>if this is indeed the case then the profession once again proves it's own worst enemy - can't be bothered helping out the new kids, but then complains about them when they are useless out of uni.</p>
<p>as i've said above, my uni DID provide a decent amount of construction knowledge, so maybe it's only the 'bad' unis that pump out 'bad' students...might be worth the profession's time providing some kind of outline or advice on which courses offer what kind of teaching, and perhaps rating the courses independently ont heir good and bad points?</p> -
<p>Uni's have to teach both theory and practical application of theory. RMIT is currently pumping out a lot of "bad" students because they have a chip on thier shoulder about being a former technical college and so seem to have segue'd into pure computer rendering and toss jockeying majors. That's is my opinion I know and an unqualified one but I have met several of thier students (one who agrees with me and left to go to Deakin) and I have talked at length with one of the teachers and it really worries me that they seem to have lost sight of the core reason for teaching. That is, the equipping of future architects with the ability to practise what they preach.</p>
<p>Philips original lament may have nothing to do with RMIT but if so then there seems to be a general trend towards theory as apposed to an intergrated wholistic approach to education. I don't think that theory should be dispensed with in favour of practicals at all and that ideally a balance should be attempted if only to distinguish a University from a technical college. I think hairdressers notion that it is not the place of a university to teach practical application of theory is ludicrous and on a par with not teaching cooking students how to turn an oven on.</p>
<p>I don't think that grading universities into good and bad is of any use at all. Knowing what they teach is useful in so far as it aids the consensus of what is good teaching but grading just overcrowds the good ones and denies the bad ones funding. What is needed is a professional protest to all the Universities that they could do a lot better in this day and age accompanied with a detailed analysis of exactly how. After all, the whole problem is that the unity of practicality and theory has come adrift.</p>
<p>Interestingly Wendy Lewin in the latest Sydney Alumni Magazine is quoted as saying that the 80's were a doldrums compared to the present collegiate.</p> -
phillip
"For one of my sins I also teach at one of our Universities but it will come as no surprise that it is in the school that teaches and trains builders and construction managers not Architecture"
"Supergroove.............Well I am from South Australia and we have two universities with architecture courses so the odds your school are in my sights are 50/50...or maybe even higher if I am aiming at both Schools, Modesty and legailities prevent me identifying the source of the specific examples."
Firstly, I don't understand your comment here. It insinuates (to me) that you work at Adelaide Uni but then you show your so called "modesty" at not divulging what Uni you are having a go at?? lets get a little rigorous on our assesments of recent (and not so recent) uni graduates here. It doesn't really matter what institution, they are from, it's pretty hard to blame an entire university on 3 examples. To be blatantly honest, I am getting an education I am happy with and that will prepare me for being a productive designer, and as the customer thats all thats important I reckon. As stated earlier, we are learning construction principles, but the focus is on design.
simon seasons
"What is design if it cant be built?"
So called theorists or 'paper architects' have helped to push the bounds of what is possible in architecture/design/science/humanity today. There are masses of examples of unbuilt architecture that have IMO added positively to the profession.
"What is culture if it isn't appreciated in context?"
Why do we need context to appreciate culture?
Do I need to know the history of the Kon-Tiki to appreciate it's beauty?
"What is history if it is declared redundant?"
How could any history be declared redundant? We may not like it but thats how we got to the present isn't it?
"What is theoretical science if it can't be applied? And back to the top, what is computer rendering if it cant be built?"
Refer question1
"Can you imagine if Universities pumped put engineering graduates who had to then get over five years of theoretical bullshit and learn practical engineering knowlege on the job"
Have spent 10+ years in aerospace engineering, baby engineers don't know jack when they get on the job. Just like like baby architects I suspect.... what's changed?
Whilst you guys may not appreciate what hairdresser and dav have to say, from someone that is currently studying I have to say it feels pretty relevant, and I also get the feeling that less has changed than people think, you will still get a quality product and a lesser product from the various institutions. Yes the Uni will make a difference, but I can tell you again first hand we are learning the building theory behind the design, so we can all take a chill pill and have a nice lie down now huh? -
you only have to read the the rotating season's ramblings on style to understand what purpose a university serves. the first 30 words are sufficient.
you can learn construction out in the field.
the limits of autodidacticism are only too clear. -
<p>smug christian soldiers like simon seasons are just as delusionsal as the half baked 3dmax grads that are coming out of the schools. I have no doubt he has a taste for dowdy turdburger design solutions - building designers of limited skill usually rationalise their shitfully dull designs as a response to buildability and delivery issues.</p>
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True.
Buildability under the strict terms of the rotarian mindest = capable of being assembled by moron australian carpenter with 18 thumbs, two arseholes and an underdeveloped spinal cortex.
