Books by James Thompson
Routledge, Jan 31, 2019
Narratives of Architectural Education provides an overview of life as an architecture student, de... more Narratives of Architectural Education provides an overview of life as an architecture student, detailing how a layperson may develop an architectural identity. This book proposes becoming an architect as a personal narrative of professional development structured around various stages and challenges associated with identity transformation.
Using a case study of aspiring architects along multiple time points of their professional education, Thompson investigates the occupational identity of architects; how individuals construct a sense of themselves as future architects and position themselves within the architectural community.
This book provides previously unexamined insights into not just the academic development of an architect, but also the holistic and experiential aspects of architectural education. It would be ideal for those in the educational field of architecture, to include students, educators, interns, and mentors.
Thesis Chapters by James Thompson
Articles and Book Chapters by James Thompson
Higher Education Research & Development, 2024
The higher education shift to remote learning due to mobility restrictions imposed during the COV... more The higher education shift to remote learning due to mobility restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need to improve the student learning experience using more active learning models. One model is peer assessment. Despite positively impacting student learning, peer assessment uptake remains low, partly because designing effective peer assessment processes is complex. Frameworks provide good coverage of the necessary design considerations; however, a systematic synthesis of the literature on how to design effective peer assessment processes is needed. We find strong evidence that peer assessment is most effective as formative peer feedback whereby students can apply feedback to support their performance and learning. Assessor training, multiple peer review iterations,assessment flexibility, collaborative assessment and providing resources to engage students and educators in peer assessment processes can also improve student experience and learning outcomes. Conversely, we find mixed evidence for the effectiveness of anonymity, online v offline settings and peer marking. Based on these findings, we provide guidance for educators in designing effective peer assessment processes,which, we hope, will drive greater uptake of peer assessment in higher education and support students to benefit from enhanced learning opportunities.
International Journal of Construction Education and Research , 2023
Experiencing existing spaces and designed environments, as well as
engaging with their possibilit... more Experiencing existing spaces and designed environments, as well as
engaging with their possibilities and production, is fundamental to
students’ learning in construction and built environments disciplines.
Site visits serve a range of learning objectives, and offer a place and
a mode to practice professional expertise. The major dislocation of
learning and teaching precipitated by COVID-19 required reimagining
these authentic and valuable site experiences. This article explores the
design of virtual site visits (VSVs) through the lens of teaching activities
and learning aims, and describes a VSV typology developed through
a phenomenographic approach. The typology draws on exemplars and
related interviews with designers and educators from across a built
environments faculty of a comprehensive Australian university. It distinguishes between those developed to inspire and contextualize; those
that demonstrate or demarcate; and those that ground abstract experiences via specific locations. This work suggests complementary roles for virtual and physical site visits within hybrid and flexible learning environments, even while much teaching returns to campus. It is relevant to academic developers who seek to frame the use of VSVs through
learning rather than technical lenses, and all educators who aim to
incorporate site experiences for student learning . . . wherever they are.
Charrette, 2023
As educators, how can we facilitate students to integrate learning across the curriculum as a mea... more As educators, how can we facilitate students to integrate learning across the curriculum as a meaningful whole? Informed by recent scholarship on integration of learning in higher education, this essay argues that the ability for architecture students to synthesise learning across domains requires intentional curricular design beginning with the first-year experience. A longitudinal narrative study of graduate architects conducted by the author offers a lens for better understanding how self-directed learning integration contributes to architect identity development. The challenge is to make this process more explicit and structured across the curriculum, to ultimately support the growth of aspiring architects.
Productive Disruptive (Association of Architectural Educators Conference), 2023
With architectural education facing a growing list of crises, one issue that has received less at... more With architectural education facing a growing list of crises, one issue that has received less attention, but arguably lies at the foundation of many of these challenges, is around assessment of employability skills. Also referred to as ‘soft’ skills, ‘generic’ skills or more recently ‘power’ skills, these include critical thinking, problem solving, interpersonal skills, a capacity for logical and independent thought, communication and information management skills, intellectual curiosity and rigor, creativity, ethical
awareness and practice, integrity and tolerance (Bath et al., 2004). By definition, these skills are essential for individuals to effectively engage in professional practice, as well as successfully transitioning to other career paths in the future. Furthermore, the architecture profession’s aim of confronting systemic ecological, social and racial injustice very much depends on these skillsets, not just design prowess. Adding to this argument, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) recently published an ‘Equity in Architectural
Education’ guide, which articulates what they see as the ongoing challenge jointly facing architecture programs and the industry: in order to become a truly diverse profession and meet the needs of the publics we serve, we must find ways of becoming more welcoming, more inclusive, more equitable and more supportive in our teaching practices. Key to these aims is to critically reflect on how and what we assess, insofar as it signals to students the skills and knowledge valued by the profession. In short, addressing the longstanding ‘hidden curriculum’ within our discipline’s cultural practices is essential to addressing diversity, equity and inclusion. It is here where the uncodified values embedded in the way we approach employability skills, and our reluctance to assess them, rears its ugly head. Believing that employability skills can be promoted through an ‘assessment by proxy’ approach is problematic. What about employability skills, or our understanding of how best to
promote them, makes their assessment feel so unappealing, unreasonable or unnecessary? It is certainly a challenge, but by refusing to engage in it, are we allowing privileged students with preexisting social capital to achieve these tacit markers of success while leaving the rest of our cohorts to struggle unnecessarily?
Extending from a recent case study by the author (Thompson & Soccio, 2022), this paper proposes that, as a general rule, architecture schools do not assess employability skills—at least not in any systematic way. The paper then reviews recent developments in disciplines like engineering, accounting and nursing to glean lessons learnt in these contexts. In exploring the topic of employability skill assessment, a direct line is drawn between an issue that might appear mundane to the greatest challenges facing the architectural community.
The Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 2022
This article presents findings from a recent study of academic perspectives towards employability... more This article presents findings from a recent study of academic perspectives towards employability in architecture. The aim of the study was to gauge the perceived impact of COVID-19 on employer values, and the degree to which these perceived changes were impacting teaching practices. Thematic analysis of data from semi-structured interviews with eight members of a postgraduate architecture community in Australia-including educators, practitioners, and students-revealed strong consensus. The relative value of skills such as teamwork and autonomy were deemed increasingly important following the widespread uptake of remote work. On the other hand, the value of competencies associated with the design process itself, as reflected in professional accreditation criteria, were perceived as stable. Most enlightening were participants' views on how they believe employability skills are encouraged, observed and judged in academic contexts. By reinforcing how employability skill development tends to rely on the discipline's tacit enculturation practices, this study raises critical questions about quality assurance and assessment practices within the architectural community. Embedded in these questions is the understanding that the challenge of employability skills assessment is entangled within the discipline's failure to address its ongoing challenges around diversity, equity and inclusion.
Design and Technology Education: An International Journal, 2021
In the wake of 2020's move to remote learning and teaching, institutions of higher education bega... more In the wake of 2020's move to remote learning and teaching, institutions of higher education began experimenting with approaches that combine face-to-face and online learning. This article reviews one learning and teaching group's development of guidance for "dual delivery" and reports on focus group conversations with staff coordinating dual delivery design studios. It highlights key considerations identified by the group-learner equity and access, cohort building, and staff and student perceptions-and reports on efforts to address these through the design and coordination of studio subjects. This marks the first known study exploring hybrid/dual delivery in the design studio context. Findings suggest that treating the hybrid splitcohort mode of 2021 as an amalgamation of online and blended learning approaches is to ignore its unique learning design challenges, and to underestimate the implications of dual delivery for studio teaching. In addition to specific strategies for the design of studio learning activities, teachers' "on-the-ground" reflections offer additional insights for studio coordination-on distributed, place-based learning; on peer-to-peer interaction around student work; and on approaching learning design on the premise of "contingency". The article encourages testing of new pedagogic forms that can combine learning modes across space, and engagement with activities over time, in support of rich design learning for emerging hybrid cohorts.
