Architecture education is failing students by preparing them for a dysfunctional profession built on overwork, self-exploitation, and harmful practices, according to Professor Harriet Harriss. In a provocative analysis, Harriss argues that current educational approaches train students to "survive dysfunction rather than transform it," reinforcing outdated production methods while the planet faces unprecedented crises.
Harriss, a UK-registered architect and professor at Pratt Institute's School of Architecture in New York, contends that architecture schools mistake "harm for rigor and endurance for excellence." She proposes that architectural education must undergo a fundamental transformation - not collapse, but a composting process that allows something better to emerge. Her critique comes as part of a broader examination of the profession's deep-rooted problems.
The first essential change involves making care, rest, and reciprocity the standard studio norms rather than exceptions. Many educators, themselves overworked, continue to glorify student all-nighters as proof of dedication. Harriss argues this mirrors the profession's pathological relationship with long hours, unpaid labor, and ethical compromises disguised as "professionalism." When students must harm themselves to be considered excellent, graduates cannot credibly protect their communities or the planet. A pedagogy that normalizes self-exploitation inevitably reproduces these patterns in workplaces, planning decisions, and the built environment.
Second, architecture schools must teach "the architecture of finitude" - acknowledging the complete lifecycle of buildings, including their end. Every structure will eventually degrade, require dismantling, or have its materials repurposed. Designing as though buildings are permanent is both unrealistic and ecologically irresponsible. Teaching finitude means equipping students to plan for responsible deconstruction, reuse, and material afterlives. Students learn that an architect's task involves not only building but also unbuilding - ethically, imaginatively, and with care.
The third transformation requires putting pedagogy before bureaucracy. University administration has expanded dramatically, with accreditation requirements, risk management, and revenue protection creating bloated administrative layers. Senior administrative salaries have risen faster than inflation or faculty pay, while classroom resources shrink. Higher education increasingly operates like a corporation, protecting itself while becoming less capable of preparing graduates for housing shortages, climate breakdown, and spatial inequality. Harriss advocates redesigning compliance systems to reward climate literacy, labor justice, ecological repair, and decolonial partnerships.
Fourth, the traditional design jury system must be abolished. Harriss describes this supposed "rite of passage" as functioning less like critique and more like "public sentencing" - a performance of hierarchy that drains confidence, perpetuates bias, and mistakes intimidation for rigor. She proposes replacing juries with slower studios, collaborative critique, community-engaged assessment, and feedback rooted in care rather than performance. This approach aims to sharpen rather than soften architecture by removing harmful rituals that prevent critical thinking and sustainable work practices.
The final essential change involves teaching collective practice instead of professional performativity. In an era of climate emergency and social fracture, architecture schools must abandon the myth of the architect as individual genius. Students need to learn collaboration across disciplines - with activists, ecologists, policymakers, and grassroots organizers - during their education, not as an afterthought. Professional life should resemble a mycelial network rather than a hierarchy.
Harriss emphasizes that inhabiting a planet already in decline demands ecological maturity from architects. They must learn to recognize limits, grieve what is lost, and act with humility. The most hopeful action architectural education can take is not to perform harder but to transform entirely. Only by letting go of outdated practices can something more just, collective, and repair-capable take root.
Professor Harriss brings extensive credentials to her critique, having served as dean of Pratt Institute's School of Architecture from 2019 to 2022. She currently works as a public director of AIA New York, visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg's Graduate School of Architecture, and qualified death doula. In 2018, she became a principal fellow of the UK's Higher Education Academy. Her published works include "Radical Pedagogies: Architectural Education - the British Tradition" (2015) and "Architects After Architecture" (2020). Her analysis forms part of Dezeen's Performance Review series, which examines systemic problems plaguing architecture and design, from difficult working conditions to ethical dilemmas.
