How Subject Benchmark Statements are changing: Architecture & History of Art

In a special podcast released to mark the publication of this year's suite of revised Subject Benchmark Statements, QAA's Quality & Standards Manager Dr Andy Smith talked with two of our Advisory Group Chairs: the University of Westminster's Kate Cheyne, Chair of the Advisory Group for Architecture, and the University of Plymouth's Dr Péter Bokody, Chair of the Advisory Group for the History of Art, Architecture & Design Statement.  

The podcast focuses on how recent changes in their subject areas are reflected in the new iterations of their Subject Benchmark Statements – and started by talking about the impact of Generative AI on their disciplines. 

Find the full Subject Benchmark Statements and supporting resources on the our website: www.qaa.ac.uk/subject-benchmark-statements 

Transcript

Welcome And Introductions

Dr Andy Smith 0:00

Welcome everyone to this special podcast to coincide with the launch of the Subject Benchmark Statements for 2026. My name is Andy Smith. I'm the Quality and Standards Manager at the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. I'm delighted to say I'm joined today by two chairs of the Subject Benchmark Statements. Kate, would you like to introduce yourself?

Kate Cheyne 0:24

Hi there. My name's Kate Chain. I am the head of School of Architecture and Cities at the University of Westminster, and I have been chairing this next version of the QAA Benchmark Statements for Architecture.

Dr Andy Smith 0:37

Thank you, Kate. And Peter.

Dr Péter Bokody 0:39

Hi everyone. My name is Peter Bokodi. I'm Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Plymouth, and I'm the chair of the History of Art Design and Architecture benchmark statement.

What Subject Benchmarks Do

Cross-Cutting Themes And Gen AI

Architecture: Design Practice Meets AI

Dr Andy Smith 0:50

Thank you, Kate and Peter. Just before we get into a more developed discussion around the subject benchmark statements, I'm just going to talk a little bit for people who might not know what subject benchmark statements are or need to be reminded of them. So obviously, QA have been publishing subject benchmark statements for 26 years now. They were originally part of what was called the old academic infrastructure, and their status and use by different higher education institutions has changed over those past 25 years. I think what has remained constant though is the fact that subject benchmark statements is one of the very few vehicles where we can bring a subject community to come together to agree on what really matters for the subject, particularly in terms of teaching, learning, and assessment, and the graduate skills and attributes that you would want from a student when they are awarded a degree in the subject, whether that might be a bachelor's degree or a master's degree. So I think that's one of the things that we're really keen on within the QAA is to enable subject communities to come together, to enable to have those very rich discussions about what really matters for the subject and most importantly for really good student outcomes. The second thing is to say that since 2022, QAA have introduced a set of five cross-cutting themes to the subject benchmark statements. Themes interrogate uh across a whole range of different areas and asks the subject communities to really go into detail on how those particular cross-cutting themes impact the student experience and also the work of academics and course teams in developing a curricula for the students. And those cross-cutting themes cover inclusivity, accessibility, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and unsurprisingly, generative artificial intelligence. And I think one of the key cross-cutting themes that we want to focus on for today's podcast is generative artificial intelligence and also other types of emergent technologies that are very common or very important to the subject discipline. So, Kay, I wonder if you'd like to go first with architecture, because obviously architecture is very much focused around certain uh core design principles, and those principles may have been adapted or changed with the advent of both generative artificial intelligence and new emergent technologies. So, what are the real challenges for architecture and architecture graduates with regards to things like artificial intelligence?

Kate Cheyne 3:38

Thanks, Andy. Yes, I mean I think the industry is going through a huge change at the moment. I mean, it's true of many industries with Gen AI, but in the uh construction and design area, it's hard to know what to what to look at and what to discuss because so much is changing. And it gave us a chance with this cross-cutting theme to, which was led by someone whose research is in Gen AI and design across practice and education, to really think about how to think about it so that it allowed for things to change and be dynamic. I think also within the architecture discipline, we both draw, design, model, build, but also write and read. And so we're seeing different pressures and influences on students across different parts of the curriculum and different parts of industry. But one of the other things we're very conscious of, there are things that are in industry that are moving faster than in education around design. And so it's trying to kind of keep up at times, be ahead at times, or just work alongside at times. And that's difficult. And it's difficult for staff and students to know where to position yourself at that point. So things that we are thinking about is where it is positive and where we find it less positive, and making sure that we can support the use of Gen AI so that emergent technologies can remain ethical, sustainable, inclusive, not building in fixed situations, but actually still allowing for students to think critically and carefully and see this as a facilitative tool still for exploration and iteration rather than just serving itself. I think from a design perspective, it's interesting to see it so it's not just about either image making or uh structures for writing, but also that how it links with other types of emerging technologies, which is about construction and fabrication.

