While perusing other local blogs, namely Re:Speak, I came upon a post by Byron about Architecture NZ. It mentioned an essay within it written by Ross T. Smith called 'Warm Fuzzies' (architecture nz, No2, 2010. p26-28). This essay is about Juhani Pallasmaa's writings, many of us introduced to him in first year by Shenuka with the book 'The Eyes of the Skin.'
The essay looks into Pallasmaa's most recent writings and offers us a critique of architectural education similar to that of the Bauhaus. Ross T. Smith speaks of reintegrating the hand and the mind into architectural design processes, "maintaining the physical, sensual, and material qualities in architectural education through practices such as hand drawing and model making, and preserving connections to the traditions of craft, whilst preserving the indeterminate and dynamic practice of art and the ourpourings of the imagination."
The idea of being taught craft skills I think is an interesting one, and kind of appealing in our current age of non-teaching education, where we're expected to perform without being taught the relevant skills, produce models without any direction in craft, and know without being told. Our education currently comprises of wading through suggested reading lists and the hopefully relevant tangents which branch off.
I am trying to imagine a more craft-based education. For starters, we would need a better tutor : student ratio. We would need people with specialised skills in craft. What would we make? Scale model after scale model? Or details at 1:1? Entire buildings?
There seems to be some pretty cool stuff going on at schools elsewhere in the globe, most recently a project called "Five Fellows Full Scale" where a cheap, dilapidated house has been taken and rehabilitated, but simultaneously used as a testing ground for their design ideas.
Perhaps something like this could be a start. Geoff Thomas got to burn a house down for his PhD, surely we can do something a little more worthwhile than that?
p.s. link to my original 'digital bauhaus' blog here
