Teaching Approach and Design Culture SoAP postgraduate degrees are an integrated suite of courses that emphasises creative thinking, proactive research, experimentation, and applied learning. Many of the courses are tightly linked, with projects moving from one course to another as different sets of issues are introduced, and a repertoire of diverse skills is built. Students are challenged to develop their own approaches and working methods and apply the knowledge from one course to projects to another. Much of the learning comes from peer interaction through critical analysis. This education is more about generating open questions than definitive answers. Studios provide the opportunity to imagine and create with the conviction that design matters, has consequence, and is relevant in the varied contexts in which students
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work. Studio work is a partnership between students and lecturers based on research, analysis, provocation, and iteration. The work is dedicated to developing design abilities while critically engaging matters of cultural, environmental, and architectural significance. The values learned in studio become the guiding principles for professional conduct. Studios are design laboratories and the site of investigation into techniques, forms, and assumptions that are continually evolving. Thus, studios reward initiative, creativity, productivity, and risk-taking. They are focused on issues that do not have single fixed solutions. Frequently, multiple solutions are employed to develop in students a critical perspective, allowing them to become increasingly independent designers and thinkers. They provide a variety of learning modes, from informal conversations to formal presentations, individual desk crits to group reviews,
