Education Vs. Practice

It is interesting while working through this Live Project to note the comparisons and obvious discrepancies between what we are taught at University and what we do in practice.

The major concentration within education and learning at university today is primarily on the design modules; teaching students how to create fantastical environments and habitable spaces based around a magical world where seemingly economics and politics are warped and inconsistent with reality. Students are surprised when reality dawns on them in their fourth year, when they finally [hopefully] recieve a placement opportunity and discover that their once highly accredited "Nanocomposites with photosynthetic coatings capable of generating energy" are but a hope or a dream [at best]!

Design at university takes very little into account of todays actual architectural responsibilities. We were today asked to produce a 'feasability study document', after an air of silence an example was produced; it being quickly decided that even in practice we had never been asked to create such a document.

We are of course encouraged to push the bounds of architecture, to perhaps go "where no man has gone before" but where does reality begin, and the realms of futurism begin?

"Zero Carbon" - a buzz word thrown around by the government a lot today is discussed as meaning very little; but how much of this knowledge is passed up beyond university teaching? Do architects help their clients understand that "zero carbon" is an almost physical impossibility - is it even the architects responsibilty to head this discussion, amongst his or hers' other responsibilities?

Of course, amongst design, technical knowledge is critical, the architect must produce specifications, diagrams, feasabilities, letters and emails... the list goes on... All these things vastly out-weigh that of design, and yet, these documents rarely appear in design portfolios.

This is not all to say that design is not important - far from it! Design is crucial, however, students are wrapped up in a design bubble believing that they will be sat behind a drawing board or computer churning out magnificent and glorious monuments for society for generations to come; the reality being that they will in fact, most likely be slumped at a desk, orchestrating the many crucial cogs in the vast architectural machine attempting to appease and satisfy a forever developing brief in an ever developing [declining] economy.