Architecture thesis, Part 3. There is a wonderful tradition at my current institution of holding weeklong thesis week’s presentations, a time when architecture students pin up their progress and get feedback from peers and faculty. During this time one or two faculty impart their wisdom regarding the day’s projects. These short addresses happens at the … Continue reading Architecture thesis, Part 3
Architecture thesis, Part 2. Throughout countless thesis critiques with architecture students, I always end up somewhere in the discussion asking the same question: What is your thesis? Their answers (yes, plural) are often evasive and timid, and suggestive of their initial unfocused interests as they struggle through numerous topics that are in their own right … Continue reading Architecture thesis, Part 2
Architecture thesis, Part 1. Most United States undergraduate architecture students will engage in a thesis project that spans the entirety of the last semester or academic year. After learning about the foundations of their discipline between their 1st and 2nd years, followed by the consolidation of ideas that takes place in their 3rd and 4th … Continue reading Architecture thesis, Part 1
Pierre von Meiss: architect and pedagogue. As I reflect on how leadership could envision a roadmap for an academic unit, I am reminiscing on my own education, and how I benefited from an enlightened administrator.
Interview about architecture. The following interview was conducted over zoom on September 6, 2023, with Berk Oral, a former second-year student, and friend. He is currently studying in Boston as part of his fourth year off-campus semester and will return to campus to complete his year-long thesis during the Academic year 2024-25. The interview is … Continue reading Interview about architecture
Hong Kong: Bauhaus style Central Market. Previous research on the Central Market in Hong Kong, resulted in a blog describing the genesis of the market through 1850. After 1858, the building—originally called Canton Bazaar, thereafter Middle Bazaar—was rebuilt, and from there on was officially named Central Market. The 1903 map (Image 2, below) suggests the market was … Continue reading Hong Kong: Bauhaus style Central Market
Hotel Park Royal Collection Pickering, Singapore. Cities have always been close to my heart because of the many iconic places that endow them with a specific identity. For me, beyond a city’s historical monuments, the overall urban charm, historical grandeur, and regional cuisines, what I most cherish is a city’s distinctiveness in how it brings … Continue reading Hotel Park Royal Collection Pickering, Singapore
People’s Park Complex in Singapore-Part 3. Re-invention is what has always interested me professionally and as a teacher of architecture. Perhaps seen through a conceptual lens, the sketch below shows the simple yet straightforward transposing of a colonial morphology into a new modernist ideal of the 1970’s urban renewal program.
Stage 1: podium The People’s Park Complex in Singapore, Part 2, (called the Grande Dame of modern Chinatown or an Emblem of Asian Modernism) was part of the experimental architectural megastructures described by architectural historian, Reyner Banham and was built in two stages.
To design a project. Part 1. When teaching—at least where I stand today in my academic career—I think of countless blogs that I should write about architectural education. This is particularly true given that year after year, I see students struggle with similar topics.