I like to think of myself as an open-minded girl. I embrace non-traditional teaching methods (not literally, duh). But I have pondered the following Guardian UK article to death (pun lacking tact) and I just can’t find even a smidgen of a golden educational thread in what appears to be a gigantic vat [...]
I like to think of myself as an open-minded girl. I embrace non-traditional teaching methods (not literally, duh). But I have pondered the following Guardian UK article to death (pun lacking tact) and I just can’t find even a smidgen of a golden educational thread in what appears to be a gigantic vat of WTF?!
I was hoping for maybe a deeply hidden “wax on, wax off” lesson. Perhaps something about coming to a greater understanding of human pain and suffering because the student has designed a pain-inflicting device. But I just can’t get past the part about how architecture and design (and education in general) should, at its very basic levels, be about lifting up and strengthening the mind if not the spirit. If the assigning instructor does have a deeply meaningful higher purpose in mind, it might be in his best interest to spew that info sooner rather than later.
“And For Your Homework, Please Design a Torture Device”
An architectural school was at the centre of a row last night after it emerged that students were required to design a fully operational torture device.
The project, part of a masters course aimed at first-year students of the University of Kent’s School of Architecture, was described as “sick”. One student has lodged a complaint on the grounds that he was uncomfortable about carrying out the brief. Illustrated by a skull and a view of a Gestapo electric torture chamber, the brief handed to a class of students at the school was to “design, construct and draw a fully operational prototype torture device based on ergonomic principles”.
They were encouraged to “be original” and instructed: “You may use a historical precedent as a point of departure or attempt to develop something completely without precedent. Through design development we hope you may advance your understanding of ergonomics as it pertains to torture.”
Paul Hyett, a former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) responsible for the Treatment Centre for Torture Victims in London, said the school was dabbling in “dangerous territory” and called for the project to be stopped.
Hyett said: “It’s sick. Architecture should be about enriching our lives culturally and lifting the spirits of the people who live or work in the buildings we create. There is absolutely no circumstance where any piece of equipment for torture has any positive use in our lives or our society. This is monstrously complicated territory and I don’t think that amateurs should mess around in it. I’m appalled.”
George Ferguson, also a past RIBA president, said: “Architecture isn’t practised in some Britart external gallery. What we should be teaching students is about people-friendly buildings and it is obtuse to start with extreme discomfort as a way of teaching it. I would understand it in a philosophic course but I do not begin to understand it in a serious architecture course.”
The head of the University’s architecture department, Professor Don Gray, confirmed that one of the 12 students had complained. He said: “The only person who has raised any objection has been given the opportunity to address the project from a different angle. I agree that it is a slightly shocking introduction to a very serious long-term design project. I’m neither justifying it or defending it but that is how we are going about it.”
The two-week project was designed by course tutor Mike Richards, in advance of a project to design a new headquarters for Amnesty International.
Posted by Alexa Harrington
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