In the newest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, I got to speak to Derek Jones and James Benedict Brown, two of five scholars responsible for the very recently published Studio Properties: A Field Guide to Design Education, published by Bloomsbury this year and also available as an open access publication on the Bloomsbury website.

Alongside Elizabeth Boling, James Corazzo, Colin M. Gray and Nicole Lotz, James and Derek have written a book to help clarify the operation of the design studio in education. Repositioning ‘studio’ not as a monolithic entity but as a landscape made up of many interlocking properties, each of which has a character that can be encouraged or diminished to build better design thinking and culture.

James, Derek and I discuss a few of these properties, where they can be seen, how they operate, how educators might interpret them and intervene in them to build better designers.

Clever chaps, clever book. Have a sticky and see.

James is Associate Professor of Architecture at Umeå School of Architecture and is on LinkedIn; Derek is Senior Lecturer in Design at The Open University and can be found on LinkedIn. The book is linked above and also on the Studio Properties website, where all the things can be found.

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Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick