The Undervalued Architect: How Education Fuels the Profession's Misunderstanding - Part 2

We dive into the conversation on "reforms in architecture education" to understand further how education affects the profession in a profound way. The principles from Mark Alan Hewitt's 2020 reforms explained in arch daily —emphasizing embodied cognition through hand drawing, physical model-making, haptic engagement, and sensory-rich practices—can absolutely be integrated into both the ARB Competency Outcomes Framework and the RIBA Themes and Values framework. Both are deliberately outcomes-based and flexible, allowing schools to innovate in how they deliver competencies without prescribing specific methods. This openness creates space for embodied approaches as effective pedagogical tools to meet required outcomes. 

Link here: https://www.archdaily.com/941809/12-ways-to-reform-architectural-education

© 2025 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob.

Transcript

The Undervalued Architect: How Education Fuels the Profession - Part 2

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Talk Architecture podcast. I'm your host, Naziaty Mohd Yaacob, and today we're diving into part two of our discussion on the undervalued architect. In part one, we explored how misunderstandings about the profession often stem from flaws in architectural education. Now, we're shifting gears to talk about reforms—specifically, what's happening in the UK and US, with a focus on the frameworks from the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). While I'm based in Malaysia, these global conversations affect us all, especially in the English-speaking world. We're all in the same boat, after all.

As promised, we'll examine how these reforms aim to modernize education, making it more relevant to contemporary challenges like climate change, inclusivity, and real-world practice. I'll also draw from a thought-provoking 2020 ArchDaily article by Mark Alan Hewitt, excerpted from his book Draw in Order to See, which advocates for hands-on, sensory-driven reforms grounded in embodied cognition. 
archdaily.com This approach feels closer to what true reform should look like, reconnecting architects with intuitive, human-centered design.

Comparing ARB and RIBA Frameworks: Similarities and Differences

After some research, it's clear that ARB and RIBA share common ground but differ in philosophy. Both are outcomes- and competence-based, moving away from rigid, prescriptive inputs. This is encouraging—it allows for more flexible learning paths.

Key similarities include:

• Strong priorities on sustainability and the climate emergency.
• Emphasis on health and life safety (especially post-Grenfell).
• Focus on ethical practice, inclusivity/diversity, and real-world skills like management and research.
• Support for flexible routes, such as apprenticeships and part-time study.
• A shared goal to modernize education for today's world.

However, the differences are telling. ARB, as the statutory regulator, sets the regulatory minimum for registration, ensuring public protection. It's more granular, with 44 specific outcomes across five areas: Contextual and Architectural Knowledge, Design, Research and Evaluation, Management Practice and Leadership, and Professionalism and Ethics. Notably, ARB has phased out the traditional Part 1 (undergraduate) requirement—any relevant degree can lead into a Master's-level program, followed by practice-based outcomes. It's like a checklist: Have you demonstrated this competence? You can find the full document on their website for details.

RIBA, on the other hand, is the professional body—more aspirational and holistic. It sticks to the classic Parts 1, 2, and 3 structure, with five broader themes from their 2021 The Way Ahead framework: Creative Design & Professional Judgement, Climate: Sustainable & Ethical Futures, Society, Culture & Place, Health, Safety & Wellbeing, and Business, Clients & Collaborative Practice. This encourages innovation, leadership, and societal impact, linking to mandatory CPD in areas like health & life safety and climate literacy.

In essence, ARB ensures consistent competence for the title "architect," while RIBA pushes for excellence and lifelong learning. RIBA has critiqued ARB's changes, fearing they might undermine the five-year model or international appeal, but many UK programs seek dual accreditation to cover both.

Hewitt's Vision: Reforming Education Through Embodied Cognition

What really resonates with me is Hewitt's article on ArchDaily, which proposes 12 ways to reform architectural education by emphasizing hands-on sensory engagement over abstract theory.
archdaily.com Hewitt's main thesis? We need to embrace embodied cognition—the neuroscience idea that thinking is tied to bodily actions, sensory experiences, and environmental interactions, not just abstract brain processes. He argues for ditching post-Enlightenment detachment, over-reliance on digital tools, and semantic theory, in favor of practices like hand drawing and physical model-making. This reconnects us with pre-industrial "artisanal literacy" and how humans naturally perceive spaces, leading to more beautiful, commodious, and healthy environments.

