No_6_June_1968 — Page 21

EDUCATING THE ARCHITEC

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Fifth year thesis-sports centre with accommodation for 5,000 spectators; also usable as a convention centre

the increasingly immense fund of knowledge and skill that can be brought to bear on a problem, it is already obvious that it can only be properly handled, even using automat- ed techniques, by a fully integrated group of skilled specialists.

Learning to synthesize, to integrate, to reconcile, to inject that essential spark of integrity and human expres- sion into design, to reach decisions in collaboration with other people, there- fore, is something else that our suc- cessors must be taught.

Design thinking should

should always progress from an outline of the whole to details of the parts, though while this is appropriate for the education of 'designers' including architects

it is not conducive to study to an adequate depth for the other contri- buting and participating specialists of the design team, nor for any of its 'lower ranks'.

This conflict between the dangers of subdivision, in relation to unity of task on the one hand, and the need for it, to permit analysis in depth, on the other, is of vital concern for all involved in design education. Clearly a unified yet truly flexible teaching structure and policy is called for. If all this is the meaning of design, then each one contributing to the process should know it. Although their rela-

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tionships will change, these basic prin- ciples cannot; cannot that is without the process being incomplete and the result an inevitable failure.

The educational problem

It is under these principles, then, that 'Materials and Techniques' is taught in the Department to the de- signers of buildings. The pattern as defined is followed as closely as pos- sible within an overall curriculum of which it is an inseparable part. Teach- ing is aimed at fostering thinking on a basis of scientific enquiry, and a sound understanding of principles is demanded.

Teaching methods in which the subject is treated as an empirical pack- age of accumulated fact have been found increasingly invalid and are not used.

As has been explained, both Ma- terials and Techniques have a subjec- tive as well as an objective content, and the approach to their proper un- derstanding and use needs to be based on a teaching method that takes this into account.

In covering much that is measur- able and quantifiable in design it is obviously wrong for the knowledge and theory of the subject to be taught

systematically if the skills and prac-

Workshop used for practice in building techniques and model making

Far East BUILDER, June 1968.

tice are not, and it is in set design exercises, where knowledge and skills are fused and where principle is ap- plied that this should take place.

Systematic design methods do not exclude that which is intuitive and subjective, but rather put it on a realistic and viable plane. Whatever the teaching medium, be it formal lec- ture, tutorial, site visit, seminar, stu- dio project, laboratory experiment, workshop exercise, library study, cri- tical discourse or practical experien- ce, whatever the teaching aids that are employed, and whether the teach- ing is to individuals or groups, full integration of any of the constituent subjects into the design process can only be achieved within a methodology of this kind.

In the design of buildings, Materi- als and Techniques, or more suitably Building Technology, is a constituent subject and an obviously important one, if the concept of the design pro- cess referred to above is accepted. It follows therefore that

any inade- quacies in facilities or equipment, any inappropriate methods of teaching, and any uncertainties in the structure of the educational system in respect of it, can only make its teaching and that of the design process both more difficult and in some degree unsuccess- ful.

The present course

The subject's content falls into two quite clearly defined categories, one representing the 'scientific' and the other the 'production' aspects of Building Technology.

The field of the Science of build- ing is concerned with the nature and behaviour of those phenomena which act on a building. Some of these, such as the characteristics of materials themselves, are 'internal' phenomena. while others are 'external' and con- cern the characteristics of the environ- ment in which they perform.

Structure, stability, movement. weathering, durability and the control of heat, light, sound and fire and so on are all involved, and while studied and integrated under the teaching of Materials, some are dealt with in more depth and from differing view- points in separate courses on Struc-

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