Art History: Research And AI Opportunities

Dr Andy Smith 5:46

Yeah, thanks, Kay. That is those kind of iterative design processes that are being quite impacted by those emergent technologies. And we can see that obviously with the occupations that students are going into within the kind of design world, construction world, and as you say, developing the kind of those architecture skill sets that will mean that they will need to understand how to use those new technologies in the context of future employment as well. Yeah, very helpful. I think Peter, for for the history of our architecture and design, your focus is obviously more around archival research, those kinds of processes and scaffolding, the kind of critical thinking that you would expect students in that subject area to be able to develop. So, how would you see generative artificial technologies affecting and impacting those kinds of processes?

Dr Péter Bokody 6:37

Thank you, Andy. And I would just follow up on what uh what Kate said that uh we we tend to speak about Gen AI in terms of like that this is a this is a single issue, but in fact, this is a highly complex. So uh higher education itself is highly complex, the way how we teach students, how we want them to achieve the necessary outcomes, and the way how Gen AI actually intervenes at various stages of this process, whether we talk about archival research or we we are focusing on uh, as we may do today, on uh experiential learning or or entrepreneurial education. So there is a vertical integration of all these steps. And uh and what I think so the first point I would like to make, so I think what we are learning is that uh you need to evaluate the impact of AI in in each and every stage of the uh of the learning and teaching process. So uh for uh for historians of art, architecture, and design, there is a there is a long uh experience of of inhabiting two worlds. So, I'm like Kate and uh and her students, we are not not makers, uh so we are we are observers, and uh we we we actually consider it one of the most beautiful parts of our discipline to engage with uh with artwork, with buildings, with uh with designs, and uh and get to uh sort of an informed understanding of these pieces. So I think Andy, this is what you what you referenced effectively as research, which has a strong visual component, a sort of an immersive looking, and then the question how you communicate those experiences to broader society. And uh and then there is uh there is a component which I would uh would describe as uh as effectively interdisciplinary humanities. So archival research, be it on literary texts, on uh on various notes, to some extent material evidence that helps us to date, to contextualize, to uh to actually describe the the making of the of the works themselves. And uh the way how AI impacts uh all these activities is uh in one way it makes it uh challenging because we we have to change some of our uh our teaching practices and they they bring uh tremendous potential as well. So, in terms of the challenges, what I would say that last couple of years, and we try to make this actually uh evident also in the statement, so there is more and more emphasis, is that the more primary material, the more primary sources we can feed into the curriculum from the very beginning. So I these are these are to some extent uh pathetic words, but so like real research challenges, real, real evidence, in the way that from the very beginning, the the students they are not effectively just recycling existing knowledge that the generative AI agent actually is able to do as well to some extent, but they they understand the stakes of how to how to create new evidence and uh how you can use effectively, for instance, uh an AI agent to read manuscripts that you you were not able to read before. I would say that's what we are we are getting there. So in terms of, and I'm happy to elaborate on it, and in terms of the opportunities, just to finish my first point, in terms of opportunities, there has been sort of a division of labor within the discipline that that the outputs that are created are are very text-based, they are they are very discursive, at times analytical. And uh a little bit what Kate said along those lines, I just wonder the type of opportunities this will offer to an art history graduate in five years' time. So uh to implement their research, their vision on the past by using these technologies and to some extent bypass intercultural delivery pipelines and create a documentary by year two and so on. So I I would start with these dual aspects of the impact of AI on us, so that uh it brings a lot of opportunities and uh you know we have to be careful how to use them.

