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The Crit
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The Crit
An Architecture Student’s Handbook
Edited by
Charles Doidge with Rachel Sara and Rosie Parnell
Cartoons by Mark Parsons
Architectural Press
OXFORD AUCKLAND BOSTON JOHANNESBURG MELBOURNE NEW DELHI

Architectural Press
An imprint of Butterworth-Heinemann
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP
225 Wildwood Avenue, Woburn, MA 01801-2041
A division of Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd
A member of the Reed Elsevier plc group
First published 2000
© Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd 2000
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in

any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by
electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some
other use of this publication) without the written permission of the
copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the
Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London,
England W1P 0LP. Applications for the copyright holder’s written
permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed
to the publishers
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Doidge, Charles
The crit: an architecture student’s handbook
1. Architecture – Study and teaching – Great Britain
I. Title II. Sara, Rachel III. Parnell, Rosie
720.7'11'41
ISBN 0 7506 4770 1
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

The crit: an architecture student’s handbook/edited by Charles Doidge with Rachel
Sara and Rosie Parnell; cartoons by Mark Parsons.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 7506 4770 1
1. Architectural design–Study and teaching–Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2.
Architectural design–Evaluation–Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Architectural studios
–Handbooks, manuals, etc. 4. Communication in architectural design–Handbooks,
manuals, etc. I. Doidge, Charles. II. Sara, Rachel. III. Parnell, Rosie.
NA2750.C75
721–dc21 00–038977
Composition by Scribe Design, Gillingham, Kent

Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Foreword vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction xi
1 What is a review? 1
2 Before a review 21
3 During a review 43
4 Learning from a review 65
5 Alternative reviews 87
6 Reviews and the future 107
Bibliography 115
Index 116
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Foreword
The mysteries of the ‘jury’, ‘crit’, or ‘review’ have been enshrined in

design education for over a century. Projects and reviews introduced
‘learning-by-doing’ into design education at the Ecole des Beaux Arts
(School of Fine Arts) in Paris in the 1890s and they continue to hold
centre stage into the twenty-first century. For hundreds of thousands
of students around the world, the design project has been, and
remains, the primary method of learning and, in one form or another,
culminates in reviews.
Despite its centrality, this ‘vital learning vehicle’ (if you believe tutors)
or ‘boring waste of time, ego-trip for staff’ (if you believe students)
appears to take place without the benefit of a student guide. Students
are expected to learn the rules of the game without a rule-book and
initiation into this ritual can be a painful rite of passage.
Authors have visited this territory before and, in particular, Kathryn H.

Anthony’s wide-ranging ‘Design juries on trial – the renaissance of the
design studio’ offers an excellent overview. However, this ‘seriously
useful guide’ is believed to be the first aimed primarily at students. It
is written and illustrated by recent graduates with their student experi-
ences still vivid in their minds.
Many students think of ‘the crit’ as an ordeal devised by tutors to

leave them feeling as though they have been ‘undressed in public’.
This need not be the case. This guide shows how to prepare for the
rigours of the ‘traditional crit’ and suggests other less confrontational
models including student-led reviews. Instead of thinking of the
viii Foreword
design review as the ‘judgement seat’, it can be developed as a

celebratory experience.
This guide describes the game, identifies the rules, and advises on
tactics. It is a survival guide to help unravel the mysteries and offers
practical advice and clarifies objectives. It suggests a more rewarding
model appropriate to a ‘new professionalism’ that is less arrogant and
sees clients and users as creative partners in the design process. This
was one of the significant outcomes of the recent Clients and Users
in Design Education (CUDE) Project in the Sheffield and Leicester
Schools of Architecture.
We recommend this book to all design students and particularly to

architecture students. It invites and challenges students to be
partners, rather than passive recipients, in their educational
processes. It can go further and prepare students to be catalysts of
the same processes with future clients. It is hoped that design tutors
might even take a sneak look at this guide as well and discover with
their students that it is never too late to learn.
Professor George Henderson

Head of The Leicester School of Architecture,
De Montfort University
President of the Commonwealth Association of Architects
Professor Jeremy Till

Head of the School of Architecture,
The University of Sheffield
Leicester and Sheffield, January 2000

Acknowledgements
This guide is indebted to numerous tutors, practising architects,

fellow students and other writers who have taught, learned, shared
experiences and contributed ideas. In thanking them for their inspi-
ration and sometimes provocation, we would like to stress that the
views are essentially those of the authors.
The catalyst was a project called ‘Clients and Users in Design

Education’ (CUDE) sponsored by the HEFCE (Higher Education
Funding Council for England) fund for the development of teaching
and learning. CUDE was initiated in 1996 by John Worthington of
the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies at York, Professor
Bryan Lawson at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture,
and Professor George Henderson and Judy Ashley at The Leicester
School of Architecture, De Montfort University. The project included
enhancing student skills of listening, communication and teamwork,
through a collaborative rather than confrontational approach to
learning.
CUDE was directed in the latter stages by Simon Pilling with support
from Angela Fisher, Dr David Nicol, Martin Brookes and Andrew
Cooper. To Simon goes the credit for negotiating this guide through
its initial stages.
At Sheffield, CUDE was co-ordinated by Angela Fisher, with

workshops developed by Simon Pilling, Susan Stern and Martin
Brooks. The ‘in-school’ team was Derek Trowell, Mary Roslin, Helena
Webster, Dan Wrightson, Pru Chiles, Russel Light, Eammon Canniffe,
x Acknowledgements
Simon Gedye, Dr Roger Harper, Judy Torrington, and Professor Peter

