The Deans List is an interview series with the leaders of architecture schools, worldwide. The series profiles the school’s programming, as defined by the head honcho – giving an invaluable perspective into the institution’s unique curriculum, faculty and academic environment.
For this issue, we spoke with Sarah Whiting, Dean of the Rice School of Architecture in Houston, Texas.
Rice flourishes as a tiny university in the very large city of Houston, reaping rewards from both direct student-faculty collaborations and amicable access to civic institutions. Its cozy tally of just 180 students (undergraduate and graduate) makes for a community as tight as it is demanding, an essential atmosphere for the rigorous challenges within the “speculative practice” pedagogical model pushed by Dean of the Architecture School, Sarah Whiting. Rejecting a simplified “theory v. practice” model of academia, Whiting favors the analogy to a natural science laboratory, where students engage theory to effect the architecture profession of 10-15 years in the future. For the Deans List, Whiting discussed Rice’s unique location in Houston, and its role as an instigator within architecture’s global applications.
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg: How would you characterize your architecture school’s programming? Briefly, what is your own pedagogical stance on architecture education?
Sarah Whiting: Essentially I would characterize the school’s approach and my own as an interest in “speculative practice.” Speculation here means theoretical conjecture, architectural intelligence and a desire to advance practice, rather than conform to existing modes of practice. Usually, schools will swing in one direction or the other: they’ll promote pure pragmatism, with a focus on practice as it is defined by mainstream offices, or schools will aim for an all-out theoretical approach, where practice is essentially disdained for its constraints, its pace, and its capitalist taint. Either option is like cutting down a tree while you’re perching on one of the highest branches. Letting education be defined by existing models of practice makes a school into a service provider, but not addressing practice at all leaves graduates powerless to implement change.
I see the school more like a science lab. Over in the natural sciences here at Rice, students are doing experiments that might lead to a vaccine or cure fifteen or so years from now. In the same way, our students should be developing architectural projects, urban projects, ways of designing, ways of representing that will become viable in ten, fifteen years. So they aren’t focusing on practice today, but they’re also not entirely utopian or so visionary that they’re not going to help change the game in the next ten years. Speculative Practice is the best way to characterize that ambition of near-utopianism. If you read my conversation with Peter Eisenman in Log 28’s “stocktaking” issue, you can learn more about how we think here at Rice.
In reference to the relationship between our B.Arch. and M.Arch. programs, we treat the school as one. Obviously the undergraduates have a different culture – there is a strong residential college system on campus – but within the school it’s a very integrated program.
AT-H: What kind of student do you think would flourish at your school, and why?
SW: That’s easy: if you want to blend into the crowd, hang back, listen, and not be in the center of the conversation, do not even apply to Rice. All of our students are expected to engage, participate, and be part of the collective conversation going on in the school. If you want to be challenged to push your ideas, your projects, and your points, this is the place for you; we are constantly working to advance the intellectual ambitions and design innovations of every project.
AT-H: What are the biggest challenges, academically and professionally, facing your students?
Letting education be defined by existing models of practice makes a school into a service provider, but not addressing practice at all leaves graduates powerless to implement change. SW: One often unspoken challenge that students face today stems from the steady decline of American education. Students are less and less prepared for college and graduate school: they are not being taught how to write and they often have shockingly limited cultural exposure. We have the challenge, then, of teaching students how to read culture, including art, cinema, literature, but also including economics, politics, ecology… We have to teach them how to pay attention to the broader world. Students have to learn that their projects don’t exist in a vacuum: if you situate your project in a larger context – historical, economic, political, technological – you are engaging in the broader conversations that constitute a discipline. In order for students to step up to that conversation, it’s our job to teach them how to communicate verbally as well as visually.
Second, and this relates to my point about speculative practice above, the biggest challenge faced by any architect today is how not to get squelched by ridiculously low budgets and a lack of understanding of architecture’s value. We have to teach in such a way that students and graduates believe that there are ways of practicing and doing architecture that don’t fall victim to the crappy status quo. Some students will find “ways out” via exploring new formal typologies that generate new programmatic relationships; others will push at how a project can redefine technological or zoning norms. Invention has to be focused in order to have an impact.
