BuildAbility: the future of construction education is a research project that Melonie Bayl-Smith established in late 2009 and has undertaken over the past year. It was inspired by her keen interest and passion for the connections between and across practice and education in the field of Architecture.

This stage of the research project has been enabled by two professional scholarships – the prestigious Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship, which is awarded yearly by the NSW Architects’ Registration Board, and the National Association of Women in Construction International Womens’ Day scholarship.

Core to this research project have been interviews, focus groups, meetings, reviews and studio crit sessions with academics and fractional teaching staff, students, architects, researchers, engineers, builders, and other consultants.Through conducting this research, Melonie has visited and reviewed a number of Universities, individuals and mostly architectural practices across Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, North America and the UK.

Looking closely at articulation, materialization and specification as concepts, and the connections that lie between tectonics and design has also evoked the enquiry about curricula, about the cultures and agendas of architecture schools, about the responsibilities of the profession, and about Architecture itself.

In both universities and in practice, there is strong evidence that foundational and continuing education in building technologies has changed over the past 15 years. These changes have occurred in such a way that there are now distinct disparities between the learning opportunities offered by various institutions, even within Australia alone. This is especially evident in relation to the manner in which construction, structures and other building technology knowledge areas might be taught as core subjects, and how the learning from these knowledge areas is valued as an integral element of architectural design and practice.

The European leg of Melonie’s research has provided some fascinating illumination on this particular aspect of architectural education, and it has been observed that even the largest architecture schools are striving towards integrated studio and integrated curriculum.

Observations made through this research provided secondary but nonetheless fascinating outcomes. The faculty models investigated demonstrated that embedded practice appears to go some way to solving the issue of providing diverse staff and diverse employment opportunities within the architectural schools. By virtue of this, it might also provide the vehicle to address the delivery of teaching in core skill areas and therefore some of the concerns of the profession at large. The multiple and diverse outcomes of research conducted by embedded practice also have the potential to be understood by a wide section of the profession and indeed the community.

The Atlantic leg of the research project took in a number of schools of Architecture from Toronto through to Michigan, Boston, London, Bath and Cambridge. This particular journey examined schools where materiality, tectonics and integrated design are supported by strong agendas for research and investigations into novel and innovative ideas in construction. It also enabled Melonie to attend the 2010 ACADIA conference in New York, entitled Life in:formation. This conference examined the impact of digital design and fabrication techniques on tectonic research and more specifically, design/build projects.

After the extensive travels undertaken for this first stage of the BuildAbility project, the collation of the material at hand is in progress. Melonie will be presenting a brief talk on her research findings at the NAWIC International Women’s Day even on March 24th, and the white paper summary for the research will be distributed at this time. Melonie is also looking forwards to not only sharing her findings with both the architectural and wider community, but also in continuing with this line of research in order to implement and test models that address issues at the nexus of practice and education in architecture.