The architecture crit as an assessment format has remained largely unchanged since its inception. Conceived in the 1850s by the Beaux-Art School curriculum, it marked a shift from apprenticeships at ateliers toward academic degrees at University [1]. Despite the profession itself undergoing numerous transformations, this aspect feels stuck in time. When asked to write a piece about my experience in architectural education, ‘crit culture’ immediately came to mind.

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Ahead of presenting in front of a review panel, there is a feeling of discomfort. A mental note to speak loudly, stand tall and stay concise, all while getting your concept across. The week before a review becomes a drawing marathon, racing to complete and pin-up the ‘finished’ product. The dread of the crit is experienced by all students, but there is an unstated imbalance between male and female students.

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It is undeniable that students learn important life skills through preparing for a review, such as public speaking and presenting under time constraints. However, the crit environment emphasises a particular kind of thinking where students are encouraged to present as the ‘masters’ of their project [1]. It is formal and declarative. By contrast, design work is rarely this way. It is a slow process that emerges from continuous iterations and thoughtful decision making. It is often difficult to portray the experiential intentions of the project during a review. It is much easier to defend a rigid master plan than it is to discuss the way a space feels and the material process behind it. These are gendered qualities of architectural presentation. Masculine ideas perform well in crit environments; they are more structured and easier to make coherent in a drawing. Whereas the feminine attributes fall to easier scrutiny; they are attributes rooted in process, feeling, and care.

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During a crit, your work is performing and you become part of the performance to the audience of jurors. In this becoming, there is an inequality between male and female students. As the body plays a part in this performance, it is worth analysing the historical role of the female body in visual culture and performance. There has been a gendered dynamic present throughout visual culture in western society. Laura Mulvey diligently outlines this in her work ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ [2]. She describes how men are accustomed to seeing themselves portrayed as the protagonist and driver of the narrative, whereas women are accustomed to seeing themselves as the spectacle. These dynamics are internalised and can affect the way in which each gender approaches a review.

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The lack of female role models in architectural discourse feeds this narrative. For decades, we have idolised the ‘starchitects’, who are predominantly male. It is no wonder women have trouble self-identifying with the protagonist in this profession. Typically, architecture schools place female students standing before a predominantly male, seated jury. This has a significant impact on female presenters, as it reinforces a spatial hierarchy where emphasis is placed on performance and presentation, rather than broadening conversation and engaging with people on a horizontal level. This structure is another aspect of the crit that is culturally coded in gendered norms of masculinity.

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Established in an all-male environment, the review feels outdated and disconnected from the realities of working practice, where design is collaborative and dynamic, and involves multiple actors working together. The crit forces women to bend our femininity to fit a system that has historically excluded it. It perpetually legitimises gender norms within the realm of architectural education. With this, we lose an opportunity for critics to establish a self-identity with us and our work, and this generates a bias. I experience an immediate wave of calmness on review day when a female reviewer is present. It marks an opportunity for self-determination.

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Elisa Iturbe said, within her paper ‘Women & The Architectural Review: the Gendered Presentation of Architectural Work’, that “Our femininity is rejected when we must speak loudly and boldly to an audience of predominantly men” [3]. In feminist pedagogy, relationships between teachers and students exist on a less vertical plane. Power and knowledge become shared [4]. Last semester, instead of the standard presentation format for our Architectural Technology module, a group of 4 female students, Julia, Róisín, Ciara, and I, came together to create a podcast to share our work with each other and our peers. This conversational and collaborative discussion was deeply beneficial to all of our learning. It removed the hierarchy associated with a presentation, and felt rooted in feminist pedagogy.

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A crit established in an all-male environment is adversarial and performative, favouring bold ideas, structured drawings, and encouraging a ‘master’ mindset. A crit reimagined by an all-female group of 4 becomes a collaborative dialogue for sharing ideas. Hierarchies are removed and time is given to explain process and materiality. Architecture itself creates the physical and cultural framework in which we as a society exist and progress. Architectural education should be no exception. No aspect of it should perpetuate gender biases.

In the new year I took up knitting. I had previously crocheted, but I find knitting easier, more rhythmic, and I am more drawn to the textures it produces. Recently, however, I learned that while knitting is often regarded as the more refined craft, crochet might in fact be more ‘valuable’. Knit stitches are predictable and therefore more easily mechanised. Crochet, by contrast, relies on complex, irregular knots that demand the tension and judgement of a human hand. What appears somewhat more sophisticated and polished is also more reproducible.

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When asked to reflect on my experience as a female architecture student, this question of value - particularly of historically feminised crafts - felt unexpectedly relevant. Textile work has long been associated with women and domestic labour and therefore devalued and positioned outside the realm of serious production or art. Analogously, women architects were historically steered towards domestic architecture and interior design. Stratigakos notes, it was considered that the female designer’s ‘essential womanliness’ made them naturally suited to the home, a space which was private, emotional and minor [1]. Civic or infrastructural projects were considered prestigious and carried heftier financial rewards, and as such were reserved for male architects. Qualities associated with women such as emotion, interiority, and care - domesticity, were treated as secondary and women were excluded from typologies that defined architectural ambition.

