ABSTRACT
The direct engagement of students with a building requires the direct engagement with building. The birth of a student architecture project defined in the Joint Criteria could be text, film, building design, or Voronoi diagram, and is the inverse of a build-ing. To discuss 'building something' as a requirement would impinge on the schools' right to interpret and implement 'plurality'. The understanding of the technical limitations of materials and their manipulation delivers invaluable insights into performance, durability, effective design detailing, and judgement which are core to constructing places for people. The RIBA/ARB joint criteria are about ensuring professional standards, but are inevitably about standards of education, and that education is set within an academic 'higher education' framework of expectation and delivery. If the 'Live Project' educator/practitioner takes the RIBA at face value, the integration of the full gamut of work-stages within the student's experience has to be achieved unequivocally.
