The Elephant in the Room: How neoliberal architecture education undermines wellbeing

This essay examines the performative space of neoliberal architectural education in the United Kingdom, its history, attributes and values, focusing on staff and student wellbeing in relation to work-time. Here, it is argued that the unhealthy and imbalanced long work hours culture of the architectural design studio, which has been exacerbated under neoliberalism and post- pandemic through online studio teaching, needs to be acknowledged as ‘the elephant in the room’ of architectural education. As a workspace in which unhealthy work practices are acculturated, and consequently perpetuated from the university into the architect’s work life, the vertical unit system encourages a competitive ego culture at the expense of a balanced work life. In a neoliberal market economy, how might architectural design studio education be reframed to enhance wellbeing?