Doing things differently

Having just started my ARB/RIBA Part 2 at Kent School of Architecture and Planning, I have experienced a strange new online learning style. This week I am going to give a brief update on what those experiences have been like, what that has meant for the course and what challenges this may present throughout the current academic year.

On the first day of term, our design unit was required to meet (if geographically possible) in our MArch design studio for a kind of ‘get to know the group/ induction’ session. It was socially distanced, though a bit chaotic, and the meeting itself was hosted online so that others could join remotely. It was the strangest seminar I have ever taken part in but we did manage to just about get through everything. There were 3 or 4 rows of students with a variety of face marks on, laptops out, video calling the rest of the group from the same room. It felt very different to what these sessions are normally like in architecture schools and although everyone was able to contribute, it did feel like it was a tad unsociable even though the majority of us were all sat in the same studio.

As I left I thought it would be really interesting idea to monitor how I felt emotionally to this new kind of social normality and am writing this blog as a first recording, to see how my opinions change as time moves on.

I had seen how my dad adapted in his line of work when I was living with my parents and I now appreciate how difficult and strange the change must have been for him. I understand how and why he felt so isolated and why he continuously stressed how he missed the informal social interactions office work provides above other things. He also hugely missed his lunchtime gym sessions, as a change of scenery and new environment for him to explore within a different social dynamic. I had considered a lot of this previously before applying to come back to University and now have a better understanding of how this year might feel as it unfolds.

Image: House Beautiful: Makeshift desks at home

I have now (just about) finished my second week and I am just beginning to get used to how the way the timetable has been set up and how online teaching is going to run. My first impressions of it so far are that there are going to be some pro’s and con’s, as well as a few indifferent things that I am also going to have get used to, which I am sure will happen as I become more familiar with this routine. We are using Microsoft Teams for almost everything taught online, except our pre-recorded lectures which are delivered through an excellent system called Panopto.

I’ll start with the advantages. The biggest advantage I have found is online lectures being pre-recorded and having the option of when to view them. Two of my modules are made up of both seminar and lecture content, so having the choice as to when to watch the lecture before the seminar is a big bonus. Some of the other students on my course choose to watch the lectures the night before whilst I am watching them in the morning before my online seminars. The flexibility this provides is really helpful for those who ‘don’t function well’ in the mornings and the ability to pause, rewind and replay is invaluable and I hope recorded lectures continue even when face to face teaching resumes. Having lecture notes printed or on a separate screen has also been very useful.

Image: Typical Panopto Interface - a great way of lecturing online.

The next biggest advantage is having such easy access to talking with my peers in my design group. I am working for 3 other students for first 6 weeks of term and meeting online is very straightforward and saving me an hour of total travel time if I were to meet them on campus. One of the students is currently abroad and so they are able to join us from another country, which is great. However this does make discussing design more difficult, because as good as screen share capabilities are, they still don’t compare to being able to meet and look at the same drawings/ images/ models and discuss it directly. It means you are more restricted to working digitally unless you have access to either digital drawing equipment or a scanner. Currently myself and two others within the group are meeting on Mondays face to face as we have agreed it is still the more effective way of working.

I am also enjoying not having to commute so often and the free time that provides and I guess this idea ties in to other comforts of working from home such as more comfortable attire and more freedom when to take breaks, have meals etc.

However, my girlfriend and I have also had to sacrifice our potential living room and dedicate that space to becoming our ‘office’. Whilst we have made a good job of it, by buying some nice large desks and comfortable chairs, there is also an element of never being able to quite mentally detach ourselves from studying.

I am aware that we have to make the best of what facilities we have at home, but I am still going to miss the social and indeed academic benefits of working in a design collective each day, something that studio culture heavily promotes. Although I am able to purchase students licenses and/ or download pieces of essential software I do not currently have I am still going to miss having easier access to our workshops, library and teaching spaces that really enhanced the quality of my university experience when studying for my B(A). Although I am regularly discussing work with friends across the phone and via web-chats it isn’t quite the same as having them in the same room. I miss having the freedom to wander over to their desk to talk about something or even nothing at all. Although my girlfriend is great company and I love working the other side of the room to her, she isn’t studying architecture and so she unfortunately doesn’t really understand what I do all day!

