Research and Innovation

School of Architecture and Design

SIAL

leon van schaik

innovation professor of architecture at RMIT University

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

PRACTICE-BASED RESEARCH

Invitational Post Graduate program for Design
1987-1990-ongoing

This is a program through which my team and I seek out practitioners who have developed a body of work demonstrating mastery of their field, invite them to reflect upon the nature of that mastery within a critical framework, to speculate through design on the nature of their future-practice and to demonstrate their findings publicly. We argue that they have a responsibility to the furtherance of architecture, and that this examination of the nature of their mastery promotes and extends the knowledge base of the profession, and thus its ability to serve society.

It is one strand in the largest Post Graduate Program in design in Australia, with in excess of 100 candidates at work at any given time. Other stream of research by project include Urban Design, focussed on a mapping and propositional process developed at RMIT since 1987 and applied to date to Melbourne, Tokyo and Taipei; a similar Landscape Architecture program; a program that specialises in the exploration of spatiality and another that explores Industrial Design. Ph.D. level work by project (with a 40,000 word exegesis) has commenced, with three successful completions to date.

The Critical Framework.

The Framework is provided through
• ongoing research into design practice and through
• structured peer review in a series of Graduate Research Weekends that bring together candidates at various stages of their candidacy.

Structured Peer Review

Candidates meet in Melbourne at
• twice yearly Graduate Research Weekends commencing on a Friday evening,
• and attend a public lecture at which the invited critics who will be on the review panels make a public statement about their work and their current critical stance.
• Candidates, supporters and critics then attend a dinner.
• Reviews are conducted over the following two days, with shared lunches and tea and coffee breaks.
• Evenings are free and candidates meet with local practitioners.
• The weekend concludes with a plenary session, at which critics and participants review the performance of the event.
• Examinations take place during the weekend.
• Candidates are grouped into small communities of learning, and reviewed in clusters.
• These smaller groups are encouraged to keep in e-mail contact and provide each other with ongoing support and critique.

Assisted Reflection

The formal investigation into the rituals and processes of creative intellectual change within a specific learning community is a focus of the senior supervisor’s research, extensively published in reviews of architects and their projects. A series of tools derived from this research are used to assist candidates in the exploration of their own processes of design and practice. The tools are not prescriptive. Candidates work with the tools that reveal most to them.

Speculate through design

They then conduct the next project(s) in their practice in the context of that reflection, speculating about the nature of their future practice, with regular presentations to a structured forum of critics, peers and UG students.

Demonstrate their findings publicly

They bring this research to a conclusion with an exhibition - open to the public -that communicates aspects of their mastery; and through an accompanying catalogue that documents their reflective journey.

The outcomes are then published in collections to provide general and scholarly access to their investigations.

The initiating aim of the program was to

• conduct research in the medium of design itself, rather than to be about design through research in the fields of history or sociology;
• provide evidence about the mastery of design by designers who have demonstrated such mastery through peer review, publication, exhibition and /or community acclaim;
• avoid verbal theorising or credential-seeking through reference to texts from other disciplines;
• acknowledge the impact of other projects or cultural products on the work.
• demonstrate the strategic relationship between practice and design.

Process

There are four stages
• Review of own mastery to date
• Speculation through design of current projects
• Design of exhibition and catalogue
• External review of exhibition and catalogue

1 Review of own mastery to date

Candidates commence by conducting a review of their own projects in a process analogous to a literature review.
• They examine their work and the influences on that work using a series of analytical tools that are discussed with them by the Senior Supervisor.
• They are visited in their practices, so that the ‘brain of the firm’ is conjoined in the research,
• and their works are examined on site, by the initiating supervisory team (consisting of the Senior Supervisor and an Adjunct Professor), and there is regular e-mail interchange.

