-How do we acquire these competences?
-In the Architectural Design Studio tradition, one learns to architecture by design. It is mainly addressed as an intellectual process, where one patiently absorbs lots of embodied and tacit knowledge that form a craft. One that can be done sitting down, or so they say.
-Other crafts are learnt very differently. One learns to play football by playing football. One trains by playing football, sometimes with the ball, sometimes without. Most tactic lessons are given and corrected on the field, a few on a blackboard.
-Similarly, one learns to play the trumpet by playing it. As John Holt explains, there is no separation between learning to play and playing.
-Architecture design is a very special category, common to practices that involve danger, for one’s own integrity or others, and whose task is slow, expensive and involves many other people. It is a pedagogical approach based on simulation. Like jet fighter pilots, the learning process is an imaginary, fictitious setup. A make believe by design. This method has proven very successful, but of course it comes with some challenges and weaknesses.
-Which kind of simulation are we talking about?
-It is one that provides a protected, less dangerous, cheaper, faster context, with diminished, more predictable inputs. The difference with the jet figher pilot is that at least the apparatus provided to her includes the realistic movement of the cockpit, so her whole body learns to master the experience and scary situations of the real flight. But the jet fighter is confined to her machine, and can only truly practice while in there, while your simulation space and time is not just your room.
-In Catalan, tutor designates the long post that guides the growth of the tree so it is as straight and robust as possible. It is a temporary appendix, only applied in a specific period of its early growth. But the tree will keep growing by itself. There is a disperse tradition of learning by doing, but the focus should also be put on doing by learning. Learning is not a goal, but a medium. Some people argue that it takes 10.000 hours of dedication to master a craft. Others think it is 10 years. But it takes a full lifetime, at least, to keep improving and refining what one devotes to. Learning is just a consequence of this drive.