Building a Culture: Reflections on Three Decades of Design Practice Research at RMIT traces how one architect and educator transformed a Melbourne institution into a globally recognised centre for practice-based architecture research — told from the inside, in the author's own voice.
About This Book
What distinguishes a genuinely great school of architecture from a merely competent one? Leon van Schaik has spent close to half a century working towards an answer. This book follows his intellectual and professional journey from the Architectural Association in London, through the townships of apartheid South Africa, and into the lecture halls and studios of RMIT, where he built one of the world's most distinctive practice-based design research programs. Drawing on archival material and personal anecdote, van Schaik maps the conditions — pedagogical, cultural, and political — that allow creative ecologies to flourish. The result is both a frank institutional history and a considered reflection on mentorship, collaboration, and the ethics of educational leadership.
Key Features
- 144 pages of memoir, institutional history, and archival reflection on design education
- Author: Leon van Schaik; Designer: Stuart Geddes
- References key figures including Richard Hamilton, Alvin Boyarsky, and Cyril Ramaphosa
- Published by Uro Publications, 2021
- Winner, Australian Book Design Awards 2021 — Best Designed Non-Fiction Book (including Scholarly and Reference)
What You'll Discover
- How van Schaik's early studies under artist Richard Hamilton and his time with Alvin Boyarsky at the Architectural Association shaped his pedagogical philosophy
- The formative influence of working alongside Cyril Ramaphosa at the Urban Foundation in South Africa, and what that experience brought to his thinking on cultural change
- A 'loose-fit' model for implementing organisational transformation within educational institutions, drawn from lived experience rather than theory
- The specific challenges and decisions behind building RMIT's innovative practice-based architecture research program — a case study in cultivating lasting institutional culture
About the Author
Leon van Schaik is Professor of Architecture at RMIT, where he holds the roles of Innovation Professor and Innovation Chair of Design Practice Research. He studied at the Architectural Association in London and joined RMIT in 1987, going on to establish the institution's now internationally recognised practice-based research program.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover with dust jacket
- Pages: 144
- Dimensions: 240 x 170 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780648435587
- Publisher: Uro Publications
- Publication Date: 2021
Perfect For: Architecture educators, students of design pedagogy, historians of architectural education, and practitioners with an interest in how institutional culture shapes creative practice.