The Mac is Back!

So it's Friday... and the first full week of Studio has just passed. In about 20 minutes, everyone will converge at the weekly "6 on 6" affair... meaning 6pm on the 6th floor of Avery... there will be an assortment of sometimes good but mostly bad beer, some pretzels, chips and cheese. There will be an insane amount of badly dressed, amazingly dressed, and black-cladded architecture students trying to fit tightly in the compact "foyer" of the 6th floor. Rejoicing about the end of the first full week of school.

Some students are clueless about their new studios. Their professors are equally clueless as well. The two Macs... William MacDonald, and Andrew MacNair are back to teaching what they know best and what they are truly passionate about: "Computer" and "Not Not Computer" (respectively).

I am in the Andrew MacNair "Not Not Architecture" studio and the theme is all about you, you, you, and only you... and your work. Which is great, because I believed that I "failed" miserably with my Undergraduate Thesis. I see this as an opprtunity to revisit the subject matter and carry out my thesis the "right" way.... this is my 2nd chance at my own redemption. Andrew couldn't be any happier with it. We'll see how it goes. All of our meetings occur in the basement of Avery, which suits Andrew MacNair just fine... if change ever occurs in this school.... it of course begins, appropriately, in the sublevels of the whole damn structure. Change... Flow... Failure... Building... and Failure again... is what Andrew MacNair knows... it's what Andrew MacNair is good at... it's what Andrew MacNair does best. "Complacency" is reserved for the 4th floor, apparently.

As for my other classes, I'm taking a class on Dynamic Skins taught by a professor who once worked with Imaginary Forces and now 2X4. I'm also taking a class on "Slums"... we'll see how it goes. Everyone is pretty much doing basic research at this point... in preparation for the Annual Spring Kinne Trip. The school basically pays for every third year or AAD student to travel somewhere in the world. The cities to be visited by studios this year: London, Buenos Aires, Tijuana, LA, Dubai/Kabul, Tokyo, Chandigarh, Melbourne, and Prague.... Check the other Columbia blogs for updates on these other studios.

School is back in session at Columbia. All lotteries occured this past week when all studio professors attempted to make some sort of presentation about their intent for the graduating class. Most of them were incoherent, some were gimicky, others were pretentious name-droppers to validate their...