Charrette:essay
How design reviews work in Architecture and Fine Art: a comparative study across one school of Fine Art and two schools of Architecture.
Jenny Marie, Nick Grindle. Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching, University College London.
ABSTRACT This paper compares student design reviews in Fine Art and Architecture degrees. We describe the ways that reviews run in each subject, identify salient points of difference, and make suggestions for further developing design reviews. We found that ‘crit’ sessions in both fields reveal tensions between their dual functions of judgment and teaching. We think that this is better resolved in Fine Art because the hierarchy of expertise is less evident, and that teachers in Architecture could consider separating the two functions. We observed high quality feedback on the content of design projects and we suggest ways of further supporting the learning outcomes of listening, presenting, participating in the disciplinary dialogue, and justifying work created intuitively. We also discuss the range of language used to denote design reviews and how these emphasize different aspects of the review’s purposes to students and their reviewers.
KEYWORDS crits, judgment, feedback, participation, threshold concepts
Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 36 ISSN: 2054-6718 Introduction resentment was therefore the second pair of factors that drove us to take an interest in this In this paper, we consider the public review of area. Did students experience this process the student work as an event in the curricula of same way in Fine Art and Architecture and Architecture and Fine Art degrees.1 We discuss was there anything that either subject could what makes it function well and why students learn from the other about how to make crits experience reviews differently in these less stressful? subjects. The broader context of our interest is peer review in other disciplines. What we found was that the differences in how crits run in Fine Art and Architecture are We are taking Architecture and Fine Art as subtle but important, and that there was a lot exemplary instances of subjects where the that they could offer each other, as well as opportunity for peer learning is deeply other disciplines. embedded in the disciplinary culture, though this opportunity is not fully realised in both We start with the observations, but first we cases. The paper draws on conversations we must make a brief note about the word ‘crit,’ have had with staff and students in various pending a fuller discussion of terminology disciplines and on a number of participant later in the paper. Parnell and Sara say the term observations we have done of undergraduate ‘[doesn’t] imply there is a positive side to the seminars in an internationally renowned school review process.’3 Perhaps with this in mind, of Fine Art (where all the years participated the school of Fine Art and Architecture school together) and first-year undergraduate and B both tried to avoid the use of the word. first-year postgraduate design reviews in two Literature from both fields shows that both the internationally renowned schools of term and many of its negative connotations are Architecture. The number of observations (five widely recognized.4 For the most part, we have reviews from various disciplines such as used ‘design review’ instead, although the term painting and fine art media in the school of has limited currency in Fine Art practice. Fine Art, a similar number for different degrees in Architecture school A and one days’ Architecture school A – First year BSc worth of crits in Architecture school B) was Architecture crits intended to provide some preliminary insights into the key issues, and give us an opportunity The two instances of interim first year BSc to look ahead to how the study might be Architecture design reviews we observed expanded. Our conclusions are provisional, began at 10:00 and went on until 19:00 with an and should promote thought and discussion hour for lunch, thus totalling 8 hours, which amongst practitioners so that they can further was divided into two sessions of four hours develop their own practice in this area and each. The work of almost one hundred students make their own crits more effective learning (the whole of the first year) was considered by events. four parallel panels, with each student having fifteen minutes to present their work and Two sets of factors led us to take an interest in receive feedback. Each session was populated the crit. The first pair of factors was resilience by approximately twelve to fifteen students. and resonance. The crit is a mode of learning The panels were formed of one or two tutors that has characterized learning and teaching in who were permanent members of staff and one Architecture and Fine Art since the nineteenth or two guests, who dipped in and out and could century.2 This resilience interested us since it be higher year students or people from another resonated with current moves in other subjects institution. The panel formed a fairly tight to develop more effective modes of peer circle around the individual, their drawings and learning. It seemed to us that Architecture models (done at scale 1:200) and they alone might offer other disciplines some insight into commented on the work. The other students how students learn from one another in formal appeared to pay little attention to the taught settings. Conversations with colleagues, conversation, instead sitting around or some of whom were architects, and mounting or taking down their project work conversations with students also made us (though there was more attention paid in the aware that crits generated more stress among first crit of the year compared to the final one, students than almost any other mode of possibly following our feedback on this to teaching and assessment. Resistance and staff). The rooms were small, it was difficult to Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 37 ISSN: 2054-6718 sit or