Are we architects? - Michelle Howard

The Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology, in collaboration with the Brno Architecture Gallery, the Student Council of the Faculty of Architecture, and the VI PER gallery in Prague, invites you to a lecture “On the Importance of Uselessness in Architectural Education” by architect Michelle Howard, which is part of the lecture series “Are We Architects? On Education, the Architectural Profession, and Institutional Critique”. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 2, at 18:00 in lecture room A310 at the Faculty of Architecture, Poříčí 5, Brno. The lecture will be in English.

MICHELLE HOWARD: ON THE IMPORTANCE OF USELESSNESS IN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

Historians predict that the advent of artificial intelligence will lead to the emergence of a "useless" class of workers who will not only be unemployed but also unemployable. The lecture will address the notions of uselessness and employability in contemporary societal discourse, their influence on architectural practice, and will attempt to propose alternatives.

Michelle Howard is an architect and educator. She leads the Berlin studio constructconcept (COCO) and has been teaching at the Institute of Art and Architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts since 2008. She serves as the head of the Construction Materials and Technologies (CMT) platform at the academy, which she uses to explore the program documented in the publication Research-Observe-Make. An Alternative Manual for Architectural Education (Birkhäuser Verlag, 2015). The book consists of five parts – introduction and theory, “elementary,” “spatial,” and “material” projects, documentation of workshops, lectures, and experiments. Michelle believes that a closer look at the world around us and interaction with it can provide new possibilities for inspiration and help in proposing solutions – if we look closely. In addition, we can create something, feed it into the existing framework, and intervene in the current situation with our unique qualities. The development of methods for research and observation is essential for the exploration and utilization of qualities. Michelle proposes to act, not just solve problems – to use research and observation to design new scenarios for others and the profession.

ARE WE ARCHITECTS? ON EDUCATION, THE ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION, AND INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE

In the last fifteen years, architectural education has been subjected to dual pressures. One direction stems from the recalibration of the institutional framework of higher education and is associated with what is sometimes referred to as the “research turn.” In response to increasing demands and performance in research, architecture and design schools have reacted with a vaguely articulated approach called “research by design.” This “sidestep” clearly highlights the epistemological threshold between architecture and more methodologically grounded scientific disciplines that conduct research without qualifiers. Essentially the same problem, which this time comes from the outside, is usually framed as a problem of theory and practice. This line of critique often points to the detachment of architectural education from real problems and the applicability of architectural research to real life. The question of relevance is precisely the acupuncture point that connects doubts about the relationship between academia and architectural practice, and by extension, doubts about the relevance of the architectural profession to contemporary "Society". In this way, the epistemological question about the nature of architectural teaching and research becomes an ontological question: How do we, as architects, relate to the surrounding world and what role do we want to play in it?

The lecture series “Are We Architects? On Education, the Architectural Profession, and Institutional Critique” is held with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the statutory city of Brno, and the AKTION program.

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