Becoming an architect: the role of work-based learning in architect training.

This article examines the work-based placement of trainee architects in the United Kingdom to examine how trainees become architects. The trainee architects in this study experienced varying levels of participation and responsibility during their year-long placements. Despite this diversity, however, developing the trainees on placement was found to be integral to the professional role of the architect. That pedagogic role was valued. The trainees’ placements involved practical problem solving while their university-based element of architecture training focused primarily on abstract design. Yet this apparent tension encouraged the trainees to integrate architectural theory and practice. They developed both aesthetically and technically while on placement. The trainees’ experience of working in an architectural studio on placement often confounded their expectations of architects’ practice. Yet, becoming an architect retained its personal significance. Issues remain, though, around the unequal access to opportunities on placement and how this inequality might affect trainee architects’ learning.