pre:fab School 8 Week Pilot

pre:fab platform are pleased to announce the pre:fab School pilot programme, an 8 week architecture school that will test what is possible for future alternatives to design and built environment education, through hands-on learning and theory of practice. 

pre:fab School Pilot is designed for students, graduates, practitioners and all those interested in advancing the theory, meaning, and physical development of our shared environments. It is designed to be accessible around full time work or study, taking place one to two weeknights a week and on weekends taking place across various sites in Tāmaki Makaurau. Transport to more remote locations will be coordinated.

For Students: Expand your learning with access to and participation on building sites, with people from industry, and throughout the city alongside a tight-knit group of fellow attendees motivated to experiment and explore in the built environment. pre:fab school pilot is less than 10% of the cost weekly of a typical university semester.  

For Graduates: Join us to experience again all the things you miss about school. Expand your personal practice through theoretical exploration and application on real projects. Build your portfolio and connect with others at different stages in their journey.

For Practitioners: Share your knowledge and experience and revitalise your personal practice in a vertically integrated teaching and learning environment focused on building a more effective, connected, creative, and collegial discipline through intergenerational conviviality.  CPD available. 

For Directors: Connect with the next generation of exceptional architectural designers and organisers. Trade knowledge and experience for youthful energy and the power of naïveté.  Outrun obsolescence by convincing them to join your team before you find yourself joining theirs.

For Others: Bring your own experience to conversations, tours, workshops about architecture and the built environment and learn skills towards theorising a practice (of any kind), working with tools on building sites, and community organising.

Key dates and events:

Conversation Club: One workshop per week course exploring your own theory of practice though philosophy, history, and criticism, and pre:fab School's fourfold mythoecology: 366604, Pizza Parla, New Models, and Conspiracy Theory.

Architecture as Gathering: Fortnightly group sessions where we will discover the history of architecture as gathering in Aotearoa and beyond, and learn how ritual practices in architecture and skills and methods of community organising contribute to a more convivial and rewarding discipline.

pre:fab School Pilot Cost:

Your fee will cover several shared meals, transport to multiple sites, construction and workshop materials, koha for speakers, and a small amount will go to cover our time and organisational contribution. We are passionate about exploring, designing, and delivering new models of architecture practice and education. If you can support us by purchasing a ticket category higher than what you qualify for, that will go towards these efforts. If you are unable to afford the full ticket price at purchase, but really want to attend pre:fab school, please get in touch with us to discuss possibilities of a payment plan or other arrangement. Register through Humanitix to begin enrolment.

Students/unwaged: $40/week = $320

Graduates (within 5 years): $65/week = $520

General (practitioners and others): $95/week = $760

Directors (Principals/Associates/Owners of practices): $150/week = $1200

Things you will need: 

Gumboots or close toed work boots (seriously), a good rain jacket, old clothes/workwear, personal notebook.

What is pre:fab school?

pre:fab School Pilot is part of a larger project to create a new school of architecture and built environments delivered through five theoretical lenses (history, theory of practice, community organising, mātauranga māori, and materials) and through the design and construction delivery of real community projects for real people. pre:fab school aims to provide students with the hands-on experience, design knowledge, and organising skills that would grant them agency in affecting change in the build environment, give them access to design and/or construction licensure during their studies, and support independent or collaborative research projects through a mentorship network. pre:fab school will be cheaper, faster, better; and actively contribute to the shaping and theorising of places, meaning, and culture in our shared environments. 

Who are we?

We are Ollie Brockie, Tessa Forde, Simon Glaister and Leonard Hobbins. 

We have over 60 years combined experience in architecture, education, art, engineering, gardening, organising and other practices. We work as Groupwork Aotearoa, and have helped to organise pre:fab platform alongside a team of co-conspirators and collaborators since 2022. We have had leadership or organising roles in the following educational experiments and actuations: 

2013 FLOG Publication, Melbourne, Australia; 2014 Conversation Club, Melbourne, Australia; 2016-2017 Design Studio teaching UoA with Michael O’Sullivan, Sophie Hamer, and Kathy Waghorn; 2017 Free School of Architecture, LA, USA; 2018 Free School of Architecture, LA, USA; 2019 Bauhaus Parliament of Schools, Dessau, Germany; 2021-2026 Tutor and Lecturer roles across design, ‘Intelligence’, theory of practice, ecologies; and communication courses at AUT; 2022 The Night School, Tāmaki Makaurau; 2022 pre:fab platform; 2022 Architecture Beyond Capitalism School - STUDIO, Online, Global; 2023 Architecture Beyond Capitalism School - FUTURE BELONGING, Online, Global; 2023 Kelmarna Garden Compost Coordination; 2024 The Organizer’s Guide to Architecture Education; 2024 Prime Minister’s Scholarship for a year in Chile; 2024 Taller de Obras, La Ciudad Abierta (The Open City), Valparaíso, Chile; 2024 Kelmarna Garden Education Coordinator, Tāmaki Makaurau; 2025 Practise Plural, Tāmaki Makaurau; 2025 Earth Building Association Committee, Tāmaki Makaurau; 2026 Weaving Congress, Tāmaki Makaurau.