Rethinking the Crit (Paperback)

Assessment in architecture and creative arts schools has traditionally adopted a ‘one size fits all’ approach by using the ‘crit’, where students pin up their work, make a presentation and receive verbal feedback in front of peers and academic staff. In addition to increasing stress and inhibiting learning, which may impact more depending on gender and ethnicity, the adversarial structure of the ‘crit’ reinforces power imbalances and thereby ultimately contributes to the reproduction of dominant cultural paradigms.

This book critically examines the pedagogical theory underlying this approach, discusses recent critiques of this approach and the reality of the ‘crit’ is examined through analysis of practice. The book explores the challenges for education and describes how changes to feedback in education can shape the future of architecture and the creative arts.

Patrick Flynn is the Head of Learning Development in the College of Engineering and Built Environment in TU Dublin. He studied architecture at UCD and holds a Master’s in Education from DIT. His professional experience includes working in New York and Dublin. He has served on the Board of Architectural Education of the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (RIAI) which is the professional accrediting body for all Irish architectural programmes. He has chaired validation panels for RIAI reviews to UCD, UCC/MTU, SAUL in Ireland as well as serving on validation panels in the UK and Spain. He has researched existing and new pedagogies and published on these in subsequent academic papers and presented at numerous conferences and is currently completing a PhD in pedagogy. He is project co-ordinator of a consortium including UCD, SAUL, and MTU which is engaged in a research project into feedback and assessment funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. He is a council member of the EAAE (European Association for Architectural Education).

Maureen O’Connor is a Dublin based visual artist, for whom her research as a painter, strongly informs her work as a tutor. She uses systems in her own work, and with her students, to improvise deliberately absurd ‘mistakes’ with visual language, at cross purposes to unhinge composition. This is about seeking new visual impressions to stimulate curiosity and exploration. Currently Lecturer in Fine Art at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design, Guest Lecturer at the Schools of Architecture TUD and UCD, and Painting Departments of LSAD and NCAD. External Examiner at CCAM Galway and founding member of the Re-Thinking the Crit team. Her work has received curator’s awards, is exhibited nationally and included in public and private collections.

Mark Price is an architect working in Dublin, and researching architectural ideology in his spare time. Mark is a former tutor at UCD School of Architecture, where he taught drawing for many years. He has been reading Bourdieu, Tafuri and Lacanian critiques with a view to expanding a left analysis of architecture.

Miriam Dunn is an architect and lecturer in Design Studio and structures at the SAUL, School of Architecture, University of Limerick. Miriam is in private practice and is currently completing a PhD on the overlap of engineering and architecture entitled “Drawing as thinking: Structures and Design”. Miriam is also a guest tutor in UCD and TU Dublin Schools of Architecture and a visiting critic at the CEU Valencia and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.