Preamble
I am one of those who believe that an architectural education leads to a way of thinking that allows us to navigate life on this planet creatively. Design is the process architects use to resolve and negotiate difficult situations in this world. During the 30-plus years of my professional working life as an architect, I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to conceptualise and co-direct television commercials, and design audio-visual shows, books, audiophile products, and stage-sets for well-known theatre productions, apart from designing institutional buildings and townships.
The reason for stating this at the outset is to let the reader know that I value architectural education not just as an architect but as the most comprehensive course on design, which enables us to contribute equally well in all fields of design or project management. And that, if I were to define the course in a single line, it would read like this: critical + creative thinking, as a way to solve problems elegantly, is the essence of architectural design.
The Situation We Have Got Into
Today, the world is in a state of flux.
We are living through an unprecedented climate disaster caused by overconsumption and a techno-industrial paradigm that pollutes the land, water and skies. Ironically, especially in the light of my formulation of architectural design in the paragraph above, the profession of architecture, in the way it builds today, is one of the major contributors to this entirely man-made phenomenon euphemistically called Climate Change. What this implies is that the essence of architectural design, as a way to solve problems elegantly through critical and creative thinking, has been compromised or even lost. We can alter the situation by deliberately moving away from the path that we have been sidetracked on for the last two centuries.
This can be achieved simply by designing and building according to the essential principles of architectural design. There are architects working in different corners of the world who have demonstrated that such a design paradigm is very possible, but at present, they are very few in number. We urgently need many more architects to move away from the practice of conventional architecture to be able to think “out of the box”; and have the conviction to construct buildings that are relevant for this age of crisis and friction. The jury’s comments for the 2025 Aga Khan Awards for Architecture sum up the situation succinctly,
“This cycle of the Award has unfolded in a world in tumult, at a moment of global insecurity. When so many pressures are placed on living, the challenges of building may feel even greater.” The Jury further noted that the projects offer “a message of hope,” underscoring how architecture can illuminate paths forward.”
It is therefore no longer sufficient to merely learn the conventional ways of designing and building to address the challenges faced by the profession today. For an alternative way of building to be widely adopted, we need to rediscover relevant techniques and materials of construction. This is where colleges of architecture are best suited to show the way to future generations of architects.
Why should current architectural education be changed?
I have attempted to answer this question below through six observations.
One
The shortest definition of the basic intent of architecture has probably been stated most succinctly by Vitruvius, through his three maxims: Firmitas, Utilitas, and Venustas. This translates into Firmness and Strength, Utility and Function, Beauty and Delight: the fundamental requirements that architects need to address through their designs. To these three, I would like to add, “consideration and empathy to build without causing harm to the natural environment, which includes all living and non-living beings”.
In my experience, architectural design is no longer taught with this basic requirement in mind. Whatever might be the project brief, students are guided to generate innovative plans not on the basis of firmness, beauty or empathy, but on the unquestioned assumption that they will use industrially produced materials and techniques of building. This conventional way of design and construction has become the default mode and the overriding convention, even when we are aware that it is this very mode of building that has contributed so significantly to the Climate Crisis and Global Warming.
The process of good design begins with a comprehensive understanding of the site and its relationship to the building brief. The site needs to be seen in a larger macro context, which is a part of the ecology of the planet itself. Designing responsibly, thus, has to begin with an understanding that each site has a pre-existing local micro ecological system that is closely interlinked to a much larger geographical area.
Therefore, no design can be carried out in an abstract, formulaic manner. Every project requires to be approached differently, keeping in mind the different ways that a project should and could be designed and built, within its macro and micro context.
Two
If we accept designing as a constructive and critically reasoned creative task, then it no longer remains confined to the act of only “drawing making”. Designing is actually a far more comprehensive act that involves making decisions to configure all the multiple factors that shape a project.
To arrive at the final building, countless design choices have to be made by the architect in charge, who, if trained correctly, also happens to be the only person involved in the project to possess the most complete knowledge of what the design is meant to become in the third dimension. If we were to begin with this premise, then we would be educating students of architecture differently from what we do now.
