Reading The Organizer’s Guide to Architecture Education was, for me, a little like listening to a sermon for the converted, and my bias as a reviewer should be declared early.The core areas covered in this book are Practice, Education and Advocacy — all central fields of interest and experience in my own architectural life — and the book felt like a perfect fit.

The guide is, in fact, “for anyone critical of the hierarchies that both the school and the profession deploy”, and is aimed at students, educators and practitioners in architecture (and its broadened fields) who insist on change. It emerges from the work of recently established Architecture Beyond Capitalism School (ABC), an education platform run by the seven authors and one contributor of this book. There is a New Zealand connection, with two of the authors (Peggy Deamer and Tessa Forde) bringing a local flavour to some areas of a mainly USA-centred discussion.

The main argument made is for the inclusion of ‘organizing’ skills into the curriculum of architecture schools, alongside the de-prioritising of individual-author design, fundamentally changing the culture of the profession to serve our contemporary social and environmental conditions better. Through focus on the relationship between power and production, the guide offers an alternative to the current architectural education model that serves as a training ground for a capitalist economy.

Publication timing is perfect, landing in a New Zealand context of zero government funding for research into the Humanities (yes, including architecture), and a global context of growing anti-democratic and authoritarian ideologies. Education itself is in flux, affected by massive technological (AI) changes, with the relevance and role of universities in society questioned both locally and globally, and this guide is an important contribution to the discussions.

The book is structured into three parts, with the first providing an explanation of ‘organization’, its intention and players. It is discussed across several scales, applying and ‘re-claiming’ the S, M, L, XL model used by OMA, Koolhaas and Mau (1995): Small (studio courses), Medium (curriculums), Large (university structuring) and X-Large (national professional and registration bodies).

The second part is a compilation of case studies, a very welcome collection of examples of educators and practices each with social and environmental justice at its core. They are arranged into themes as well as the aforementioned scales. Standout examples include the Arsom Silp Institute of the Arts in Thailand (L), Dark Matter U (S, M, L), Jane Rendell and David Roberts’ ‘Practising Ethics’ (L), and, of course, Parlour (XL). (Every list reveals its own gaps and I did notice the absence of ĀKAU.) This is, for me, the strongest section of the book, providing valuable real-world examples to current and future students who are passionate about challenging the very education system they are in, and letting them know they are not on their own.

The deliberate decision to use current examples as case studies (most have been established since 2015) means that any longevity remains untested, and the cyclic nature of the important issues raised is not analysed until the next section. In Part three, historical examples such as CIAM (1928–1959) are discussed: satisfying for the historians among us.

Part three returns to the speculative and places architecture within a globally scaled system, with the intention of focusing on architecture’s contribution to environmental healing. A series of essays offers visions and provocations for working as an architect in our current age, with the expected full range of academic resources included.

As declared, I am an example of a positively biased reader — although there were several areas of healthy disagreement and identified possible contradictions in intention. When ideological arguments use generalised terms, I believe there is a danger for their easy adaption to fit an opposing world view. We have already witnessed the recent melding of left and right-leaning populism, and a manifesto such as this could just as easily slide diagonally (to borrow a term as described by Naomi Klein in Doppelganger, 2023).

Ultimately, what I remain musing over is an identified common thread for ‘organization’ to thrive: community groups based on a strong ideological direction and with volunteered labour. My own experience also supports this — the early establishment of A+W NZ ran on both. Yet, these ingredients can contribute to an architectural education with non-intended aims: for example, religious fundamentalism and under-paid staff. I also wonder what happens when the radical becomes the institutional. Often, advocacy organisations based on strong ideologies can become a mimicry of the very institutions they were formed to critique.

This guide offers a practical framework to enable the inclusion of both social and environmental justice within our education and practice structures — such important aspects of architecture that their possible current omission should be shocking. I hope enough students read it to gain a clear understanding of the effects of capitalism on their education, and look to the case studies as possibilities for their own practices.