At recent graduate summer shows I found myself marvelling at the enthusiasm, the energy and the ideas of the students; and how poorly such potential was being served. Not specifically by our school but by the way that we have evolved architectural education away from the practice of architecture.

Architectural education as we now know it originated in the 1950s – when what became known as the Oxford Conference turned its back on, quite literally, millennia of teaching practices in the optimistic postwar mentality that with new technology and methodology we could do better. I applaud the sentiment and enthusiasm, but the results have been disastrous.

…