IN THE NEWS: Sirota and Haar Featured in The Architect’s Newspaper review of new book rethinking design education
How can collaborative educational models foster meaningful shifts in the architecture professions? That question is the focus of a new book edited by Taubman College’s Anya Sirota and Suzanne Lettieri, former lead instructor of Taubman College’s ArcPrep program, recently featured in The Architect’s Newspaper.
Junior Architects: New Paradigms in Design Education (Park Books, 2026) traces the pursuit of equity in architecture and design education through historical analysis, critical theory, and comparative case studies across contemporary American contexts. Organized into three parts — Institutions, Instruction, and Practice — the book investigates and critiques existing pathways in the discipline, exploring strategies to restructure recruitment, pedagogical, and professional frameworks to prioritize pluralism, reciprocity, and public purpose. Through a series of essays and 25 case studies of American early design education programs, the book advocates a more collaborative, less hierarchical approach to design education.
The Architect’s Newspaper article, by Can Vu Bui, highlights Taubman College Professor of Architecture Sharon Haar, FAIA, whose essays in Junior Architects interrogate what is lost when architectural pedagogy strays from its historical roots in the liberal arts. Under its current framing as a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) discipline, Haar argues that overly restrictive professional pathways “mute curiosity and suppress expression, limiting pathways to civic engagement, design education, and ultimately, the professions that shape our cities.”
Lettieri, associate professor of architecture at Cornell College of Art, Architecture, and Planning, and Sirota, senior associate dean of academic initiatives and professor of architecture at Taubman College, were “catalyzed by their involvement with ArcPrep (now Michigan Design Sessions: Detroit) — a semester-long course pairing secondary school students with graduate-level educators,” when Lettieri also served as the Michigan-Mellon Design Fellow in Egalitarianism and the Metropolis from 2016 to 2018.
The two will host a conversation and book launch event on Wednesday, Nov. 4, at The Scarab Club in Detroit. The event will bring together contributors to the book and leaders of local enrichment programs, and will include Haar, Dean Jonathan Massey, and former Taubman College faculty member Harley Etienne, associate professor in city and regional planning at Ohio State University’s Knowlton School of Architecture, to provide an overview of the work, its histories, and its ambitions, and ask where it might go next. More information is available on the Taubman College Events Page.
Additional events are scheduled in Chicago and New York.
Thursday, Nov 5, in Chicago @ MAS Context
Featuring a conversation with Ann Lui, Aaron Tobey, Malcolm Rio, Harley Etienne, Sharon Haar.
Monday, Nov 9, in New York @ The Van Allen Institute
Featuring a conversation with Milton Curry, Quilian Riano, Erin Pellegrino.
— Ida Garfield, M.Arch ’28