move without knocking into student occasionally contributing to the discussion that work, and there was a lot of coming and going. followed the presentation. We observed some design reviews alone, and some together. In both cases we each made In terms of feedback, the UD review we notes and discussed them at a later date. We observed saw the panel members agreeing that were invited to sit on some of the panels and this was a good, convincing project. A number found ourselves unaware of what the other of criticisms were nevertheless made which the students were doing at these times, but also student could use to further his work. The aware that they could not see the drawings or GAD review we observed provided very direct models under review, so even if desired it feedback on the perceived low quality of the would be difficult for staff to involve the other work and reasons were provided for this but at students in the conversation. quite a general level, so that it was not immediately clear what steps the students The design reviews are only done as formative could take in order to improve the work. assessment – their sole purpose is to further develop the students’ work and abilities via Architecture school B – First year BSc feedback and the activities the students Architecture reviews undertake during the review. They play no part in establishing students’ final mark for the At school B, the reviews of student work are module. called design reviews for reasons explained in our introduction. We observed one day of a Architecture school A – First year two-day set of reviews, which began at 09:30 MArch crits and finished at 17:30 with an hour for lunch and a break during each session. Over the two We observed one set of reviews for two days, the work of ninety students was different programmes at MArch level at school considered by four parallel sessions. Students A. The reviews for the Urban Design (UD) were expected to attend for the morning or programme took place over three days of seven afternoon session they were presenting in and and a half hours, with students giving encouraged to attend others, though we saw individual presentations of approximately little sign of the latter. The sessions were fifteen minutes followed by thirty minutes of overseen by two to three staff. Staff and feedback from a jury of nine to ten people. The students gathered around the work of the reviews for the Graduate Architectural Design presenting student, who presented for ten (GAD) programme took place over two days minutes without interruption, except for time of seven and a half hours. Here students warnings. Three students presented in a row presented joint projects in pairs, where each then the presenting students left the room for individual had been given a theme and the pair 15 minutes while the staff and students formed had to combine the two in their project. The two separate groups to take a closer look at the student presentations here lasted fifteen to work and plan the feedback they would offer. twenty minutes and were followed by The student review group was expected to approximately fifteen minutes of feedback offer feedback first but often required the staff from a jury of nine to ten people. to prompt them with comments and questions. The staff then offered their own opinion and For both programmes, the presentations were advice on improving the work for submission oral but supported by presentation software, and on how to approach their next design models and in some cases drawings. In the UD project. The models and drawings were done reviews the room was also being utilized by to a larger scale than at school A, which helped other students continuing their design work, to make them visible to the reviewers. while a number sat behind the panel. The latter sometimes seemed to be paying attention and The final design reviews that we observed at other times were looking at, what were were worth fifteen per cent of the project mark, presumably, the notes for their own upcoming based on the effectiveness of the presentation presentations. The GAD reviews had their own rather than the quality of the work. Students room and there were far more students present, then had a further week to ten days to modify sitting behind the jury, again paying their work prior to the final submission of their intermittent attention to the proceedings, and portfolio. Thus the reviews had a dual assessment function – both formative in terms Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 38 ISSN: 2054-6718 of the quality of the students’ design work and secondarily through anything the student summative in terms of their ability to present it presents orally. In Fine Art the visual in a face-to-face setting. representation of ideas is the artwork itself, while in Architecture the drawings and models The undergraduate reviews at schools A and B are both the work itself and a representation of were both concerned more with design the work. In both subjects we observed that concepts rather than technology solutions. The staff were keen for students to use the occasion MArch reviews at school A retained a focus on to explain their work to an audience and also to design but gave more time to discuss themselves. Reviews in Architecture and technological implications. seminars in Fine Art are not a presentation of finished work. In both subjects the presentation Fine Art seminars format is used to help the students review and interrogate their own work and working Seminars in Fine Art typically involve a cohort processes, with a view to producing better of fifteen to twenty students, two to four tutors, work in future. and maybe visitors, who are usually other tutors or visiting artists. The session will look The way that Architecture and Fine Art use at the work of four or five students, and last presentations to help students reflect on their between two to three hours long. This is the work is especially significant at a time when case for theory reviews as well as for practice- resource