Critics (i)

Let’s face it. As students of architecture you will have to face the review and the jury over and over again… You have to defend your piece (of proposal; of thoughts; of ideas)…

 At the AA, they basically have crits, review and jury. Crits are when you present to your studiomates and your studiomaster. Review is when you have other critics involved. And Jury is when they look at all the work in your portfolio including the latest work. You will have a jury panel consisting of the most senior and difficult member of staff for your jury.

The UM school of architecture operates in almost the same way but differ at the jury part. We basically have crits and review, the equivalent being the Interim Crit and the Final Presentation. In a sense the Portfolio Review is the Jury, but this is not made ‘hard’ enough, unlike what is being practiced in the AA. Even the juror’s reputation will be at stake here. So imagine a studiomaster arguing intensely with another studiomaster over a student. Such a thing is discouraged in UM. They had a similar thing when I taught at UTM in the early 90s. But the worst argument was between the technical tutor and the studiomaster whose students’ work was more (shall we say) deconstructive or in other words, not being able to be constructed. That’s typical of Malaysian schools. I had experienced that once or twice in my early years as a lecturer at UM, for the 2nd – 4th cohorts, but not now. I think students nowadays are not really good ‘drawers’ (draughtsman) so they cannot really provide the amunition for argument. They tend to play it safe somehow.

I feel that the lack of drawing skills correspond with the lack of exploration. The lack of drawing skills here mean that the lack of manual drawing techniques.

Maybe we have to use different tactics and expectations now.

Group Teaching Method – Part 1

I had a few mentors in my career.

After doing my Diploma Senibina at UTM, Jalan Semarak in the mid-80s, I worked with Mas Othman Associates. I remembered being interviewed by Mas and he looked at my CV and then he looked at me, “You are a Gemini…(thoughtful look)…I am a Gemini and my best architect is a Gemini…(bla bla bla)…” I had forgotten the rest of what he said, but for the next 8 months before I worked for JKR (due to my scholarship requirements), I worked with Fred, a Filipino expatriate and the other Geminian, who was brilliant. I learned so much about how to work quickly, how to look at design and he really took care of us (the assistants). I suppose I really needed a mentor then to spark off ideas as it was quite a difficult time in my life (22 years old is always a difficult age…).

After that, in England where I did my first and second degree, with two years work experience, in the middle and the end… I met Steve Lightbody, a South African expatriate in the UK, who had an Accountancy Degree. I worked with him at two different firms after RIBA Part 1 & 2. Steve was an associate, and made sure that I threw away my straight-jacketed thinking, and drew my ideas straight from the heart. I became a “designer” working with him. Coming from UTM which was a very technical school, this was a revelation to me. It was also strategic that I worked at Rock Townsend in London after Part 1, where after work, I would attend AA’s evening lectures. The practical mundane activity in the day merged with the esoteric expansive idealism of the evening…

I had many friends who studied at the AA. I could not get into the AA with my scholarship, but I made sure that I followed the latest architectural discussions. There were ideas by Morphosis, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, John Fraser and all these well-known theorists and architects were making an impact with the London / UK architectural community. The AA was the centre of architectural thought and activity. You can see Zaha’s ideas being built now, but then she was regarded as an eccentric, to say the least.

Fast forward to where I am now currently involved in the curriculum review of our school, I know that the best school to be modeled after is the AA . In this blog, I would be candid enough to admit what I truly feel about architectural education. You need MASTERS with capitals. Individuals who will make impact on your development by taking his/her journey with you. You do not have to agree with the Master, but you will nevertheless learn from the Master. The Master preside over his/her Atelier and must provide a true apprenticeship system of learning with his/her students.

However, at UM, we are using not the Atelier method but the Group Teaching method. In all honesty, it may have less impact than the total apprenticeship system, or in another words, a watered-down version of the apprenticeship system. It relies on a lot of coordination to get to point A to B. I don’t really know whether it will really work to be honest. But we have to devise our system somehow to make it work.