Charrette, 2021
In this paper, we focus on how learning designthat is, the ways academics organise and facilitate... more In this paper, we focus on how learning designthat is, the ways academics organise and facilitate student learning experiences-can nurture student wellbeing by contributing to a supportive learning environment. As guidance for instructors, we present a framework for approaching subject-level learning design to enhance architecture student wellbeing across the three primary domains of activity: delivery, interaction and assessment. Effective integration of a supportive learning environment demands we attend to factors enmeshed with our discipline's pedagogical structures that destabilise wellbeing. This approach thus elevates care for student wellbeing as an integral, rather than ancillary, dimension of our teaching practice.
Charrette, 2021
This article describes the support provided by the BEL+T (Built Environments Learning + Teaching)... more This article describes the support provided by the BEL+T (Built Environments Learning + Teaching) group at the University of Melbourne, to facilitate the 'move online' of learning that was prompted by COVID-19. The article outlines how this support related to pedagogical, technical and cultural challenges in the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning. The DIA framework, its DIAgram and related resources developed by BEL+T informed changes to the delivery of relevant content, support for effective interaction with and between students, and online assessment approaches. This article identifies the elements of the framework in terms of architectural learning as we contemplate a return to campus, hybrid/dual delivery modes and new challenges.
Archnet- International Journal of Architectural Research, 2020
Post-pandemic education will be impacted by spatial and technological shockwaves, alongside other... more Post-pandemic education will be impacted by spatial and technological shockwaves, alongside other areas of society. Significant expansion of online learning will build on skills developed by educators and students in this tumultuous time, and in response to emerging challenges and structural transformations. This paper explores an oft-overlooked skill that underpins contemporary teaching, and posits that "coordination" will find its way to the centre of this new online world. The paper presents research investigating the translation of tactics for good subject coordination to an online context. The authors reviewed academic literature that explored coordination in higher education settings, and recent grey literature identifying expected changes to post-pandemic university learning. The authors developed a survey instrument to investigate the translation of previously identified characteristics of good coordination, and tactics to achieve them, into the pandemic-driven online learning environment. Survey analysis explored the level of difficulty reported by subject coordinators for this translation online, as well as their suggestions of additional tactics or concerns. While the low number of respondents limits these conclusions, initial analysis suggests that the identified Tactics for Coordination can be applied with relative ease to online learning environments. At the same time, the expected burgeoning of online education identified an expected increase in demand for these skills. The authors identified a lack of literature addressing subject coordination as a key skill, or evaluating coordination tactics, as well as a lack of resources for focused skill development. This paper addresses this gap, and prompts further and urgent response.
International Journal of Art and Design Education, 2021
Across disciplines, skills associated with collaboration are now ubiquitously considered requisit... more Across disciplines, skills associated with collaboration are now ubiquitously considered requisite graduate attributes. Despite decades of studies on the various dimensions of academic teamwork, challenges for both students and staff remain. For this year-long study at a UK school of architecture, we considered teamwork as a thread woven through the first-year curriculum, traversing course modules and project types. The primary aim of the study was to evaluate the collective impact of teamwork activities on the incoming cohort of 200+ undergraduate students and how the structuring and coordination of such activities might improve the holistic student experience. Across two rounds of online questionnaires and focus group sessions, student participants articulated the benefits of collaboration for learning, socialization, and professional development. However, resentment towards teamwork increased throughout the year, as frustration with disengaged cohort mates grew, and student sought greater structure and oversight from tutors. On the other hand, when given the chance to reflect on the multidimensional nature of teamwork in focus group discussions, many students adopted a productively nuanced perspective toward the topic. This implies that, whether students like or dislike certain aspect of collaborative projects, opportunities for critical conversation can promote or prompt an appreciation for the educational value of including teamwork projects in curricula. The results of this study should be relevant to educators seeking to improve the implementation and effectiveness of team-based learning, particularly those in design-based fields and those in higher and professional education contexts.