constraints, driven in part by the based sessions and sessions are held focusing move to modularisation, mean that many other on different student work every fortnight, so subjects are cutting back on the amount of that each student can expect to have their work formative assessment that students as the focus of a seminar at least once a term. experience.5 It is worth noting that the The session is typically informal, with the only architectural schools’ decision to modularise real structure being the move from looking at their curricula has been resisted by the School one student’s work to another, which is of Fine Art, as they want to assess the work sometimes marked by the move from one holistically, with the end of final year show location to another. Tutors usually give the being seen as an accurate indicator of the student the choice as to whether they want to standard of the students' work. speak first, to introduce the piece, or listen to what the others in the group want to say. One Another similarity between the reviews is the tutor described it in the following terms: ‘It’s a apparent reflection of professional practice. In bit like a Quaker meeting. There’s quiet until Architecture, the studio is supposed to simulate somebody feels they have something to say.’ the architect’s office and the review is intended The tone of the discussion is conversational, to echo the presentation of work to clients, and students and tutors all participate, with the although the extent to which it actually does so tutors acting as facilitators. As with is hard to ascertain. In Fine Art the comments Architectural design reviews at School A, the of peers and tutors in a seminar setting helps assessment is purely formative. Comments the students develop their critical faculties, given by both tutors and students will tend to which they may use with regard to their own gravitate towards feedback to the artist about work or the work of others, and it also helps where they might focus their subsequent them learn how to respond to critical opinion efforts. when their own work is under scrutiny. It is perhaps worth noting that the distinction Comparison between artist and critic is not at all like the distinction between architect and client. Even Both modes of review share many points of when an artist writes as a critic, as many do, form: students and staff gather in a room and a they are still writing as an artist; and student’s work is discussed. This is like the professional critics who are not artists have student presentations which feature in many very close relationships with the artists about other subjects, with a few differences. In the whom they write. Famous recent examples fields of Architecture and Fine Art they have a include Clement Greenberg and Kenneth much more prominent role in the curriculum Nolan, David Sylvester and Francis Bacon, and the culture of the discipline; and the and Benjamin Buchloh and Gerhard Richter. review focuses on the student's work This perhaps explains why the Fine Art School represented foremost by a visual medium and were so happy to have us come and observe: Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 39 ISSN: 2054-6718 an interest in the artist’s working process is presentation and the students were instructed key to artistic practice and critical reputation. to practise these, feedback was focused on the While there are obvious differences between work rather than the presentation in all the the professional environments for critique and reviews (architectural and Fine Art) that we student reviews the assessment is nevertheless observed. We were in fact struck by the low seen as authentic and justified in this way. quality of oral presentation skills of the MArch students we observed in contrast to their The Purpose of Reviews drawing and visual presentation skills.
In order to understand why the reviews are so Donald Schön has emphasised that listening, important in Architecture and Fine Art, it is along with imitating, is one of the main important to identify what exactly is going on learning strategies for architectural students – in the reviews. As Margaret Wilkin has its development is thus crucial.7 An architect at pointed out, design reviews have a dual a third school, where we did not conduct purpose, of delivering a public judgement observations, said how important it was that about the merit of a student’s work, but also of students listened to their peers’ tutorials while teaching the student.6 The element of judgment waiting for their own turn to present. Though is particularly noticeable. One of the the context is slightly different, this suggests Architecture tutors at school A we spoke to that this is an anticipated learning outcome for told us that it was considered important to the reviews. Schools A and B both had waiting make it clear how good the work was in the time where the students were expected to feedback, so that the students were clear about watch and learn from their fellow students. We where they needed to focus their development observed that at School B this time was efforts and we observed students receiving structured around a specific activity and feedback on both the outcome and process of students only came to part of the day, meaning their work. At Architecture school B, the they were in groups of only six. This was students left with clear ideas about how to different to School A, where the students were develop their work prior to submission and the asked to turn up at the beginning of the day, in presentation itself was subject to judgement, in the expectation that they would listen to a terms of counting towards their final grade for days’ worth of presentations. We think that the project. students at School B listened more successfully than at School A because only in While the feedback was less directive in the School B was listening structured as a specific Fine Art reviews, the staff and students taking and well defined activity and because they did part in the seminar