For me, I’d say that our biggest challenge is teaching students how to situate their particular focus. I have personal interests in the relationship between architectural form and the collective subject – these interests have formal, programmatic and political repercussions. I don’t expect everyone to be interested in this issue, but I do expect all students to gain enough knowledge of the discipline in order to graduate from school with a clear understanding of their own interests and focus. Students should not graduate thinking that their role is to be a “problem solver”; we want them to be the ones articulating and redefining the problems.
ATH: How do you provide for employment after graduation?
SW: One of the greatest strengths of our undergraduate program is the Preceptorship year. Our undergraduates graduate with a BA in architecture after 4 years and then we place them in offices for a 9-12 month paid internship, called the “preceptorship.” The offices range from Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, SHoP, and others in New York to Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and SOM in San Francisco; we also have one student at Renzo Piano’s Students should not graduate thinking that their role is to be a “problem solver”; we want them to be the ones articulating and redefining the problems. workshop, a couple in London offices, and one in OMA’s Hong Kong office. The students rank their choices and then John Casbarian, Director of External Programs, works with those ballots and with faculty input to place the students in specific offices with which we have longstanding relations. They are assigned a mentor in the office and because it’s such a long internship, they really get immersed in the office: their experience ranges from concept to design development. The students then return to Rice for their “5th year” and graduate a second time with a B.Arch. It’s a fantastic and unique set-up; it also means that the undergraduates are almost all guaranteed jobs upon graduation -- oftentimes they’ll return to their preceptorship firm, but they are attractive to any employer because they combine a strong education with a full year of experience. It helps that they’re getting a certain breadth of professional experience in offices that are very high caliber and that take the mentoring very seriously. In short, our B.Archs have it made. We are working to set-up a version for the graduate students as a paid internship following graduation (the graduate program is too short to have it interrupt): some of them would be fellows either in offices or have a fellowship here at the school, where they would have a paid semester to a year to get some of the experience that the undergraduates get through their preceptorship.
The other way we help students with employment is simply by knowing them: because we’re so small and we have a strong reputation, offices will sometimes call me or other faculty and say, “We’re hiring, do you have good fits?” And because we all know the students so well, we can say “I know who would be perfect in your office”. Our success rate at matching the student to the office tends to be terrific, so employers trust our word when we send our graduates their way.
AT-H: How do you research and familiarize yourself with trends within the architectural profession/academia? How do you adapt these observations into programming and student policy for the 21st century?
SW: Rice’s small size makes us very nimble. Architecture is a generalist discipline. At the end of an education, every student needs to have a sense of all that architecture entails, but no one is going to be an expert in everything. Architecture deals with issues of new technologies, of materials, but it also deals with history, politics, economics.... You don’t need to know all of that in depth, but you need to have a clear understanding of that breadth. At the same time, by the time you graduate, you need to have some sense of what you’re really passionate about: your focus, to return to the point I was making above. We can’t teach twenty different individual passions. But we can help each student figure out what they need to do – what projects they should pay attention to, what books they should read, what they should do over the summer or when they graduate – to engage. Our small size means that we don’t have a gazillion courses, but we have an amazing range of courses, of faculty, and of other students. The combined resource of the faculty, the numerous visitors, and the student body means that the students coming through have a wide variety of role models. Finally, given the challenges that architecture faces as a field that is wrongly perceived to be a luxury rather than a necessity, our small size allows the students to really understand and pay attention to urgent matters.
ATH: Do you collaborate with other departments or schools when designing programming?
SW: We have some collaboration with other institutions. We have good relationships to the Menil Collection and the MFA Houston, the two big museums here. We also have a longstanding relationship between our Rice Building Workshop and Houston’s Project Rowhouses: RBW has built several projects for Rowhouses over the past decade or more. Within the university, we have some relationships to the School of Engineering and we are working to further those ties now that they have a new department of material science. We’ve had a collaboration this year with Rice’s School of Music, with a studio that focused on questions of acoustics, aligning architecture students with a faculty member in the school of music who organized a symposium on acoustic issues. We probably have the strongest ties with Rice’s School of Humanities – the Humanities Research Center is even run by one of our faculty members: Farès El-Dahdah. In short, we are constantly forging relationships across the university and the city.