Distance Design Education, 2020
International Journal of Education in Architecture and Design, 2020
We are pleased to announce the launch of the International Journal of Education in Architecture a... more We are pleased to announce the launch of the International Journal of Education in Architecture and Design (IJEAD), a new journal aiming to create a platform to collect and present several approaches, examples, experiments to architectural and design education. The journal will be a valuable resource for those interested in the areas of architectural education, design education, urban planning education, interior architecture education, industrial design education, landscape design education and other related disciplines. Its main aims are: · To provide a forum for meaningful discussion about the quality of architectural and design education. · To offer a holistic account of curriculum models, course syllabus models, formal and informal studies/works, experimental works, assessments / reviews on quality of education in the fields of architecture and design. · To offer outstanding contributions to the philosophies underpinning learning, teaching, and creativity towards architectural space. International Journal of Education in Architecture and Design (IJEAD) is an electronic, international, peer-reviewed, scientific journal. The journal is published twice a year in March and September. Manuscripts in English are accepted. All the articles accepted in the journal are published open-access. No fee is charged and authors are not paid for any of the stages of article submission, evaluation and publication. The editor seeks high quality original research articles, discussion articles, and review articles of up to 8.000 words. These may be theoretical, empirical or methodological studies conducted using qualitative or quantitative methods. All original article submissions are double-blind peer reviewed.
Presenting narratives of three recent graduates of a U.S. Master of Architecture program, this st... more Presenting narratives of three recent graduates of a U.S. Master of Architecture program, this study employs an interpretative-narrative approach to access and evoke the role that collaboration plays in the process of 'becoming a design professional'. Whereas ontological learning has been recognized as fundamental to lifelong learning and development, research has yet to explore themes of self-authorship in relation to collaborative design experiences. In representing authentic voices of learners, the research presented in this chapter contributes to a deeper understanding of the ways in which aspiring design professionals make sense of their transformation from academic to professional selves. This will ultimately inform how design educators value and structure team-based design projects by providing a more holistic understanding of the role such projects might play in shaping individuals' identities. More than in many other jobs, being a successful architect means not only knowing but being. (Stevens, 1999: p. 55)
This article reviews the urban transdisciplinary research of the Northlake Collective, a multidis... more This article reviews the urban transdisciplinary research of the Northlake Collective, a multidisciplinary group of graduate students in the University of Washington's Lake Union Laboratory. Through a series of place-based investigations, we explored a small slice of Seattle ultimately seeking to engage the public through an online digital humanities portal. The broader goal of our work and this paper is to address how we, as a team of emerging scholars, understand and investigate ‘cities’ in the current century as both networked at the global scale and dynamic places for everyday interactions and processes. The paradoxes and complexity inherent to understanding the ‘city’ and how to address these concerns led us to develop a framework that might enrich grounded urban theory through the ‘enabling constraints’ of place, technology and public. The productive character of these three concepts, combined with the practical constraints and interrelationships they bring to bear, allowed us to deepen our work and produced the context for our research of Northlake. We propose this tripartite framework for exploring the contemporary city via the structure afforded by transdisciplinary, born-digital collaborations.
International Journal of the Constructed Environment, 2016
Educators increasingly pursue inter- and transdisciplinary pedagogies to facilitate more holistic... more Educators increasingly pursue inter- and transdisciplinary pedagogies to facilitate more holistic approaches to the design, use, and interpretation of built environments. Through the presentation of one particular example of such efforts—an introductory, mixed qualitative methods, undergraduate course—this article explores three pedagogical
principles central to its integrated approach: pre-disciplinarity, experiential and place-based learning, and instructional scaffolding. The course cultivates awareness of overlapping transdisciplinary themes of contemporary relevance beyond its immediate context, incorporating traditional lectures, curated city walks, small group discussion sessions, and a series of written reflections. Following a brief description of the class’s content and its successful implementation, the article demonstrates how such courses can yield meaningful experiences that promote critical engagement with the city and desirable lifelong learning for future design professionals and others.
