Ever since the Grand Tour, architecture students have explored buildings in situ through formal and informal learning opportunities outside of the traditional campus setting. Whether semester long international travel programs or short design studio field trips, faculty recognize these experiences as vital curricular moments that add meaning to a student’s education, especially when sketching is part of the act of observing. Beyond the pleasure and exoticism of travel, whether to nearby or distant places, learning first hand from buildings remains rewarding and memorable. It is a moment when many senses come into play, and most importantly, brings forth intense visuals that offer students a way to confront their academic understanding of a building with their on-site experience of it.
An architecture project
An architecture project. The education of an architect is primarily centered around a design studio with an architecture program describing the nature of a design proposition. This prompt, which is also called a brief, is usually open ended and offers basic directives on the nature of the problem to solve. The overall freedom offered by briefs, allows students to design a project by incorporating thoughts pulled from sources within and from outside of architecture.
Continue reading An architecture projectPorto: a lesson in stairs (Alvaro Siza)
Porto: a lesson in stairs (Alvaro Siza). For whatever reason, stairs have always fascinated me. Beyond their communicative power and symbolism (Image 1 below), their beauty, craftsmanship and spatial qualities mark a building in a variety of ways. It seems part of human destiny to defy gravity and erect tall structures—in fact humans have worked toward the idea of a sky scraper since the pyramids of the ancient world, and, more recently the 13th century towers in the Tuscan town of San Gimignano. Vertical circulation systems, primarily through stairs and ramps, have been integral to this cultural vision of building vertically.
An easy spanakopita
Almost every year, blogs, upscale magazines, and food critics define trends that restaurants and home chefs enjoy in their daily cuisine. I am always interested in how they come up with their assumptions, especially since spotlights on international food seem to be focused on discovering unknown ingredients – difficult as travel to far corners of the world has made us blasé.
Why Model Sketching? Part 3
In two previous posted blogs, I covered the topic of model sketching. The first one explored how a set of iterative sketch models—typically out of clay and at a reduced scale such as 1/32”—assisted students in defining what we call an architectural mass model. The second blog focused on the importance of creating rapid sketch models that exhibited the first unencumbered physical artifact that translated an idea—vague and amorphous as many first ideas are—into a three-dimensional object; the latter model technique emphasized the student’s intuition so often associated with a hands-on approach while crafting spatial qualities.
On the art of making
Architecture programs, at least those that I have been associated with as a faculty member and administrator, have favored hands-on/minds-on and learning by doing pedagogies—the latter often referred to as learn-by-doing in the model of education espoused by American philosopher John Dewey. Recently, I have understood that these modes of “learning through reflection on doing,” are equally defined by the term experiential learning; a concept that emphasizes active experimentation with concrete experience, and abstract conceptualization that ends with the student’s need for a reflective observation on their work and process. Notwithstanding the particularities of each approach, each of these models refers to a theory of education that emphasizes the student’s direct interaction “with their environment in order to adapt and learn.”
Continue reading On the art of makingQuestions of section, Part 2
Questions of section, Part 2. After thirty years of teaching architecture studio at the undergraduate level, I maintain that translating ideas into space is one of the most challenging aspects of design that college sophomores need to learn on their journey to becoming architects. This is particularly true when working in section.
Hong Kong: a lesson in stairs (Billie Tsien and Tod Williams)
Hong Kong: a lesson in stairs (Billie Tsien and Tod Williams). There are many urban environments that I have come to cherish throughout my years traveling the world. I am an urban boy, and while I love Berlin, Paris, New Delhi, New York, Tokyo, and Vienna, and even at a more modest scale Lausanne where I studied architecture, Hong Kong remains top on my list of favorite cities. There is no place that has provoked me more than the Fragrant Harbor—Hong Kong’s nickname—which is in direct opposition to the more gentile landscapes of places I have lived including the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, the Central Coast of California, and the New River Valley of Virginia.
Thoughts on teaching. Part 1
The ritual of a formal and on-going assessment is something educators tend not to favor, especially since the perception is that it takes away from our commitment to teaching, from our love of teaching. And yet, in architecture programs, assessment is tacitly done on a weekly basis, especially through discussions of student design work. These often-subjective evaluations are based on the student’s progress, encompassing discussions, Aristotelian critiques, and suggested paths to improve and overcome any stumbling blocks in order to have them make substantial improvements.
Asian soup with seared salmon in twenty minutes
Comfort food brings back memories of matriarchs cooking for their kids. Dishes were simple. For me, when my parents rekindled as a couple with a dinner at their favorite restaurant I looked forward to spaghetti with butter sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper and Parmesan. When I felt sick and was in need of additional maternal love there was classic chicken soup. And, of course, perfect for anytime, an old-fashioned homemade American apple pie. I know, nostalgia and sentimental feelings of childhood are often associated with comfort foods: and why not, as we are all humans and in need of COMFORT.