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Le Corbusier described the house as ‘a machine for living in’, prioritising standardisation, efficiency and rational function over decoration or atmosphere. The aesthetics of stark functionalism has continued to shape contemporary architectural culture. Optimised plans, clean sections, seamless renders are easily produced, easily legible, and easy to defend. Contemporary techniques of modular or panelised construction used in large office or housing blocks can feel nearly human-less, designed and assembled by ‘the machine’ - although of course manual labour has indeed occurred [2]. The new age of AI further intensifies this condition; the machine in architecture. It can generate compelling plans, sections, and images in seconds. What it excels at are the same qualities architecture has long rewarded. Yet, just as a machine cannot feel the precise tension required for a double or treble crochet stitch, it does not possess haptic perception or a true sense of scale. Juhani Pallasmaa argues in The Eyes of the Skin that contemporary architecture’s dominance of image and form often comes at the expense of touch and care [3].

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I recognise these tensions in my own education and practise. Formal strength, productivity, and technological fluency are often what succeed in crits. A rational plan can be convincingly argued, a clear section is reassuring. I have learned to provide a clear drawing to explain every essential argument or design choice. What I find harder to justify are decisions rooted in emotion; how I want a space to feel, how I imagine a body moving through it, why a corner should sharpen or curve, if a space should feel bright or dark. The more intuitive or impulsive my reasoning, the more difficult it is to articulate graphically or otherwise within a culture that prioritises efficiency and reproducibility.

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As a result, those qualities which resist such reproduction - those historically coded as feminine such as care - atmosphere and emotional intelligence have come to feel more important to me. Anyone can now optimise a plan; fewer can design for the subtle choreography of inhabitation or the quiet negotiations of domestic life. Eileen Gray argued, “A house is not a machine to live in. It is the shell of man, his extension, his release, his spiritual emanation” [4]. These sentiments can be read in her design of E1027. For example, the spacing of Gray’s pilotis are derived from internal spatial properties rather than mathematical calculations, and, as such, are wider in public spaces and narrower in those that are private [5]. Her layered window system retains a Corbusian panoramic view while simultaneously addressing the body’s vertically [6]. Her resistance to mechanisation was not superfluous or emotional, but human.

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Architecture cannot be entirely abstracted from lived experience; it cannot be wholly mechanised. It demands a sense of human scale and feeling. This begs the question; why were care and emotional intelligence ever confined to the domestic setting? Are these not also essential skills required for the design of hospitals, schools, offices, or train stations? Those skills, historically feminised and therefore dismissed, may prove central to the profession which is being redefined in the age of AI. This renewed importance does not signal a retreat to domesticity. Instead, the craft of architecture and its attentiveness to atmosphere, material, and embodied experience gains value. What was once dismissed as soft may prove resistant.

The very foundations of how we currently live seem at odds with the necessity of the moment. Historically, in these periods of flux and tension, breakaway groups form and the genesis of radical ideas are born. A classic example of such a breakaway is the ‘Commune’: "a group of families or single people who live and work together sharing possessions and responsibilities" and often presenting themselves as an alternative to the societal order that they arise from [1]. Stevens-Wood puts forward that communes or ‘intentional communities’ reflect the period in which they were formed - in the 1960’s and 70’s, a period often associated with communalism, these miniature societies were created in reaction to post-war traditionalism [2]. This was the golden age of communes, and perhaps also the period responsible for an enduring reputation of communes as, at best, unrealistic dreamers at odds with society at large and, at their worst, extreme hippy utopias restricting freedom and privacy.

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The current forms of communal living find themselves reacting not to war, but a combination of the aforementioned issues with a similar desire to create something new. The question I would pose is, are they the way forward?

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A plethora of terms exist for these alternative forms of living. Alongside communes, there are more palatable terms such as intentional communities, co-housing, co-living, and more in between. What do they all mean, and how do they differ, if at all?

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Intentional Communities is somehwat of an ‘Umbrella term’ under which falls the three other terms described below. It is a community of people that have chosen to live together for one reason or another, often choosing to pursue a collective or social vision. According to Bill Metcalf “Intentional Communities are formed when people choose to live with or near enough to each other to carry out a shared lifestyle, within a shared culture and with a common purpose.” [3] Under this umbrella term, fall communes, co-living and co-housing.

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Co-living first came into existence in the early 2000’s and picked up traction by the late 2010’s [4]. It is urban in location and offers private apartments set in large complexes offering shared spaces such as gyms, co-working spaces, rooftop gardens etc. One such example is The Collective, a co-living business founded in 2021 in London which recently received funding to expand into Europe and the US [5]. Its Acton North West London location offers 323 private apartments across an 11-storey building. Each apartment costs upward of £1,328 per month based on a 12-month lease [6]. Though The Collective describes its mission as building and activating spaces "that foster human connection and enable people to lead more fulfilling lives", its vast size, high price, and for-profit business model arguably takes the ‘intention’ away from ‘intentional communities’ [7]. In 2020, the Irish government removed co-living schemes from its permissible apartment guidelines, halting any new developments in the industry [8].