Three
To train students in the discipline of architecture, we need to teach them to become critical thinkers and creative problem solvers. Students must be able to tackle a complex situation with confidence so that they may resolve conflicting requirements into a feasible and valid built solution. The objective of the design process is to eventually arrive at a definable and tangible solution that addresses all the issues that the project brings to the drawing board, and more. By more, I mean the need to arrive at a design resolution that goes beyond the essential functional qualities of any building.
Any architect who has been active in the profession soon comes to the realisation that designing does not end by drawing “plans”, as we are usually taught to believe in college. Design, therefore, is not limited to just the stage of drawing making, but encompasses the entire process by which a building gets built.
Deftly juggling a number of factors to come up with a design that resolves “seemingly” conflicting forces, to attain a state of equilibrium, is thus the final goal for every project. In this way, the process of design eventually generates a composite “whole”, a “whole” that gets manifested as the finally constructed design.
I believe an architect develops this unique capability over several projects. This aspect—to design a tangible resolution that has to exist physically and function comprehensively—is what needs to be taught in a carefully structured manner to architecture students today. This is especially because of the information overload in this age of the internet, with its latest avatar, AI! Students no longer have the luxury of time to learn this process of design by themselves. Anybody who can prompt AI engines can develop a “passable” design and even build them with AI-aided CAD/CAM printing.
Four
This unique combination of creative ability and critical thinking (as discussed in the previous passage) developed in an architect through practice is what other professions have recently discovered as “design thinking” (something that architects have been familiar with for thousands of years). However, in architecture colleges today, this is rarely taught in a structured manner as a core learning.
If we were to consciously teach students to develop this ability as one of the primary learnings of designing projects, then architects would be able to practice in a manner where they remain indispensable as professionals and gain back the ground they have lost to other players in the field, who today are not just engineers and contractors but include all manner of vendors and social media influencers.
Five
With projects today having become even more complex, it is not possible to teach a student how to address every project typology during their education. Therefore, the teaching instead needs to prepare students to deal with the complexity of any project.
How can they find out and understand aspects in a project that they initially may be unfamiliar with? We need to formally teach them to critically analyse the requirements of a project and decide which information or expertise is relevant and which is not. Most importantly, they need to learn how not to make decisions that would go against the main objectives of a project.
Developing a way to find out and be able to make decisions based upon sound judgment is a skill that has always been an important requirement for any architect to function effectively. In the profession today, it is this ability that has acquired even greater importance in the age of the Internet, coupled with Artificial Intelligence. This skill can no longer be left to be acquired organically; it needs to be taught formally through exercises designed to empower students to develop their ability to make valid decisions.
Six
Honing the ability to take independent and informed decisions also addresses the core objectives of the New Education Policy (NEP). In other words, architectural education is a course that is a natural fit with the objectives that NEP is meant to address. The nationwide push to adopt NEP, therefore, works to our advantage only if we can change the way we teach architecture. By doing so, we shall enable our students to not just practice architecture well, but also open the doors for them to move into any creative field that requires designing real-time solutions that can be fabricated analogously or digitally to stand the test of time.
Students of architecture have already realised this advantage that they have and have started making the shift to other professions. I was told by some recent graduates that these days, only some 6 in a batch of 80-odd undergraduate students of architecture actually continue in the profession of architecture; a majority of them switch to working as UX/UI designers. Many students also move to other design fields, such as product design, exhibitions, events, experiential design and even journalism.
In Conclusion
I have presented through these six observations why architecture education needs a revamp, in both what and how it is being taught. The requirement of the course to train such a large number of architects had become redundant some time ago; this is a reality that we do not wish to acknowledge. Architects, as I had stated in the preamble, are capable of much more than designing and getting buildings constructed.
A change in the way we teach architecture is the way we can enable students of architecture to choose to work creatively and productively in a variety of design fields and build their own careers.
