By Leart Mullaademi

The studio gives an architecture student room to test an idea. It also makes it possible to keep testing the same idea without meeting anyone who would have to live with it.

I think an architectural education in Kosovo should regularly move between the desk and the street. Not every exercise needs a spectacular site or an international guest. A bus stop, a shared courtyard or an awkward crossing can hold enough complexity for weeks of careful work.

Begin by observing rather than proposing. Draw where people actually walk. Record a space at different times. Ask who maintains it. Separate what someone told you from what you inferred. That last distinction matters as much as the quality of a drawing.

Then make a modest proposal and explain its consequences. A new seat occupies space. A tree needs soil and care. A sheltered entrance changes the movement around it. Every improvement brings a responsibility.

ONUP’s learning exchanges and Talks offer a useful context for this approach: architectural knowledge becomes more valuable when it can move between people and places. The next step could be student work published alongside the observations that shaped it.

I would welcome a short field notebook as much as a polished final image. What did the student notice? What changed after speaking to a user? Which assumption failed?

Those questions give a reader something to learn from. They also make room for a student to be honest about work that is still developing.

Reference: ONUP’s documented 2012 learning exchange.