The need for disciplinary integration: Part 2. Design topics related to urban preservation have become one of my favorite themes when teaching second year architecture students. In my program briefs, I also tend to incorporate that projects be determined—to a certain extent—by a client’s functional needs, preoccupations, and desires, all the while having student projects reflect their creative ambitions.
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The need for disciplinary integration: Part 1. I have always considered teaching architecture, and perhaps more importantly the practice of architecture, an all-encompassing endeavor. And this, despite observing year after year, endless jargon among my colleagues promoting the discipline of architecture as autonomous and self-referential.
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Blind sketching. If you’ve read some of my past blogs, you may be familiar with my belief that sections are key to any successful design. Two of the blogs (blogs 1 and 2) presented basic concepts about the importance of architecture students working in section, especially since they typically do not think this way—at least in their early years when plans seem to predominate their design. As students gain confidence in the investigation of space through sections, little marvels unfold. Projects become architectural, as they successfully develop spatial experiences that anticipate how users will encounter them in a haptic way.
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Some thoughts on sketching by hand. Regardless of the nature of an architectural project, students need to produce sketches, diagrams, plans, sections, axonometrics, perspectives, collages, and text in addition to physical models, in order to document their process, as Ilse Crawford defines, as the thoughtful sequence of decision making.
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Ever since living in Manhattan in the 1980s, I have fond memories of the vintage postcards depicting the emerging metropolis of the early 20th century. I love the visual of the anticipation of a city growing vertically at an increasingly rapid pace. Skyscrapers were like chess pieces added to the Commissioners’’ Plan of 1811 (plan that set in place Manhattan’s grid between Houston and 155th Street) allowing the skyline to become one of the wonders of the 20th century and the envy of the modern world. Each skyscraper surpassed the other as they were decorated with increasingly elaborate and often pastiche styles, while integrating new technologies and patents of the nascent construction industry.
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Vienna stairs Jože Plečnik, Part 2. As much as the Zacherl House expresses the promise of modernism to come—from site strategy, structure, treatment of the façade, and ornamentation (previous blog)—I want to also celebrate the entrance sequence which, for me, makes this building so memorable. Perhaps this is because much research on the Zacherl House fails to go in depth regarding the staircase and because I find this particular space so beautifully orchestrated.
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Vienna: a lesson in stairs (Joze Plecnik), Part 1. Each time I visit Vienna, the capital of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, it exhorts in me a mysterious feeling. First because I keep such fond childhood memories from there, and second because, as an architect, I have great sympathy for the city’s opulence in all matters of the fine arts and design. As a society, we have come to admire the magnificent artifacts that were created over the centuries, but those that retain my attention are from the turn of the 19th century, a period which reflected a new and rich artistic era when the city moved from eclecticism to modern functionalism.
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Drawing spatially. In a number of previous blogs, I reiterated that translating ideas into space is one of the essential responsibilities when educating an architect. Typically for students, coming up with an idea is not an issue in their design process. But transforming an idea—spatial complex ideas created in the mind and transcribed digitally or onto a sheet of paper—is altogether another beast.
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Lexington: a lesson in stairs (Jose Oubrerie). If you are unfamiliar with the Miller House designed by José Oubrerie, let me introduce you to this magnificent work of art through the lens of a particular element, namely a stair that is both architecture and an elaborate piece of furniture.
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Firminy: a lesson in stairs (Le Corbusier). There are times in academia when one is confronted by fundamental design questions that change our understanding of architecture. For me, this occurred when I encountered the promenade architecturale in Le Corbusier’s oeuvre. Hands down, and even retrospectively, this remains for me one of the most important spatial ideas I learned as a young student.
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