Similar to last year, on May 14, 2025, we have been visited by students from Alfa-college in Groningen, and their teachers, Anita van Hofslot, Selma Kindermans and Bert Huitsing.
They have participated in a collaborative workshop, helping the students of Projects and Construction of the second year of Interior Design to develop our Project for 3M Memorial.
Thank you for your visit and interaction.
In fact, we called this workshop in a very unique way:
A JOKE THAT’S NO JOKE
fake-consulting-workshop
Here are the reasons behind this peculiar title:
As teachers, we know all too well the problems that arise the moment more than one subject or group is involved in the development of a project: “the Construction teacher (in this case, Asier Larunbe) told me this or that”; “he said it can be built”, “he said it can’t be built”; “Eneko, the Projects teacher, doesn’t like that solution”, and so on.
Faced with this situation, this year, the Projects teacher dared to do what he had never done before: tell them a story.
And that day, the class started like this:
“It’s time I told you a story. Like when a parent tells their child one… (laughter).”
Once upon a time, there was an Architecture Final Project student—that is, me. I had already passed the Preliminary Design phase of the Final Project, as well as the Basic Design phase. I was just starting the construction definition stage of the final project.
That was the day I went to my first tutorial with a professor from the Construction Department—a highly respected and renowned professor, to be precise.
When I showed him the project, the professor pointed out several things he believed were impossible. For example, regarding the floor-to-ceiling glass façades, he claimed it was an ecological crime. He didn’t think it was feasible to use brackets to support a double louvered façade, and instead required pillars that would disrupt the façade from top to bottom. He also didn’t see the possibility of creating openings in the slabs, and asked me to insert pillars that essentially destroyed the project.
I left the tutorial disheartened and went home feeling defeated, thinking the whole project had collapsed.
However, once I was no longer under the imposing presence that teachers used to have—a presence and authority that I don’t know when we lost, by the way—once I had cleared my head on the way home, I realized everything was possible: the project I had proposed, and even what the professor had said. It might even have been that the professor had lied to me. That is, I realized the whole thing might have been a set-up, essentially a well-executed performance designed to make the student react and take ownership of their project decisions.
Later on, in my professional practice, would the input from tradespeople on-site be more benevolent? More truthful or honest? Would they be as paternalistic as the support we provide to our students?
Truth be told, that tutorial was extremely pedagogical; it was a gentle but direct introduction to what professional reality would later be.
Thank you, Professor!
Although honestly, I’m not sure you were of much help when it came to the professional reality that has since left architects and designers without authority on site. I’ve even thought at times that all the slaps we took during our studies—supposedly to make us stronger—may have actually left us more damaged and dejected by our GREAT masters when it came time to defend our dignity out in the real world. There’s something to that, too.
Let’s not even get into the abuse and usurpation of new graduates’ professional skills by professors and department heads. We don’t need scientific data to back up these claims and reach the conclusion that this situation has seriously hindered our professional development—while other fields and professions have taken advantage of it to get ahead.
Because, dear God! Some of us really got the worst of it! First, under the overwhelming authority of our parents, and now, losing authority with our own children! In both senses, in fact—because we’ve lost our authority as teachers, but also as architects and designers. When did we allow this to happen? As Nietzsche said, were we the ones who, by abusing God, actually killed Him?
“God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?” (Nietzsche, 2016: section 125, p. 169)
Nietzsche, F. (2016). The Gay Science (Trans. J. L. Vermal), EDITORIAL TECNOS. (Original text published in 1882)
Still, and despite all the blood (in this case, my own, not God’s), that Construction tutorial was incredibly pedagogical and it inspires the story told to the students this year.
That is, after telling this story and the supposed reasons behind it, it became clear to our students that any critique or correction could be both valid and not valid. In fact, from that moment on, we teachers warned that one of the critique sessions could be fake. Therefore, students had to take ownership of their decisions and their projects. Moreover, and most importantly, they had to understand both subjects—Construction and Projects—not as scientific or objective fields, but as ambiguous, highly versatile, and creative domains.
Once this classroom mindset was set, we were ready to carry out the joint dynamic with our friends from the Netherlands: students from the Construction department of Alfa College in Groningen, who visit us every May.
To carry out the dynamic, we formed mixed groups by combining students from the Spanish- and Basque-speaking classes, so they’d have to speak in English!
Each group of our students was joined by two Dutch students. The Dutch students were meant to provide support and guidance for the ongoing project, but with a twist: one of them would provide genuine input, and the other one had to give a fake suggestion.
Now, this latter task is not easy—it needs to be convincingly argued to be believable. If not, and if the fake student is identified, the Dutch pair would be the ones to give the final presentation at the end of the workshop.
On the other hand, if our students failed to identify which Dutch student played the fake role, then it would be our students who had to deliver the presentation.
In the end, we couldn’t take the activity that far—the communication challenges due to language difficulties limited us.
Nonetheless, the continuous threat that something could be fake or inappropriate had very positive effects.
Indeed, if someone trying to help my project told me to place a column right in the middle—and that column ruined my project (a situation that, by the way, occurred more than once during the workshop)—in such a case, shouldn’t I consider that “help” to be fake? Without a doubt. Even if the person offering the suggestion believes their input is sincere (or not), if their suggestion contradicts the core idea of my project, I have to make the effort to accept and process the critique maturely, while also fighting to uncover the deeper reasons and motivations behind my own project—if it still stands (both structurally and conceptually).
In short, the story told and the ever-present threat that something might not be real led everyone to listen attentively to their peers’ suggestions. Not only that, we had to listen autonomously and responsibly, integrating the feedback we received into the narrative of our own project decisions.
This is a very typical situation in the Projects subject. But one has to ask: isn’t this how any human interaction works? Isn’t life kind of like this, too?
Note: This text is adapted from the original in the following book:
Besa, E. (2024). Manual de enseñanza del proyecto. Diseño editorial.
https://bibliotecadigital.cp67.com/reader/manual-de-ensenanza-del-proyecto