IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION A
Abstract
Perhaps no feature is as central to and persistent within architecture education as the critique, a visual and oral presentation of one’s design project to a jury of academics and / or professionals in front of one’s peers. Is the crit (and the tradition of oral public presentation) a necessary and valuable requirement on the path to becoming an architect? Or does it represent a barrier to equal access for those who otherwise qualify as architects? In this paper, an architecture instructor, a disabilities coordinator (DC), and a former architecture student discuss collaborations within the context of an architectural studio course which was taught in 2025. The authors present a disability accommodation strategy that was tested for the critique and share experiences and outcomes. The paper describes the Dutch tradition of paranymphs in dissertation presentations, observing parallels for architecture critique presentations and framing these observations in terms of inclusivity within architecture education as it functions as a doorway to the profession. The paper also presents data from the author’s expanded use of the alternate critique presentation strategy in a subsequent architecture studio and some of the known outcomes from learner and critic perspectives. Finally, it offers thoughts on how the presented strategy could be expanded and further explored. Within an impetus to make both the designed environment and the design of post-secondary education more universally accessible, the presented critique accommodation strategy and experiences are an exposition on the impact and potential of small but meaningful changes within architecture education.
Amy Hetletvedt is a licensed architect (USA), preservationist, and educator who has been supporting buildings, the people who love them, and the communities they serve for more than twenty years. Hetletvedt has served on the Historic District Commission for the City of Detroit and has taught design studios and architectural ethics. Hetletvedt’s book Preserving with Purpose: Reimagining Buildings for Community Benefit was published by Island Press (Princeton University Press) in 2025. Hetletvedt currently teaches in the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University.
Recently retired, Laura Brawn was a Learning Strategist and Disabilities Coordinator at Carleton’s Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities for almost 25 years, helping students with documented disabilities navigate academic accommodations and develop individualized strategies to adapt to the mainstream postsecondary environment. She is passionate about the promotion of accessible teaching and learning in the university setting, to reduce the need for disability-related accommodations and to increase academic accessibility. Laura studied psychology at Carleton University. Her master’s thesis investigated the efficacy of psychometric tests of processing speed and working memory in the identification of ADHD and LD in adults.
Oshan Tan is a graduate of the architecture program at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. While at Carleton, she served as an assistant within CSALT, the Carleton Sensory Architecture and Liminal Technologies laboratory. She is currently employed as a BIM / VDC coordinator.
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Thursday 25th June, 2026