AT-H: What is the relationship between the school and local businesses/government?
SW: Just a couple of weeks ago, the mayor of Houston gave a lecture at lunchtime, and the 26-year old mayor of Ithaca gave a talk that same evening. Our fall lecture series focused on the topic of the citizen-architect; is there a way of engaging by foregrounding architecture on its own terms, as opposed to constantly back-seating ourselves to policy or development interests? You can watch the whole series by going to the link on our website. The fall lectures are tied to a seminar that I teach, called the Cullinan Seminar, which has the students read in preparation for the lectures and then interview the speakers in seminar the following day. Additionally, each of these lectures has a follow up roundtable lunchtime discussion, open to the entire school. So the topic of political engagement was at the heart of the school through the lectures, the seminar, and the roundtable lunches.
More generally, Rice is very well-placed in Houston. There’s a good relationship between Rice and the city and even the state, unlike most universities and their towns. There’s surprisingly easy access to people of power in Houston; the city is unusually open and welcoming. Formally we’ve created relationships by setting up internships for students within the city, encouraging students to be engaged at different levels. We’ve had a long-standing relationship to a series of nonprofits through Rice Building Workshop.
It’s a very accessible city, unlike many. It’s also an environment that encourages experimentation, even failure. Houston’s an extraordinary place – you can get a little glimpse of its DNA before coming here if you read Lars Lerup’s One Million Acres and No Zoning, or Bryan Burrough’s The Big Rich (on the oil families that founded Houston) or Tracy Daugherty’s Hiding Man (a biography of Donald Barthelme) or the Art and Activism catalogue from the Menil. But you really have to visit to get a sense of it.
ATH: What would you like to accomplish as dean? How would you like the school to have changed in your tenure?
SW: I’ve been here four years, almost exactly, and this thought has been much on my mind. Like every other school, I would like to see our facilities expanded. We are trying to further push Speculative Practice by establishing a think-tank on design and practice. One of the things that we’ve just done in preparation for this think tank, is we’ve launched a one-year Master of Arts in Architecture program called Present Future. It’s an interesting experiment If you want to be challenged to push your ideas, your projects, and your points, this is the place for you. because it is open both to B.Archs as a post-professional program, but also to post-Baccalaureates as a program to do architectural research without committing to a professional degree. It should appeal to potential critics, curators, journalists, planners, as well as architects and general designers. A group of students with collective expertise will come together under one topic, under the guidance of a specific faculty leader. The research project for this coming year will be coordinated by Professor Albert Pope; it focuses on the New Town of the 21st century, specifically Sha Tin on the outskirts of Hong Kong. How does the contemporary New Town differ from the New Town in Britain in the 60s, or France in the 70s or from post-war American suburbia? There’s a different model of urbanization that’s happening right now at that scale.
Present Future will advertise its theme and faculty director every year in order to curate a research group for that topic. While it will be an independent stream, the program will not be isolated but will be entirely integrated into the school. It’s kind of a crazy experiment from an administrator’s point of view. It means we constantly have to have someone in the pipeline. We have to bank on that person attracting students and applicants who are strong enough to work together. But I think it’s an experiment that a small school can do and I’m really excited about it. It’s the kind of focused research project that we can pull off, because we’re small and because we have a high intellectual bar. Present Future will further foster our collective intelligence.
Former Managing Editor and Podcast Co-Producer for Archinect. I write, go to the movies, walk around and listen to the radio. My interests revolve around cognitive urban theory, psycholinguistics and food.Currently freelancing. Be in touch through longhyphen@gmail.com
18 Comments
From what I read sounds like an excellent program. Great interview.
Wow, awesome interview and program sounds so great. It sounds like an intense and focused community yet one that respects each individual's passions and small areas if interest. Plus I LOVE that it offers a BArch with a year of internship! Great model. Super-impressed.
I don't mean these comments to detract from all the wonderful things this dean is trying to institute in her school, but some things she says bet a few questions.
"We are trying to further push Speculative Practice by establishing a think-tank on design and practice. One of the things that we’ve just done in preparation for this think tank, is we’ve launched a one-year Master of Arts in Architecture program called Present Future."
I love the idea of a think tank for architecture and looking at different ways of solving problems in design through rigorous exploration, but I wonder how useful this is to students who've just started to speak as architects.
