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    In Which A Forest Shutters

    By bryan boyer
    May 5, '08 2:11 PM EST

    This gem comes as an aside in a longer email from the GSD listserv:
    "in the 36 hours from Friday 5/2 - Monday, 5/5, ~1000 color plots were printed in preparation for this week's presentations.
    Exactly zero of those were mine. Thesis reviews are (mercifully) still more than a week away...



     
    • 17 Comments

    • Dam,
      What about digital presentations!

      May 5, 08 3:40 pm  · 
       · 
      nsproductions

      Sometimes I debate the ecological cost of printing vs digital presentations.

      May 6, 08 8:43 am  · 
       · 
      Apurimac

      You know what's probably the most ironic about review pin-ups? I bet in the days of hand drafting students probably used a quarter of the overall paper space they do now and I doubt their presentations suffered much for it.

      May 6, 08 1:27 pm  · 
       · 
      bryan boyer

      When I was TAing for core studios I kept pushing to institute a board limit for the final reviews... it's a good discipline to get started on considering that every competition you ever work on is going to specify a specific number/size of panels. Only managed to make it happen for one review though.

      May 6, 08 1:55 pm  · 
       · 
      Apurimac

      Board limits are an excellent idea.

      May 6, 08 3:01 pm  · 
       · 
      ∑ π ∓ √ ∞

      geez, how about printing on mylar or some other material?

      May 7, 08 5:35 am  · 
       · 
      conormac

      what could the ecological downside of digital "pinups" be? the projectors & electricity? I'm working at a cultural org. that processes competitions and there is such an enormous waste from boards, and I imagine the final board is a fraction of the paper used to produce them. It'd be an interesting comparision.

      May 7, 08 1:11 pm  · 
       · 
      bryan boyer

      the eco footprint of digital presentation is an interesting question! Either way it would seem that the footprint of output (digital or physical) is smaller than that of production (duh, I guess, given the time lines involved).

      The thing about fully digital presentation is that the software issue still hasn't been solved. Powerpoint and a projector/LCD is a very impoverished medium for an architectural review. Resolution is too low still, there's no ability to easily zoom in (as you can if you get up close and personal with a printed board), and developing an ad-hoc discussion is impaired by the lack of a good overview screen. Powerpoint's slide overview page is OK, but the thumbnails are too small to browse very well. Once you recall a slide you're stuck on the image unless you consciously go back to the index and this tends to mire the discussion on a very limited portion of the presentation. I always meant to use iTune's coverflow as a presentation medium for one of my projects, but I never got around to it. Any takers?

      Perhaps people from other schools/offices have better presentation software suggestions than powerpoint? Has anyone tried Alias' Portfolio Wall or whatever it's called?

      May 7, 08 1:19 pm  · 
       · 
      A Center for Ants?

      isn't it "shudder"?

      May 7, 08 7:17 pm  · 
       · 
      bryan boyer

      If it's scared, yes, you're right. I meant "shutters" as in closes or quits but I guess "shudder" may make a little more sense.

      May 7, 08 7:23 pm  · 
       · 

      Only within the context of where the comments discussion went.

      May 7, 08 7:40 pm  · 
       · 
      Apurimac

      actually, that "shutters" thing is kinda witty brian.

      May 8, 08 2:36 am  · 
       · 
      THREADS

      oh comon

      you are going to fill piper to the brim next week

      May 9, 08 1:52 pm  · 
       · 
      keopi

      i actually saw some pretty effective digital presentations of some student work from european schools, but the office i was working at had nice widescreen lcds that basically were presentation board size. it was really effective and the person got to literally walk you through their project without critiquers getting distracted by a shiny model or something (why does this happen so often!!!) but then in terms of going back to drawings and critiquers pointing things out it's trickier.

      but you do get to show off all of your work you did on a screen...on a screen.. and therefore no rubbish plot colors etc :)

      May 13, 08 3:57 pm  · 
       · 

      b, how did it go, what's next? i know it is like the old joke asking the computer, "what's goin' on?"
      i'd love to read an aftermath type of ending to your blog.

      May 20, 08 1:22 pm  · 
       · 
      bryan boyer

      I'll be posting a recap soonish... just need a bit of time to relax first...

      May 20, 08 5:52 pm  · 
       · 
      ichweiB

      here in studio prix, we have weekly studio crits with powerpoint and we never pin up work. it is pretty good for weekly ''in progress'' presentations of ideas, but I think having a board is essential. For final reviews, people in Prix Studio( and Hadid and Lynn) use so much animation(particle flows, real flow, etc..etc...)that a digital presentation is done first, and then the crit follows with the aid of a printed pin up.

      May 23, 08 4:38 pm  · 
       · 

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