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COMMENT: Well, I understand the need to understand how to ask the question, but I was actually talking about integrating practitioners into the research process, not just to ask questions. So, just a thought: If we imagine a road where students and interns are structured into “graduate” profession, then the experience is twice as rich as a traditional structure or a loosely structured IDP experience. I say twice the richness because even though IDP is overbureaucratized, it’s underenforced. Nine times out of 10, satisfying IDP is finding a principal or someone to sign off. There is no way to really investigate the extent to which the content is finding its way to the end man. We should establish a program where internship has closer connections between firm instruction and the professional degree programs. For instance, having an internship be able to work toward completion of academic credits. I offered the idea that, just like we have the least amount of overlap with educational programs, the purpose is to gain research work and get special training. So, imagine if there’s a condition of employment which, by the way, would be in line with the interest and specializations of each office, as it often as in Cincinnati. Imagine if this intern had five hours at least per day per week, and research was done in the office itself and using its networks. You could preserve the sort of core characteristic of an educational environment, which is independent thinking, within a working environment that’s highly conditioned by dependency on working relationships. So, the practitioner would be the partner, and the structure and schedule of research activity would be outside the university institution. Does that make sense? I guess what I'm trying to evoke is this: Why aren't academics inviting architects into hard-core research? COMMENT: There are examples of that, but why is it not more common? I think it is because we had few examples. I used to go to the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and my colleagues there are focusing on issues with ageing and associated endeavors. They’re always debating those research questions. There’s also collaboration with the research system so that we have office of applied research at the university. I actually participated in industrial design. An industrial designer does applied research. It’s a reason why they collaborate. I think it’s because those industrial designers are able to combine design and research by applied works, but why architecture does not match industrial design. |
