Robin Whitteker

Graduate Student, Master of Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, University of Calgary, Canada

Interviewed August 2020 by Mac McGinn

MM Robin, why don’t we start with you introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about what you do.

RW I am a student in the master of architecture program at the University of Calgary. I’m going into my M1 year, or the first of the two-year program, following the foundation year that the school offers. I’ve been in the industry for a few years working with KFA Architects and Planners, who are also my employer for the summer. They are an Ontario-based firm and I’ve been working with them purely remotely, which has been an interesting experience.

MM You have the perspective of a student and also some real-world experience with working remotely in the field, so you have some experience and knowledge on both sides of what we’re discussing. As a student, what has been the biggest challenge when we had to switch to emergency remote learning in April of this year?

RW It was a tough situation and I think the school responded pretty well to it. Overall, I would say that the quality of learning was fairly impressive given the situation, but there were definitely some drawbacks. The most obvious among them is that architecture is a studio-based, in-person, discipline and when we went online the replacement had to be Zoom. We definitely lost the element of being able to just lean over and talk to someone and say, hey, what do you think of this? Or, what about this idea? I think it definitely impacted the way that I was working.

The feedback that you can get from professors was also somewhat impacted. Knowledge of using the online platforms was a big learning curve both for professors and students. Simple things like time limits on Zoom calls and screen sharing took a lot of time to figure out. You can’t just point to a physical object anymore, so ensuring everyone is talking about the same element on screen can be a challenge. The lack of model making was also another big impact. Everything became a lot more about the digital quality of the work instead of the physical aspects, which I think was definitely a loss.

Participation was another challenge with some of the lecture units. Replacing the ability to stick your hand up and ask questions sort of works online, but it’s not as organic. I think I felt this to a certain extent. In class you raise your hand, you can pipe off a random question or say something that pops into your head. When it’s remote, there’s a certain reluctance. I think we’re going to have to either learn to overcome this reluctance or we’re going to lose that important element of participation, which, I think, would definitely be negative. Being able to talk about the things that come across your mind is an important part of learning, because it can bring up something that you weren’t aware you didn’t know, if that makes sense. This is how you get a full, well-rounded education. You’re not just learning the facts that are presented in front of you. You’re pursuing the things that are interesting to you. I think participation is a big part of that. I would like to see us as students pushing ourselves to overcome the digital barrier there.

MM Absolutely. Putting some of the onus back onto the students is important in order for us to be more engaged, rather than putting all the responsibility on the professors and educators.

RWI think that’s probably going to be a comfort thing, but engagement and participation in online education should also be a conscious collective effort on our part.

MM Switching gears, what opportunities did you see were opened up by that switch to emergency remote learning?

RW At the very beginning, I wasn’t really sure how it was going to work but I think we ended up with a fairly comprehensive solution. A greater focus was put on the digital side of things, and this opened up the opportunity for us to get a lot more practice with the digital tools that we use in our program such as the presentation platforms and techniques. Also, based on my experience working during the summer, one thing I would say is that being comfortable in a virtual working environment is going to be a good life skill moving forward, and I think that this was good preparation for it.

MM Absolutely. One opportunity that I noticed was the ability to pause or go slower on the lessons that were now being recorded and made accessible online. You had a different ability to understand the steps that were happening, but it also comes down to the educator explaining things properly in those recordings. So, I’m not sure if you felt the same, but I thought it was good to work your way through that process.

RW Definitely. It was a blessing, because the traditional way of solving these technical questions is having to go outside of class time, track down your professor, or track down another student who can show you how to do it. It’s tough. Part of it is just adapting to a different way of working. I think the recording of lectures is a great benefit, and it’s definitely something that should be continued going forward.

Another benefit is that when students are participating and asking questions in the online classes, a lot of the time it’s being written down. This means we don’t have any issues with missing the information that is being contributed by whoever is participating, as compared to us trying to hear the person speaking over what other people are doing in class. It’s a small benefit, but it’s one of the silver linings.

MM Great point. So, the next question is, what is your most-used software tool in terms of collaboration, meetings, and things like that?

RW Last semester it was definitely Zoom. I think that was kind of the natural choice. It’s a simple, powerful piece of software that has a lot of the basic elements that you would look for in video chat. In terms of sharing next semester, what I anticipate it would be something more in line with what I’ve used during the summer at my work, which is kind of a chat-based system where you can have multiple threads. The one I’m currently using is Slack, but there are a number of different programs like this. I’m hoping that the school will set up something like this. I think that having some version of a dedicated system of communication is going to be key. It will have to be paired with file sharing abilities for any kind of team or group projects. Group work is a big part of architecture and being able to tackle that is going to be interesting. I don’t think video or e-mail is going to be quite up to the task, because a lot of it’s going to require the ability to facilitate the micro communications that go on between a team working together on a project. When you’re working on the same file, this communication and ability to file share is going to be paramount. Those things have enough challenges, even without the distance.