Tregenza.
At Leicester, Judy Ashley died of cancer early in the project and

subsequent work was co-ordinated by Jos Boys and Ross Wilmott.
The Leicester ‘in-school’ team included Professor George Henderson,
Revd Dr Charles Doidge, Dr Tim Brindley, Mel Richardson, Tony
Archibold, Dr Sahap Cakin, Richard Short, Mike Ashley and others,
with Dr Margaret Wilkin as external educational consultant.
A special ‘thank you’ is due to Mark Parsons whose inspiring cartoons

and rugged handsomeness have kept the authors going; they have
even admitted that they would buy the book for the cartoons alone! It
is hoped that the humour and detail will reinforce their poignant
messages.
This is an evolving tale and the authors will be pleased to receive

comments and anecdotes, via their universities, for possible inclusion
in subsequent publications.
This book is dedicated to Theres, Louis, Steve, and Kim.

Introduction
This book should be called ‘a study of the blatantly obvious’. It is

mostly common sense and, if you stopped to think about it for long
enough, I’m sure you could write a very similar guide yourself. The
thing is that few of us ever stop to think about the point of our crits
and we are expected to master them through trial and error. By the
time you do master the crit, it is too late!
This book aims to demystify the process, and provide a practical,

hands-on guide – how to survive in the current system and then how
to begin to change that system.
The crit, or ‘review’, as we are going to call it throughout this guide,

is a feature of studio-based design courses. The design studio is an
unusual kind of beast in the university environment and is the part of
an architecture course that generally takes up the most time and
effort. Typically a design project is set and students are given a limited
amount of time to explore it and present their ‘ideas’ or ‘solution’ at a
review. Other aspects of the course, such as history, technology,
design theory, etc. are intended to feed into the studio project. For
most of us, the review is unlike any previous experience.
The role of the review has been the focus of recent appraisal (Hall
Jones 1996, Anthony 1991, Wilkin 1999). What is the purpose of the
review? Should we continue with them at all? Do students learn
anything from them? How do they relate to professional practice? This
guide does not attempt to extend the theoretical debate but, instead,
xii The Crit
makes explicit the negative aspects and then the potential value of
‘traditional’ review and suggests ways to improve performance and
learning. We also suggest a range of alternative reviews which you
can implement yourself.
It is a ‘how to’ rather than a theoretical kind of book, but certain

changes to the review are implicit – changes which work towards a
new professional attitude of inclusiveness, participation and collabo-
ration. We acknowledge the viewpoint that many professionals
develop a ‘tacit knowing-in-action’ (Schön, 1983) and that it is not
always possible to articulate this knowledge fully. We do not aim to
provide a rule-book, but a framework for thinking about the review
within which you can develop your own approach.
Rosie Parnell
My first experience of a review was heart-pumping; it was unlike

anything else I had ever had to do but I was expected to just get on
with it along with the rest of the year. Okay, so it was interesting to
see what other people had produced but why did everyone have to
stare at me and my pathetic bits of collapsing cardboard and masking
tape and those terrible drawings...ouch! My non-architect friend had
inspired me with confidence just before by telling me that my first
creation, my pride and joy, looked like a great big toilet roll. So all in
all, the whole excruciating experience felt like a perverted form of
punishment.
As time went on and I thought I was turning into a bit more of an

architect (started wearing more black etc.), the review became an
accepted event at the end of each project. My voice still insisted on
disappearing into my shoes every time it happened so that I
sounded like a Dalek, but with a bit of experience behind me I felt
marginally more confident. Unfortunately my marks didn’t seem to
reflect this, and after each review I would be relieved to be able to
begin a new project saying, ‘This time, this is the one, this is going
to be great!’ I still didn’t really stop to think, ‘What are reviews all
about?’
During the Diploma years, Rachel Sara and I worked together, first
on short projects with others and then on a year-long project as a
pair. It was a great experience. We developed a method of working

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The Crit

This Page Intentionally Left Blank

Cartoons by Mark Parsons

OXFORD AUCKLAND BOSTON JOHANNESBURG MELBOURNE NEW DELHI

A member of the Reed Elsevier plc group

First published 2000

© Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd 2000

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 0 7506 4770 1

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Composition by Scribe Design, Gillingham, Kent

4 Learning from a review 65

6 Reviews and the future 107

The mysteries of the ‘jury’, ‘crit’, or ‘review’ have been enshrined in

Authors have visited this territory before and, in particular, Kathryn H.

Many students think of ‘the crit’ as an ordeal devised by tutors to

design review as the ‘judgement seat’, it can be developed as a

We recommend this book to all design students and particularly to

Professor George Henderson

Professor Jeremy Till

Leicester and Sheffield, January 2000

This guide is indebted to numerous tutors, practising architects,

The catalyst was a project called ‘Clients and Users in Design

At Sheffield, CUDE was co-ordinated by Angela Fisher, with

Simon Gedye, Dr Roger Harper, Judy Torrington, and Professor Peter

At Leicester, Judy Ashley died of cancer early in the project and

A special ‘thank you’ is due to Mark Parsons whose inspiring cartoons

This is an evolving tale and the authors will be pleased to receive

This book is dedicated to Theres, Louis, Steve, and Kim.

This book should be called ‘a study of the blatantly obvious’. It is

This book aims to demystify the process, and provide a practical,

The crit, or ‘review’, as we are going to call it throughout this guide,

It is a ‘how to’ rather than a theoretical kind of book, but certain

My first experience of a review was heart-pumping; it was unlike

As time went on and I thought I was turning into a bit more of an

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