Delivery = put the drawings out whether they are finished or not according to the profit spreadsheet prepared by the ageing rotarian office manager.
Hence the basis of this entire thread. The inability of a university trained graduate to think down to the level of the industry - and then deliver it within the time frames of a fee that was slashed to win the job - since no other criteria would deliver it to the office writing the complaint. -
<p>Goodness boys, keep your hair on.</p>
<p>Supergroove, your apparent penchant for understanding design and construction to be two seperate things is the reason this thread begun in the first place. Behind every good 'paper architect' is a damn good engineer going bald and getting no holidays.</p>
<p>By cultural context I mean that if you know why the Kon-Tiki floats you might appreciate it more than if you couldn't care less if it sunk.</p>
<p>'History' being declared reduntant is the point in Post Modernist University education at which first principals were ditched as a matter of 'autodidactic' representation. Meaning the point at which design and contruction were rendered asunder by artless twits who wanted to hide the lack of skill they possessed behind a facade within which the skill could be successfully attributed to engineers, so they could just get on with thier passion for facadism.</p>
<p>If an engineering graduate starting out was expected to find out on the job what a bending moment was and in which direction the forces were acting in a truss then I am pretty sure that questions would be going back to the institution at which they 'learnt' their craft. Re-read Philip's initial lament at the lack of basic knowlege coming from his graduate interviewees and you will find that the comparison is in no way flamboyant.</p>
<p>Hairdresser, Autodidactism is far better than autocidalism (which a lot of current Stylism suffers from) and is basically founded upon a deep respect for observation. The problem of a poor designer is not being self taught but being self referencing. Of course you can learn construction out in the field but I fail to see why that form of autodidactism is better than mine, besides which I can't claim to be an autodidact since I learnt basic engineering principals from my parents (civil and mechanical) and art at an art school and building design at a tafe and carpentry on the job as an apprentice. Short enough for you or would you like a bit less on the top?</p>
<p>Sod, I'm not Christian but I am afraid I can't claim that as a recommendation as to do so would make me a bigot. None-the-less I believe in observation and as much as I am able I think I have always created structures that are both buildable and pleasing to look at. I consider Glenn Murcutt to be a pre-eminant architect not least because his design method is about buildability with stylism a pleasant result of keen observations and no assumptions. Buildability and delivery issues that presuppose a shittfully dull design is not something that anyone in this forum, as far as I can assertain, is on about at all. Are you sure you're on the right blog.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p> -
an education could assist you mr. seasons.
but there is no guarantee.
the word style?
to you-
fashion perhaps. cliche maybe. cant habit.
hardly style really.
to mies van der rohe -
the epoch.
or Yves St. Laurent - all style (?) and - what style. ask any woman.
20 years of cutting hair makes me think that
style might be all there is.
and that real style is unbuildable.
- the blokes who straighten murcutt's steelwork might agree.
maybe the guys who were on the opera house too.
sod's stab at your style is probably on the money.
I could go on to discuss your assertions re history in Universities.
but can anyone be bothered.
the idea that architecture's history can be determined from first principles is .......
ludicrous.
But I guess you must know a mesopotamian or two for the facts on mud brick pyramids.
Returning to the start of this thread.
Any kid walked into my styling salon claiming to know how to build straight out of Uni.
I'd say
#1 they are a liar
#2 that makes them a liability.
#3 there is the door.
if they tick the box marked moron/idiot/incompetent.
then there is a desk. -
<p>Hmm, quite so. I don't think I could trust someone either, who claimed qualifications from a uni and expected to get a job as a builder, let alone an architect, in a hair styling salon. I'd probably show them a fright wig and offer a bakers dozen discount.</p>
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<p>But really, the history of first principals applies mostly to art and civil engineering as it applied to fortifications and military hardware but looked at closely one will see that architecture has a glorious and illustrious place in the firmament of the worlds great artists and all of them understood first principals far more than the modern architect is apparently expected to understand upon completeing a degree. Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Da Vinci are only those commonly known as Renaissance men who actually have a large rolecall beside them and preceeding them by some 1500 years at least.</p>
<p>I find it ludicrous that one could dispute that an historical assesment of architecture from first principals was possible, but then I haven't cut hair for a job, so what would I know?</p> -
"glorious and illustrious place in the firmament of the worlds great artists" are you for real?
Anyway Mr Troll grab that dictionary of yours that you so obviously love to use and look up the word design, then go look up the word construction. I'm pretty sure you will find they are not the same thing. In fact seeing as you have all this time on your hands to correct everyone, you could maybe use some of it to look up Josiah Wedgwood and then you could learn all about the separation of the craftsman into designers and producers/builders i.e the birth of the designer as a standalone profession. No one is denying that architects require technical knowledge, but the fact is we are not builders, pretty simple really.