sought to come to some not face the same presentation fatigue that kind of consensus about the merit of the work comes with an entire day of presentations.8 In under review, and wanted to help each other their sessions, the best possible use was made understand it better. In one instance a student’s of the waiting time, whereas the purpose of the work was judged by the whole group to be waiting time appeared to have been lost on below standard in spite of his claims about its students at School A. worth, and the student in question was told by his tutor to work harder. Judgement thus It is our opinion that while students were remains very much a public affair in both expected to present and listen, this is not disciplines. sufficient to develop these skills and so it is unsurprising that we observed little evidence Learning Outcomes of these skills being well developed in the MArch students (who would originally have Our observations and discussions suggested been trained at a wide range of architectural that possible learning outcomes for reviews schools). At School B, presentation skills were include the ability of students to further summatively assessed and thus there was some develop their design work, the development of feedback (in terms of a mark) regarding them presentation and listening skills, ability to take and a motivation for students to develop them. part in the discipline's dialogue and to justify However, skills are developed via reflective work that might be created more intuitively. practise, with the accepted learning cycle The teaching function was prominent in all of including elements of practise, reflection, the reviews. However, while the reviews at theorization on how to improve and the testing 9 Architectural School B carried marks for the of such theories through further practise. All Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 40 ISSN: 2054-6718 the architectural schools we observed offered good). A Fine Art student was castigated by the opportunity to practise these skills but in his peers and tutors because the justification he school A there was little incentive to do so. As offered for his work seemed to them Schön notes, there is indirect feedback inadequate. We could sympathise with these available on the students’ listening through students, because it is difficult for students to their later ability to act on their own see that intuition and justification can be feedback.10 However, this is not true of the reconciled, and that it’s imperative for people listening they must do during waiting time and working in creative industries to learn how to indeed this listening will be different in nature, do so. The tutor’s point raises a key question: as it does not require operational attention. does Architectural education offer an Neither school appeared to offer constructive environment that is conducive to the feedback on these skills or to support development of effective professional intuition facilitated self-reflection (which is increasingly that can also be justified? Intuition is a being recognized as an important aspect of any personal unconscious process. Deep personal feedback).11 reflection is thus needed to move the process into the conscious and allow a person to Furthermore, students can only learn the publicly justify their work.13 In their discussion disciplinary dialogue (another possible of how students can learn from reviews, anticipated learning outcome of the reviews), if Parnell and Sara advise students to persevere: they really do listen (and preferably ‘You might not “get it” now, but if you hang in participate), at the very least in their own there, you might just find that everything falls review. Some of the tutors in Architectural into place later.’14 We agree that justifying School A reported that students were anxious your intuitions is a threshold concept which and so failed to take in the feedback they presents a barrier to achievement but which received.12 In the first year reviews we has a transformative effect when ‘everything observed a panel member taking notes for the falls into place.’ We suggest that reflection, as students and other tutors have told us that they well as perseverance, is key to getting to this encourage students to ask a friend to take notes transformation.15 Clearer direction to materials for them. The inability to think clearly due to on reflective writing may be a good place to the stress and last minute working will inhibit start.16 this learning about the discipline’s mode of discussion. This problem did not appear to We saw that students in Architecture found exist in the Fine Art reviews that we observed. this distinction hard to stomach, and this is Here, the students appeared to consider the almost certainly because of the very public feedback they received carefully and in some nature of the review. A distinguished Professor cases responded to it or asked for clarification, in Architecture recognized that the public and there was more student participation in nature of the review represents a great reviewing than in the architectural reviews we opportunity for the students to learn from one observed. another, but at the same time, the spectre of public judgement adds to the stress. On the Tutors in both Architecture and Fine Art other hand, students in Fine Art did not agreed that a purpose of the review was to help struggle with this distinction, largely because students understand their own work better. It the emphasis was on explaining their intuition seemed to us that this stated outcome fitted to the public, and reflecting on it in the light of well with what we observed in Fine Art, but what other people said, rather than having to less well in Architecture. One particularly justify it in such a way that their intuition intriguing comment came from a tutor in transcended its subjectivity and became Architectural School A, who said: ‘[The acceptable to the public’s judgment. review is a] space for students to consolidate their ideas [...] [We are] teaching students to The Public operate intuitively - but then to justify their ideas.’ Justification certainly loomed large in Studio work is public inasmuch that it occurs the review process. We observed one in a space shared with other students and staff. Architecture student being told that they over- At the Fine Art School the studio space was analysed everything, while another was denied one of the most public places on campus – his review because he refused to justify his without the requirement of most other work (which we were told happened to be very buildings for visitors to show an ID card. Work Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 41 ISSN: 2054-6718 is thus available for viewing whether it is at a meant by the ‘public’ and is in keeping with very early stage or ready for display in a Peter Collins’ suggestion that architectural gallery. The architectural studios were more judgment is a complex, professional matter, in private and professionalized spaces. which the wider population can only Furthermore, the semi-private nature of participate very superficially.18 Design reviews architectural drawings (as opposed to finalised are where students should learn which designs, or actual buildings) may explain why architectural values are normally considered as public design reviews in Architecture can be contestable and which are taken for granted. an uncomfortable affair. Yet by giving directive feedback, the staff seem to reinforce the perception that Helena The two disciplines dealt with the problem of Webster found amongst first year students that public judgement quite differently. To there are absolute architectural values, and that understand how they did so, we should stop a until these values are mastered, students are moment and clarify the two key terms here, disbarred from citizenship in this public.19 ‘judgement’ and ‘public.’ Both terms can mean a wide range of things. The philosopher David Students may see the passport to citizenship as Hume argued in his essay On the Standard of achieving good marks: James Benedict Brown Taste (first published in 1757) that taste could (2013) refers to the student tendency to think be decided by appeal to a community of that marks represent objective values. This also individuals whose judgement had been formed raises the question of what may stand as a by exposure to the best examples of the subject 'public' in the context of judging live project in question. On one hand, matters of taste were work, since the architectural community forms not purely personal, but on the other hand, they one public and the client is another, and work could not be proved. They were public, and that is highly valued by one may not be judged subject to the public’s judgement. so highly by the other: a problem that reflects that existing in professional architectural It is probably no accident that Hume was practice. trying to define judgment at the very time when drawings, buildings and paintings were While Architectural School B avoided the trap coming to enjoy a rather higher status than of reinforcing the notion of absolute other forms of design such as ceramics and architectural value and the public became engravings. Hume’s work allowed architects architectural staff and students, the staff were and artists to claim a pre-eminence in matters clearly perceived as the experts and students as of taste based on their collective experience, peripheral participants in the architectural which in turn boosted their efforts to be community of practice, to use Lave and recognised as liberal professions. For Hume, Wenger’s terms.20 There was thus the the important point is that judgment is a public possibility of the students seeing themselves as phenomenon, and that to be a member of this waiting for the correct advice and opinions of public means to agree with one another in the staff at the end of the review.21 matters of judgment. Each term cannot exist without the other. Susan Orr, amongst others, In the School of Fine Art, in contrast, expertise has picked this point up in her writing about was not so clearly expressed. If students still design reviews, and has shown that it is exhibited many of the same behaviours as the important to pay attention to the ways in which students in the Architecture reviews, such as a culture reifies its values and initiates speaking less than the tutors and letting them newcomers through practices such as taking have the final word, the group was constituted part in disciplinary dialogue.17 But as a differently and had a different dynamic. Staff Humean notion of the ‘academy’ gave way to and students commonly discussed a student’s more specialist training and language in work for up to 30 minutes, and sought to come Architecture in the nineteenth century, to some agreed judgment about its merits, entitlement to judge was restricted to people before feeding their points back to the student who were endorsed by professional bodies. in question. At least one Fine Art tutor has said they want to preserve the ‘rich culture of In School A’s design reviews we did not once people’ that ideally characterizes art-school observe a non-presenting student taking part in education. In seminars we saw that students the discussion of work with a jury. This were willing to comment on each other’s work, reflects a more exclusive notion of what is Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 42 ISSN: 2054-6718 to exchange and respond to comments given these public standards. What is interesting by each other as well as by the tutors. about Architecture is that the ‘crit’ is a mode of learning that is sustained through We might better render the tension between undergraduate and postgraduate training and intuition and judgment in terms of the into professional life. This gives student relationship between ‘the work presented,’ in learning a strong feeling of proximity to the other words the outcome of the intuitive ‘subject itself,’ and is compounded by the processes of the student, and ‘the subject willingness of tutors to use the ‘crit’ mode of itself,’ taken here to mean the collective teaching as a means of pointing out the gap understanding of what constitutes the subject, between the ‘work presented’ and the ‘subject as expressed in judgments delivered by the itself.’ Such willingness is what gives the ‘crit’ experts. What distinguishes Fine Art from such a brutal reputation, but we might also say Architecture is a mode of teaching in which that it is what enables students to feel that they staff and students participate in discussion are being brought into the community of about a student’s work. In other words they practice. What is particularly noteworthy is take the student’s work as the subject matter of that it is the design review itself, i.e. the mode the teaching. While spoken or written of learning, that both highlights the gap presentations happen in most academic between student work and professional subjects in HE from the earliest stages of practice, and makes visible the closing of that study, ‘the work presented’ usually has an gap. In many other academic subjects the auxiliary function of some sort in relation to mode of learning’s relationship to the what might be called ‘the subject itself,’ which outcomes of learning is veiled in mystery. is usually comprised of a canonical body of Staff very rarely explain to students why their knowledge about some specific subject matter. learning takes the mode it does. But in This is true of classroom activity such as an Architecture we have witnessed that some at oral presentation, a piece of coursework, an least do. examination paper, or a dissertation. The clarity of the distinction between ‘the work Terminology presented’ and ‘the subject itself’ is what distinguishes undergraduate from postgraduate The differences within and between the study. Undergraduates usually perform tasks in disciplines of Architecture and Fine Art are relation to a previously identified body of reflected and revealed by the terms given by knowledge, whereas a PhD dissertation (and, each school to the review session. In ideally, all subsequent work) is understood as a Architecture school A the term ‘crit’ (or contribution to the field itself. In Fine Art, this critique) is evocative of receiving criticism on distinction between ‘the work presented’ and one’s work (with the intention of the student ‘the subject itself’ is almost meaningless, since then improving it) and this is reinforced by the work presented in reviews and seminars is calling the review panel the ‘jury.’ Notions of taken as the very subject of learning itself. It is feedback are more sophisticated than just not a representation of the subject, and nor can criticism these days, with a recognition that the subject be conceived purely in terms of its students require feedback on their strengths (in representation (as it is in some subjects, e.g. order to retain them) as well as development history is nothing other than what historians areas and though both were provided in School write). A, the foregrounding of criticism may begin to account for the stressfulness of the occasion Architecture lies somewhere in-between. for students and may also foreshadow this Unlike Fine Art, there is a gap between the purpose in the minds of staff. ‘work presented’ and the ‘subject itself.’ A clear expression of this gap is the presence of a In Architecture school B, the term ‘design panel of authority figures in the ‘crit.’ Their review’ is far more neutral. Interestingly it puts domination of discussion and feedback the emphasis of the review on the design work suggests that the ‘work presented’ functions as rather than the presentation (which was the a representation of the subject in question, assessed part of the day) and thus reflected where ‘the subject’ is defined less as a Platonic quite well what actually happened but perhaps form, and more as a public set of knowledge, not all the intended learning outcomes. skills, and attributes. The aim of the (Readers may note that we have opted to use presentation is to be judged to have achieved the term ‘design review’ in our own writing). Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 43 ISSN: 2054-6718 In the school of Fine Art the term ‘seminar’ still more at ease when contributing to obscures the reviewing function of the discussion. sessions, foregrounding the conversational and participatory nature of the session, and The process of learning to participate begins signifying that each attendee assumes some for Fine Art students during their foundation responsibility for the group’s learning. The course. Students are carefully selected during major intention of them thus appears to be one the recruitment process and the School of Fine of learning through the work of a student Art’s students are encouraged to attend and rather than reviewing and offering feedback take part in all seminars in the first term of (though this was a significant outcome of the their degree, not just the seminars in the field sessions we observed). in which they might specialise (i.e. painting, sculpture, or Fine Art media). All seminars The term ‘seminar’ used in Fine Art suggests a were also held in mixed-year groups. In process closer to the tutorials in Architecture, contrast, at the architectural schools higher which are also known in Architecture school A year students were invited to be part of the as ‘desk crits.’ The distinction perhaps being reviewing staff teams but lower year students that a single tutorial focuses on one student’s did not seem to be invited to higher year work and they receive feedback and guidance reviews. on how to go forward with it (and other students are perhaps expected to listen in and Staff at the School of Fine Art simply expected learn through the conversation) whereas the the students to participate and the presenting seminars in Fine Art are structured to allow student had full control of all their allotted learning through a range of different students’ time. A chemistry staff member who reviewed work. the Fine Art School emphasized to us the importance of student ownership for making The timing of the reviews also suggests this the reviews work as true peer learning. The distinction between the major purpose being students own the space, the time and the way formative feedback in Architecture and a mode that their review runs. Though the actions of of learning in Fine Art. The latter occurred on the staff at Architecture school B were not so a regular basis throughout the term, whereas different (they prompted and cajoled the the architectural reviews occurred at set points students into commenting), the students did not in a module, with all students being reviewed own the space, time or the reviews in the same at the same time in the module’s timespan. way. There was a prescribed format to the This distinction probably also relates to the session and once the feedback section had modular basis of Architecture, where projects begun the students were fairly passive have discrete time-spans and for fairness recipients of it. students need to receive comparable experiences (i.e. feedback at comparable stages The major difference appeared to be in terms of the project) - an issue that does not apply in of who are the teachers and who are the the same way in Fine Art’s non-modular learners. In the school of Fine Art everyone programme. was both to a fairly equal extent, though the staff could perhaps have their own work Participation reviewed if they wished to push this even further. In both architectural schools the staff The level of student participation varied were clearly the teachers and the students the between the schools, with none apart from the learners and it is not clear to what extent this presenting student(s) in Architectural School could be changed in a degree that leads to A, through to high levels of participation in the professional accreditation, where one must be School of Fine Art. Participation is a learned accredited to practise – this notion lays down process: as one Fine Art tutor noted, ‘these are notions of expert and novice before one has not by nature very co-operative people,’ and even begun. nor are they inclined to comment on each other’s work. In our observations we noted that The ‘rich culture of people’ ethos in the Fine third-year students were more likely to Art seminars point to the fact that this is a contribute to discussion than second-year much more open kind of citizenship than students; and graduate students in turn seemed prevails in Architecture. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger have called this a ‘community of Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 44 ISSN: 2054-6718 practice’ and have suggested that in this kind because they are not sufficiently well of public, 'opportunities for learning are, more acculturated to the practice. often than not, given structure by work practices instead of by strongly asymmetrical Conclusion master-apprentice relations.’22 Their comments allow us to contrast Fine Art seminars with The Architecture reviews we observed were Architecture design reviews, which place more less participatory and more hierarchical than emphasis on the formality of relationships, as the Fine Art seminars we saw. We began our mediated through the contributions of ‘experts’ investigation thinking that it would be better if and the provision of feedback. For example, Architecture reviews became more like Fine students and tutors exchange views in what is Art seminars. Our investigations forced us to ideally a constructive dialogue in the Fine Art change our minds, for two reasons. seminars, and students very rarely wrote down anything that was said. In Architecture school Firstly, we quickly came to see that the B, on the other hand, students are encouraged differences in how ‘crits’ ran in Fine Art and to record the comments delivered by the tutor, Architecture were accounted for by the tighter or at least have a friend act as their scribe. structure of Architecture as a profession. Like doctors and lawyers, architects need to train Peer review in other disciplines for minimum seven years before being licensed by a public authority. There is thus a Peer learning is being increasingly used in strong sense of expertise in Architecture that is other disciplines as it has many benefits over both public, and exclusive. Students aspire to didactic teaching: students are often being membership of this public and understandably better able than their teachers to explain they are willing to receive feedback and conceptual problems to other students and the guidance on their work from the expert. The active learning involved helps them to develop notion of expertise is also at work in Fine Art, their own understanding.23 We suggest that but within the confines of the art school, it is peer review is more suitable for disciplines more loosely defined. Participation in this where knowledge is contested. This fits with public is recognized by the value of the our belief that judgment is a public matter, if contributions an individual makes to a we take 'public' to refer to a community of discussion, rather than their formal practitioners, rather than something that can be qualifications. This distinction accounts for proven logically or empirically. We think there much of the difference in the extent to which is less recognition of the contested nature of students felt competent to take part in the values in Architecture than in Fine Art, and discussions in Fine Art and Architecture this may explain why there seems to be less in reviews and the extent to which they primarily the way of ‘peer review’ in Architecture design wanted staff feedback. One clear expression of reviews than in Fine Art seminars, but this these distinctions was that all the Architecture simply means that the notion of public programmes we observed were project-based, judgment is constituted differently in each whereas the Fine Art programmes (both at the subject. same school) were practice-based.
