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 part of a requirement at the CDR Payette OpenLab Boston Studio, where students choose to interview professionals for their Professional Practice course. Other courses during the semester are the integrative studio and fabrication. 

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 promising and robust.  

Thoughts on architectural education. Part 2. Architectural schools have long been a vibrant place for innovative ideas and radical change. Today, at a time when contemporary modes of thinking are challenging the idea of change itself, architectural educators are discerning the outline of the future architect’s mind: one like ours, yet profoundly different, and not yet clearly defined.