Oh and the whole idea of paper architecture is that it doesn't have to be built, so no need for the balding engineers, it's just a bit of fun you know, and who knows what we could come up with? Form does not always have to follow function Simon, in fact some pretty cool things have been designed that are completely useless for their stated purpose, (Philippe Starck's Juicer) but do I want one in my kitchen, hell yeah!
Anyway, my last little bit of advice for you, if you ever do get to University, try listening, mature age know all students give all older students a bad wrap. Cheers. -
My dim recollections of brunelleschi are that he was confused about the rules of classical architecture - which had not been practised for some 1000 years. There was some issue about remembering how to do it - the first principles had gone missing.
perhaps you should drop by the salon herr SS and catch up on your reading while you wait for a haircut. -
<p>Philip Stark has himself renounced the sort of nonsensical 'wow factor' design paradigm that produced that juicer Mr supergroove. I have used it and it is crap because it doesn't capture the pips and it tips over as you try and turn the fruit and the legs are too wide to grab hold of to prevent the tipping over of said piece of crap. 'Wow factor' design is facile because it is uselss and this is the point of Philips original lament. It doesn't matter how good something looks if it can't be built or it is built and it doesn't work as intended; and If that is so it therefore lacks validity outside the ephemeral and the vicarious.</p>
<p>You think LOOK is all important. I and others think usefullness comes first becuase from that rises the best of all possible 'look'. Design is about constructability because the divorce of them is the loss of the overarching purpose of the activity of design. Designing without constructability in mind is largely a complete waste of time and resouces and that is the crux of this thread. Your dictionary will tell you nothing unless you start to understand the words together in context. They are not seperated concepts simply because it is easier to catalogue them under the letters with which they begin. The lexicon is a design tool it is not a design law or a first principal.</p>
<p>By the way, Philip's gone over to the dark side it seems, to a design method based in reality and usefullness relevent to the age of climate change. He has repented the type of designing that produced that juicer and you can read his own words with a quick google I am sure. (PS. I am sorry, but I actually don't often use a dictionary. You are just jealous and assuming I do because you had to, though there is nothing inherently wrong in that as I do too sometimes, but it is a simple mans point of honour)</p>
<p>As for "Herr SS" referances Monseiur Barber ; Pot calling the kettle black I would say. Dulux could help you there. Your dim recollections of Brunelleschi are just that. I am sorry, but I just don't have the time or inclination to sit around reading Who magazine, but thankyou for the invitation.</p>
<p>Back to the topic. Design and Construction, as subjects of study for an architecture student. First principals show us that the pressure of gravity is real and that to ignore it is to be a pie in the sky designer. This was first understood or ununciated by Archimedes following his experiments with water leaking from a series of holes in the side of an earthern-ware jar. These theories weren't lost unless you're Eurocentric and you think that the Arabs don't count, when in fact they invented the number system we still use and therefore the mathematics used to prove the Greek's ancient assumptions, which was done by the Renaissance masters. A quick look at thier CV's will show you that they were almost to a man very good artists and that they all did some architecture of some sort at some time during thier lives. And M. Barber, they used first principals to do it and often, though not compulsively or strictly, they used classical designs as a vague template. If you did a proper analysis of 70's Brutalist architects you will notice some classical references as well though perhaps that would be too subtle. Perhaps you would enjoy Albert Speer instead.</p>
<p>Pie in the sky or 'Paper' architects rely more on the law of statistics to produce something valuable to humankind than they do on first principals, but so what? More important to a university is the notion that they are working in the field of research and any research student will tell you that they have to go to thier professors and give proof that what they are doing is valid. What University has the money to throw away on the off chance that a paper architect will come up with something either unique or usefull or fabulously, even both. Good luck to them if they do but it is just not economical to rely on it or fund it to any great degree. Much less usefull to look for inspiration there as autocidalism is a big feature amongst them. The only one of any great note that I can recall is Buckminster Fuller and how many of his designs can you see applied at every street corner?</p>
<p>First principlas are there so that future generations don't have to keep reinventing the wheel, and I think that a university degree should as a right to all prospective students, inlude a goodly swag of them. Without them, argueing about design is fruitless and so asking a graduate for a scale sketch wall section as Philip did, proved fruitless as well. The thing that needs to be said is that better could be done for our students, far more economically for future employers, at the school at which they learn.</p>
<p>Pretty simple really and I think Philip has as much right to complain about it as any prospective employer. It would not have been acceptable fifty years ago, or even twenty, and so why should it now?</p> -
.......................but some of these graduates actually get registered and have no better or adequate skills after 3,4,6 years out. I'll repeat it. They get registered. They can be licenced to set up professional practise. They are 'allowed' to design things bigger than a chook shed.
