| | 8 SEPTEMBER 2018HIGHERReviewIN MY VIEWARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION IN INDIABy RK Goutham, Director ­ Sustainability, Cushman and Wakefield - India You don't have to be an authority on education or more so on architectural education to find out the deficiencies in architectural education in In-dia. It's seen and felt everywhere. Well, almost! It's increasingly becoming obvious that we need to junk the pre-historic curriculum of architectural education in the country for a revised, refreshed, updated and upgraded one, packed with the kind of stuff the rapidly evolving in-dustry is looking desperately for. Most of the emerging skill-sets or knowledge areas that are so crucial to the very survival of the architectural pro-fession in the current timeline seem to be conspicuously missing from the classroom teachings in the architectur-al colleges today. This brings us to the point of who is or is supposed to be teaching the would-be-architects? In my view, both are not desirable as the `desperate' one is con-stantly seeking out better opportunities and so never in-terested in improving his or her teaching skills, while the `passionate' one is not inclined to practice in the field and so never interested in improving his or her practical skills. It may be easy to pass such comments or judgments but it is clearly very difficult to offer solutions or alternatives. So, while we are all broadly in agreement that the current system needs overhauling and should include some of the key contemporary subjects, let's try to be little more specif-ic. The following are some of the emerging areas of knowl-edge that I have found missing from today's curricula:Design Thinking: Though some of the institutions may have a passing reference to the concept while teaching Life-Cycle Design, it is rarely covered in detail as a sepa-rate subject. Design Thinking is a human-centric and solu-tion-focused methodology for solving complex problems and finding desirable solutions. It deals with `what if', `why not' and `what works' scenarios of every design proposal Author, Architect, Project Manager, Sustainability Professional and Technology Evangelist, Rk Gautham, in his long professional career spanning 30 years, has worked in various capacities with Consulting, Execution and Project Management firms. An IGBC Accredited Professional, presently he is working for the Global Real Estate Consultancy firm Cushman & Wakefield and heads the Sustainability business and initiatives across the company in India.RK Goutham
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