Architecture school is a place for exploration, discovery, challenges, and triumphs; it’s a time of growth. And just like all things that grow, a range of growing pains is usually involved. Although uncomfortable, they’re a non-negotiable ingredient towards success. However, students in architecture experience this discomfort in a unique way exacerbated by studio culture and traditional tough-love narratives. This might look like the pridefulness attached to "pulling all-nighters," 24/7 access to studio spaces, or perpetrating "paying your dues" as a student in studio. After extensive research through literature review, interviewing, and data from a large-format survey, we have identified missing pieces in architecture school—potentially ones that could ease or alleviate the growing pains of architecture education. We propose a supplementary yet significant facet of architecture education: intentional and omnidirectional mentorship centered around compassion. A connection between mentor and mentee which is tangential to standard coursework is an advocating tool, sounding board, and compassionate practice for both participants—regardless of merit or educational-architectural status.
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The American standard of architecture education was established in the 18th century, as architecture schools adopted the European Beaux-Arts structure (Ockman 2012). This structure consists of two parts: first, large auditorium spaces filled with students and one professor who delivers both theoretical and technical information via lecture, and second, small ‘ateliers’ of 15-20 students who design projects based on the guidance of their studio critic, who was often invited to teach due to achievements as an “acclaimed practitioner” (Bachman and Bachman 2006). Historian Joan Ockman refers to this mode of teaching as the “guru” method, where a charismatic leader with professional experience develops an idiosyncratic studio pedagogy according to their own experience and beliefs, often with no formal training in teaching (Ockman 2020). For many students, this structure is unfamiliar and at many times a guessing game as they begin to decipher the tacit norms within their field.
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To learn more about the relationship between the way architecture school is structured and its students, our survey asked students and faculty about their educational experience with specific focus on their well-being. We asked participants to compare their level of discomfort during architecture education to other educational experiences on a scale from 1 to 5 (no discomfort to overwhelming discomfort, respectively). On average, the respondents reported a 4, or significant discomfort in comparison to other educational experiences. Additionally, we found that over 40% of students have not encountered an experience outside of their standard coursework that has in some way changed their idea about what it means to be an architect (Van Dyck and Watt 2022). This data expresses a need for more compassion and connection for students of all levels in architecture school. And while the proposed missing piece—mentorship—might not completely remove the discomfort or fully enrich students outside of their coursework, it certainly opens the door for many students to gain a more diverse and refined perspective throughout architecture school.
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Mentorship looks different in many settings. It isn’t always formal, but sometimes rather informal. It can look like office hours visits with an old professor, a model workshop with an older peer, a formalized mentorship pairing, or even a sandcastle building event hosted by the architecture school. However it might look, these happenings create opportunities for students and faculty alike to feel architecture in a way completely different from normative coursework. Learning architecture is an important, challenging, and rewarding, experience—one that shouldn’t be made easier, but rather more accessible and approachable.
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