Our student body has traditionally included a high percentage of working individuals also in the U.S. military, which has defined NewSchool’s schedules, and calendars and solidified the practical nature of its approach. NewSchool’s IPAL program complements this endeavor.

Our curriculum is constructed on the double objective of educating our students on principles and skills as the basic relationship of their personal growth, academic development and professional advancement in the architecture profession.

NewSchool was conceived as a community of learning and has been recognized as such since before the term became popular. The close interpersonal relation that exists at all levels between faculty and students is a continuous hallmark of NewSchool of Architecture & Design. This relationship is evident in the school’s culture, but also in its spatial arrangement, i.e. faculty offices are adjacent to studios to facilitate open dialog and familiarity.

Studio culture at NewSchool encourages and opens a space for strong bonds among students, collaboration and community of discussion. Studios count with adjacent spaces for discussion and display which facilitate exchanges centered on the work. Students count with personal ample, comfortable desk space for working. Studio culture is pervasive to the way students approach work, well beyond studio. The first three years of undergraduate studios work together in a large studio space which allows for the development of inter-personal bonds and relationships of collaboration and criticism across levels. Freshmen enter an environment of support and inclusion provided by the proximity with peers, fed by a studio culture of inquiry, work and compassion, and supported by a team of highly involved, specialized staff. 

Studio Syllabi contain an appendix titled Studio Culture Principles which sets expectations of involvement in the work, professionalism and academic curiosity, mutual respect and civility. 

NewSchool believes strongly in the value of offering a diversity of learning methodologies. However, certain principles pervade this diversity, one example is thinking through making, an approach that associates the manufacturing of two and three-dimensional artifacts with the mental and cognitive aspects of the process in a continuous loop, reinforcing and developing the natural capacity to visualize, work and think multidimensional. It is a general principle that working manually with physical, “real” materials is a necessary developmental counterpart to the predominantly digital tooling of our age.

We believe in the value of the studio – lecture/seminar combination. Lectures and seminars introduce diverse, innovative points of view in synergy with design studio topics utilizing pedagogies and tools for interaction and engagement, with small class size and high instructor to students ratio to accommodate various learning modes. 

Most required courses are fully in-person, especially studios. Some lecture/seminars are hybrid, or semi-synchronous.

In general, course and studio topics often study or are involved in issues affecting local communities in the local context of Tijuana-San Diego to speculate on their growth and development as a model for sustainable urbanization and environmentally conscious design. This has been a constant in higher level design studios; an interest in learning is fed by the reality of the projects in support of the humanistic principles in the school’s mission. Learning from real cases with the input and critique of community members and experts in fields specific to the projects reinforces the fulfillment of our mission.

Guest critics and jurors at reviews from the local community, include architects and designers, academics from other institutions, and experts in adjacent disciplines.

NewSchool encourages student-led activities like the Theory Colloquia, a bi-weekly student-produced series of dialogs where students and faculty discuss questions of theory of interest to the students. AIAs-organizes field trips and extra-curricular activities of academic value.

The student-led publication TOUCHÉ about a variety of extra-curricular topics is entirely written, edited and produced by NSA&D students with the coordination of the Fellows Lab course. The first issue was self-published in Spring 2023, and the second issue is in the works.

Continuous evaluation and assessment, which takes place twice a quarter, allow for adjustments in the teaching style or method. Evaluations are shared and discussed with students, methodological or pedagogical changes are communicated to the students, usually at the term’s onset or during the introduction of a new exercise. Faculty are welcoming to the students’ feedback, which is facilitated by this relationship of familiarity and respect. 

Studio faculty continuously assess, discuss and share teaching methods and principles.  Assessment is carried out by the faculty.

Presence, Attendance: The most basic principle is showing up. Presence in studio, or class, is the basis of all learning interactions. Presence is defined by your attention, involvement, and participation in the dialog that is our process. 

Unexcused absence on a project or assignment due date earns the student ZERO POINTS in the assignment. There is no negotiating this policy. Prior faculty-approved, excused absences due to legitimate circumstances are exempt from it.

 

Timeliness: Schedules and deadlines are the backbone of our discipline. Being late is unacceptable, unprofessional behavior. The tolerance period for tardiness for this course is 15 minutes, after which the student is considered ABSENT, unless they present a valid excuse. 

On project due-dates, students must be present, and ready to present at the time the class begins. After 15 minutes, the student is considered late, and therefore absent. Projects due are not accepted late without a proper excuse.

