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Should sustainability become a central plank of education? It's a question that has sparked a lively debate in the pages of Building Design in the past couple of weeks. The magazine has been running plenty of coverage in the run up to next month's Oxford Conference, which has a bold vision to reset the agenda for architectural education. A central plank of this is around the environment and four leading figures hurled some rotten tomatoes at the education establishment by claiming their courses were out of touch with the needs of practitioners - ie. designing low carbon buildings, understanding how they actually work and how the construction industry operates.
Led by leading practitioner Rab Bennetts and author Christopher Alexander it was strong stuff, but led to a stout defence last Friday from academia. Up popped a quartet of educational figures to claim that a concentration on a single issue, sustainability, was flawed and potentially counter productive. And a news piece in the same edition quoted Allan Atlee, diploma school course leader at Canterbury School of Architecture who said there was a problem "where sustainability becomes a kind of privileged term that confers value straightaway. As soon as you say your course is doing sustainable development… whatever you design is commendable.”
I can understand Atlee's point and some of those made by the other academics. But I still think they are being overly defensive and a little muddled. Here's the view of Iain Borden, head of the Bartlett School of Architecture:
"Sustainability and climate change are incredibly important, but they are not the only challenges. I can think of at least four others we must face up to: global health and the health of populations; intercultural interactions and how different social groups live together; general wellbeing; and quality of life. These are equally as important as climate change."
Two points on this: the first is that you could argue the term sustainability probably covers at least two of his other challenges. The second, as commenter Muhammed points out, is that these are challenges probably somewhat beyond the power or influence of the profession. Perhaps sticking to what they can influence - buildings, spaces and (to a degree) infrastructure - may be best.
That's why I would generally side with the first camp of debaters who are urging the educators to get back to basics - to teach students how to draw, typology (the relationship between buildings to spaces and streets) and how to detail. Only by a closer integration with the industry can the challenges of low or zero carbon buildings can be met.
A little part of me wonders whether this is a little reductive. Will such an approach restrict broader economic or social ideas, such as the ones put forward in another BD piece last week envisaging some fascinating ideas on how London should develop. It comes down to what we or the profession itself sees as its primary role. Right now it's probably to stick to the knitting.
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