Architecture School

Architecture School is the Journal's section for the people still learning the discipline — and for anyone who wants to know what the next generation of architects is looking at. It is written by an architecture student in Los Angeles, from inside the studio, and it covers what the news pages don't: what architecture students read, which architecture styles are going viral and why, the software that sits between a sketch and a crit, and the competitions and portfolios that open the first doors.

Every week the section reads the field as a whole. Trend reports look across ArchDaily, Dezeen, designboom and Architectural Digest — their most-read stories, the materials and typologies that keep returning, the styles that move from social media into studio briefs — and describe the patterns, with links to every page observed. Reading lists name the best architecture books for students, from the classics every architect should read to the new titles publishers and critics are talking about, with links to the publishers. Style explainers take a style that is trending, from brutalism to Googie, and give its history, its key buildings and the reasons it is back.

Student guides are practical and evergreen: architecture software for students and how to get it on an education licence, how AI is entering the design studio, architecture student competitions with their real deadlines, how to build an architecture portfolio, and how to survive studio culture without treating all-nighters as a badge of honour. Each guide links to the official sources — the software makers, the competition organisers, the schools — so you can check the terms yourself.

The same rules apply here as everywhere in the Journal: every fact is sourced, every image is credited, and when something is an opinion it is labelled as one. Start with the guides below, then follow the links into the news, case studies and competitions that the studio is talking about.