Opinion 21: Beyond the Facade

Grounding Architectural Education in Heritage, Craft, and Sustainability

By Darshana Thapa and Zoe Lau

Melbourne is a multilayered city shaped by historical and environmental narratives, diverse cultures, collective memories and shared experiences. Architects in Melbourne carry a responsibility for how new design interprets and responds to this intricate context. To do this well, architects must develop the skills to analyse and represent place, not only by observing environmental conditions, but also by understanding and respecting the complex layers that shape it. While sustainability has become a core teaching in architectural education from the outset, heritage is often treated as a limitation rather than an opportunity. The current undergraduate curriculum offers few opportunities for students to meaningfully engage with heritage. It is only through heritage studies at the Master’s level that students encounter heritage frameworks, critical conversations, and practical skills that we consider essential for architecture students.

Why Does Heritage Matter?

All too often, we see heritage buildings demolished, or poorly adapted or altered. We not only lose important built fabric - the ‘bricks and mortar’ - but also part of our cultural identity and connection to place, qualities that make our city, suburbs, and homes distinctive. Heritage connects our past to our future, telling the story of who we are. This is especially important for architects whose role is to design for people, communities and place. By thoughtfully retaining existing buildings, architects not only make sustainable choices,and celebrate a site’s layered history, but also expand heritage and architecture's relevance for future generations. 

Our Background

During our time in the Master of Urban and Cultural Heritage (M.UCH), we explored the fundamentals of heritage conservation and best practice heritage guidelines. We learnt heritage is an ever-evolving process of valuing, interpreting, and caring for the built environment. It continues to change as our understanding of social value and what matters to people develops. The course is a mix of theoretical and practical learning, including: an introduction to The Australian ICOMOS Burra Charter (the guiding conservation framework used in Australia); site visits to heritage places such as UNESCO World Heritage Listed Royal Exhibition Building, Royal Park and St James Church Brighton; learning how to observe and document existing buildings; and the opportunity to undertake an internship in the heritage industry or complete a thesis.

Issues and Techniques in Global Heritage – Site Visit to the UNESCO World Heritage Listed Royal Exhibition Building, (Darshana Thapa, 2024)

While this course offers a comprehensive foundation for students pursuing careers as heritage professionals, cohort sizes remain small, and classes are often primarily filled with Master of Architecture students taking these units as electives. This indicates an interest among Architecture students. In fact, conversations with peers revealed a shared view that these topics should have been introduced much earlier in our academic journey.

Urban & Landscape Heritage – Student Project – Case Study of Royal Park, Site visit and ‘deep mapping’ exercise to understand the layers of cultural significance. Documenting environmental conditions and heritage context. (Darshana Thapa, 2024)

Architecture Design Studios at Odds with Heritage

Within the core undergraduate curriculum in the Bachelor of Design (architecture major) at the University of Melbourne, there are two history subjects, one that focuses on ancient architecture and another on modern architecture (1850-1970’s). In these subjects, whilst ancient architecture is clearly situated in history, modern architecture occupies a liminal space between the past and the present. Indeed, it is easier to draw immediate correlations between modernist ideals taught in lectures and contemporary social issues explored in studios. However, both ancient and modern architecture are similarly portrayed as documents of the past; their forms are to be carefully conserved for posterity. They may be referenced, but are not to be interfered with. This fundamental teaching of history that stands alone in disregard for heritage sets up an attitude towards existing buildings and the past that permeates into design studios, and continues into the master’s program and beyond.

In our experience, design studios at the university do not teach us how to interact meaningfully with existing buildings. Despite this, the topic of ‘how to deal with heritage’ has risen on many occasions. For instance, one undergraduate design studio advised that the facades of heritage townhouses be retained, thereby reducing the impact on the streetscape and meeting local heritage legislation. Alas, ‘facadism’ -  which is when only the façade of the building is preserved while the rest is altered - was introduced to students early in their education as a valid, if not preferred, architectural approach despite its superficial engagement with heritage, disregard for spatial or cultural continuity, and reliance on heritage as a visual shorthand, rather than a meaningful architectural response. In another studio, students must design around an unalterable viaduct, prioritising legislative compliance over meaningful engagement with existing fabric. Again, instead of interrogating the aesthetic, historical, or social value of the existing infrastructure as a potential design driver, the buildings’ value is arguably considered chiefly through the lens of legality and risk. 

That being said, at times, a space may no longer serve a meaningful function, and redevelopment may indeed be the most appropriate course. If so, that too, is valid - but students must be equipped to engage in the conversation with rigour and care, and be trained to recognise what is being lost, and why. 