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Books by James Thompson
Using a case study of aspiring architects along multiple time points of their professional education, Thompson investigates the occupational identity of architects; how individuals construct a sense of themselves as future architects and position themselves within the architectural community.
This book provides previously unexamined insights into not just the academic development of an architect, but also the holistic and experiential aspects of architectural education. It would be ideal for those in the educational field of architecture, to include students, educators, interns, and mentors.
Thesis Chapters by James Thompson
Articles and Book Chapters by James Thompson
engaging with their possibilities and production, is fundamental to
students’ learning in construction and built environments disciplines.
Site visits serve a range of learning objectives, and offer a place and
a mode to practice professional expertise. The major dislocation of
learning and teaching precipitated by COVID-19 required reimagining
these authentic and valuable site experiences. This article explores the
design of virtual site visits (VSVs) through the lens of teaching activities
and learning aims, and describes a VSV typology developed through
a phenomenographic approach. The typology draws on exemplars and
related interviews with designers and educators from across a built
environments faculty of a comprehensive Australian university. It distinguishes between those developed to inspire and contextualize; those
that demonstrate or demarcate; and those that ground abstract experiences via specific locations. This work suggests complementary roles for virtual and physical site visits within hybrid and flexible learning environments, even while much teaching returns to campus. It is relevant to academic developers who seek to frame the use of VSVs through
learning rather than technical lenses, and all educators who aim to
incorporate site experiences for student learning . . . wherever they are.
awareness and practice, integrity and tolerance (Bath et al., 2004). By definition, these skills are essential for individuals to effectively engage in professional practice, as well as successfully transitioning to other career paths in the future. Furthermore, the architecture profession’s aim of confronting systemic ecological, social and racial injustice very much depends on these skillsets, not just design prowess. Adding to this argument, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) recently published an ‘Equity in Architectural
Education’ guide, which articulates what they see as the ongoing challenge jointly facing architecture programs and the industry: in order to become a truly diverse profession and meet the needs of the publics we serve, we must find ways of becoming more welcoming, more inclusive, more equitable and more supportive in our teaching practices. Key to these aims is to critically reflect on how and what we assess, insofar as it signals to students the skills and knowledge valued by the profession. In short, addressing the longstanding ‘hidden curriculum’ within our discipline’s cultural practices is essential to addressing diversity, equity and inclusion. It is here where the uncodified values embedded in the way we approach employability skills, and our reluctance to assess them, rears its ugly head. Believing that employability skills can be promoted through an ‘assessment by proxy’ approach is problematic. What about employability skills, or our understanding of how best to
promote them, makes their assessment feel so unappealing, unreasonable or unnecessary? It is certainly a challenge, but by refusing to engage in it, are we allowing privileged students with preexisting social capital to achieve these tacit markers of success while leaving the rest of our cohorts to struggle unnecessarily?
Extending from a recent case study by the author (Thompson & Soccio, 2022), this paper proposes that, as a general rule, architecture schools do not assess employability skills—at least not in any systematic way. The paper then reviews recent developments in disciplines like engineering, accounting and nursing to glean lessons learnt in these contexts. In exploring the topic of employability skill assessment, a direct line is drawn between an issue that might appear mundane to the greatest challenges facing the architectural community.
principles central to its integrated approach: pre-disciplinarity, experiential and place-based learning, and instructional scaffolding. The course cultivates awareness of overlapping transdisciplinary themes of contemporary relevance beyond its immediate context, incorporating traditional lectures, curated city walks, small group discussion sessions, and a series of written reflections. Following a brief description of the class’s content and its successful implementation, the article demonstrates how such courses can yield meaningful experiences that promote critical engagement with the city and desirable lifelong learning for future design professionals and others.
