Questions of the moment. During two long years struggling to find meaning while living with the Covid-19 pandemic, so much happened beyond confinement, social distancing, washing one’s hands, and wearing masks. While we lived in a homebound microcosm, we were simultaneously made aware of the very same problem striking across the globe, and of the inequality of our ability to respond to the crisis.
Continue reading Questions of the moment
Both the practice and the teaching of architecture have led me to appreciate the idea of type; type as in building type (e.g. circular temple such as the Pantheon in Rome) or enfilade as space type. However, I will admit that this was not always the case. As a student at the EPF-Lausanne, I abhorred any thought about designing architecture that had anything to do with the idea of type. This was for two reasons.
Continue reading The idea of the enfilade
While rekindling an idea for one of the numerous designs of a courtyard house I am working on, I wanted to use a model sketching technique ( that involves folding paper to rapidly create an object in three dimensions.
Continue reading Why Model Sketching? Part 5
Model sketching, Part 4. After rereading my blog Architectural Education: A question of section. Part 2, I located drawings of that undergraduate project, as well as a collaborative sketch between one of the students and myself created during a desk critique. The three drawings (Image 1, below) show a progression by the student following my suggestion to focus on a detail, which pushed the project forward with more precision and clarity.
Continue reading Why Model Sketching, Part 4
Architecture techniques. As an architect, I have always cherished designing a project. Over the years, I’ve come to understand that making a project is more about projecting a model of life than designing, which comes from the Italian designare, meaning to draw.
Continue reading Architecture techniques