Theo Spyropoulos - on Educating Architecture | Point Of View by Architeam.

Theo Spyropoulos (More interviews from this person)
Architect
country:United Kingdom
website: www.minimaforms.com

Bio

Theodore Spyropoulos (1976) is an architect and educator. He is the Director of the Architectural Association’s Design Research Lab [DRL] in London. He has been a visiting Research Fellow at M.I.T.’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies working with the Interrogative Design Group and co-founded the New Media Research Initiative at the Architectural Association. He has also taught in the graduate school of the University of Pennsylvania and the Royal College of Art, Innovation Design Engineering Department.

Theodore cofounded with Stephen Spyropoulos the experimental architecture and design practice Minimaforms. The work of Minimaforms has been exhibited internationally and is part of the collections of the FRAC Centre (France), the Signum Foundation (Poland) and the Archigram Archive (UK), A recent 208 page monograph called Enabling was published AA press in 2010. A forthcoming publication on his research at the AADRL on Adaptive Ecologies will be launched in the Fall 2011.

:: Photo information and credits:

1 > Archigram Revisit, ‘Mega-Structures Reloaded’, Berlin, Germany, 2008
Minimaforms
photo courtecy © Minimaforms

2 > Archigram Revisit, ‘Mega-Structures Reloaded’, Berlin, Germany, 2008
Minimaforms
photo courtecy © Minimaforms

3 > Becoming Animal, Suffolk, England, 2007
Minimaforms
photo courtecy © Minimaforms

4 > Brunel Gateway, London, England, 2007–current
Minimaforms
photo courtecy © Minimaforms

5 > Brunel Gateway, London, England, 2007–current
Minimaforms
photo courtecy © Minimaforms

6 > Facebreeder, Selfridges shop front, London, England, 2004
Minimaforms in collaboration with Vasili Stroumpakos
photo courtecy © Minimaforms

7 > Facebreeder, Selfridges shop front, London, England, 2004
Minimaforms in collaboration with Vasili Stroumpakos
photo courtecy © Minimaforms

8 > Memory Cloud, London, England, 2008
Minimaforms
photo courtecy © Jiin Yi Hwang

09 > Memory Cloud, London, England, 2008
Minimaforms
photo courtecy © Jiin Yi Hwang

10 > Vehicle, 2006–current
Minimaforms in collaboration with Krzysztof Wodiczko
photo courtecy © Minimaforms

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Kim Herforth Nielsen - on Educating Architecture

My point of view:
on Educating Architecture

Interview Date: 08-06-2011

VIEW the entire interview on VIDEO!

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What is the importance of Architectural Tourism? What is the importance of traveling, especially for architects and humans in General?

It’s very important, especially for students and professionals of Architecture to have direct experience with Architecture, city and urbanism. In a certain sense, it gives them so much better understanding not only on the activities and the cultures that are witnessed in architecture but, generally, the role that architecture plays in its greater purpose.

What do you think is the added value that architecture creates within a city?

In many ways, architecture and urbanism is a framework. In a certain sense, basically creates a system in a way that people understand the city and in terms of how we define the activities and generally living. So, in a way architecture becomes a way to express not only culture but a certain attitude of today. So, architecture revolves with the attitude that people actually have and respect to, how they see their life and their environment.

:: You teach architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.

What factors should prospective students consider when choosing an architecture school? Are there different considerations for those who know that they want to specialize in a certain area of the field?

It is very important for students to understand the contexts and the environment that they want to study in. And also understand how the education will be able to profit their interests in architecture to begin with. So, it is very important for them to really start to address maybe their own personal attitude towards architecture and their belief. And try to find context to where they think that they can force to this. In terms of the education of the architect and also in terms of the city and the context in which they are studying, city becomes a laboratory to extend this.

For example, here at the school, at the Architecture Association, London becomes as much a laboratory for design in architecture and experimentation as the School itself. So, we try to look for ways to really have an active dialogue between the educations, the contexts of practice and to understand that reality is a very radical construct at the moment.

The issues that we are trying to develop here are issues that try to actually engage in this. For students, it’s important for them to understand that they play a vital role in this. Because, architecture for many reasons doesn’t necessarily have all the mechanisms to design and innovate and the role of education is really a very important empowerment for students in that context; to really engage and participate in this.

Do you feel that is important for someone to be passionate about architecture in order to be successful as a student of the field, as a professional?

Yes. Without that there is no real point.

What is right and wrong with today's architecture education offerings? What suggestions do you have for improvements?

I would suggest that the thing generally in terms of education is that the Schools of Architecture have to realize the role that they play in the greater purpose of architecture. And professionally all the limitations at their arms, so in terms of actively experimenting and testing and innovating the school becomes a place where experimentation and failure are able to be expressed and drive innovations that practice can also implement.

If you see it in the history of architecture, for example different and other design disciplines we don’t actually have a prototype or different ways of testing things. We go directly from design to build. So, the role of active engagement with fabrication issues computation and different forms of experimentation have a very strong place in the university system and in programs such as the one that I teach. This becomes a very important aspect of understanding how the role of education and honestly the development of architecture in general.

Is it possible for complete online courses to produce a degree in Architecture? Is this practical in the field of Architecture?

It’s not practical and it’s not advantageous. Architecture has to be a really full time model of education that really needs to have continuous communication. Remote and online courses are not acceptable.

What are considered some of the most respected and prestigious architecture schools, departments or programs?

We operate as a kind of shared knowledge exchange but in different universities. Harvard University, GST have a good school of architecture. Here in Europe, TU Delft or ETH are also very good schools and down the street the Bartlett University. In the States we also have schools like the Cooper Union and the Sci-arc University of Pennsylvania. There are a lot of schools that are trying to question the terms of how we need to engage architecture today and in a certain sense looking the new tools, the new processes and try to question how they can participate.

Does Architecture as a profession need empowerment? In which ways should this be done?

Architecture in general and architects need to reinvest the purpose of what architecture is today and we instate a kind of attitude towards the everyday. When you see how much of building is not really designed by architects, you start to see why we have a certain kind of crisis with the building environment. In terms of sort of engaging with some of the issues of sustainability and different issues as design led issues it’s critical for architects to really start to question different kinds of types, apologies and how we can really engage.

In that in a certain way educate the role that architecture can participate in. Because, generally, architects don’t do a very good job of communicating actually what we do and foster kind of situation which sort of relegates it in a very limited sense instead of fully empowering the possibilities and kinds of problems that architects can address. Today, more than ever, with a kind of shared tools and platforms, with aspects of open source and so forth there is a really much higher level of architectural engagement that we profit many disciplines and we reinstate architecture as a participant, nothing more and nothing less.

At the end, can you please provide your personal proposal for 10 buildings (constructed and visitable) which you think as the most important worldwide that someone must visit anyway?

Architecture in general and architects need to reinvest the purpose of There are many buildings that students or professionals should visit. But buildings of particular importance would be something like Louis Khan’s Salk Institute and Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. Architects like Eero Saarinen and his TWA Building in Saint Louis. Frei Otto’s in particular Munich Stadium is the high regard. Here, in London for example, the Lloyds Building is one of the stands out in England, but also I can see things like Peter and Alison Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens.

Generally, My attitude in this kind of situation is to express that I think is very important for people to actually visit the buildings to understand through direct experience what architecture can enable, to also observe how it functions within a much larger context that has nothing to do with design and this kind of professional culture but really to do with the everyday to see how it actually stimulates and generates things. Frank Lloyd Wright is just as important as Toyo Ito today. It’s very important for students and professionals to really engage and see the power of what architecture is by actually engage with it and the people who live it every day as an environment.

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