The crit is stressful – and still essential

Recently I was an invited critic at an architectural school. I remember crit days vividly from my own education – the fear of pinning up work on the wall and presenting ideas you were emotionally invested in to peers and critics.

My hands would often shake slightly with nervousness as I pinned up, my heart beating so loudly that I was certain everyone could hear it. And I never quite managed to fully articulate all of my ideas – even when I was referring to notes.

It is one of those rites of passage all architects will bemoan – but be secretly glad we ‘survived’. However, my recent visit was to a school that sought to be constructive rather than destructive and the experience was useful, and never quite as bad as I feared it was going to be.

I have not guest crit’ed much, but I always enjoy hearing from the students and recognising the passion they have for their ideas, and the effort that has gone into beginning to form them in an architectural manner.

I have yet to meet a student who didn’t make me consider something from a new angle, and occasionally I find myself almost speechless at the amount of work and thought presented on the wall (or screen!). The audacity of some is fascinating, and the confidence of others almost worrying.

I was a little surprised to find that now though this imperfect rite of passage is voluntary in several schools, with some students choosing to pull out as the preceding student presents.

I can understand the rationale behind this. The usefulness of the crit is much debated in academia, and many schools have struggled with negative student feedback about the stress of the crit, of presenting, and of adverse effects on their mental health.

In this context, making them unmarked and voluntary would seem to make sense. They become a useful formal tutorial at key points in the academic year with the opportunity for the student to engage with tutors other than their own, as well as invited guest critics, to test and refine ideas.

All perfectly understandable and rational. However, writing from the benefit of a little over ten years in practice, I wonder if this understanding, rational and rather kind conclusion actually harms the students it is aiming to help.

Yes, the crit may not help with the marking criteria; yes, it is undeniably a bit stressful for most students; yes, some tutors and guest critics still can still take the rather idiotic attitude that the best way to grow people is to ‘break’ them first. The crit is undeniably imperfect, but it is almost essential if you intend to practise as an architect.

There are a thousand ways to be a good architect. All of them, though, require you to articulate ideas to people, usually verbally. The architectural drawings and documents, the visualisations and CGIs are all undeniably essential.

Stressful they may be, but as a training ground for actually practising architecture? A well-managed and well-run crit is almost essential

However, if you cannot stand up and articulate the thread that joins these drawings, if you cannot translate architectural drawings into concepts that lay people can readily grasp, then you’re unlikely to get too far in the profession. Architecture is about people and communication as much, sometimes more, than it is about buildings.

There will, of course, be exceptions to this rule. There are more specialist roles in large practices that are less ‘client facing’, there are model-making or visualisation jobs that don’t require you to ‘present’ work formally – though there will always be an element of presentation or discussion with colleagues.

However, I cannot think of a single role in architecture where the ability to articulate your thoughts in relation to design is not useful.

We’ve all heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. It might be, but if you want to prevent people from misinterpreting the picture you’ll need just a few, well-chosen, words.

For example, the famous ‘napalm girl’ photograph depicts the horrors of the Vietnam War in 1972. However, if you didn’t know what this image was about, you would see a group of children running in fear in front of a group of soldiers. A few words are necessary to explain the context of the horrors, and that the true menace is the black smoke in the background.

Architecture is perhaps similar – you can get maybe ninety percent of the way there with drawings – but you’ll need at least ten percent verbal articulation, even if only to talk someone unfamiliar with architectural drawings through a plan or section. For most, this verbal articulation does not come naturally.

I now present or speak regularly, but standing in front of a group of people and presenting ideas you’re personally attached to has never become easier. Over time, you just begin to have more confidence that your ideas are worthy of attention.

The stress of public speaking, though, has been helpful to me. In working out how to articulate ideas or feelings about architecture, I can refine my arguments or design.

Much as how I rarely fully understand a building or architectural detail until I draw it, I rarely fully understand an argument until I have worked out how to articulate it to others. The stress (and I am speaking of ‘normal’ useful levels of pressure and nervousness, not the debilitating black hole kind) is also a useful signifier of how important this is to me.

Stressful they may be, but as a training ground for actually practising architecture? A well-managed and well-run crit is almost essential.