What Changed In The New Statements

Dr Andy Smith 10:59

Yeah, thank you both. Yeah, that's really helpful to get that kind of understanding of how your subject communities and your particularly your advisory panels have approached how to embed some of those challenges, but also opportunities for thinking around the future of generative artificial intelligence in terms of how it impacts upon uh student experience and student outcomes as well. I also wanted to pick up actually around what has really changed with the subject benchmark statements. So I think Peter, for the history of our architecture and design subject benchmark statement, it's been 10 years since the last publication. Okay, architecture was a bit more recent. I think 2020 was the last publication, but we we moved the publication forward on in its schedule, partly because of changes being made to professional body requirements in the art architecture space. So I wonder if both of you would be able to talk about what you think are alongside kind of obviously the challenges of generative AI, but what were the significant changes that you saw was important for the subject benchmark statements to capture for the subject and that for it to be future-proof for for say the next seven to eight years? I wonder Kate if you want to start start with that, because I know you the group the group have developed a particularly unique approach to how to in in classifying the kind of the graduate standards for architecture students.

Kate Cheyne 12:27

Sure. Um I think it was one of the reasons why I was interested in sharing it actually, was just knowing that what we were at this time in architecture and architectural education um of changes happening from all sides, and thinking that the statement could be a place that starts to knit some of these differences together and allow for there to be a place where it felt as though there was a whole conversation going on. I mean, one of our main foci for this statement was really about thinking about the statement as capturing the big change in architecture that it has really expanded. Architects do so many different things. Um many don't will study but not go on to be architects, but might stay within the built environment or spatial design. And so, how could we write a statement that could capture that broadness of the discipline, but also still hold the specialism that's required because of the compliance required by increasing compliance required by PSRBs? So I think right at the beginning, when we were discussing it, we ended up with the phrase is that as as an architectural education that needs to be both intent intelligently generalist, but also uh allowing for nuanced specialization. Um and we are still trying to kind of like work with that. And part of that, I think the difference with our statement this time was that in the last statement, it used the PSRB um characteristics and attributes as the standards. Um, and we needed to move away from that because the two PSRBs now have their own. And what we've ended up with is um writing 12 literacies. And the literacies um have breadth within them, but they're essentially much like SDGs when they're working well. Each one is um uh a capsule of knowledge that is then interwoven with all the other 12. So they're not seen as being uh siloed. We see of them as being a network of knowledge that cross over and overlaps so that you support students to have that holistic um uh attitude towards architectural design and practice. And and that's been enjoyable to do, and we've worked within um across many other partners, especially other heads of schools, through the meetings that we have uh quarterly to ensure that people felt comfortable with that. So it didn't become another way, um, it became something that was comfortable to everyone. And in part, the use of the word literacy came from the fact there seems to be uh one phrase, climate literacy, that everyone seemed very comfortable with. And if that worked for most people, then why could that not kind of apply to multiple other types of literacies?

Global Turn And Experiential Learning

Dr Andy Smith 15:12

Yeah, thanks, Kay. I mean, I was very intrigued by the approach of the advisory group and yourself in terms of developing and the and the deputy chairs and developing that new nomenclature for thinking about the benchmark standards and defining them through the framework of a literacy, which was which was a very interesting and different approach in terms of other subject benchmark statements. And as you said, I think one of the challenges that that the group found was needing to move away from previous definitions or standards that would have been um very closely tied to um the requirements of the architects registration board and and and the raw institute as well. So so actually it's almost like putting a new a new flag in the ground in a way for saying this is this is how architecture courses might need to think about student outcomes in the future. Yeah, Peter, I wonder whether you would be able to also think about how the how the how the changes you would needed to have made in this iteration of the statement as opposed to the last one and and and how those changes are reflective of what's happened within subject discipline over the last 10 years as well. Thank you, Andy.