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your posts Herr Seasons seem at odds with your tastes in design.
murcutt is a man of few words - all carefully chosen - like Mies.
address your own proposition -
Brunelleschi could not recover the first principles of classical architecture.
I think that means the first principles of history cannot be practised - let alone taught.
refer the corner pilasters of the Pazzi Chapel.
I'll add -
and maybe.
he was a stylist.
A gothic architect working in the funky 16thC "classical" fashion.
his engineering?
nothing mysterious there.
engineering is a bit more sophisticated these days.
no ones piling up rocks/bricks much anymore.
though marble veneering appears to still have some contemporary currency.
you could do with a tongue shave.
its getting a bit hairy.
and then when you scrub up a bit.
you might like to get yourself an education
- as distinct from the vocational instruction that you and phillip confuse it with. -
Simon, You don't listen, and you know everything. So an attempt at communication with you is pointless.
I feel sorry for any clients that ever have the misfortune of employing you.
Reeling off a myriad of counter arguments and name dropping on your understanding of architecture is not adding a positive input to this thread, so I'm going to stop here and go and enjoy being a designer.
If you actually wanted to do something about the problem you believe is at hand, then I would have thought your attempts at antagonization would be precicely NOT what you wanted as I am one of the people currently 'in the system' that may be able to do something to change things.
It is obvious to me that your use of this forum is more about showing off the size of your e-penis than it is changing something you are not happy with.
Good luck fishing in the future.
Cheers. -
<p>I am attempting to antagonize you!?</p>
<p>I know that e-communication can be difficult but if cronology is anything to go by it was you supergroove and hairdresser who begun the attempts to antagonize, not least with some pretty stiff abuse of the opinions expressed herein.</p>
<p>Whatever? It was worth reading and expressing with you.</p> -
<p>I don't beieve I have sought to PERSONALISE my comments in here but if I have in anyones mind I apologise</p>
<p>I wopuld say however any personalisation on my part has been way outsrtipped by several participants and I think think they have dragged this down in a highly unprofessional way.</p>
<p>I think if Butterpaper is too survive Peter then a number of contributors need to be moderated or excluded.</p>
<p>i am saddened by the behaviour of several of my professional peers in here.</p>
<p>I for one will be back when Butterpaper cleans it act up</p> -
perhaps the problem of architects -
is the insistence by some practitioners, like you, that it is still a profession.
- of peers.
your opening post suggests to me the pure perspective of a business man.
frustrated at the calibre of applicants responding to vacancies within your operation.
You effectively define it as a supply line problem.
You have described the nature of your enterprise as industrial - not professional.
a process concerned, from what I can tell, only with production.
why retreat into an outmoded and obsolete position like professionalism?
It seems inconsistent with your otherwise contemporary market realism.
I see you as a competitor - not a peer.
And as a competitor I would seek to secure the best staff in front of you.
And help them to develop.
Could this be your problem? -
<p>The problem with seeing ones peers as competitors is that fraternity is lost and efforts to up-market or enhance 'the profession' are lost to pointless scraps and fights over skills and resources. This may be a problem for the schools of architecture if hairdresser thinks that that is the norm amongst the professionals that he knows, but it is an extremely old fashioned way of doing business that makes it an imperiative that the schools take up the task of modernising such an archaic way of doing things.</p>
<p>I don't think that making architects go through a Masonic type apprenticeship to gain qualifications is in anyones interest as a foremost job of architects, aside from pleasing individual clients, is to improve the way of life for all the rest of us. Considering that climate change is a problem that we all face together and that architects as a body are in a position, if enabled, to make a huge difference in creating the built enviroment of the future, then the schools of architecture have a far more importnat role to play in educating that body of architects who will go a long way towards saving us from ourselves.</p>
<p>Individualised and self-interested practitioners being handed the role of teaching is counter productive to that purpose and I don't can't care how antagonising anyone finds that opinion. </p> -
<p>"No one is denying that architects require technical knowledge, but the fact is we are not builders, pretty simple really. "
</p>
<p>That's a quote from supergroove (tues 30th oct). In danger of antagonizing you a bit, are you suggesting that it is the job of a builder to draw up thier own sections by which to build by supergroove?</p>
<p> </p> -
the hairdresser just cuts hair seasons.
&
The universities do not hold the crucible of construction knowledge.
It is an impossibility by definition.
Practicing architects, building designers and the industry probably do.
For an architectural office to fail to understand what knowledge circulates within it, and for it to fail to understand that it must deposit that knowledge in the next generation would be for me one definition of the unprofessional.
Howdy, Stranger!