Not a One-Size-Fits-All Architectural Education

In the UK, architectural education is defined by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Architects Registration Board (ARB). While it has and continues to evolve, since the 1960’s it has been structured and audited around the predominant study of design (50% of coursework), over a typically 6-year Full-time RIBA 3-Part journey that requires a student to follow the traditional (white) male career path. Part-time and Apprenticeship (or on-the-job training) architecture courses offer alternative routes of study which are longer and/or without debt accumulation. Still, this education structure, whether 3-part or potentially 2-part, requires a student to fit into a work lifestyle stereotype that centres on a long-hours work culture that often prioritises work over personal life that excludes many people of diverse backgrounds.

Unlike other research that sees design studio teaching as the only problem, this chapter asks difficult questions and takes practical steps to address systemic flaws in architectural education’s pedagogical structure that limit professional identity formations. It argues that architecture courses need to be designed bottom-up – rather than top-down – around the needs and identities of a diverse range of students with differing aspirations for the lifestyle they want and the kind of architect they’d like to be. After analysing a range of genealogical diagrams including Zaera-Polo & Abascal’s (2016) “Architecture’s “Political Compass”: A Taxonomy of Emerging Architecture in One Diagram”, it proposes how to structure a Not a one-size-fits-all architectural education. It argues that unless this is implemented the profession will continue to be exclusive and unwelcoming to students and graduates of differing gender, race, ethnicity, class, economic background, age, and life stage with care responsibilities or who are money or time poor.