02.25.05 Architectural Research

"It follows, therefore, that architects who have aimed at acquiring
manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a
position of authority to correspond with their pains...."
--Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture (first century B.C.)
A week from today, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
(ACSA) will hold its 93rd Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.  This event
will bring together faculty and administrators from architecture schools
across the U.S. and Canada, and this year's theme is "The Art of
Architecture, the Science of Architecture."

In anticipation of this important gathering, today's issue of ArchVoices
highlights a recent survey of the research cultures at over 150
architecture schools in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia,
New Zealand, and South Africa.  Given our focus here, it is important to
emphasize that the ACSA meeting theme is about crossing
interdisciplinary boundaries, and so "research" and what the ACSA means
by "science" should not be confused.  This issue is not about scientific
research per se, but rather scholarly research in general--i.e.,
publishing.  Perhaps "scholarship" would be a better word.

What follows is our attempt to distill a vast amount of information
compiled over the past year by the Key Centre for Architectural
Sociology.  The Centre was founded by Garry Stevens, PhD, best known as
author of the book, The Favored Circle: The Social Foundations of
Architectural Distinction (MIT Press, 1998).  Dr. Stevens' survey is
based on the average number of published works by full professors on
architecture faculties.

As the survey relied heavily on information accessible on architecture
program websites, data for a number of schools were not available.
While only 10% of U.S. schools are not accounted for, roughly 1/3 of UK
schools are not included, though the absence of a functional or
descriptive website is perhaps not indicative of a vibrant culture of
generating and sharing knowledge.  In that regard, if your school is not
included, instructions for how to provide the relevant faculty
information such that it may be surveyed in the future are also noted on
the Key Centre website.

1. What is "Research Culture"?
2. Research Score
3. Results
4. The English-speaking World's Most Scholarly Architecture Schools
5. Who Counts?
6. The Star Effect
7. Think Garry's Got it Wrong?
8. About the Key Centre for Architectural Sociology

 

1. What is "Research Culture"?

First, documenting a school's research culture is not an attempt to
quantify the quality of teaching itself or the ability of the school's
graduates to be effective in practice.  There are certainly a great many
schools that do those important things well, though they may score
poorly on this particular measure of scholarship.  If architecture is to
be thought of as a knowledge-based profession, then we need to place a
genuine emphasis on the sharing--which is to say, the publication--of
that knowledge.  Like it or not, publication of books and articles are
universally understood within institutes of higher education to
represent truly scholarly research.  The universities highlighted in
this survey are leading the way in this regard.

To quote the Key Centre's website where this survey is posted:

"There are quite a many people who would argue that research is simply
irrelevant to an architecture school. Though the corporate university
may require it, the whole notion [of research] is simply pointless to
artists and visionaries.  We have a lot of sympathy with that argument,
and only ask you to accept the corollary that the schools should
therefore not be located in universities."

 

2. Research Score

Within virtually all institutes of higher education, the primary
indicator of scholarly excellence is the publication of books and
articles.

To determine the level of publication by faculty at individual schools,
Dr. Stevens examined the databases of the two largest architecture
libraries in the English-speaking world: the online catalogue of the
Royal Institute of British Architects Library (RIBA Lib) and the
catalogue of the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals at Columbia
University.  The Avery Index includes only periodicals, but is more
accurate than the RIBA Lib index. The RIBA index is more comprehensive,
including books and book chapters, although it is harder to distinguish
authors with the same names.

In the end, each school's research score represents an average score per
faculty member and is based on a sum of the references in the two
databases, with the RIBA references weighted to reflect the fact that
they significantly outnumber the references in Avery.  All scores and
further details about the methodology are available on the Key Centre
website.

While we admit that there may be various other useful means of measuring
"research culture," we know of no one else who has attempted to do so
for architecture schools.  Dr. Stevens' methodology is broadly
consistent with the only other such studies we know of in any field.  If
you know of another measure of architectural research (whether "better"
or not), please let us know.