This objective can be achieved if we enable students to become conscious and practical design thinkers and problem solvers, who can, when they leave college, have the ability to take independent charge of any project with confidence and professionalism, in whichever creative field they wish to work in.
The essay above was shared for peer reviews before publication, which led to further revisions of the text. While I received several positive comments, I would like to reproduce one of them here. This response was by A.R. Ramanathan, who also happens to be a founding partner of our architectural practice TEAM or Team for Engineering, Architecture, & Management. I have reproduced his comment here because I feel that it illustrates my main argument through examples that connect it to the situation on the ground.
Dear Snehanshu,
I read through your piece on ‘Architecture and Its Education’ more than once. I agree with what you have put down. I also feel that most of our educators will not understand what you are trying to communicate and hence how to adapt to the change in their teaching and course structure.
I am giving below my own thoughts which are not necessarily structured or responding to your 6 points in a sequence. You may, however, be able to extract some sense from what I am writing.
I would like to talk about two recent experiences. One, my inspection of a reputed and leading school of Architecture, Mumbai. Two, my participation as a jury member in a ‘Housing Competition’ held by a public sector housing finance agency.
I will begin with my experience of my two-day interaction at the School of Architecture. On the face of it, the works showcased were ‘good’ and the teachers appeared ‘competent’. However, what struck me was that the cross section of works and the approaches were very similar to what I had seen in some other institutes of a similar standing, more than 8 years ago! It made me wonder, as to why there has been no advancement in any form of thinking in aspects of design or construction in such colleges.
Architecture education for a very long time has been stuck in the past and therefore remained in a silo, with the primary regulator, the Council of Architecture remaining none the wiser. The siloed existence has essentially cut-off architecture education from both the practices on ground and worse, from other streams (related or otherwise) of learning. Like before, international architectural magazines featuring “iconic” designs, continue to remain as aspirational architectural design for students. The students who study in such an environment, naturally, identify with the kind of architecture that they are taught and expected to design. None of them have the maturity to understand that not all can hope to or even should become a Charles Correa or a Zaha Hadid, even if their aspirations may well be so.
The academic exercises still talk about ‘vernacular’ – as a mere lip service, with one semester out of nine devoted to it and all else towards projects which are ‘urban’ in nature be it housing, traffic, modular, eco-friendly, alternative technology or any other terminology one may associate with a particular exercise. It is no wonder that architecture graduates, almost all, want to work only in metros! Many, as you have pointed out, move away from the profession itself! Is that good or bad is a separate debate we will not get into now.
I had detailed discussions with the management (promoter member – a Director in a leading construction group – was present). I suggested that it is time to establish Design Centres in remote areas of districts, which would be a huge opportunity to do grounded and relevant architecture away from the stiff competition in metro-cities. Such centres can do the much needed work of documenting local practices, and important structures (both traditional and contemporary) of the region and simultaneously provide relevant and innovative design and construction services in the rural and semi-rural areas. In this regard, a successful example from earlier times would be the various COSTFORD centres in Kerala. The volume of construction in the non-metro regions, small towns and panchayats is phenomenal and unlike the metros, also faces a shortage of architects.
I had suggested to the Promoter, that CSR funding could be used in running such centres. Selected architecture graduates could be employed at similar salaries as in the metro cities, and a sincere, genuine preservation of local design typologies, arts, crafts and construction techniques could be undertaken to create a valuable reference resource base.
Additionally, the graduate architects will live in healthier, non-polluted, stress-free environments at a much lower cost. Projects undertaken would range from houses to small shops/ markets, primary health care centres, primary and middle schools, administrative buildings etc. I also pointed out that with internet connectivity being quite effective in most locations, one may eventually handle projects located elsewhere from these centres. In recent times, Sridhar Vembu, the cofounder of Zoho, had followed successfully a similar model, by opening his software and product development centres in rural Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
On hearing my suggestion, the promoter-member said, “You know people are moving from villages to towns and I am not sure if this will work”. This is the rigidity or lack of vison that exists amongst those involved with architecture education today. None of them, it seems, keeps track of current news or trends. For example, the rural fertility rate has dropped to 2.1, and this belief that the movement from villages to cities will continue for another two to three decades is evidence of this lack of awareness. It is also to be foreseen that a lot of the so called ‘urban amenities will find a way into rural areas too and the stark divide between urban and rural will lessen considerably.