Using a case study of aspiring architects along multiple time points of their professional education, Thompson investigates the occupational identity of architects; how individuals construct a sense of themselves as future architects and position themselves within the architectural community.
This book provides previously unexamined insights into not just the academic development of an architect, but also the holistic and experiential aspects of architectural education. It would be ideal for those in the educational field of architecture, to include students, educators, interns, and mentors.
engaging with their possibilities and production, is fundamental to
students’ learning in construction and built environments disciplines.
Site visits serve a range of learning objectives, and offer a place and
a mode to practice professional expertise. The major dislocation of
learning and teaching precipitated by COVID-19 required reimagining
these authentic and valuable site experiences. This article explores the
design of virtual site visits (VSVs) through the lens of teaching activities
and learning aims, and describes a VSV typology developed through
a phenomenographic approach. The typology draws on exemplars and
related interviews with designers and educators from across a built
environments faculty of a comprehensive Australian university. It distinguishes between those developed to inspire and contextualize; those
that demonstrate or demarcate; and those that ground abstract experiences via specific locations. This work suggests complementary roles for virtual and physical site visits within hybrid and flexible learning environments, even while much teaching returns to campus. It is relevant to academic developers who seek to frame the use of VSVs through
learning rather than technical lenses, and all educators who aim to
incorporate site experiences for student learning . . . wherever they are.
awareness and practice, integrity and tolerance (Bath et al., 2004). By definition, these skills are essential for individuals to effectively engage in professional practice, as well as successfully transitioning to other career paths in the future. Furthermore, the architecture profession’s aim of confronting systemic ecological, social and racial injustice very much depends on these skillsets, not just design prowess. Adding to this argument, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) recently published an ‘Equity in Architectural
Education’ guide, which articulates what they see as the ongoing challenge jointly facing architecture programs and the industry: in order to become a truly diverse profession and meet the needs of the publics we serve, we must find ways of becoming more welcoming, more inclusive, more equitable and more supportive in our teaching practices. Key to these aims is to critically reflect on how and what we assess, insofar as it signals to students the skills and knowledge valued by the profession. In short, addressing the longstanding ‘hidden curriculum’ within our discipline’s cultural practices is essential to addressing diversity, equity and inclusion. It is here where the uncodified values embedded in the way we approach employability skills, and our reluctance to assess them, rears its ugly head. Believing that employability skills can be promoted through an ‘assessment by proxy’ approach is problematic. What about employability skills, or our understanding of how best to
promote them, makes their assessment feel so unappealing, unreasonable or unnecessary? It is certainly a challenge, but by refusing to engage in it, are we allowing privileged students with preexisting social capital to achieve these tacit markers of success while leaving the rest of our cohorts to struggle unnecessarily?
Extending from a recent case study by the author (Thompson & Soccio, 2022), this paper proposes that, as a general rule, architecture schools do not assess employability skills—at least not in any systematic way. The paper then reviews recent developments in disciplines like engineering, accounting and nursing to glean lessons learnt in these contexts. In exploring the topic of employability skill assessment, a direct line is drawn between an issue that might appear mundane to the greatest challenges facing the architectural community.
principles central to its integrated approach: pre-disciplinarity, experiential and place-based learning, and instructional scaffolding. The course cultivates awareness of overlapping transdisciplinary themes of contemporary relevance beyond its immediate context, incorporating traditional lectures, curated city walks, small group discussion sessions, and a series of written reflections. Following a brief description of the class’s content and its successful implementation, the article demonstrates how such courses can yield meaningful experiences that promote critical engagement with the city and desirable lifelong learning for future design professionals and others.
