What Can Possibly Go Wrong? Three Examples of Recurrent Deficiencies in the Teaching of Architectural Design

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic study on studio teaching at five leading European architecture schools, the paper at hand identifies three repeatedly occurring deficiencies (as well as one related problem) in the teaching of architectural design. Drawing on empirical data, the paper describes how ‘epistemic positions’ are shifted without reflection, that serious efforts at translating tacit into propositional knowledge are (too) scarce, and how procedures are not rigorously linked to the respective objects of study. In addition to tackling these three deficiencies, the paper calls for developing corresponding ways of critique assessment that reflect the aspired improvements.