According to Sumita Singha, a practicing architect and academic who has worked in India, France, Spain and the UK, strangely enough, diversity and equality are ‘taboo’ words in architectural education. Considered to be liberal and creative, way above what is considered ‘political correctness’, most architects do not see the elephant in the room. While architecture is getting better at talking about equality and diversity, it still remains a profession of middle-aged white men, and architectural education appears to be symptomatic.
Diversity in architectural education takes many forms – it can manifest itself as diversity in people, be it students, academia or practicing designers as the education’s final product, in the course or curricula, and the way it is taught.
Rich architecture is impossible without influences from diverse bodies of knowledge and experience brought on the table by representatives of various cultures, sexes and ages. For built environment to reflect the society, architecture should be a representation of the population as a whole, which means architectural education should be as inclusive as possible. Unlike some other professional courses, where the output is standardized all over the world, such as medicine or engineering, architecture is specific to the context, with factors like aesthetics, environmental conditions, etc varying widely in different cultures. This makes the architectural course extremely demanding and complex.
At the same time, with its widely accepted culture of excessive working hours, a growing debt problem, and elitism, architecture is considered to be one of the most challenging courses. It takes one from seven to ten years to qualify as an architect. It is estimated that each architecture student spends more than 34 hours per week in studies and pull all-nighters more often than not. Material outlays, study trips and numerous associated costs make the course exuberantly expensive.
The UK is one of the leading countries to provide architectural education for both home and overseas students. Recent data shows, that although Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students and women are well represented on architecture courses in the UK, there is a bid drop out of both female and ethnic minority students.
Research shows, that approximately 37% of architectural students are women and the percentage is increasing. This increase, however, is not reflected in the architectural profession, with the majority of them leaving the profession after qualifying. Women represent only 13% of the total amount of practicing architects. Less than 8% of women own their practices and number of female professors or Heads of Schools can be counted in one hand.
“Diversity in student body of UK is well represented in architecture,” writes Singha. “However expression of Architectural Diversity – both in the end products of graduates and buildings – is not. The first woman was admitted to the Royal Institute of British architects (RIBA) in 1898 after a hotly debated council meeting where Ethel Charles, holder of its Silver Medal (1905) won by a margin of one vote. However, it was only in the year 2000 that RIBA adopted an Equal Opportunities policy for its staff.” Thus there has been, and still is, a lack of role models for aspiring female or BME students.
International survey reveals that among the most common reasons why women leave the profession there are many factors, such as pay gap, poor promotion prospects, discriminatory attitudes and sexist behaviour. Research from Strathclyde University suggests that sexism is something female architects face during their years of study – e.g. at ‘crits’, where students pin up their work and invited critics make points and suggestions about the work. The teaching and evaluation in architecture courses remain extremely ‘personalized’, occurring on a one-to-one basis, rather than through essays or exams. Predictably, as the tutors are mainly white older middle class men, instead of being an important source of ideas for the students, crits “turn into an arena where sexism and machoism prevail”. The solution can be found in student-centered teaching methods, such as a more extensive use of peer assessment, which implies inviting other students to critique other students.
As for BME architects in the UK, the percentage is too small to be a part of the statistics. The BME students feel under-represented and undervalued in the profession and this is due in no small part to architectural education becoming more elitist, caused initially by high fees.
Experts believe that the fact that skilled people drop out of studies because of financial challenges and biased attitudes or leave the profession after they have qualified means serious implications for the future of architecture in general. The shrinking talent pool has a wider impact on the diversity of the profession and its output. As Harriet Harriss, dean of the Pratt Institute School of Architecture in New York, says: “The effect of reducing diversity-of-access to an architectural degree will result in the profession failing to represent the society it seeks to serve, and deplete both our relevance and credibility.”
In addition to the diversity issues as evaluated on the premise of gender or ethnicity, there is a problem of the syllabus and the teaching remaining too ‘euro-centric’. One area often lacking diversity is architectural history and theory. Kendall Nicholson, Ed.D., a licensed educator, trained architectural designer, and an avid architectural researcher, points it out that with figures like Vitruvius, Thomas Jefferson, and Le Corbusier being often the subject of the courses in question in the US, architectural history and theory is taught as traditionally European, male and modern. “And this is where we find implicit bias,” he writes. “While these names should be part of the body of knowledge, I would argue that an architect’s required awareness of history and theory should be more expansive. By excluding architecture found in non-European cultures, the curriculum, perhaps inadvertently, communicates that they are of less importance.” Additionally, these curricula often fail to recognize the contributions of female architects and designers. This is echoed by experts in the UK. “I find that architectural teaching in the UK is stuck in the past. It is kind of strange, I look around – I see there are students from all backgrounds, not just white, and then I look at what they are studying and the language being used – it could be from the 1940s,” says Lesley Lokko, architect, teacher, author and cultural commentator.
In other words, architecture students, no matter their origin, are taught that Western designs are more progressive than the ones offered by the vernacular traditions of their own countries. The diminishing of the cultural input of non-Western cultures is not the only result of these experiences. What is more important, after qualifying these students tend to design in the Western style. According to renowned writer, historian, and teacher, author of the concept of critical regionalism, Kenneth Frampton this leads to the fact that the architects of the so-called Third World tend to ignore comparable alternate patterns of their own culture that could with minor adaptation have been employed equally effectively in both Western and non-Western worlds.
Many architectural schools and courses are taking steps forward to diversify their curriculum. The latest edition (2014) of US’ student performance criteria issued by NAAB requires programs to ensure students have an understanding of “History and Global Culture” as well as “Cultural Diversity and Social Equity”, which is a significant evolution from the 2004 requirement that students demonstrate an understanding of “Western Traditions” and “Non-Western Traditions.” To follow these guidelines, the University of Virginia teaches courses like “World Vernacular Architecture” that feature examples from Cambodia and Morocco, while the University of Colorado Denver supplements the textbooks in architectural history with “required readings on architecture of the Middle East, East Asia, Americas and Africa.”
Architecture students of today are the architects of tomorrow. For this future not to be narrow-minded, the profession should continue to struggle with diversity issues. Without recognizing that the educational aspect of architecture seems to push the profession backwards, it would be hard to create inclusive architecture that acknowledges and respects vibrant and diverse influences of practitioners from all backgrounds.
Illustration by Sunra Thompson