As Hewitt puts it: "The daily or weekly practice of drawing strengthens neural networks and engages cognitive faculties at many levels, just as playing scales... keeps musicians sharp." 
archdaily.com And on the bigger picture: "These simple measures... will provide positive proof of the benefits of a design practice based upon embodied cognition rather than purportedly rational or conceptual thinking." 
archdaily.com

Many of these ideas align with what I've implemented in my own studios, where students learn better through direct, tactile experiences.

Integrating Hewitt's Reforms into ARB and RIBA

The beauty is that Hewitt's principles can integrate seamlessly into both frameworks, thanks to their flexibility. They don't prescribe methods, so schools can innovate with embodied approaches to meet outcomes.

For ARB:

• In Design (12 outcomes), like D12 (using digital systems), hand drawing can complement or precede digital tools for deeper spatial understanding.
• D3 (critical/creative approach) and D4 (integrating artistic/spatial/experiential with technical) benefit from iterative sketching and tactile models, fostering intuitive creativity.
• D6 (relationships between people, buildings, and context) encourages sensory engagement with scale and materials for phenomenological, user-centered designs.
• RE1 (research/enquiry/experimentation) aligns with physical prototyping as "inquiry through making."
• With ARB's emphasis on diverse pathways (e.g., apprenticeships), schools could mandate embodied studios without conflict.

For RIBA:

• Theme 1 (Creative Design & Professional Judgement) promotes tacit knowledge via hand drawing and "disegno" (drawing as thinking), countering parametric abstraction.
• Theme 3 (Society, Culture & Place) uses haptic engagement to grasp place and human scale through bodily experience.
• Theme 4 (Health, Safety & Wellbeing) reveals material realities via prototyping that screens often miss.
• RIBA's push for agility supports hybrid analog-digital workflows.

Many dual-accredited programs already include physical making; Hewitt-style mandates (e.g., required hand-sketching) would elevate them. These frameworks arguably need embodied reforms to produce intuitive, human-centered architects and address criticisms of detachment from practice.

Hewitt's 12 Ways to Reform Architectural Education

Here's a quick list of Hewitt's exact recommendations, straight from the article: 
archdaily.com

1. Go back to the hand-drawn sketch as the fundamental medium and tool for creating architecture.
2. Make every effort to see new places and to visit outstanding buildings, landscapes, and urban ensembles as often as possible.
3. Make architectural history a requirement in all design programs, and avoid the pitfall of presenting only modern architecture.
4. Require students to engage with building users as soon as possible in their studio experiences.
5. Maintain regular contact with tradespeople, artisans, and makers of building components and materials.
6. Balance linguistic and theoretical dialogue with purely visual and haptic means of presenting architectural ideas.
7. Integrate analog and digital tools in the design studio, as Pixar does in its film production.
8. Avoid all forms of virtual representations of designed environments until the presentation stage of design.
9. Employ digital drafting platforms as adjuncts to hand drawing, using these tools the same way architects used hardline drawings during the 19th and 20th centuries: as means of accurately conveying construction plans, sections, elevations, and details.
10. In the academy, employ research professors in areas of bona fide applicability to the task of building. Demand evidence-based, peer-reviewed research products. Remove such nonprofessional faculty from the studio and employ only practicing architects at all levels of design instruction.
11. Teach basic drawing with constant reference to the most recent research in cognitive science and visual perception. Engage with direct experience as well as with mnemonic models and schemata, and use references from well-known visual artists and artworks.
12. Emphasize the collaborative nature of design as a discipline, and foster collaboration in the studio curriculum rather than emphasizing individual “innovation” as a criterion for architecture.

Number 12 is underrated but crucial—collaboration over solo innovation mirrors real practice.

Broader Implications: From the UK to Malaysia

In Malaysia, bodies like Lembaga Arkitek Malaysia (LAM) and Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) operate similarly, validating programs often inspired by RIBA. ARB's fresh approach—ditching Part 1 for more accessible entry—sparks debate, challenging the status quo without upending revenue from international validations. It's a UK-specific tension, but it stirs global brainstorming on core competencies.

Recent US proposals to reclassify architecture degrees (impacting funding) and RIBA president's stance on registration highlight broader challenges. At the heart: How do we ensure education impacts professional practice positively? Hewitt's embodied focus could bridge theory and reality, making reforms more practical.

This is a rich debate, and I'll leave it here for now—until next time. What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Thanks for reading (or listening). Stay tuned for more on Talk Architecture.