 

Completion: Work must be completed per standards, and to formats specified by the instruction. No exceptions will be made. Format violations will be considered as incomplete work. Incomplete work will be graded according to the percentage of completion.

Delivery: If you don’t bring it, nobody will bring it for you. We will not talk about ideas in your head, or the model that you forgot at home. Project critiques, central to our interactions, are only given to students who bring new work. You get out of the instruction as much as you produce for the critique.

Commitment and Dedication: The only secret to success in the design disciplines is to immerse oneself in work, to embrace its beauty, to use it as a vehicle for thought and growth. Without commitment to work, all other skills or talents are wasted. Students are evaluated for their work discipline, which defines the quality of their output. Work incrementally and continuously. Time management is a key element of this.

It is the student’s duty to maximize the quantity and depth of their output. The more you can work, the better. It is not your instructor’s job “to make you work”. That deviates the focus of the discussion, which should be about design, not self-discipline. It wastes everybody’s time, and the money you are investing.

 

Discipline and Rigor: How do you know if your work is good? What fitness tests do you apply? Are you self-critical?  

You have to be strong in your opinion, but your argument has to be strong first. The teaching of design provides the student with the tools for these lines of inquiry, and students are expected to apply them, to extend and deepen the inquiry through their work. 

 

Curiosity: Each design question contains the potentials for development of ideas, and their execution, but the student must search for understanding and inform their actions through independent investigation of the topic, and careful observation of the work and process. 

The work calls for deepening your knowledge, for feeding your thinking. Assignments tease the student towards this curiosity. 

Wasting the opportunity guarantees mediocre results.

 

Focus: We are all different, and learn differently. Find your work comfort, so that you can gain the level of attention that the work requires. You must study your project, research your theory and do many trials of everything. 

Focus is not optional; nor can it be waived.

 

Fascination and The Work: We argue that there is nothing better to do with your time than design. The pleasures of the work are its own reward. Inspiration comes from the work itself, from your curiosity, from your study of the problem presented. Good projects are developed, not “created”. Creativity IS process; there are no muses or magical incantations.

Your instructors don’t have recipes for you to follow, or answers about how you should design. Your instructors will not design for you. Stoke yourself up about your work. Inspire yourself.

 

Originality: Originality is a false pursuit which can deviate your growth. You cannot will your originality, as it emerges from the idiosyncrasies of your focused process, and from the development of your ideas. Furthermore, humans learn by imitation. Imitation is an effective learning tool. All creatives imitate; design is historical, both in its dependence on precedent, and as a historical progression. Imitation is not copy; nor should it be understood as such. 

Strive for being good, not original. When you are good, and true to your work, you will also achieve originality.

 

Iteration and Versioning: Your first idea is your best idea, only if you are lazy: ‘Talent’ is commitment. Craft is practice; they cannot be replaced.

Designing is re-designing. The more versions, the better the outcome. The end of the process is brought only by the deadline.

 

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF STUDIO CIVILITY

Tidiness: Our studio is a collective work environment, and as such, it needs to be cared for. Keep it clean, keep it quiet, keep it ordered. This will not only facilitate your work and that of your peers, but it is an essential element of design work, as it enables the necessary conditions for the work.

Students will be held accountable for untidiness of their workspace, or for disturbing the work environment. 

 

Respect: Our studio is also a community, founded on civil discourse and shared responsibility. Mutual respect is an essential element of building that community. The degree to which this is achieved materialized in the quality of the work, both individual and collective.  

This respect is mutual among students, and between students and their instructors. Disrespect of any kind will not be tolerated, and will be sanctioned.

 

Solidarity and Collaboration: Design is inherently competitive. Students compete with their ideas. At the same time, students support and help each other to “outdo” each other. The quality of your work, and that of the studio are inseparable. This is the way we all grow. Work together, critique each other, exchange ideas and information, share the thinking, and challenge it together. Hiding your work from your peers, or being secretive about it only undermines your process.

Compassion: We are all together in this larger project of learning. Be considerate, put yourself in other’s shoes. Help each other succeed.

 

Conclusion: The world is competitive, increasingly so. There are many designers out there who will compete with you.

You have to stand out for the quality of your work, the solidity of your skills and the coherence of your ideas and inquiries; for your seriousness and commitment to this profession and its disciplines.

There is no replacement for that.