2003-06-19

Follow-up of the 1998/99 evaluation of Swedish architect education

The National Agency for Higher Education executed its mandate in the form of a national survey made by a Nordic assessment group during the winter of 1998/99. The assessment group found that Swedish architect education had many qualities; technical/functional focus, it broadened knowledge in the field, it had a favourable social impact, it produced professional actors, it stimulated interest in theoretical knowledge and quite often it was linked to research of a kind. Its weakness from an international point of view was to seek in what the group pointed out as the core elements of architecture as a subject; the conceptual thinking, development of ideas and the emphasis on architecture as a mode of expression. It was judged there were excellent opportunities for raising the quality level while preserving at the same time the specific features of Swedish architect education.

The group deemed three measures necessary in order to achieve higher quality:

• Extending the degree course by one term to five years.
• Internal development and solidly anchored local aims for the architectural educational activities.
• Coordinated organisation for all decisions on architecture at each university and university college.

Bearing in mind the targets set by the government, the National Agency for Higher Education judged the criticism aimed at architect education as serious and moreover since all schools of higher education were making or planning changes, the agency decided to follow-up the situation within the near future. It is this follow-up that is reported here.

The follow-up mandate is limited. It is principally aimed at overriding, structural queries and most of its source has been come from course catalogues and other general information. Radical changes are being carried out at two schools. Here the follow-up is based to a great extent on visions and plans. No self-evaluations were made and visits to places with interviews were limited to one day per school. It is anticipated that the courses will be completely evaluated by the year 2005 within the remit for the National Agency for Higher Education´s national evaluation plan.

The follow-up established that the conclusions presented in the 1998/99 evaluation have mainly been accepted by the schools both generally and with regard to the circumstances for each individual course and that they have supported the reformation of the courses that took place. With the building development that took place during the latter part of 1990´s and the desire for a change in the architect role as a background, the National Agency for Higher Education proposed when submitting the evaluation report that the degree course prospectus should be supplemented. This was done to some extent and the changes came into force from 01/07/2000. They cover the need for an overall view of knowledge and skills with regard to administration and renewal of buildings and building environments and also of durable and functional high quality solutions of good design.

The architect degree course continues to be one of the most popular higher education courses. Thanks to a broad admission process and many exchange students in the senior year courses, the schools of architecture would appear to have a rich variation in the student cadres. Both individually and collectively the students are a development potential that entails major challenges to both teachers and educational administrators.

Both the number of enrolled first-year students and the total number of students at the country´s schools of architecture has grown by about 25 percent since the 1998/99 evaluation. The increase has been largely possible due to a reassessment of priorities within universities and university colleges based on student applicant pressure on other undergraduate programmes. To judge from the place visits to schools and talks with teachers and students, the increase in the number of students in several insitutions of learning has had a negative effect on essential segments of tuition.

A part of the pressure increases on Swedish architect degree courses comes from foreign students. Apart from the problems of crowding, the influx of students with inadequate previous knowledge for higher academic year courses has resulted in problems affecting students as a whole. A particular course that is mainly in English can be both an advantage and disadvantage to these year courses. Much desired is a better thought-out and well-prepared admission process for foreign students for the Swedish architect degree courses.

The three Swedish architect courses currently apply a structure that facilitates national and international student exchange and together pave the way for several professional roles. After a basic course of 3 years chiefly with the obligatory course curriculum, there follows a specialised 1.5-year course with a wide range of choice, where the schools build up special-focused subjects and offer a varied curriculum range. Preparations are underway at all schools of architect to introduce an intermediate degree after completion of the basic curriculum based on the Bologna Model accepted by a number of states.

What remains for the Swedish architect schools to do is for them to jointly clearly demarcate the basic curriculum´s coursework and to present in an amenably acceptable format the Swedish architect schools´ collective presentation of selectable courses. Two of the schools offer the possibility of optional extension of the study period from 4. 5 to 5 years. A voluntary extension involves problems with regard to study financing and results in increased crowding in the schools, since no support is forthcoming from the Higher Education Ordinance. It should be seen against the background of the schools´ experience and the difficulties in teaching a complete architect degree course with sufficiently qualified specialisation possibilities within the framework for today´s education, but also an adaptation to an internationally used 3+2 year model, that is expected to be generally introduced at the technical universities and university colleges.

The length of the degree course is linked with its targets. In 1988/89 the Assessment Group stated that the most important reason for extending the course to five years, as recommended by the group, is its close links with the degree course targets, namely, to achieve both an artistic and an academic high quality. Developing this double disciplinary integrity, which imposes demands on different kinds of pedagogy, requires time for reflection and maturity. The increase in the number of degree targets following the assessment clarifies and sharpens these double imperatives. Perusal of the schools´ courses, curriculum and programmes strongly support the contention that Swedish architect education must be extended if, when taking their degrees, the students are prepared to weigh both intellectually and artistically the problems of today and formulate complex solutions.