The power point describes some of what I had discussed here. The job is not completed. I need to somehow help the school create a “semi-atelier concept” for the Group Teaching Method. Who knows ‘Malaysia Boleh’!

Group Teaching Method

Concept and Ideas

Here we go again on “concept and ideas”. There were some debates (not much really) on how early students of architecture should be exposed to”concepts”. In the 1st year or 2nd year? 1st year -definitely. So should it be in the 1st semester or 2nd semester. To me as early as possible. But we need a lot of coaching in the beginning. It’s a matter of mastering the language, both English and Architecture. With experience, the student of architecture would know instantly whether they buy someone’s so-called “concept” or not.

You sell concepts. Balinese, Japanese, Indian, Chinese…whatever…the different types of architecture are concepts. Like what Take Bane says, “I have an idea. Let’s go out!” “Where to?” “Let’s go out to have dinner” (Another idea…) ” Let’s have a Japanese dinner” (A concept…)

Perhaps the student of architecture would say, “My concept is a leaf!” “What?”, cried the studio master. ” A leaf is not a concept!” “Why not?”, says the student. “A leaf is an idea.” “???”, thought the confused student.

Another student would suddenly say, “My concept is ‘kegemilangan’ (glory)”. “Oh no”, says the studio master. “???”, confused student no. 2.

So, you cannot have “leaf” as a concept, and you cannot have “kegemilangan” (glory) as a concept, what can you have then???

Depending on the building type, brief and context, let’s take ‘leaf’ as an idea. We need to then ‘expand’ or ‘narrate’ the architecture that was inspired by the idea of the ‘leaf’. Here we can explain that the architecture has a ’spine’ which then feeds itself (flows into) capillaries ( or links or corridors) into parts of the building, creating an ‘organic’ concept. Because of the idea of ‘growth’ and the idea of the ‘leaf’, we see an emerging concept of an organic architecture. And how will we manage further.

We will then sketch the leaf and the growth and the strong bold strokes of the designer. We could spread it out, abundantly or we could rationalise it.

The seed of the design will emerge once we think broadly rather than narrowly. We must read and we must inquire throughout from the very start to the very end. Non stop. Till we are thoroughly satisfied.

5th Yr Design Crit

I attended part of the 5th year Design Thesis Crit Session yesterday. I had a look around and generally, I detected mostly crisp, just printed A3 sheets of information on the partitions, and less of grubby butter-paper and sketches type of visual presentation… except for a few of the students.

I only managed to attend 3 – 4 presentations, so I am just going to give a general impression of what I have seen and heard so far. (Perhaps not?)

Most of the students tend to be shy of taking risks and jumping into the conceptual design stage. Is it because they do not know how to (this is worrying) or because they play a “cat and mouse game” (this would be more worrying), and when they did jump into it, how did they do it (?) Was there much study and analysis involved earlier?

Okay, this is my opinion based on a few crits and looking at all the presentation on the boards fairly quickly. I could say that there was not much analysis done. Most of what is presented lack depth in the analysis and studies, because it is evident from the presentation that the students need to look into a bigger perspective, need to be more conceptual in their approach.

Somehow Azmi managed to have a more conceptual approach. If only he would say it in 10 minutes rather than 20 minutes. This in itself makes me conclude that Azmi is really feeling his way through. He needs a proper coach and he needs to be more cutting and precise. He also needs to dress up a bit more for the occasion. Don’t you want to catch more fish (possible employers) Azmi?

I did not manage to sit during Najwa’s presentation but I had an inkling how she had presented. It was much better than in the 4th year. She had improved and I think she genuinely like the topic. If she managed to get a few blind people to follow her around and she herself actually could relate how they feel and convey that to the critics, I would say she will do well in the thesis.

Well, that should give some idea about the 5th year crits this semester. I will just go around the 5th year studio when I can and ask the students personally about their projects.