Critical thinking is not a skill, but a method of analysis. As John Berger wrote in 1972, “the more closely I, as a critic, examine a work, the more I have to say about the world, not about it.” As such, critical thinking allows architects and designers to experiment and challenge the brief, but still be held accountable for their decisions.

On criticism itself, Roger Scruton says it represents ‘part of the great transition from youthful enjoyment to adult discrimination.’ But we no longer seem comfortable with adult criticism today and there are very few “critics” prepared to challenge the orthodoxies or stick their heads above the parapet. Very often “criticism” is a euphemism for “cynicism”.

So are we the midst of a crisis of judgment? Whatever happened to argument? Or is it a good thing that everybody’s opinions, rather than the views of a few, should be respected?

Speakers: Hugh Pearman, editor, RIBA Journal; architectural critic, Sunday Times; Cosmo Landesman, film critic, Sunday Times; Ray Tallis, physician, philosopher, poet and cultural critic. 

Chair: Austin Williams

Session 2:

What is Beauty?

12:00 - 13:00pm

Nowadays, the expression “architecture should lift the spirits” has become something of a cliché. Indeed, the phrase is regularly appended to design competitions as a kind of performance specification.

In his first Dictionary, Dr. Johnson defined beauty as: "That assemblage of graces, or proportion of parts, which pleases the eye." Two hundred years earlier, Palladio wrote: “Beauty will result from the form and the correspondence of the whole… wherein each member agrees with the other, and all necessary to compose what you intend to form.”

But what does this really mean and why is it important? After all, what’s wrong with an occasional ugly building? Is “beauty” too abstract and therefore more important to discuss architecture in terms of aesthetics and materials, or form and function?

To form a judgement, this session asks students to take a step back and consider the issue of beauty in the abstract. Is beauty relative or universal. Is it historically or culturally specific? Is it emotional or rational? Does it have an objective as well as a subjective character?

In effect, this session explores whether beauty should be about ethereal transcendence; something that is rooted in the natural; or all things to all people? What is the “essence of beauty”?

Speakers: Patrik Schumacher, partner, Zaha Hadid Architects; Kevin Carmody, partner Carmody Groarke; Ivan Hewett, classical music correspondent, Daily Telegraph.

Chair: Alastair Donald

30 minute thought-piece:

Integrity

13:00 - 13:30pm

Does knowing how a particular building stands up improve and enhance your appreciation of architecture? Is unexpressed structure clever, or deceitful?

To put it another way, would understanding radio technology, make you more appreciative of your mobile phone? Would knowing where food comes from, make you better appreciate your dinner? Is ignorance bliss... or the hallmark of philistinism?

In terms of architecture, structure and design, this session looks at whether (structural) honesty implies (architectural) integrity?

Presented by Brian Eckersley of Eckersley O’Callaghan structural engineers

13:30am - 14:00pm

LUNCH - tea, coffee, sandwiches

Session 3:

Whatever happened to ‘isms’?

14:00 - 15:00pm 

Over the years, intellectual architectural interventions have tried to distil the essence of an era. Whether you agree with the results, architectural “isms” have tried to grapple with the social dynamics of the day.

75 years ago, Corbusier published his classic blueprint for the present and the future, La Ville radieuse. 35 years ago, Venturi’s “Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture” embraced ambiguity. But what of our current age? Where is the great theoretical discourse? Brenda and Robert Vale’s “Time to Eat the Dog”?

Mies van de Rohe claimed that "Less is more" (meaning that there could be purity in rational solutions to complex issues); Robert Venturi subverted that into "Less is a bore" (ditching pared-down architecture and revelling in eclecticism). By 2010, Jeremy Till gives us "Mess is the law, suggesting that we should embrace ‘chance’).

This session looks at whether we need more manifestos or fewer… or more anti-manifestos? Do we need blueprints for the future, or is contingency more important?

Should we strive to shape the world, or adapt to it?