Digressing a bit, I am not in favour of a NEP that looks at the same education across the entire length and width of the country. While the fundamental pedagogical requirements could well be common, I think the country’s diverse nature (culture, traditions, knowledge systems, materials, climate etc.) will need to be contextualised into the teaching curriculum as well. Today, almost unthinkingly, we plant a design from Gurgaon’s Cyber Hub into MG Road, Bengaluru or in BKC, Mumbai or the other way round and make them fit!
The other thing I noticed is that in a mixed gathering (academic, cultural or social), the architects/architecture students, soon separate out and form a homogenous group in some corner. Why does this happen? The teaching in a silo is the reason. We do not assimilate enough from other streams. Sociology, in my time, existed as an unimportant subject in one semester of the first year. It may not be a part of the curriculum anymore.
Our understanding of rural or the underprivileged lives are based on half-baked, half cooked field surveys. Socioeconomics needs to be taught as should cultural traditions in a manner that it informs the design and construction of buildings. Public Health and Hygiene is hardly ever taught but has very significant impact on design decisions both at planning and individual site level. This is closely linked with the environmental aspects and obviously climate change as well.
AI is the Damocles sword as of now. How will this dangerous disrupter affect our profession? While at the basic level we (you and I) may agree that no AI can replace the creativity of a human brain, the chances are that most practitioners will resort to its use it as a shortcut to deliver since AI platforms are able to access the data across fields and across countries and continents. Machine developed mix and match solutions will become the order of the day! Can we, therefore, establish a library/repository of our architectural wealth covering our regional and cultural diversity before the machines pick up only the Gurgaon and the BKC? Superficiality already rules and is expected to get worse.
My second experience, in the last couple of weeks, was being a jury member for a Housing Design competition. The problems commenced with the dossier itself – very poorly drafted and with no clear directions for the participants. It simply asked for designs for ‘Beneficiary Led Construction’ in plots up to 150 sqm and for three regions, Hilly, Coastal and Plains. Most of the participants designed single user houses on 150 sqm plots which could have pleased any moneyed Delhiite owning a plot in any of the typical Delhi colonies or the like in any other city in India! The promoter of the competition is an important public sector organisation that should have an immense contribution to make in the sphere of housing, therefore if their understanding of architecture and requirements is insufficient, then how does one overcome the problem of housing itself?
I sense somewhere the same “silo way” of operating is a big contributor to this as well. When the poor quality of the brief and the low quality of the entries received, was pointed out to the promoter – unsurprisingly, it made no real impact on them. They appeared to be more interested in holding an event with a ‘prize distribution’ that could be used on social media! It is interesting to also note here that the competition was organised with the CoA partnering with the promoter!
The primacy of the Architect as the lead designer has been lost long ago. Much of it is due to the fact, that most architects do not have even a basic of knowledge about related streams. They are playing a second fiddle at best or have reduced themselves to simply the lot who make nakshas (plans) at the worst.
You have talked about the process and the need to evolve ‘design thinking’ as an important aspect of examining the very process of design. I firmly believe that will happen only when we come out of our silos and are able to use our eyes and ears to take in all relevant inputs without bias.
Further, I believe that formal education may soon get replaced by the requirement of acquiring only skills (the example of UI/UX you have mentioned). Perhaps only the study of law and medicine may prolong for a while, the rest will accelerate towards skilling and up-skilling modules. Our education needs to debate this aspect seriously and stay abreast if not ahead of developments. This requires ‘vision’ sadly available only in negligible quantity!
Maybe something would emerge from the formats that the CoA appointed task force have started to formulate in a bid to improve the quality of architectural practice?
If something else comes to mind, I will write again or call you!
Regards,
Ramanathan
