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15
AHO WORKS STUDIES 2012-2013
Evaluations
programs, namely Architecture and Industrial
Design.
These investigations are not for formal ac-
creditation purposes or for ensuring that the
school meets established standards, as is the
case in other evaluations conducted by NO-
KUT. These examinations target the programs
critically to build insight that is used to further
improve our school’s educational programs.
The evaluations will be crucial to the coming
semester’s academic discussions at AHO.
Both evaluations draw a picture of an insti-
tution alive and kicking, but also an institution
that has outgrown its historical limits. We re-
cruit broadly; 25 % of our students have their
basic training from other schools. We recruit
faculty and students internationally, and our
four institutes make use of their academic free-
dom in choosing their academic profile. AHO
no longer has a singular disciplinary identity,
but adopts a multitude of approaches. This
small specialized university now has a rela-
tively wide scope: From natural science based
landscape urbanism and social science based
urbanism, though architectural education in a
fine arts based academy tradition, to research
anchored in humanistic sciences as in the pro-
cess-oriented field of service design.
This adjustment and expansion of disciplines
has not been born of necessity. It need not have
ended up this way. At AHOwe could if we want-
ed, have limited ourselves to managing the “Oslo
School” in Norwegian architecture and Norwe-
gian design tradition. This would have left us
with an unambiguous identity and an unprob-
lematic vision. We could have moved vertically
and in-depth. Instead, we have also opened up
horizontally for the new and the untried.
Both evaluations claim that the breadth is
interesting and that AHO’s choice is both sen-
sible and beneficial. They also add that AHO
struggles to exploit synergy from the broad
range of subjects now established.
Since the disciplines have a tendency to di-
versify and be contained, the differences re-
main somewhat unproductive for now. Due to
this, the courses that are taught can appear as a
collage of individually good or excellent offers,
the problem being that the whole should make
up more than the sum of its parts. The commit-
tees therefore call for clearer communication
of the school’s profile as a whole. They believe
that AHO should more solidly and steadfastly
push for collaboration between architecture
and design despite the cultural differences
between the disciplines. The disciplines are
changing and hybridization occurs. In a small
institution like ours the educational programs
should collaborate more tightly with each oth-
er, both in terms of resources and academically.
At the same time the committees indicate
that the responsibility for educational pro-
grams needs to be expressed more clearly in
the school structure. Giving the coordinating
responsibility for the architecture program to
the Institute of Architecture is one possibility.
The Institute of Design should likewise have
a clear responsibility for the design program
and the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape
should take responsibility for landscape pro-
grams and the programs in urbanism. Taking
these steps would bring the school closer to the
threshold of a university faculty model.
The evaluation of the master in Architec-
ture shows that AHO is rather unique in the
way research is well integrated in teaching.
While other institutions experience conflicts
between teaching time and research focus, the
structure at AHO facilitates a fertile connec-
tion between the two.
The OCCAS research center (Oslo Center of
Critical Architectural Studies) at the Institute of
Form, Theory and History is an example of this.
The center offers high profile studio courses at
the Master level. In the Ocean Industries Con-
cept Lab at the Institute of Design, the student
projects contribute directly to the research ac-
tivity in the marine and high technology design
field. It is more than likely that AHO has devel-
oped research activities that contribute directly
to increasing the educational quality.
The Norwegian architectural education,
