How can the current Architecture education system be improved? | Architecture Education

This complex subject need thought and research, especially architecture schools as the training centers for young professions in Iran and the middle east are not comparable to advanced countries. And, in general, architecture schools in Iran are not very creative to train students for the profession and make architects. In the field of architecture, good architects are responsible for creativity, and artistic perspective in design and create concepts, but a big number of architecture graduates in Iran abandon the field for something else and it comes from design expectations for the profession.

The Future of Architecture Education
Architecture and Education ©Freepik

In the west, over the past three decades, architecture selected different ways to show the future. In general, three-movement towards the future in the west for architecture education explained:

  • Modern Movement: Looking to the Future through Forecasting.
  • Postmodern: Looking to the future through past criticism.
  • Postmodern trends: Looking to the future through Criticism of the present.

Today architecture education is not architecture history but it is about creativity to produce new architecture and discuss the process of the design. To address the challenges of tomorrow architecture education following points have to be considered:

1. Syllabus: what skills and knowledge should be learned at architecture schools?

To respond to this question is important to learn about the followings:

  • how to teach
  • linking between design, research, and requirements
  • Incorporating information technology into the curriculum

2. Criterion: How school of architecture should be evaluated?

3. Process: How to evaluate the design process?

Future of architecture education has to prepare graduating students for the realities of professional practice and important issues in the world such as up-to-date technological tools, innovative materials, environmental warnings, knowledge, and information about future urbanism

-To train successful futuristic architects, schools must have an appropriate syllabus, proper criteria for evaluation, and experienced teachers in the educational process.

-To improve the current architecture education system must educate students for both professional practice and the future expectations of design

-To apply new mediums, virtual reality, robotics, and artificial intelligence are important in future education

-To train students to learn skills in CAD and 3D modeling

-To offer access to workshops that have 3D printers and laser cutters, and students are able to realize both scale models and virtual reality

-To offer courses about creating architectural concepts beyond traditional architectural methods such as bubble diagrams, sketches, and hand free drawings.

1. Freehand drawings and sketches - Sheet1
Freehand drawings and sketches as traditional tools to show design process in architecture studio ©www.instagram.com
1. Freehand drawings and sketches - Sheet2
Freehand drawings and sketches as traditional tools to show design process in architecture studio ©www.instagram.com
2. Bubble Diagrams - Sheet1
Bubble diagramsas traditional tools to show concept for design process in architecture studio picture ©www.instagram.com
2. Bubble Diagrams - Sheet2
Bubble diagramsas traditional tools to show concept for design process in architecture studio picture ©www.instagram.com
2. Bubble Diagrams - Sheet3
Bubble diagramsas traditional tools to show concept for design process in architecture studio picture ©www.instagram.com
3. The future of architecture education 3d printers,laser cutters and robotics - Sheet2
The future of architecture education: using 3D printers,laser cutters and robotics©www.instagram.com
3. The future of architecture education 3d printers,laser cutters and robotics - Sheet1
The future of architecture education: using 3D printers,laser cutters and robotics©www.instagram.com

Citation

  • Architectural Education: Is It Actually Preparing Our Students For the Future?
    Yiling Shen – www.archdaily.com
  • Patrick Mays, The Future of Architecture and Education © www.di.net
  • Bermudez J., The Future in Architectural Education, ACSA Press, presented at 87TH
    ACSA Annual Meeting Proceedings, 1999, pp.321-325.
  • Rittel H., Some Principles for the Design of an Educational System for Design, Design Methods and Theories, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1986, pp. 359-375.
  • Cornish E., Introduction, in E. Cornish (ed.): Exploring Your future, Bethesda, Maryland:

World Future Society, 1996, pp.5-6.

  • GorjiMahlabani Y. Today’s Architecture Education and the Future Concerns © www.sid.irFaculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Imam Khomeini International University Qazvin, Iran.
Author

Nastaran Razavi graduated in Landscape Architecture at University of Toronto in 2012, worked as an architecture editor and conducted research on projects in architecture to present creative ideas in architecture and interior design fields for Kaazdeco studio. It is my honor as an intern to spread the message of successful architects to current generation of architecture students. It is hoped that innovative ideas in architecture, interior design and landscape architecture improve the quality of space in design.