Already at the 1998/99 evaluation the shortage of resources was taken up as a dominating problem by those responsible for the courses. The fact that the schools had difficulty in presenting this in a clear way, made it difficult for the evaluators to express viewpoints in the matter. The same difficulties in producing facts exist today. Since the shortage of resources is now judged by several representatives of the schools to be the strategically most important question for Swedish architect education, the economic provisos for operating the courses must still be taken up in the follow-up. A comparison between on the one hand the compensation amounts for architect courses and on the other those for the design courses - that, among other things, leads up to a degree in interior architecture - show that the compensation for the latter courses is more than twice as high. An analysis of both the courses based on the evaluations of the National Agency for Higher Education does not show any distinctive differences between them other than that with regard to student-teacher ratio.

For the often-small artistic courses, which include the design courses, compensation is evaluated in order, among other things, to make teacher-lead studio instruction possible during a large part of the course, principally the first years. The same type of studio instruction constitutes a central and equally frequent feature in the architect degree course during the basic phase. The follow-up shows that the student-teacher ratio in the architect degree course is considerably lower, which will mean poorer opportunities for individual criticism and follow-up, essential elements in all high-class artistic completion training. A condition for the desirable enlargement of the artistic dimension in the architect degree course can be assumed on good grounds to be essentially augmented - resource demanding - student-teacher ratio, mainly during the basic phase of the degree course.

Change and development work in the schools have somewhat veered off in different directions. While Chalmers (University of Technology), where the architect degree course was recently reformed, chiefly went in for developing stages in the various parts of the course, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology) and LTH (Lund Institute of Technology) opted for a thorough revamping of their architect degree courses. Here principle priority has so far been given to implementing the first years of the basic phase of the degree course. The follow-up gives the following picture of the situation at the schools: The architect degree course at Chalmers functions more or less satisfactorily and has good development potentialities, thanks to a collective management responsibility, a flat organisation, a functioning forum for collaboration between research and basic degree education as well as a teacher staff adapted to the course.

In the basic degree course different kinds of knowledge are balanced within relevant areas. Developed within the optional course are well-chosen profile areas. The student-teacher ratio must be increased in the project assignments and greater attention paid to individual follow-up, evaluations and student cooperation. KTH has initiated an ambitious project - a high class, resource-demanding architect degree course. Apart from that, however, there are no detailed plans how the course will survive into the future and how necessary research-based knowledge can be interwoven with the concept. No functioning arena exists for discussions between undergraduate studies and research. The course project has otherwise precedence over the other activities at the school. Information mediation at the newly formed School of Architecture seems to be the result of ad hoc decisions and difficult to alter as far as teaching staff and students are concerned.

At LTH the governing board has decided to implement a broadly supported proposal for a cost-effective architect degree course involving high artistic and educational ambitions. Experiences from the first years are good. However, the project student-teacher ratio must be substantially increased. Lacking, too, is an organisation required to make decisions on the broad coordination between the various degree curriculum subjects, something that is entirely new for LTH. There is great risk, therefore, that the reform will eventually suffer from dilution, and this could have an adverse effect on the teaching quality and result in cost savings being eaten up by difficulties in adapting existing staffing structure to the degree course requirements.

Bearing in mind the major problems the schools have in achieving the high aims of the degree courses and the working environment problems that obviously exist at all the country´s architect degree courses, one might ask if the schools have been given reasonable means with which to carry out the tasks on hand. The follow-up finally concludes that there is a deficient link between target and means when it comes to architect education. The criticism is directed at the government and governing boards of higher education institutions for not taking the measures postulated in the 1998/99 evaluation as necessary to support the endeavour of the schools towards improved academic quality.

First and foremost it concerns the degree course period, which is proposed should be extended to five years, a measure that has already been applied as an alternative at two of the schools and that generally apply to the Swedish design degree courses that were evaluated. The National Agency for Higher Education is behind such an extension, which is also the shortest time for comparable architect degree courses within EU. It is the government that lays down the length of the degree courses and their curriculum.

The follow-up furthermore alludes to the economic resources that are judged to be clearly inadequate vis-à-vis desired architect education of good quality and where a comparison with the design degree courses reveals inexplicable differences in content. Herein lies the responsibility for ensuring change will take place on both the state and the higher education institutions. By re-allocation their priorities, the technical universities and university colleges should take a long-term responsibility for the increased number of students attending architect degree courses and at the same time bear in mind the true costs for a high quality architect education. In recent years the government, which has increased the opportunities for a number of universities and university colleges to apply the compensation amount for design, should also raise the compensation amount for architect education to design education level.