The broader and more important point is that The second reason our expectations were judgment works in Architecture and Fine Art confounded was that we came to see how in a way at it does not in other subjects. Values Architecture used the environment of the crit are contestable, but there are still standards to both make visible the distance between the that are agreed on by the community. In other work that students produced, and the standards subjects, especially the STEM subjects, the deemed acceptable by experts. This is the degree to which this is made apparent by the function of judgment, and champions of the curriculum may be far less evident to traditional mode of crits will argue that it is undergraduate students. As one deputy head of what makes the experience of the crit both a large university Economics department told authentic and frightening. us, students in turn may not be sufficiently well placed to offer good-quality feedback on If the crit draws attention to the gap between each other’s work, not only because they do the work presented and the standards required, not understand the subject properly, but also it is less easy to see how it can help to diminish that distance. We argue above that simply Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 45 ISSN: 2054-6718 making the gap visible can be a great help to the students to develop their listening skills, students. In many academic subjects the this opportunity was not realised due to the standards required at expert level are difficulties of seeing the work and the students completely hidden from students, which may took little advantage of it in the reviews that explain why undergraduate teaching often has we observed. We would therefore recommend a diminished status in many areas of university that architectural schools seriously consider life: it is too commonly regarded as being what motivation they are providing to students separate from other aspects of professional to encourage them to listen and learn from practice, especially research. This is not the conversations about other students work: Attoe case in Architecture, where the candid has suggested that this is another mechanism exposure of first year students to professional for students to learn how to direct their own standards accounts for the ‘atmosphere of reviews.27 The opportunities to learn from doubt’ about whether crits are an effective listening and participating in others reviews do teaching method, but also the presence of not necessarily need to be as structured as highly regarded practitioners on the teaching those at School B, but there needs to be an staff of leading institutions.24 Again, a expectation for students to do so as there was comparison with the status of teaching in at both School B and the School of Fine Art. In Medicine and Law may be appropriate.25 this way students will gradually develop from novices into expert practitioners. Notice should The fact remains that our observations also be taken of Tim Brindley, Charles Doige revealed a tension between judgment and and Ross Willmott’s warning that changes teaching functions of reviews. Feedback on need to be implemented from the first year work is desired from experts but much of the cohort and visitors need to be well briefed, as learning from the reviews should come from it is easy to slip back into the traditional mode student participation in the provision of of running reviews.28 feedback. The most effective way of tackling this problem would be to separate the two, This article is the first comparison of crits in such that there are teaching sessions, where the Fine Art and Architecture. Design reviews do students review architectural work in order to work, in spite of the many issues highlighted in learn how to participate in the dialogue, and the literature on crits, some of which we have reviews of student work, where the main aim is noted here. A comparison with Fine Art helps to provide feedback to students. The latter explain the resilience and resonance of the could be given in private and perhaps by fewer design review process, as well as offering members of staff to reduce the student stress some clues about why it is resented in its and staff workload. There is a danger here of traditional form by many students and tutors. reinforcing the notion of absolute architectural Our study has shown that some of this values, held by the experts, but we would resistance arises from a struggle to see how expect that this could be tackled in the judgment and intuition can and must work teaching review sessions. Such a separation together in Architecture. Failure on the part of could have other benefits: Wayne Attoe students and tutors to get this crucial point recommends asking students to review presents a real barrier to understanding what building designs in order to better understand reviews are all about. Problems about the feedback they receive through reviews, judgment and the constitution of the with the ultimate aim of students being better professional community have recently been able to direct their reviews and make them addressed in Architecture by the work of more productive.26 Helena Webster, and in Fine Art by Susan Orr. Our contribution is to suggest that getting If schools do not wish to separate the two intutition and judgment to work together is a functions, there is still much that can be done crucial element in learning in this field, what to improve the situation. It was clear to us that Ray Land might describe as a threshold Architectural School B had taken proactive practice. We’ve offered some suggestions steps to encourage students to participate and about ways that architectural educators can this should improve the students’ learning adapt design reviews to allow students to cross outcomes in terms of their ability to listen and this threshold. Our observations are only take part in the disciplinary dialogue. While preliminary and we think there is much further the time that students spend waiting in ‘crits’ work to be done in this area. in School A may be seen as an opportunity for Charrette 1(1) Summer 2014 46 ISSN: 2054-6718 References ! (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1987), pp. 1 We would like to thank the reviewers and 87-88. the editor for many helpful comments 14 Parnell and Sara, The Crit, p. 95. made on earlier drafts of this paper. 15 For threshold concepts see Jan Meyer 2 Rosie Parnell and Rachel Sara, with and Ray Land, ‘Threshold Concepts and Charles Doige and Mark Parsons, The Troublesome Knowledge – Linkages to Crit: An Architecture Students’ Handbook, Ways of Thinking and Practising,’ in 2nd edn. (Oxford: Architectural Press, Improving Student Learning – Ten Years 2007), p. v. On, ed. by Chris Rust (Oxford: Oxford 3 Parnell and Sara, The Crit, p.4. Centre for Learning and Staff 4 For Architecture, see Parnell and Sara, Development, 2003), 412-424. The Crit. For Fine Art see Richard Roth, 16 See, for example, Pete Wotton, Jane ‘The Crit,’ Art Journal, 58.1 (1999), Collings, and Jenny Moon, Reflective pp.32-35. Writing: Guidance Notes for Students 5 On the decline in formative assessment,
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