Image: Socialnapper.net

What is surprising about this is that I am actually given to understand that we are actually in a better place to work than many other students. From what I’ve been able to see from others in my seminars and from talking to others on my course, many are living and working in the same space – student rooms either in accommodation of private rented and they don’t have a designated room to work. Universities have been forced to heavily restrict the number of students allowed into study spaces and our Templeman Library is now virtually empty. The published evidence is pointing towards this having serious negative impacts on the mental health of students, first year students in particular who are lacking regular social contact having just left home for the first time.

It remains to be seen how this is going to develop, but with further restrictions imminent as cases go up again worldwide, I really do hope that Universities can support more strategies to support student welfare globally. My general opinion on current student welfare is that more to be done and we need to protect and rally around those who are feeling vulnerable more than ever. I am particularly strong on this issue and I have decided to become a mentor for a group of final year B(A) students, to support them in the most difficult and academically critical conditions they will have faced at University so far. I have received further training from the University to allow me to do this online and am looking forward to getting started in this scheme. I am hoping that the mentoring scheme at Kent continues to function largely as normal and continue to be a valuable asset in helping students realise their potential.

Another obviously apparent negative to this new way of teaching is the fact that you can only see peoples faces online, through cameras which often produce blurry, lagging images or are not even turned on for the majority of a seminar. Although it is worth noting again the obvious freedom and flexibility online meetings provide, I have found there to be a couple of things that I have found difficult to adjust to straightaway. The first of these is the ideology of having the physical presence of a whole seminar represented on one screen. Personally, I find it more difficult to have a conversation with someone when I cannot see their body language and although having speech and facial expression is great where possible, but it just isn’t as effective and face to face meetings. This to me underlines the need for regular human and varied social interactions and further highlights the need to support student welfare.

Image: Typical Teams interface with no video camera

The second issue, which is inherently linked, is the feeling of not having to travel or indeed more around very much at all. I find my morning before 9AM doesn’t seem to last very long at all and sometimes all I have to do is walk downstairs and be working within 5 minutes of waking up. Though ideologically this should lead to enhanced productivity, I am finding that I am finding associating a place in my home as a ‘workplace’ a challenging concept to wrap my head around. It does not feel like an office or a studio. I do not have to plan how to get here or what time I have to leave. It is actually very restricting and a little bit suffocating, as well as just dull – which inevitably counteracts any personal impressions that working from home might be more convenient.

It is psychologically adverse to occupy the same space and attempt maintain a healthy state of mind. Although humans are not a fundamentally roaming or a particularly traversal species, we are descended from foragers and to do this, you have to have an inquisitive and exploratory streak to be successful at this. To stimulate these qualities, humans have explored their immediate surroundings in amongst completing their respective routines. In this new world, the routines have transferred, but the area and indeed travelling time and space we have to explore has been reduced for a number of us. Essentially what I am saying is that of us without commute time/ working from home/ at risk from Covid are significantly more bored than we were before. This is of course naturally expected and to an extent inevitable, but it is fascinating to see how we continue to modify our lifestyles should the continue get any worse, or even as winter approaches and we spend less time outdoors in the UK. I would like to look at this in a post a little further down the line, as I think we are only just understanding the tip of the iceberg that broke free a long time ago.

Image: blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk

For the immediate future, I think the lack of social diversity if definitely going to be the biggest challenge over the next 9 months or so. I am not too optimistic about a complete return to face to face teaching, not without PPE, masks or social distancing. I do worry about how we spot signs of social instability when we don’t see each other face to face every day. We are at least able to see a limited number of friends and that is great, but I think more needs to be done to accommodate large numbers of students and their need for sociability.

For now though, I’m going to continue to settle into this weird new schedule and way of working and embrace it as much as I can.

Until next time,

RK