The Importance of the Crit Panel

The Importance of the Crit Panel

Unlike the other years, from year one to four,  the Crit Panel in the Design Thesis Year is used differently. The biggest challenge for the studio coordinator is to form crit panels that could do the following:

1. Challenge the students to a higher level of competency
2. Give sound and constructive feedback and guidance so that the students could make decisions

The studio masters’ roles are basically as a ’studio master’ guiding the students towards preparing and getting ready for the Crit Panel Session or Interim Crit Sessions, and secondly, as a ‘moderator’ in the different crit panels to ensure that points 1 and 2 above are done by the moderator and critics. The third role is to ensure the standards are achieved at the end of the semester when evaluating the students’ work.

The Crit Panel is the most important component in the process of design. The design thesis is challenged at this part of the process, usually three to four times in a semester, so missing or not concentrating for a Crit Panel Session or Interim Crit Session is the same as ’shooting your own foot’. At Universiti Malaya’s school of architecture, our programme is interspersed every two weeks with studio pin-ups where groups of students get to present their work in a crit panel setting.

That’s why the most important strategy for a student is not to bore the crit panelist to bits by talking too much and waffling about, but to be crisp and precise in the presentation, make explicit the intention and making sure that the crit panelist get to do points 1 and 2 above.

Obviously the desk crit is important, but at this level students are expected to be able to work independently and have a certain approach and method to design. The studio masters are not expected to ‘teach’ the students how to design. We acknowledged that some students are not so fantastic in designing, so we may part our ‘methodologies’ or give some ideas on how to go about it when a student is stuck. So, what do the studio masters and coordinator do then, you may ask? Back to the paragraph above where I outlined the three basic roles. The studio masters additionally be involved in studio pin-ups sessions where they play the role of crit panelists in preparation for the students to anticipate the invited crit panelists.

Having said all these, students are invited to comment on this method and suggest ways to improve. Like I said before, 5th year students’ Design Thesis Year is when the students ’showcase’ their abilities and is not the time when students are picking up design skills that we expected they had done in year one to four. That’s the way we had design our studio curriculum, hence 5th year is the design thesis year and a testimonial year for the Part 2 graduate. In the future, we are making sure that the learning will be done in the lower years in order to achieve a higher level of competencies in the fifth year. So, it will continue to be like this in the following years. We cannot afford to drop standards.

Design Thesis Proposal

Design Thesis requires an in-depth study to be made in the beginning so that you can form a solid and viable Design Thesis Proposal. The in-depth study that we meant here would be the Design Thesis Formulation. Thus we have here an exercise in formulating a thesis. “To draw something up carefully and in detail” or “to express or communicate something carefully” which is this case is the ‘design thesis’ that we care to formulate. So at the end of the day, we asked again: What is a Design Thesis? And additionally we would ask: How do we formulate a Design Thesis?

In the case of University of Malaya’s Design Thesis Studio, the recommendation on ‘how to’ is provided in the guideline for the requirements below.

However, I would deliberate further that before we could start with the Conceptual Design stages and end up with the Schematic Design stage somewhere in the middle of Semester One and conclude with the Detail Design (also called Design Development) stage at the end of Semester One, we need to go through this difficult phase of Design Thesis Formulation.

The more you are able to make concrete and sound decisions at this stage, the better your Design Thesis Proposal will be, and the more prepared you will be in Semester One to tackle all the other stages mentioned.

To make these decisions, you will have to study in-depth the main subject/s that constitute your topic.  We call this endeavour – Defining the Problem. Having an issue-ridden topic does not necessarily mean that you could define the problem easily, as you should be experiencing right now.

Defining the Problem includes creating problem statements (what is this?), design objectives (what is this?) and design hypothesis (what is this?). Actually design objectives and hypothesis are almost the same things. For design objectives you may list out your objectives that you wish to do (it may not have the desired outcome, so that’s another story, but at the moment, we want to know the objectives) and this is listed in (a), (b), (c) or (1), (2), (3) – that way. Where as for a design hypothesis, you would be saying something like: If I design this way, that way and this way, the design will achieve so and so… (you will be making a statement here where you will set out to prove). So problem statements are what you describe what you set out to do because of so and so – hence problem statements are closely related to the design objectives and hypothesis.

Actually, you are concerned with two things when ‘Defining the Problem’:

What is the Design Problem? And how you are going to solve this Design Problem.

How you got to Defining the Problem is the interesting and painful part… (as you can attest to this after you complete this Special Semester)

As for the Design Brief requirements, you need to be selective and critical of what you need to study based on your topic, problem and objectives. (The list is generic). However, by being more methodical and precise, you will not leave stones unturned for your quest to create a great Design Thesis Proposal.

DESIGN THESIS FORMULATION

Towards designing a Design Thesis Proposal for Week 7, Special Semester (S3) 2007/08

Defining the Problem:

• Defining the Topic;
• Defining the Main Subject

• Problem Statements;
• Design Objectives;
• Design Hypothesis

Design Brief:

1. Case Studies:

Research on Conceptual Approaches on Case Studies;

Research on Detail Design (translation of ideas and concepts) and Technical Solutions on Case Studies;

2. Architectural Program:

Studies on Functional Aspects of Program including Activities and Space Required (to conduct activities); (SPACE)

Precedent Studies; (FORM & SPACE)

Building Types Study; (FORM, FUNCTION & SPACE)

3. Site Studies:

Site Analysis; (very basic)

Feasibility of Site Studies;

Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Studies;
(or Tangible and Intangible Benefits Study of Site)

Urban Context and Urban Design Studies (Using Principles by Lynch, Responsive Environment, Cullen and others);

Figure Ground Study (Solid and Void Study);

Land-use and Activities Studies;

Pedestrian linkages study;

4. Space Requirements:

Space and the area (m2) required