Archinect - Features

Learning from 'Learning from Las Vegas': in conversation with Denise Scott Brown, Part 3: Research

2016-11-08T12:12:00-05:00

For the past few months, we’ve been publishing parts of an extended conversation with Denise Scott Brown. In this installment, we delve deeper into our discussion of the pedagogical methods employed in the Learning from Las Vegas studio, and what ‘learning’ should mean for architects more broadly.

Does Teaching Architecture Enhance Architectural Practice?

2016-10-24T12:08:00-04:00

As if running a practice wasn’t challenging enough, numerous architects and designers also engage regularly in teaching, whether it’s giving one-off lectures around the world or teaching full studios and courses at universities. So how does teaching influence the practice of architecture, and vice versa?

Learning from 'Learning from Las Vegas' with Denise Scott Brown, Part 2: Pedagogy

2016-10-05T11:59:00-04:00

We left off our conversation with Denise Scott Brown talking about her childhood in South Africa and her early architectural influences. Now, in part 2 of our 3-part series, we discuss the unique pedagogical methods she pioneered alongside her husband, Robert Venturi.

Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Liz Diller, Rem Koolhaas and Others Share Crucial Moments in Their Education

2016-09-30T12:19:00-04:00

What is the role of education in shaping a visionary architect? Several contemporary architects reflect on how the environment, curriculum, and tangential opportunities of their formal learning influenced and shaped their design sensibility.

If Only I Had Known: Advice for Prospective Architecture Students, from Former Students

2016-09-29T12:16:00-04:00

Anyway you slice it, the decision to go to architecture school is a big one—one of the biggest you may make. Architecture school is notorious for its grueling academic culture, so get used to sleeping under a desk. It’s also long (up to five years for a B.Arch, and two to 3.5 years for an M.Arch usually). Perhaps most importantly, today’s sky-high tuition usually necessitates taking on some debt, particularly if you’re studying in the United States. So is it worth it?

Learning from 'Learning from Las Vegas' with Denise Scott Brown, Part I: The Foundation

2016-09-28T12:12:00-04:00

Nearly fifty years ago, Denise Scott Brown, her husband Robert Venturi, and Steven Izenour brought nine architecture students, two planning students, and two graphic design students to Las Vegas. There they studied the famous, if often derided, Las Vegas Strip, discovering a wealth of meaning in its bright signage. Their findings, published four years later in 1972, became one of the seminal texts of architectural theory and influenced an entire generation of practitioners and thinkers.

Come rain or shine: reviving collective urban form with the GSD's Office for Urbanization

2016-09-16T12:17:00-04:00

In architecture, city-wide design concepts have a checkered history: public housing projects and century-old zoning ordinances seem to have created almost as many problems as they were intended to solve. And yet, the dream of the collective urban form may be restored with the work of the Harvard Graduate Design School’s new Office for Urbanization. Headed by landscape architecture professor Charles Waldheim, the Office for Urbanization is currently tackling the problems of sea level rise in Miami Beach, but the scope of its research is unearthing a promising new realm of possibilities.

Deborah Berke shares her vision as incoming dean at the Yale School of Architecture

2016-09-14T12:01:00-04:00

As of this July, Deborah Berke took over the deanship at the Yale School of Architecture, succeeding Robert A.M. Stern after his nearly twenty years in the position. Having taught at Yale herself for almost thirty years, Berke is no stranger to its academic culture, and has expansive plans now that she’s assumed the historic title of the School’s first female dean.

7 famous architectural dropouts and autodidacts

2016-09-09T11:11:00-04:00

Don’t tell the architectural students with six figures of debt, but that education of theirs might not be entirely necessary—especially when one looks at the ranks of famous architectural dropouts and autodidacts. These accomplished designers either didn’t complete their formal education or simply forged their own path by virtue of teaching themselves how to design. No matter how they dodged formal education, all of these figures pursued a passionate love of their field.

Screen/Print #44: 'Education: Trial and Error' from The Metropolitan Laboratory Magazine

2016-09-08T11:26:00-04:00

A hyper-competitive culture pervades today’s workplaces and academic settings. It often seems like the only path to success is, well, success. But what about the value of failure? After all, it’s hard to know what’s right when you don’t know what’s wrong.