Studio based learning, with all its inherent components (the project, the extended hours of contact, the ‘final crit’) has become accepted as the traditional (best) way for design students to develop their ability to think and act in a ‘designerly’ fashion; however, despite the increased research into studio based pedagogies, there are a number of conceptions that seem largely impervious to change and it is two of these ‘untouchables’ that this paper, and the first year orientation project described in it, seeks to challenge. One - the conception of the critique or ‘crit’ as a ‘rite of passage’ - an essentially negative experience with an emphasis on criticism, confrontation, even humiliation; two - the idea that first year study should be based on simple, basic or ‘abstracted’ theories and skills which students should, at a later date, be able to put together to assemble a more complex and concrete ‘whole’