Dr Péter Bokody 16:27

So to a large extent, we could build on the the previous statement. So I would say a lot of the components that we emphasize in the current statement here and there, they were they were there already. I think what has changed is that we um we came up with a different hierarchy, and we we we try to do justice to two very important trends that were already implicit in 2016, but in the last decade they effectively transformed the discipline itself. These two trends and very conveniently coming together actually also with the cross-cutting themes. So just we fed that there is a lot happening in terms of let's call it the global turn of uh history of art architecture and design, or the inclusive turn of the discipline, and the other was around uh curatorship and uh and experiential learning and entrepreneurship. So we wanted to take stock and uh and just to uh to state that effectively critical approaches and not only uh in geopolitical terms or or uh uh in terms of uh other cultures, but also in terms of gender, mental health, well-being, these are now uh a constitutive key part of uh any uh any module or any uh any source that uh that is remotely engaging with uh with these histories. The other very important change was uh around curation because there have been already very innovative curatorial MAs, but so that the way how the engagement with museums, with uh galleries, with heritage sites, um the sort of the applied component that they bring to the table for for any type of uh history of art degree, um this this also exploded in the in the last decade. So that uh that is from uh in in these days it's it's absolutely uh uh common and and almost necessary that that uh your one students they one way or the other they start to engage with museum collections, uh they they start to explore interpretive planning and uh and so on. This has a uh component that of course it is uh at times difficult to implement, it's resource-heavy, but what we feel is that uh that these uh these hands-on modules or or real-world uh modules, they can they can revitalize the the learning experience of entire cohorts. So, this was the other very key point that we wanted to make at the at the beginning of the document already, so that uh that we are a discipline that has a has a strong link to a part of the creative economy sector, to museums and uh and heritage sites, and that we are uh working with them uh already during the training of our graduates in close close proximity to uh to engage with these sectors.

Dr Andy Smith 19:22

Yeah, thanks Peter. Yeah, so those those quite significant changes around curation, our understanding of of how that kind of functions and in the context of how people consume or or experience different artworks or art experiences, particularly I think around uh that interconnection between curation and tourism and um and the development, for example, within within folk art and those kinds of contexts as well are quite important to reflect in the new statement. Absolutely. And also the fact that as we know, students don't study their subjects in a vacuum that is separate from their kind of own lived experience and their contextual understanding of that as well. So it's it's you know the point you made very importantly that there is this movement within um a lot of art schools around um understanding the history of the subject and how it's been imprinted by particular kind of approaches in the past that privilege particular positions. And I think that's probably true as well in architecture, Kate, that there's a lot being done and within those spaces to understand actually that that this isn't just a simple context-free approach to the subject, but there are lots of different competing um positions and thoughts at play that need to be interrogated.

Kate Cheyne 20:52

And that's exciting.

Hopes For Impact On Teaching

Dr Andy Smith 20:54

Yeah, yeah, thank you both. Um just coming to the end of our of our time together, I just wanted to give give you a chance to answer one last question, really, which is I think for us, if you would say chairs, if you and obviously you're representing the the wider views of the advisory group as well, uh, in your role as chair, how would you like the subject benchmark statements? What impact would you like for the statements to have in the future in terms of good student outcomes, in terms of how you would want your colleagues and academics to be using the statement in the future in terms of course design and things like that? What what what are your hopes for what the statement can bring to your subject discipline?

Flexibility Plus Digital Futures

Kate Cheyne 21:38

Another big question. Um I I think one of the things is just really it being a document that allows everyone to develop with across many colleagues and students um about what architecture education can be, but they can still then um have it as a document that supports them to create something that suits their provider, their school, and their student and staff cohort. But there's different ways that that might work. And so I like to think that it could become the it's like a a prompt and a springboard about not just content, which I've talked a lot about, but also about the method of teaching and the methods of learning which Peter was was uh was starting to talk to. So we within architecture at times have taught in ways that we've seen as incredibly positive but actually could have been come across as very negative to other people. And allowing for a conversation about what is the best way to get students to understand, inquire, discuss, share and evolve their own work is both important and and and and still needed. So whether that is about the famous architectural crit, but very few of us describe it like that, we now say reviews or desktop discussions and things, but whether it's about that, but also it's our studio spaces which we all see as places for collective learning, collaboration, all the soft skills that you need to be successful in in life. But actually for students that are neurodiverse, they're big, loud, noisy, scary and often it's students can be scared can can run away from that. So understanding that about our spaces that we teach in might negatively impact as well as positively impact some students. And I think by using the document as a place for people to come together to discuss what that is will hopefully be a positive thing. I'm also kind of been thinking about within my own school about to about actually how to to implement it. In one sense with staff cohorts, that's an easier piece because we can have staff meetings every time we go through staff development, staff reviews, it will be sitting there and as we make curriculum changes for future PSRB models, then obviously the statement also has to be um addressed. But how we bring it into students who don't really know it exists and maybe won't won't choose to go and look at it, how we find it is a place that might help them understand their subject area and why we teach in a certain way, that's the thing to think about. And I think another question is about industry because even at the consultation phase, we shared it with some people in industry to see if they wanted to respond back and very few did because it's just not on their radar as something that could affect them. And yet there is a big conversation industry about what education should be doing. So I'm actually wondering how to work with across maybe our PSRBs or maybe some of our architectural journals to bring in a conversation about the statement and these new literacies about how they might also help industry so practices and education to find common ground, which is always there but often said it's not yeah thank you Kate that's a really helpful overview of how you would want the statement to be used in the future and the impact it would have.

