Fear and Learning in the Architectural Crit

What I read

In this text, the authors describe the results of a survey conducted primarily with architecture students. The students were asked about their experiences with and opinions about critique. The authors summarize the findings, identifying that fear and anxiety is a prominent quality of the student crit experience, and urging educators to consider ways to evolve the critique process.

The authors begin by describing the historic role of the critique as a "ritual rite of passage" that acts as a demarcation of a student becoming someone who thinks and acts like a practitioner. The authors have conducted previous research into the phenomenon of critique, and a literature review has indicated several key problems of the model. This study further explores the experience of critique. Sentiment and retrospective data was gathered from students through a survey, synthesized, and then used to address questions related to how a critique occurs, and the impact of the crit on student learning.

The first set of findings is related to the format of the critique itself, and indicates that it has largely remained consistent over time. A student presents by themselves for a short period of time, and a longer discussion is conducted by a jury. The crit is small, typically with 20 students. Other students often do not participate directly, but observe and wait for their turn. This format is perceived as having a material educational impact, although it is not always positive: "respondents made clear that the success or failure of the crit as a learning event very much depends upon what might be interpreted as relatively subtle differences in the behavior of staff and students and differences in the overall format of the process."

The next set of findings focuses on the emotions students have related to the crit; the most common were "stress and fear." The experiences were described as "tense" and "nerve-wracking." Students emphasized the need for useful and constructive criticism, and were looking for shared dialogue and discussion, as well as a feeling that their work was valued.

The few professors that responded to the survey indicated that a critique has the potential to be "rewarding, celebratory, enjoyable and enriching for all," but this was not how students perceived the event. Students were often tired and too nervous to absorb the content of the critique. Students felt that the professor had a material impact on the value of the critique; "the majority of responses describing worst crit experiences referred to tutor behavior." Students noted that educators may change their opinion to match that of an invited guest, act unengaged, interrupt, show a lack of respect, and show a lack of understanding.

Students are "less sure that they actually learn what they are intended to learn" from critique. Often, they feel that the sole purpose of the critique is to learn to present and communicate. Few mentioned that the critique is about the content of architecture itself.

The authors reflect on their findings, explain that "a large number of students experience the crit as a fundamentally stressful, fear-inducing event," and that fear and anxiety blocks ability to learn. They see two main issues that are fundamental to this fear: "personally delivering a (semi)public presentation and the fear of being personally and professionally judged or assessed." They propose that students should be taught to present and should learn critical capabilities. Additionally, they describe that faculty need to learn how to "behave in a way that is polite, respectful, and engaged, not abusive or humiliating." They should use different approaches for different occasions, and "have a pedagogical grounding in order to raise their awareness of alternative approaches."

They conclude that "the crit commonly appears to be trying to be all things to all people, rarely being particularly successful in any one aspect of learning."

What I learned and what I think

The main conclusion—that the crit is trying to be everything, and so it is nothing—really resonates. Putting aside the fear, anxiety, and stress emotions for a moment, one of the biggest realizations I'm having is that most crits have no overt goal, or if they do, the goal is not aligned with the format or not heard by the students. There are probably implicit goals, but I think professors aren't even aware of what they are. The goals of improving the process, scaring the shit out of someone so they "build thick skin", learning to present, and assessing the outcome are all different, and the authors are right—the same teaching method doesn't work for these (and these are just a few of the possible reasons to have a crit.)

I seem to always try to find a root cause, and I think it's because no one ever taught the professors how to think about educational experiences, so they just sort of follow the front of the bus. I know that's how I did it at SCAD—I just did what I learned, and what I saw other professors doing. I never questioned the point of a pinup at all, or even the method, because it's "just how things are done" (is that true? I was reflective on things, but I'm pretty sure it was focused on the precedent-difficulty of the classes, and making them more rigorous.)

If you do start with a goal, the current nature of a crit does make some sense for things like learning to present, or hold a room, or manage conflicting feedback. But if that's the goal, then students need to learn those methods and practices ahead of time, and the crit just becomes one experience of many in becoming good at those things, and when it's done, there needs to be some sort of meta-discussion on the crit-management itself. The things students hear about the work needs to be somewhat ignored in the criticism of the crit.

But starting with a different goal, like improving the quality of the work itself, or improving the skills that a student has, leads to a completely different set of teaching and learning approaches. I don't know what they all are, but a big one would be not actually having a critique at the end of the quarter or semester at all. Some form of critique at the end of a project, but mid-quarter, could be valuable if the content can be applied directly onto the next body of work, but that assumes some form of thoughtful continuity in project planning (which I would hope would be there, but often isn't.) Another would be interjecting moments of critique and discussion about process, so a professor would have to be observing what students were doing, not what they were making, and pausing them mid-action to reflect. If it's important that things are public, I suppose students could draw on demand and have the process of drawing assessed in real-time, although that is a pretty fear-inducing activity. But the overall takeaway here for me is that critique without overt goal is pretty pointless.

On the nature of fear and anxiety, I wonder how intense this is outside of architecture critique. I know it's there, because I've seen students do all of the same all-nighters, binge drinking. The attitude around it is slightly different, though. The word "jury" never has shown up in my experience, and that word matters in the overall culture of how work is assessed. I see a lot of potential and realized value in some of the rituals that emerge from preparing for a "final presentation," too. There really is magic that happens in the studio at 2am, and the nostalgia matters in creating a creative community and in forming more long-term professional relationships. It's probably a poor comparison, but the stress on the body of running a marathon is pretty acute for most people, and one could argue that the behavior around it is "unhealthy" after a point, but it's not considered a bad part of running culture—it's a pivotal, different, uncommon event and it has different celebratory aspects, and strain. (Maybe that is actually a good analogy?)

I'm sort of surprised at how much I feel my perspectives on critique changing. Maybe I'm just getting older and more sympathetic/empathetic/apathetic (?), or maybe it's my earlier point: I never learned how to do any of this stuff, and just repeated what happened to me when I was in school and teaching at SCAD.

There's no real discipline-specific teaching on how to teach design, as far as I know……

Repeated here for some article research:

…the confrontational nature of the event and the impact that this might have on future relationships between architects and their clients and users (Wilkin 2000); the dominating and potentially destructive power relationships inherent in the model (Webster 2007, Till 2003-5; see also Willenbrock 1991); the nature of the event in replicating and legitimizing existing understandings of the production of architecture (Webster 2011 and Till 2003-5); and the particularly negative impact of the process on female and black and minority ethnic students (de Graft-Johnson, Manley and Greed 2003, CABE 2004).