MM From a student’s perspective, what would be your recommendations for online education as we move forward?

RW I really hope that universities invest in centralized solutions. I hope they’re going to ensure that the educators are proficient in this online software before the semester starts, so that the educators can then, in turn, make sure that the students are proficient, just so we can move past the technical difficulties and get on with the learning. I think that’s going to be the first thing.

The second thing is which software they choose. I think there are a lot of really good options out there. I certainly am not qualified to say which one’s best; I’d leave that to the experts. But the selection of that software is going to be a pretty important choice, because at the moment, a lot hinges on it.

I would like for there to be an option for some sort of blended learning where we can go and do some things in person, and I would one hundred percent take advantage of that. There is really no alternative to being able to just look over and get somebody’s quick feedback. I think that to lose this would be to completely change the spirit of what we’re doing. To a certain extent, I felt that last semester as I’m sure you did as well, Mac.

I think that completely digital architecture is not the way that the school should be leaning as a long-term plan. The industry is already leaning toward architecture as being experienced too much through the digital, in terms of there being too much emphasis on the image of the building, rather than the building itself. I think we are making architecture too much of a digital profession.

MM What do you expect the architecture program and higher education to look like in the next ten years?

RW I think that you’re going to see a lot more of the digital aspects, although in architectural education there is a lot that I would encourage to go in different directions. I think that increasing the amount of digital learning we do is fine for something like history, or even to a certain extent, a course like graphics where you’re learning more technical skills. That’s absolutely fine. But when it comes to the design and crafting of architecture, I think there’s no substitute for an in-person, collaborative effort. That’s how it’s done in the real world, and that might change over the coming years, but I don’t think it’s going to be exclusively digital, nor do I think that it should be. Architecture has a digital presence but when it comes down to it, a building is an object in the real world and we need to keep that idea alive, and that starts with education.

MM Well, I’d just like to say thank you again for participating with us in the TALON project and being an expert voice from the students’ perspective.

RW Thank you, Mac, thanks for having me.

Reflection

It’s difficult to say what the future of architectural practice will look like post pandemic, but it is clear that along with other office-based businesses, there will be some element of remote work in practice and remote learning in academia. There is much that can be gained by this transition, more control over where we live and work, a reduced dependence on centralized offices or institutions, a reduction in the time spent commuting—the list goes on. However, it is always important to remember that the work of architecture is not fundamentally digital. For the past two years great strides have been made in remote workflows, but as yet there is no substitute for the synergy made possible by in-person collaboration. This is doubly true for those who are learning the basic practices of architecture. Being isolated from the daily example of how others work prevents aspiring students and young professionals from learning by example. It can not only be isolating but may also lead to stunted growth in terms of soft skills like in-person networking or hard skills which are not widely publicized online. While those negative outcomes are likely, conversely, it may also lead to younger members of the architectural discipline gaining a greater ability to self-teach the majority of their hard skills and will almost certainly improve their ability to engage, share and cooperate through online platforms. This will, of course, come at a cost. More time invested in learning, higher stress levels, and let’s keep in mind, remote learning and work can, in some cases, potentially lead to strong feelings of isolation.

Fortunately, we, as a discipline, can help curb these issues. We must look for opportunities to engage in-person with colleges or for fellow students to help navigate the shared hurdles of taking on architecture. In the long term for academia, this will likely mean a return to the studio. In the coming years we will be in the position to take on the lessons we’ve learned in the past months to leverage the personal flexibility, and the power of some of these new tools to communicate designs, while minimizing the drawbacks of remote work. There is the possibility of shaping a more flexible, healthier architecture industry with its members having a better understanding of how to leverage the digital tools available to us. However, through this one thing must not be forgotten: Architecture is not the tools we use to communicate it. It isn’t the Cloud model, or the rendered video walk-through. It is not even the scale drawings. “Good” architecture is the physical building after all that communication is done, and our goal in school and in the profession must be to understand the physical reality of our designs. This is something that is easily forgotten amongst the plethora of new modes of production and, long-term, this must be our ultimate guide as we re-shape the discipline.

About

Robin Whitteker is a graduate student in the master of architecture program in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at the University of Calgary, Canada. In the 2019–2020 academic year when the COVID-19 pandemic began, he was taking the foundation year courses. Before his masters, he worked for four years in Toronto at KFA Architects + Planners, practising residential architecture. Among his many interests are critical design thinking and sustainability.