Who can critique my architecture studio project?

Studio-project and design coaching for architecture students, concept, technical drawings, BIM, and 3D visualisation, critiqued with a discipline-matched expert while you design your own work.

Direct answer: Someone who can read drawings, meaning a practising architect or a studio tutor. MAAS EdTech reviews your concept, technical drawings, BIM model and 3D visualisation the way a studio crit does, naming where the idea and its execution diverge, while you keep designing and drawing the project yourself.

What is MAAS Architecture & Design support?

Architecture & Design gives you a discipline-matched expert who coaches your studio project (đồ án) the way a design tutor runs a desk crit, reading your site analysis, questioning your parti, and pushing your concept toward a resolved scheme.

The desk crit is not an informal habit. It is the documented core of architectural education, inherited from the atelier model of the École des Beaux-Arts, which ran its Architecture Section from 1819 until 1968, trained students inside a master's private atelier rather than in a lecture hall, and sent its strongest students to Rome through the Prix de Rome competition. Donald Schön (1985) described the studio as a practicum where students learn by designing under a coach rather than by listening to lectures, and extended the same argument two years later into a broader account of how professionals learn through reflection-in-action across disciplines, not only architecture (Schön, 1987). Gabriela Goldschmidt and her co-authors (2010) recorded desk crits in second-year architecture studios and found teacher performance varies widely, partly because design tutors are practitioners who receive no pedagogical training. A MAAS crit is run deliberately against that finding, with the structure set out below rather than left to intuition.

This is not a marginal share of the coursework. In the UK, the Royal Institute of British Architects, or RIBA, sets that standard directly: its own validation criteria require at least 50% of all assessed work at Part 1 and Part 2 to be studio design projects, which is exactly the work a desk crit interrogates. In the United States, the National Architectural Accrediting Board, or NAAB, has accredited professional architecture degrees since 1940, and studio performance is central to that review too.

You design and draw, while the expert critiques method, software technique, and presentation. Support runs across the 4 stages most briefs follow, early concept, schematic design, design development, and the final board or portfolio, with a sustainable and landscape-design lens where your brief calls for one.

This is Group B · Advisory: MAAS commits to expert credentials and the quality of the coaching process. Studio grades are decided by your jury, so third-party outcomes stay out of scope. The design you submit remains your own.

Who is architecture coaching for?

Architecture coaching suits architecture and interior-design students at any point in a studio project, from first-year exercises to a graduation thesis, and especially those stuck between a concept and a resolved scheme.

• Architecture and interior-design students working through a studio project, from first-year exercises to a graduation thesis project
• Students stuck between concept and resolution, with a diagram that will not translate into a plan, or a section that does not hold together
• Anyone who needs to lift the technical quality of their drawings, BIM model, or renders before a jury or portfolio review

Does any of this sound like where you are?

• Your scheme reads fine to you and you cannot tell why the panel keeps pushing back on it.
• You can draw it but cannot yet explain the reasoning out loud, and the crit is where marks are lost.
• Your studio brief carries a heavy design weighting and you want a read on the scheme before you commit weeks to it.
• You have the concept and are stuck turning it into a drawing set that holds together.

This is not for you if you want your scheme designed for you. A desk crit interrogates the scheme you brought.

What do you get with architecture coaching?

You get recurring 1:1 desk crits with an architect matched to your studio brief, covering concept and site reading, technical drawing, software technique, visualisation, and the board you will defend in front of a jury.

• 1:1 desk crits with an expert matched to your studio brief and program
• Concept coaching, site analysis, program, parti, and design rationale you can defend
• Technical-drawing critique across plans, sections, elevations, and details
• Software technique in ArchiCAD, Revit, AutoCAD, SketchUp, and Rhino, covering modelling, documentation, and workflow rather than click-by-click ghost-modelling
• 3D visualisation and rendering guidance (Lumion), plus board and portfolio layout (InDesign, Photoshop)
• Sustainable and landscape-design input, passive strategy, daylighting, and site response where the brief asks for it
• Session recordings and marked-up references saved to your workspace

How it works

MAAS runs architecture coaching as a sequence of crits rather than a single review, starting from your brief and expert match, moving through a concept crit, then recurring development crits, and closing with a presentation review before submission.

What does a desk crit with a MAAS expert actually cover?

A crit works through your project in the order a jury will read it: whether the site analysis supports the move you made, whether the parti survives contact with a plan, and whether the drawings communicate the idea without you standing next to them.

Yeonjoo Oh and her co-authors reviewed the studio literature in the journal Design Studies and identified 11 factors that shape a critique, split into 5 factors of method and 6 of condition (Oh et al., 2013). The 5 headings below map to the method side, which is the part a tutor controls in the room.

• Site and program. Whether your reading of the site justifies the scheme, or whether the diagram was decided before the site was understood
• Parti and resolution. Whether the organising idea holds when it becomes structure, circulation, and section, which is where most studio projects break
• Drawing set. Whether plans, sections and details are consistent with each other, and whether line weight and annotation carry the hierarchy a jury expects
• Model and documentation. Whether the BIM model is built to be edited later, rather than built to look right once
• Board and narrative. Whether the sheet reads in the order you want it read, and whether you can defend each decision out loud

The model and documentation line carries more weight than it used to. The NBS National BIM Report found 73% of UK respondents using BIM on their projects by 2020, up from 48% in 2014, which is why a MAAS crit treats file discipline in ArchiCAD or Revit as part of the design argument rather than a technical afterthought.