Where To Find The Statements

Dr Péter Bokody 25:08

Peter just a couple of thoughts yeah I I actually I I fully agree with Kate so flexibility this is also a key component of our approach I think in game design you would call some of the the points we make in the statement like like kernels so like like mandatory points of reference that just that you make sure that that this is on your radar but in no way we would like to provide like a like a complete script of how an undergraduate degree should look like so we know that we we want to safeguard object focused study we know that we would like to remain part of the the the broader family of interdisciplinary humanities but that how this is implemented on a on a level of an undergraduate program that can vary from from program to program or from course to course. And I think we worked hard to to to integrate basically the digital humanities component into this or the the the digital component and what I hope that here and there we found ways to to just offer some some broad models in in way how we can make this a win so that particularly around dissemination or what Kate called the links to the industry. So sometimes we have we have the feel that also the industry does not really know where they are going so they are a bit reliant on on universities to to figure out what what is the the way forward for the sector and and I I just hope that if we manage to crack it in the next couple of years in the classroom that that how sort of how we remain relevant to society with what we are doing particularly in a digital or virtual context so that we can deliver all the all all the beauties of the the visual material legacy of of mankind or or or humanity just to to end on a on a fantastic note again then uh then then we did something something well so uh that would be my hope that uh that uh those who are using the benchmark statement they will be able to just do uh to keep this vertical uh vertical integration of our our discipline in in a in a changing context thanks Peter that's a very impassioned way to finish the uh the views on how it should be used in the future so thank you both uh yeah so thank you both to Kate and Peter for their engagement today for their thoughts on both how their statement incorporates some of those challenges around new technologies and generative artificial intelligence you can find the um latest versions for architecture and history of architecture um and design on the QA website they will be published uh on the QA website so please go and have a look at those uh statements and for now I just want to thank Kate and Peter for their time for their engagement also want to thank I think it's fair to say that you are representing a a vast uh array of knowledge that you pulled together from your advisory groups from lots of different academics from students from PSRB representatives from employer representatives so I don't know if you want to just say one last thing about about just the people you worked with on on the on on on the statements.

Kate Cheyne 28:30

Just would like to say thank you to um the whole group for engaging um uh taking on leadership of of certain areas um and continuing to think about the importance of this and obviously especially the deputy chairs um who are excellent thank you Kate and Peter as well again you know very much reliant on the work of the advisory group and and and you just really steered the ship.

Dr Péter Bokody 28:56

Yes same here so uh I would I would add that uh uh it was also a great experience so uh and I think to some extent it's also credit to the QAA uh and uh and Derek the QA coordinator that the way how the group came together and like everybody was um was sort of understanding the stakes and uh sort of motivated by the the desire just to to do something now in terms of of coming up with a uh with a with a statement for the for the future it was a it was a beautiful experience of of collegiality as well uh in addition to to expertise and uh uh and actually working with the uh with the benchmark itself thanks Peter that's a really good note and uh to end the uh podcast on and the uh on the shout out to collegiality which is actually this work couldn't be this work cannot be done without the support of lots of different people from across the sector who have all one thing in common which is they want to really make sure that students have the best possible experience that they can have and graduate with the best possible outcomes and that's really what it's all about really is the power of education to transform and change people's lives and that's why we're here.

Dr Andy Smith 30:12

So thank you both