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Co-housing, though similar in ways, offers some important differences to the pricey and aspirational co-living. Its birth can be traced back to the co-ops of 1960’s Denmark, offering residents more control, and a say in its design and model. Like co-living, this model offers a blend of both private and communal space. Separating its form from the broader strand of communes, co-housing communities tend to place a stronger emphasis on "the balance between community life and the privacy of individuals and households.” [9]. Often, the legal and ownership structure of co-housing models tends to be more complex than co-living and involves a co-operative model rather than direct owner occupier or leasehold  (as seen in co-living complexes) models.

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Whilst both co-living and co-housing offer alternatives to the traditional homeownership, one seems significantly more democratic than the other - putting power in residents’ hands rather than developers. The question then, what are the examples of ‘intentional communities’ today both home and abroad?

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Cloughjordan Eco village is a pioneering example of co-housing in Ireland and LILAC (Low Impact Living Affordable Community), in the United Kingdom offers an example of an urban ‘intentional community’ breaking new ground with its ownership model.  These two examples, like the original communes, operate under systems of shared values and community led decision making, but can be seen as modern evolutions of that form.

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Cloughjordan Eco-village, based in Nenagh, North Tipperary, has been in existence since 1999 with its first residents moving in 2009. It is a registered CLG (Company Limited by Guarantee) which offers a not-for-profit structure whereby its members are its guarantors [10]. It has a population of over 100 living across 55 low-energy homes, with ecological and permaculture design principles guiding the ethos of the community [11]. Residents own their homes and also pay a fee to use the farm and reap its rewards—sustainable, organic food for the community. In 2012, it was voted one of the ten best places to live in Ireland by readers of The Irish Times [12]. Cloughjordan can be seen as a frontrunner in what may be a burgeoning future of more communal, sustainable modes of living in the country. Self-organised Architecture.ie lists four new co-housing initiatives each with their own aims of providing affordable and community led housing schemes.

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By contrast, the United Kingdom is currently home to over 400 intentional communities and LILAC which saw its first residents moving in 2013, is a relatively new addition [13].

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LILAC, based in West Leeds, is a community of twenty eco-build households built with panel timber walls insulated by straw bales. During its build, LILAC captured, and now stores, over 1080 tonnes of atmospheric C02 [14]. The community residents have their own private homes and gardens which are grouped around a separate common house. The sharing aspects of the community include voluntary communal meals twice a week as well as allotments, shared gardens, and carpooling schemes. In stark contrast to the connotations that surround communes, LILAC is ‘not immune to the real world’ yet sets out to change how people relate to their housing - seeing housing not as a commodity or a speculative asset, but an affordable space existing as part of a community and an eco-system [15]. This also means that homes in LILAC cannot be sold on the open market. The community itself functions as the developer keeping its homes immune from fluctuating housing prices and real estate value. The ownership model is based on a system called ‘Mutual Home Ownership Society’ which links housing cost to income, not market price. Residents pay 35% of their income with higher earners paying slightly more and, in return, gaining more equity. This scheme ensures that homes remain permanently affordable and also ensures that those on a lower or more precarious incomes have fair access to a home [16].

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Based on these more contemporary examples of community-based living, a lifestyle once associated with complete interdependence and perhaps a lack of autonomy has evolved. In the examples of LILAC and Cloughjordan eco-village we see the positives of community interaction offered in tandem with an ability to maintain privacy. In each example, balance between the community and the outside world is emphasised. Cloughjordan Eco-village developed alongside an original village of the same name - by integrating the two settlements, a village in decline went the other way [17]. In this sense, it is a project in ecological sustainability as well as rural regeneration.  LILAC, states on its website the importance of the wider community with the co-housing settlement situated within a “flourishing neighbourhood in West Leeds” [18].

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With isolation and loneliness hitting an all-time high, increasing worldwide by 13.4% between 2009 and 2024; a catastrophic housing crisis affecting not just Ireland, but populations globally and a climate crisis which drives up living costs, the draw to a more communal style of living is tantalising and the importance of curbing the above trends, vital [19]. The above examples offer intriguing examples of living practices that manage to do just this. Nonetheless, despite their possible best intentions, critiques of intentional communities abound, Boys-Smith states: "At its best, co-housing is bowling together, sharing skills and taking a village to raise a child. At its worst, is it creating exclusive gated ghettos of the rich able to live, work and play safely sequestrated from the wider world?" [20].

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A growing amount of literature documents similar concerns about the lack of diversity in a large number of these communal living experiments. Despite cheaper living costs going forward, often a large amount of capital buy in is needed at the beginning. In the case of Cloughjordan eco-village, buying a site alone was comparable to the cost of buying an entire home in its neighbouring village - “If you have limited means, buying a site for the same amount as you could buy a house, was a lot to ask” [21]. Given that isolation and loneliness is more prevalent amongst low-income groups, the need to ensure that housing options with a high degree of social integration and community are affordable is essential. Nonetheless, perhaps the strongest argument in their favour is their ability to promote human connection and belonging. Through living in proximity to others, we get the magic and ‘fizzy serendipity’ that urbanist Richard Sennett describes [22]. In a world that can feel more and more divided, surely the answer lies in its opposition.