This work forms the basis of their first public presentation at one of two annual Graduate Research Weekends in May and October. At these weekends, panels review the work. These panels consist of the
• the supervisory team – senior supervisor and program leader, adjunct professor (the initiating team) and a second supervisor who specialises in bringing closure to the research.
• visiting critics – often distinguished practitioners who subsequently enter the program, but also theoreticians from various disciplinary backgrounds including history, cultural studies and urbanism.
• Alternative modes of candidacy: the regulations allow for joint work where a design partnership between two or more people is of long standing – provided each candidate takes responsibility for an independent catalogue reviewing the jointly completed projects.

2 Speculation through design of current projects

Depending on the outcomes of the discussion, candidates either
• conduct further analysis and re-present,
• or satisfied with the response of the panel to the interim outcome of their investigation, they shift their focus to work on the next current project(s) in their practice.
• the supervisory team are involved in this process through visits and through e-mail interchanges.

They present work-in-progress at two further Graduate Research Weekends, seeking to show how what their analysis revealed is impacting on the new project(s).

3 Design of exhibition and catalogue

At a following, usually the fourth, presentation candidates present the design of an exhibition that demonstrates their findings, and they present a draft catalogue.

• The exhibition is strictly limited in scope to the equivalent of three volumes 1800mm x 2400mm x 1500mm, and circulation space. (Candidates find infinite means to extend this stricture to their own ends.) Where possible the exhibition forms part of a larger public event, such as the Adelaide Festival, The Melbourne Festival.
• The catalogue is limited to 24 pages in a set A4 format that allows for later incorporation into a book. Typically this is one third related to the initial review, one third to the work conducted during candidacy, one third to the exhibition and speculation about future practice.

4 External review of exhibition and catalogue

If these design and text proposals are accepted by the review panel, candidates work intensively with the assistant supervisor, and with the whole team as needed, to bring the exhibition and catalogue to completion for public review at the following Graduate Research Weekend.

Prior to the opening of the exhibition and the public review of their work by a panel of examiners, the candidates present to the supervisory team in a dress rehearsal.

The review is open to the public, and is usually attended by large numbers of under-graduates and colleagues. Candidates present their findings for 40 minutes, and a discussion follows, which can include comments and questions from the attendees.

The examination panel is usually chaired by the head of school, and consists of three externals examiners who have not had a material input to the work of the candidate.

The examiners are selected for their theoretical and/or practice reputations, and the panel is always a mixture of both.

The University Regulations governing this process have been refined over the past decade better to suit the process, and the University Higher Degrees Committee often sends an observer from another disciplinary background.

Examiner’s reports are sent to the university committee. If the examiners are in agreement, they transmit their findings to the candidates at the end of their private session after the public review.

Alternative modes of submission and examination: electronic submissions and web-based examinations are possible. In this mode the candidate designs a website, and the examiners conduct a review from their home cities by posting comments and questions, and the candidate reviews these daily under supervision. The exam takes place over the period of a week. Websites have contained video clips, animations etc.

Outcomes

50 candidates have completed, and all indicate that the process has had a transformative effect on their practice.
Outcomes include:
• Better understanding of my processes has enabled me to better communicate with prospective clients about what I can offer,
• I am more certain about the kind of work I want to do, and have become more focussed on what I seek out,
• The process lead me to research that has itself generated new work opportunities for my practice,
• I am now better able to communicate what we are seeking to do to my team, and understand the mechanics of the office as ritualised best practice…
• Etc

Significantly, research at RMIT has shown that more than half of the research students in Australia (70% at RMIT) are seeking this kind of research outcome. They are mature aged, in work, and use reflective research to further their own careers and the success of their practices.

Communication

We commit to publish the catalogues in collections of approximately 12-15 at a time.
• Fin de Siecle – Architectures of Melbourne (1993)
• Transfiguring the Ordinary (1995)
• Interstitial Modernism (2000)
• The Practice of Practice (2003)

Each volume documents the review process, comments of critics and includes the catalogues of about twelve candidates.
In addition the theoretical basis of the program is explored in
• Leon van Schaik (2005). Mastering Architecture: Becoming a Creative Innovator in Practice. Wiley Academy. Chichester

Professor Leon van Schaik
Innovation Professor of Architecture at RMIT
Senior Supervisor, Invitational Program