Speakers: Sean Griffiths, director, FAT; Vicky Richardson, director, Architecture, Design & Fashion, British Council; Michael Estorick, chairman, Estorick Foundation

Chair: Karl Sharro

60 minute social:

Still Life: Drawing Things Together

15:00 - 16:00pm

Session 4:

Is architecture social policy?

16:00 - 17:00pm

Design is seldom discussed in its own terms. Many designers increasingly defend design by doing stuff-other-than-design. In fact, they are more likely to stress design’s moral contribution to myriad issues including responsible consumption, social inclusion and sustainable living. After all, affecting the way that users behave in and around buildings is the skill of the architect.

As such, architectural champions regularly reinforce the government’s policy edicts. Whether it is its support for adding value, carbon rationing, building sustainable communities, adapting to climate, promoting health, minimizing travel, encouraging responsible design, prioritising localism, advocating recycling or reducing footprints; social policy – the ability to intervene and change behaviours – seems to be synonymous with a designer’s professional duty.

Has the design profession become a government poodle; or is it actually in the driving seat? Whatever happened to the radical architecture that kicked against the mainstream standards of the day? Should architects influence ordinary people to make the “right choices” by regulating people’s behaviour? Who decides what’s right? In essence - should designers play politics?

Speakers: Michael Owens, Senior urban regeneration expert; former head of development policy, London Development Agency; Nick Johnson, deputy chief executive, Urban Splash; Munira Mirza, director, Arts, Culture & the Creative Industries, Mayor of London

Chair: Alastair Donald

17:00am - 17:30pm

TEA BREAK - tea, coffee, sandwiches

Session 5:

Is less more?

17:30 - 18:30pm 

‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ has become an almost unquestioned mantra of our time. As such architects are increasingly accepting – and welcoming – limits to their activities. But is this what was meant by “less is more”, or by Buckminster Fuller “doing more with less”?

It is undoubtedly true that certain constraints are often a helpful framework within which to work, but does that mean that more constraints aid innovation or good design?

This debate has wider implications for free choice and human engagement by asking whether the demand for “more” is an sustainable, or even a desirable objective.

Do “limits” channel our innovation in ways that “abundance” doesn’t? Are we confused by choices; or liberated by them?

Speakers: Rory Olcayto, deputy editor, Architects’ Journal; Philippe Legrain, author, visiting fellow, London School of Economics' European Institute; Martin Powell, Environment Adviser to the Mayor of London

Chair: Austin Williams

Session 6:

What’s the Big Idea?

18:30 - 19:30pm 

Whatever happened to the Walking City; intelligent homes; climatic domes; Plug-in cities; New Towns; subterranean dwellings? Not so long ago, Archigram advocated underwater cities as an innovative lifestyle choice. These days, underwater housing is feared as a consequence of global warming. So are we constrained by risk-aversion; or are we more realistic about what is possible?

What is the relationship between society and our imagination? Is it good to be Utopian or is pragmatism more important? Is there an existential crisis in modern architecture and urbanism or do we simply view “ambition” differently today? How do we view the future?

Speakers: Antony Oliver, editor, New Civil Engineer; Ximo Peris, Creative director, Architecture, CrystalCG; Alan Hudson, Director, Oxford University’s Leadership Programmes for China

Chair: Austin Williams

30 minute thought-piece:

Proportion

19:30 - 20:00pm

In architecture, what is the reality of eternal essences, natural beauty or universal truth. From Fibonacci numbers to golden sections what is the Canon of Proportion? If it is the case, as Vitruvius argued, that architecture (and art) are governed by mathematical relationships and natural orders, what is the role of human creativity?

Presented by Francis Terry of the Three Classicists

20:00 – 21:00pm BREAK AND BRIEF - food and drink 

21:00pm – DESIGN EXERCISE

03:00am – BREAKOUT – Film critique of “development”

09:00am – CRITS

12:00mid-day  (12:30pm) – PRIZES

Blueprint and RIBA Bookshops prizes