By Ben Flatman2021-05-19T06:00:00+01:00
This is going to hurt but without radical reform architecture is doomed, writes Ben Flatman
Architects are underpaid and marginalised. Here are my suggestions on how to turn the profession around and make it fit for the future.
1.
Reform education – and don’t stop
After centuries of evolution as a skilled trade, the 1958 Oxford Conference decided that architectural education would henceforth be an intellectual pursuit carried out within a university environment. But architecture is not an academic discipline. To give it credibility within the universities, the professional academics who came to dominate teaching had to detach architecture from its origins within construction. The results have been catastrophic, contributing to reduced access for the less well-off; the ceding of expertise and leadership to others, and setting architects on their path towards marginalisation.
By Tom Lowe2020-10-23T06:00:00+01:00
Over half of students say their mental health has suffered, RIBA survey finds
The UK’s roughly 18,000 architecture students have been carrying out much of their studies remotely during the pandemic
Over half of architecture students say their mental health has suffered because of the covid-19 pandemic, according to a RIBA survey.
Some 58% said their mental health had deteriorated during the crisis, while 39% said their physical health had deteriorated.
Nearly half – 45% – of the 398 students who responded to RIBA’s covid-19 student survey, said that they were feeling isolated, while 39% said that they were not keeping in touch with their peer group.