 

3. Results

Rather than using an arbitrary cut-off number ("Top 10" for instance),
the Key Centre used a scree-plot
(http://informedesign.umn.edu/Glossary.aspx?id=1765) to determine more
natural break points.  Thus, the top four in the U.S. were significantly
better than the next six, which were all significantly better than the
rest.

According to Dr. Stevens' survey, in the U.S., the "best of the best"
research cultures exist at:

Princeton University
Columbia University
Cooper Union
Yale University

Other U.S. schools with "excellent" research cultures are:

UCLA
Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania
MIT
University of Notre Dame
Rice University

 

4. The English-speaking World's Most Scholarly Architecture Schools

Internationally, these 19 schools stood out:

Princeton University (USA)
Columbia University (USA)
Cooper Union (USA)
Yale University (USA)
University of Cambridge (UK)
University of Bath (UK)
UCLA (USA)
Harvard University (USA)
University of Pennsylvania (USA)
University of Queensland (Aus)
MIT (USA)
University of Westminster (UK)
University of Melbourne (Aus)
RMIT University (Aus)
University of Auckland (NZ)
University of Notre Dame (USA)
University College London (UK)
Rice University (USA)

 

5. Who Counts?

It's most important to note who doesn't count in this survey.  According
to the Key Centre website:

"We did not count part-timers, sessionals, visitors, affiliates,
honoraries, instructors, and those below the rank of lecturer, adjuncts,
professors emeritus (emerita!), people known to be clinically dead, and
that funny little guy in the basement office who knows all about Adobe
Photoshop. In short: all the senior staff (faculty) and none of the
ring-ins: the very people you expect to be scholarly."

The website has a more lengthy description of exactly why some people
were not counted, including why some obviously senior faculty were
discounted where they represented a radically disproportionate amount of
published works at a particular school.  The basic answer is that the
intent of the survey was to measure the overall culture of a school, and
one prodigious faculty member on a staff of twenty does not a culture
make.  Overall, Dr. Stevens discounted 110 people from a database of
over 3,000 senior faculty worldwide.

 

6. The Star Effect

Perhaps one surprising finding of this survey is that because the median
is so low, it does not take much to be a scholarly American architecture
academic according to the criteria used.  Of the 2,000 American
architecture faculty assessed, just 82 of them account for over 1/3 of
the total research assessed.  Achieving just three references in the
Avery Index puts a professor in the top 20% of all American architecture
scholars.

 

7. Think Garry's Got it Wrong?

Quoting from the Key Centre website:

"We are always more than happy to answer questions. If you feel that our
calculations are seriously in error we would like to hear from you.

Just send us your own calculations using the same methodology discussed
here (sorry, but no--we will not send you our data: that is
commercial-in-confidence). We shall compare your calculations with our
own, and if we have bungled the data we shall gladly publish a revised
ranking for your school, together with a correction notice and apology.
How fair is that?

However, our methodology is our own. No offence, but we have no interest
in hearing how our rankings should have been done this way or that way.
You don't like the way we do things we say: stop whining, get off your
backside, do some work, and make your own international rating system.

The underlying data and details of the methodology are
commercial-in-confidence. The stuff you see on this website is supplied
gratis, asking only a reference to Dr Garry. Anything else we would like
to be paid for."

 

8. About the Key Centre for Architectural Sociology

The Key Centre for Architectural Sociology conducts research into
architects and society, architectural history, education, and the
architecture schools.  The Centre is run by Garry Stevens, PhD, author
of The Favored Circle: The Social Foundations of Architectural
Distinction (MIT Press, 1998).

The Centre receives no funding from and is therefore independent of
government, the architecture profession and the architecture schools.
The Centre conducts serious research, but in a light-hearted way. It's a
one-man operation, and has adopted its pompous name as a satirical take
on all those other academic one-man operations that are pretending not
to be.

 

ArchVoices is an independent, nonprofit organization and think tank on
architectural education, internship, and licensure.