Ways of learning

These short, intensive studio teaching sessions involve following a task that relates to a particular stage in a given project. Some schools operate a system where everyone learns together in a year group, following the same project briefs, supported by a team of tutors. Workshops are important events in the studio. This is carefully focused and designed to equip students with a new skill or way of working that will push their design on to the next stage. They are also an opportunity to test how well design work communicates to others in an informal setting. Other schools adopt a unit system, where students are assigned to a smaller unit, which will explicitly follow a process or brief that relates to the skills, methods, preoccupations and agenda of the unit tutor. A typical individual tutorial will involve exchanging a lot of information and ideas; reflecting on the work; exercising critical judgement; exploring a particular focus on the design; challenging the brief and so on. This is also the ultimate sanity check; you want to make sure your project is watertight and will stand up to questioning.’
Will Fisher, architectural student, Oxford Brookes University Group tutorials are an opportunity to learn from fellow students as well as tutors, by discussing and debating common themes. These units are often ‘vertical’ with different year groups learning together. It is similar in many ways to a client meeting or to a progress review with a colleague in the office.