In contrast to the neglect of heritage in architecture studios, sustainability is widely embraced, with an emphasis on buildability, measurable carbon impacts, and technical rigour. Yet true sustainability also relies on long-term, people-centred relationships with place - an aspect embodied by heritage but often overlooked, despite its equal status in national competency standards. We argue that just as students learn to analyse climate and orientation to inform sustainable design, heritage should likewise be embraced as a vital element of site context, one that supports truly sustainable architecture by honouring both environmental and cultural continuity.

This gap in student’s education becomes clearer in light of the recent introduction of the Double Masters program with Architecture and Urban Cultural Heritage . Although M.ARCHUCH students take the two courses simultaneously, heritage conservation approaches taught in the M.UCH program are often subverted by the expectations set out in the Master of Architecture Studios. This is demonstrated by personal experience from ourselves and our peers, where interest in heritage preservation and contextual respect in design studios is met with feedback that it’s inadequate. This can be encapsulated in a comment made by studio tutors towards conservative design:

“Great… now start designing! Design more!”

Whilst this comment intends to provide constructive feedback with the aim of helping students achieve a better score against a rubric that places emphasis on meeting specific performance criteria (as mandated by AACA), it reveals a continuing divide between conservation and architecture. This has been a point of frustration and confusion among M-ARCHUCH students. We appreciate heritage as the grounding context to communities’ stories, yet we are discouraged from exploring solutions that do not make an overt statement. After all, architecture is not simply the creation of an object in the round, but the shaping of relationships between people, place, and time. Architecture that engages with what came before may not seek attention, but its subtlety does not diminish or invalidate its ability to support meaningful experiences and foster a deeper sense of continuity, identity, and belonging.

Rare Encounters with Craft / Teaching through Craft

Another key element we believe should be better integrated into architectural education is hands-on learning and traditional building crafts. At present, while learning about modern materials and detailing is compulsory, traditional materials and techniques - which still define much of our built environment - are introduced much later at the Master’s level through the M.UCH elective Applied Heritage Conservation Techniques. For many students, this is the first time they encounter traditional crafts in practice or basic terms, such as lime mortar or lath and plaster. We greatly valued the multiple site visits to see conservation work first-hand and the unit’s in-depth focus on properties, conservation, and maintenance of traditional materials. We believe these topics should be introduced much earlier. 

Students observing how lime mortar is made at St James Church Brighton (Zoe Lau, 2024)

Relegating such a critical aspect of the built environment to electives highlights the disconnect between architectural education, traditional building crafts and hands-on making. Overlooking traditional crafts is particularly short-sighted when climate resilience, a central focus of our courses, depends on low-carbon materials and adaptive reuse. Traditional crafts are not only key to conserving heritage buildings but also offer valuable, sustainable approaches for contemporary design. Gaining a foundational understanding of traditional materials, such as masonry, lime mortar, timber joinery, and traditional roofing, would strengthen students’ material literacy and ability to observe and ‘read’ existing buildings, ultimately enabling students to make more informed, sustainable design decisions. 

Moreover, building relationships with and learning from skilled craftspeople grounds architectural education in material authenticity, raising students’ awareness about these important processes refined over generations and will ultimately support innovative design and challenge the unhelpful siloing of architecture, trades and crafts.

Applied Heritage Conservation Techniques - Students on site visit learning from the Traditional Craftspeople restoring St James Church, Brighton which was devastated by fire in 2019. Opus sectile mosaic post fire re-vitrified and lined with a 200x200 grid in preparation for restoration. (Zoe Lau, 2024)

What Needs to Change?

Architectural pedagogy would benefit from introducing the topic of heritage earlier on in students’ academic journey, alongside sustainability, to ground design. Embedded from the outset into site analysis and contextual discourse, students may be inspired to work with heritage as a source for creativity and meaningful design, rather than as a constraint or an afterthought. 

Alongside this, students should be provided with interdisciplinary guidance, not limited to singular departmental support, if we are to develop more critically informed and innovative designs. Architecture is a craft - it should be mediated through hands-on learning and an understanding of traditional materials. The University should also encourage and facilitate student collaborations with traditional craftspeople, conservation architects and other heritage professionals. Design briefs could then emerge from real-world scenarios, enabling students - prospective architects, to look beyond the façade and uncover the stories embedded in place. In this way, the tension between past and future becomes a dialogue -  not a dichotomy -  weaving recognition and respect for heritage into designs that shape sustainable, living futures.

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Image credit:

Darshana Thapa

Zoe Lau

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Darshana Thapa is a Master of Architecture Student and a recent graduate of the Master of Urban and Cultural Heritage. She founded Archive Exchange, a student-led initiative that raises awareness about the importance of engaging with and preserving Melbourne’s Heritage.

Zoe Lau is a graduate of Architecture, and Urban and Cultural Heritage. She is interested in the social and cultural sustainability of what we build, believing meaningful architecture engages not with aesthetics alone, but with people, place, and time.