Students should not graduate thinking that their role is to be a “problem solver”; we want them to be the ones articulating and redefining the problems.
Again, this sounds great in theory, but what's the reality for most working architects? You are constantly given problems to solve, most of which don't need to be redefined but rather refined. Of course there are many ways to look at a problem and some clients don't understand all the implications of their "problems", but sometimes the problem at hand is the problem at hand. Maybe taking both approaches would best to prepare a young architect for the challenges they will face in the work place.
Rice University, including their a-school, has a very good energy about it. It probably emanates from its founder, who had a passion for excellence in education without a ridiculous amount of pretense, hence their not allowing a Greek system on campus, which is a big calling card in Texas lore. The intimate size of the school assures that students get the attention they need and deserve. If you think about it, 180 students spread across the 5 year B.Arch, and 2 versions of the M.Arch. is indeed intimate. Their preceptorship occurs in the summer before graduating and, if you think about it, that creates a great job pipeline and allows the alumni to gel with firms and with each other.
I think that the dean's description gets a little ivory tower at times and, being a little dense sometimes, I lose her train of thought at times. On a simpler note, you have a historically prestigious school situated in a booming city and it attracts both good faculty members and bright students. As can be expected, that community pushes out relevant research and is a valuable asset to the Houston metro area, at the very least. I have no doubt you'd probably get an education that parallels that of Harvard ... sans the hype and mystique.
Dean Whiting is spot on about the citizen-architect and the need for all architects to think and practice in this manner, as engaged, problem identifiers within their communities and the global realm.
It is not incorrect to state that the practice of architecture can indeed squelch even the most passionate young architect as he/she develops. Endeavoring to develop and maintain a balanced curriculum that welcomes both theory and practice as equal and necessary partners in architecture is our greatest challenge in educating our future architects, notwithstanding the decline in American education and preparedness for college.
The Rice program is at the very least in the Top Ten of relevant architectural education institutions today worldwide. Perhaps NAAB should consider Rice's current modus operandi as a model for future accreditation.
Observant,
She is very much a creature of the ivory tower, as I had the chance to get acquainted and work with her for an AIA event four years ago when she was new to Rice. A product of the Ivy League, she spent a couple of years working for Rem at OMA and then following up that experience right away by teaching and setting up a small concept firm with her husband in NYC. I was bit shocked when she admitted she didn't own or drive a car to her job in Houston, explaining that she always found willing student volunteers to chauffeur her around. The work that she presented at the AIA event betrayed a lack of real-word experience, even as it was highly intelligent, which explains why she's very critical of the traditional practice and remain so hopeful on school and research initiatives. Still, she was very nice and gracious and she definitely has a very sharp mind.
homme du jura,
That's an enlightening and depressing account that I fear is all to common. A self perpetuating system ( in general) that treats students the way starchitects treat users, as an afterthought. Thanks for sharing.
homme_du_jura and for Thayer-D,
I just want to set the record straight about your comment, "I was bit shocked when she admitted she didn't own or drive a car to her job in Houston, explaining that she always found willing student volunteers to chauffeur her around."
I am a recent Rice graduate and the reason Sarah doesn't drive is because of a slight vision impairment (from what I know). Either way, she wouldn’t expect students to chauffeur her to work from her ivory tower, although many probably would. She walks to work; I have passed her multiple times on my way to and from school. She didn't just get an M.Arch and work at OMA for a couple of years, but also earned a Ph.d. I think you should consider this as you analyze her perspective.
I attended graduate school at Rice and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. The 2.5 years I spent there were some of the most fruitful intellectual years of my life. The school is truly intimate and very rigorous. It would be difficult to hide in the corners with fewer than 200 students. The undergraduate students at Rice are extremely intelligent and they are a step above the generic first year architecture student. At least above where I imagine I was in first year.
For another great interview about Sarah’s stance in addition to others I recommend Log 28. It offers an interesting look at varied perspectives on the current state of architecture.
"She didn't just get an M.Arch and work at OMA for a couple of years, but also earned a Ph.d. I think you should consider this as you analyze her perspective."