One finding shapes how a MAAS crit is run. Studies of recorded crits report frequent tutor dominance, with sessions turning into long monologues and minimal student participation (Goldschmidt et al., 2010). Uluoğlu (2000), also writing in Design Studies, analysed what design knowledge actually transfers in studio critiques and found the transfer depends on the student articulating the reasoning, not on the tutor stating it. A MAAS expert therefore asks you to present first and defend each move, because the crit is where you rehearse the viva, not where you receive a verdict.

What do you need to prepare?

Bring the studio brief and your jury's rubric, whatever you have drawn so far even if it is unresolved, and your site material, because a crit on guessed constraints is a crit on the wrong project.

• The studio prompt, site information, and program requirements
• Your marking rubric or jury criteria, which anchors every critique
• Current drawings, sketches, or model files at whatever stage they are in
• Any precedent studies your tutor has asked you to work from

What decides your quote?

Three things move the number.

• What stage the scheme is at. An early concept crit and a review of a near-final drawing set demand different things from the expert.
• How many sessions you want. A single desk crit before a panel and a review running across a whole studio project are quoted differently.
• How much of the deliverable is design weighting, since a brief that is largely design work sits in the higher band.

Sessions are quoted by the session, not by the drawing, because what you are buying is the critique. A typical studio course runs 14 to 15 weeks and schedules reviews 2 or 3 times a week, so a project usually needs pressure at 2 points, once at concept and once before the board is locked.

No two cases price the same, so MAAS quotes per case. Send the details and you get a figure back; you do not need to commit to anything to see one.

Who will actually work with you?

Desk crits are run by people who practise or teach architecture, not by generalist tutors. They hold a professional or postgraduate qualification in architecture or a related design discipline, and they read a scheme the way a studio panel reads it. Across the whole MAAS roster of 100+ experts, 23% hold a doctorate and 43% hold a Master's degree, and architecture briefs are matched only to the design-trained subset. MAAS EdTech has run this kind of coaching since 2015, across more than 10,000 projects.

See the anonymised expert roster on our experts page.

What does MAAS commit to?

MAAS commits to a discipline-matched architect, critique anchored to your own jury's rubric rather than a generic standard, and confidentiality across your brief, your site, and your drawings.

• Experts vetted through the three-stage MAAS expert process
• Discipline-matched coaching and honest, rubric-anchored critique
• Confidentiality of your brief, site, and drawings
• A roster where 23% hold a doctorate and 43% hold a Master's degree, with only the design-trained subset ever matched to an architecture brief

What does MAAS not do?

MAAS does not design, model, or produce any drawing, render, or model that you submit as your own, and does not promise a studio grade, because the jury decides that on work you designed yourself.

• Designing, modelling, or producing any drawing, render, or model you submit as your own
• A specific studio grade or jury verdict on work you design and submit yourself

Have a studio deadline coming? Book a free 15-minute discovery, support@maasedtech.com or +84 979 422 393 (Zalo / WhatsApp). Design it yourself, with a MAAS expert alongside you.

Not ready to book a call? That is a normal place to be. Send the brief on Zalo or Messenger and ask for a figure, no call, no form, no commitment. If the answer is that MAAS is not right for your case, you will be told that too.

Frequently asked questions

MAAS Architecture & Design coaches your studio project through desk crits on concept, drawings, BIM, and presentation, critiqued against your own jury's rubric, while you design and produce every piece of work you submit. MAAS EdTech has run this coaching since 2015.

Will MAAS do my đồ án or studio project for me?
No. An expert coaches your concept, drawings, and presentation and critiques them against your rubric, while you design and produce your own work. That boundary is what keeps the support academically honest.

Which software can you coach?
ArchiCAD, Revit, AutoCAD, SketchUp, and Rhino for modelling and documentation, Lumion for visualisation, and InDesign and Photoshop for boards and portfolios. Coaching focuses on technique and workflow so the file stays yours.

Can you help with sustainable or landscape design?
Yes. Our architecture expertise includes sustainable architecture and landscape design, passive strategy, daylighting, and site response so we can coach a brief that weights environmental performance.

How is this different from Presentation & Design Support?
Presentation & Design covers slides, posters, and visual assignments across any discipline. Architecture & Design is studio-specific, covering site analysis, parti, technical drawings, BIM, and jury-ready boards for architecture and interior-design students.

What stage should I come in at?
Any stage, but the earlier the better. A concept crit before you start drawing saves far more rework than a fix-up the night before a jury.

How often do the crits run?
Crits are scheduled against your studio milestones rather than on a fixed weekly slot, because a project needs pressure at the concept stage and again before the board is locked, not evenly spread across the semester. A studio course commonly runs 14 to 15 weeks, so 2 well-placed crits usually beat 6 evenly spaced ones.

References

Goldschmidt, G., Hochman, H., & Dafni, I. (2010). The design studio "crit": Teacher–student communication. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 24(3), 285–302. https://doi.org/10.1017/S089006041000020X

Oh, Y., Ishizaki, S., Gross, M. D., & Yi-Luen Do, E. (2013). A theoretical framework of design critiquing in architecture studios. Design Studies, 34(3), 302–325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.08.004

Schön, D. A. (1985). The design studio: An exploration of its traditions and potentials. RIBA Publications.

Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. Jossey-Bass.

Uluoğlu, B. (2000). Design knowledge communicated in studio critiques. Design Studies, 21(1), 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0142-694X(99)00002-2