Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education

Reyner Banham once described architecture schools as a “tribal longhouse,” where architects are “socialized into the profession.” Today, in an era of pluralism and institutional uncertainty, the “black box” he referred to feels not only outdated but is increasingly untenable.

What if we moved out of the longhouse? What if we opened up the black box? What if teaching and learning relied on other metaphors, sites, or social structures? A garden, a café, a living room, or out on the street? How could that reshape the act of teaching? How might it reframe what it means to be a student? What different kinds of knowledge might be generated and shared? In more open, permeable, and transparent settings, would more relevant relationships, hierarchies, and dynamics emerge? What might be lost?

This conversation brings the new lineup of I oA studio heads at Angewandte’s Institute of Architecture together with invited guests to reflect on the institute’s new chapter and the wider context of architectural education as we move further into the 21st century.

According to Mark Twain, cauliflower is just cabbage with a college education. Perhaps it’s time to ask not only what we’re teaching and learning, but how we tend the garden and what we want to grow into.

Panel Discussion with
Shumi Bose, historian, teacher, Chief Editor of KoozArch, London
Sam Chermayeff, architect, head of Studio 1, I oA, Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Brigitte Felderer, head of Social Design, Vice-Rector, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Jesko Fezer, designer, Professor of Experimental Design at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, Hamburg
Sam Jacob, architect, head of Studio 3, I oA Dean, I oA, Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, architects, heads of Studio 2, I oA, Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna

SHUMI BOSE is an academic, curator, and editor in the field of architecture and architectural history. She is a senior lecturer in architecture at UAL Central Saint Martins and teaches at the Royal College of Art, Syracuse University in London as well as the TU Vienna. She has curated widely, including at the Biennale Architettura in Venice, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Shumi is Chief Editor of KoozArch and contributes regularly to books and periodicals including Log, PIN-UP, and Wallpaper.* She is a broadcaster and co-host of The Architecture of Planetary Wellbeing: Between Us and Koozarch’s Space Between audio series, as well as the first series of BBC’s The Design Dimension. Shumi is a member of Architects for Gaza. In 2020 she founded Holdspace, a platform for extracurricular discussions in architectural education, and currently serves as trustee for the Architecture Foundation.
 
SAM CHERMAYEFF is an architect, designer, and teacher undertaking projects worldwide. Trained in architecture at the University of Texas at Austin and the AA, London, Sam is a founding partner in the architecture firm June 14 Meyer-Grohbrügge & Chermayeff and Sam Chermayeff Office. With offices in New York and Berlin, the studios work on a wide range of design driven projects ranging from large residential towers to community centers to kitchens and furniture. Clients include the state of Albania, the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, FLOS, Knoll, and many more communities and private individuals. Sam began his architectural career at SANAA Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa where he worked for more than five years on an array of projects across built and curatorial work including the Serpentine Pavilion and the Biennale Architettura in Venice. He has taught at Columbia GSAAP, MSA Münster, The Royal College of Art, DIA Dessau, Cornell University, and the Architectural Association. Sam has been head of Studio 1 at the I oA at the University of Applied Arts Vienna since 2024.
 
BRIGITTE FELDERER is the head of the Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her projects focus on themes within the field of cultural history and technology and have been shown internationally. In her projects, as well as in her teaching, she pursues trans-disciplinary and cross-topic questions, deals with the culture of everyday life, and explores the manifold connections between science and art movements, popular and high cultures. Her research interests focus on the topics and tactics of societal empowerment as well as the emancipatory potential of design and art. She currently holds the position of Vice-Rector for Student and Academic Affairs and Diversity at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Among her projects are FACELESS. Re-Inventing Privacy Through Subversive Media Strategies, ed. Bogomir Doringer and Brigitte Felderer (De Gruyter, 2018) and the exhibition and catalog The Fest. Between Representation and Revolt, shown at MAK – Museum of Applied Arts in 2022/23.
 
JESKO FEZER works as a designer. In various collaborations, he engages practically and theoretically with the socio-political relevance of design. In cooperation with ifau (Institute for Applied Urban Studies) he realizes architecture projects. He is co-founder of the bookstore Pro qm in Berlin and part of the exhibition design studio Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik. He is co-editor of the Bauwelt Fundamente series and Studienhefte für problemorientiertes Design. Jesko Fezer is Professor of Experimental Design at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and has been running the student-led public design support program since 2011. Latest publication: Umstrittene Methoden. Architekturdiskurse der Verwissenschaftlichung, Politisierung und Mitbestimmung in den 1960er Jahren (ADOCS Verlag, 2022).
 
SAM JACOB is the principal of Sam Jacob Studio for Architecture and Design, a practice whose work ranges from urban design through architecture, design, and art to curatorial projects. Sam is interested in how architecture and design can take ideas and make them real. Inspired by context, his projects try to embody stories, sensations, and feelings in space, form, and materials. His projects are striking, yet also full of familiar references, creating places and spaces with character and surprising beauty. Past projects have included nightclubs, social housing, community centers, parks, TV studios, and exhibitions. Recent projects include a new mixed-use building in Hoxton, offices for Art Review, exhibition designs for Somerset House and the V&A’s Cromwell Road entrance. Current projects include the National Collection Centre and the William Morris Gallery. He has been a professor of architecture at UIC since 2011 and has taught at the University of Hong Kong, Yale, Karlsruhe HfG, ABK Stuttgart, TU Vienna, and the AA, London. His work has been shown at institutions including The Art Institute of Chicago, the MAK, the V&A, and the Biennale Architettura 2016 in Venice, where he was co-curator of the British Pavilion in 2016. He is a columnist for Art Review and the author of Make It Real, Architecture as Enactment (Strelka Press, 2012). Previously, Sam was a director of FAT Architecture. Sam has headed Studio 3 at the I oA, Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna since 2023, and has been its dean since April 2025.
 
In 2013, LARA LESMES AND FREDRIK HELLBERG founded Space Popular, an architecture studio in Bangkok that explores the relationship between media and the built environment through research, design, and artworks. The studio has realized buildings, exhibitions, public artworks, furniture collections and interiors in Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture for the immersive web. Lesmes and Hellberg have been visiting professors at UCLA AUD in Los Angeles for the past three years, and previously held academic positions at the Architectural Association in London, University of Toronto, and INDA Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Clients, collaborators and commissioners include national institutions such as MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna; MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Art, Rome; The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design ArkDes, Stockholm; Royal Institute of British Architects, London; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; as well as independent galleries such as MAGAZIN, Vienna, and Sto Werkstatt, London. Both are heads of Studio 2 of the I oA, Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna since 2024.

Biennale Sessions 2025