Architcture schools (by and large) are too divergent from the practice of architecture. That's my main complaint about what I see as her vision. I looked at her work and read some of her writting on her firm's web site and it's completely theoretical. Fantastical work that while visually striking, has almost no bearing on how buildings are built or how people will interact with them. This is a problem in many of our "finest" institutions. I don't begrudge her for excelling in the academic field, the problem I see is how these schools are serving the students who pay good money for an education that's suposedly going to prepare them for the practice of architecture.
Will the "think tank" be for the students who are still learning to read and draw intelligible plans or is it another forum for the faculty to espouse their pet theories in order to move up the academic ladder? It can certainly be both, but right now it's the students who are getting the short end of the stick. Not what a good education should be about, IMHO.
Thayer-D,
Isn't the purpose of IDP to teach students (who want to learn) how to build buildings and practice professional architecture? Therefore, shouldn't schools be allowed to be as theoretical as they (and students applying to them) want to be?
Donatello,
IDP get's you ready for taking the liscencing exam, not necessarily to "think" like an architect. The exam dosen't/can't test your ability to manipulate space both functionally and artistically while integrating structure and balancing mass etc. As for IDP, if you show up at work with a lot of these wiz-bang computer illustrations in your portfolio, the bosses will know right away that you'll bleed them dry if your put doing architecture in the round, as it's ideally practiced. So you end up doing red-lines on stair halls or curtain walls like an assemly line worker. You'll learn eventually if your so inclined, but it'll be hittingthe books rather than in practice that you'll learn to pass the exam. I've met too many liscenced architects who can't think architecturally and too many lay people who do to think it's as simple as passing an exam.
I'm not saying that theory has no place in schools, or that thinking outside the box is bad, actually it's very good. But it's important to know that box before going outside of it. Like abstraction with out doing the literal first, it tends to look arbitrary. Of course if you've paid attention in studio and learned the lingo you can baffle'm w/ bs, but that dosen't pay the bills. I'm just saying like everything, it's a matter of balance, and right now, there's none in these kinds of programs that I can see.
Thayer-D,
I think you are confusing flashy digital architectural representation with theory. Theory is what teaches one to "think" like an architect. Anyone can manipulate space as you have described, but the architect does so with intent, this intent is rooted in theory.
I agree there is not enough balance, but it is not within the programs, it is between academic institutions and IDP. If IDP is only for taking the licensing exam, why is there a time scale associated with it? IDP is supposed to be the box, and theory is the tool one uses to get further away from the box. Therefore, the more theoretical one can be, the farther outside the box one can leap.
I probably should have been more specific. Those flashy digital drawings are what represent theory, unless you think drawing is now superfluous. Theory isn't what teaches one to manupulate space, manipulating space teaches one to do so, and not everyone can to it, at least not well. The idea that theory is what makes one manipulate space with intent doesn't explain all those master architects that while not grounded in theory, never the less did masterful work. I'm sure you've run across great vernacular or annonymously authored buildings that moved you whose only guiding light was solving the problem at hand. If not, maybe you should be more critical of your environment.
If "IDP is supposed to be the box, and theory is the tool one uses to get further away from the box." then you don't understand how I used the term box in this annalogy. Someone who's stuck inside a "box" means doing the same thing over and over like a 50 year old practitioner who dosen't want to learn anymore. By your time line, the student starts with theory and then learns the box once they start practice? That makes no sense.
Thayer-D,
Those flashy digital drawings are shallow representations with the pretense of theory for the uneducated. Theory teaches what it means to manipulate space, and therefore an architect (with theory) can manipulate space with intent.
You are confusing my interest in architecture pedagogy, licensure, and practice with what I consider constitutes an architect. An architect practicing in the vernacular would not need to go to school, therefore the question of theory curricula within architecture schools does not apply to them.
You are right, this time line does not make sense! IDP should be completed before school begins, and then schools would not be shamed for attempting to bring theory into the mix and instilling a level of culture and intellect in the profession. Someone should tell the AIA.
architect_1987,
Thanks for clarifying to me about why she doesn't drive. I wish she had been a bit more forthcoming about her reasons for not driving when I talked to her, since she seemed to explain it away by saying that she could manage without a car living in Houston, which as we all know is a city where one can hardly live without a car. Other than for health reasons (which is the first thing to notice when you first see her) to live without a car in Houston when one has the financial means to do so could only suggest in making a point with one's lifestyle choice. If that were the reason, then it would, in my mind, cast doubt on whether she would be able to experience the city the same way 90% Houstonians do: by private car. I'm glad to know that's not the case.