The Tjibaou Cultural Centre is a valuable, postcolonial addition to St. John Wilson’s catalog for at least two reasons. First, the manifestation of the Centre was made possible by a unique compatibility between the localized, postcolonial politics of ‘the other’ and the pragmatic, and therefore politically flexible, approach of the architect. Examining the historical and political circumstances of the project reveals that many of the major architectural decisions represent as much the politics of its namesake, the local political activist Jean-Marie Tjibaou, as it does the design process of the Building Workshop. Thus, while the architect may have arrived from the colonial world, the project itself is an attempt to embody localized postcolonial beliefs and aspirations. In fact, the architectural representation of cultural identity is potentially the project’s greatest achievement. Second, the design process for the Tjibaou Centre recognized several contradictions—in this case, the dialectical struggles between modernity and tradition, global and local, individual and community, tolerance and resistance—then synthesized them into architectural form. Not only does this ‘contemporary vernacular’ harken back to St. John Wilson’s affinities for ‘an alternative philosophy’ to the modern movement, these dialectical pairings precisely match those that distinguish the postcolonial paradigm. Therefore, the Tjibaou Centre may indeed offer valuable lessons for those seeking to revitalize the project of local modernism. This essay is an attempt to extract those lessons by recounting the project’s germination, design, and construction through the lens of ‘the uncompleted project.’
2013). Toward this end, this essay poses the city of Astana, capital of Kazakhstan and host of Expo 2017, as a site to begin examining how utopian analytical frameworks might inform certain readings of the city, which could in turn guide practical design decisions. Western journalists to Kazakhstan’s new capital city frequently label it ‘utopian’, in the popular, disparaging sense. And allusions are often made to capital relocation and nation-building projects from the modern era, with Astana representing a postmodernist or late capitalist variation on a theme ostensibly bound for social disaster. But if utopianism is deserving of reconsideration, as recent scholarship maintains, so is Astana. Recent academic literature and experiential accounts of Astana’s urban growth, when considered alongside contemporary utopian theory, challenge
hasty classifications. Indeed, Kurokawa’s ‘flexible’ development plan for Astana initially sought to avoid the totalizing tendency of modernist master plans. Moreover, despite the garish character, as seen through foreign eyes, the genuine hopefulness Astana evokes in its residents should not be cynically disregarded.
For designers contributing to the Astana project, utopian praxis means taking seriously the city’s ‘constitutive’ utopian potential and developing designs that aim to foster inchoate opportunities for social development.
The results of the study reveal that, despite a diverse range of academic
contexts, there is significant common ground within the field of architectural history when it comes to what and how to teach. The vast majority of instruction is conducted through lecture format and includes required readings and research papers. Course content tends to be organized chronologically and covers pre-history to the present day. Moreover, roughly three-quarters of respondents noted that local sites are featured somehow in the course’s content or learning activities.
The hope is that the results of this study spark critical discussion, inspiring creative strategies and further inquiry into the subject of teaching global architectural history.
publics we serve, we must find ways of becoming more welcoming, more inclusive, more equitable and more supportive in our teaching practices. Key to these aims is to critically reflect on how and what we assess, insofar as it signals to students the skills and knowledge valued by the profession. In short, addressing the longstanding ‘hidden curriculum’ within our discipline’s cultural practices is essential to addressing diversity, equity and inclusion. It is here where the uncodified values
embedded in the way we approach employability skills, and our reluctance to assess them, rears its ugly head. Believing that employability skills can be promoted through an ‘assessment by proxy’ approach is problematic. What about employability skills, or our understanding of how best to
promote them, makes their assessment feel so unappealing, unreasonable or unnecessary? It is certainly a challenge, but by refusing to engage in it, are we allowing privileged students with preexisting social capital to achieve these tacit markers of success while leaving the rest of our cohorts to struggle unnecessarily? Extending from a recent case study by the author (Thompson & Soccio, 2022), this paper proposes that, as a general rule, architecture schools do not assess employability skills—at least not in any systematic way. The paper then reviews recent
developments in disciplines like engineering, accounting and nursing to glean lessons learnt in these contexts. In exploring the topic of
employability skill assessment, a direct line is drawn between an issue that might appear mundane to the greatest challenges facing the architectural community.