The fact that she earned a PhD in architecture only seems to reinforce my point that she is a product of academia and even more isolated by standard professional experience than I first realized. What was once a rarity in our profession that didn't command much value to working architects, the PhD seems to function as mainly a signifier of an architect's commitment to teach at University. That kind of background may indeed give her a pedagogical edge, and it was through the testimonial of one of her former students from Rice that our AIA committee decided to invite her to speak. She's probably excellent within a school setting, and definitely has the pedigree to attract a network of high-profile academics from other Ivies. She's definitely landed a great gig, as she doesn't have to try hard to recruit top-notch students, since Rice University is far and away the most competitive college to get into in Texas. That kind of reputation guarantees that its graduates likewise will be bright and successful in their careers no matter who's in charge of the school. That preceptor program is awesome and I think it precedes her, and it's a shame that graduate students aren't able to benefit as much as the undergrads.
But in reading the article, I came away with the same qualms as Thayer-D did, namely that there seemed to be too strong an emphasis in theoretical exploration, research and seminars and little to no respect for the realities of the traditional practice and our role as problem solvers for paying clients. I figure that if there is a time in one's career to learn to think, experiment and view problems in a different light, it's probably going to be at school. I'm fine with that, and to certain extent I'm fine with this tacit agreement between architecture firms and architecture schools where the former provides practical training while the latter focuses on the student's theoretical training. I very much liked what she said about how important it was for students to experience other facets of culture (eg. books, film, music, politics) as a means of strengthening their understanding of a given problem. It's a very liberal arts approach, and it was interesting to note that may incoming students were culturally illiterate, which has been my impression when I was a teaching assistant many years ago. That being said, much of what she seems excited about seems a bit too romantic from where I stand, and I hope that her students recognize that the work world beyond the campus is comparatively mundane but still offers a rich meaningful experience if one adjusts to it.
Donatello,
It sounds like your education served you well. I'll just leave you with this quote from Ada Louise Huxtable...
"Theory can redefine architecture or derail it. Literary and philosophical borrowings "appropriated" and force-fed into this pragmatic, problem solving art become, at most, barely recognizable and, at worst, dangerously irrelevant." She goes on to say...
"The result has been much pretentious and tortured reasoning, a few striking tour de force buildings of baffling beauty and equally spectacular impracticality, and a lot of gorgeously indecipherable drawings of stupefying complexity."
That's just one person's opinion.
Thayer-D,
Thank you for quoting Huxtable and highlighting the importance of providing students with a rigorous theoretical education. In doing so, students would not be led astray by singularly post-structuralist discourses or conversely contained within the box that is the deterministic pragmatism of architecture perceived as purely a service based practice.
I'm just making sure we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
homme_du_jura and Thayer-D,
I don't agree that anyone who has a PhD and has spent several years in academia, would inevitably recreate an ivory tower as their pedagogical approach. In fact, as a recent graduate of Rice Architecture, I observed a growing effort to prepare us to face pragmatic issues, among which are collaborations on real projects with the Menil Collection, Project Row Houses, etc. Some studios work together with the department of Economics. The research component of several studios have been sponsored by companies with vested interest, such as Shell Center for Sustainability, Kinder Institute for Urban Research, AECOM, etc. which brings a pragmatic edge to the nature of issues that are on the table.
Aside from these, Sarah's focus on verbal and visual communication, in my opinion, partially comes from the desire to engage clients more actively, as opposed to simply serving them. So does the emphasis on contextualizing projects, or concretizing research. I understand, and sympathize with your concern, that generally, efforts to produce theoretically rigorous projects result in divorce from the reality. But that does not mean that "tortured reasoning" or "spectacular impracticality" are the inevitable conclusions of any disciplinary project. In my experience, I have realized that Rice's agenda is increasingly trying to force students to balance the two poles, and I'd say the small environment helps with that; there's simply more time and human resources to consistently reevaluate every project and receive feedback from various standpoints.
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