Archinect - University of Illinois Chicago (Matthew)

2013YES

2013-05-09T03:38:58-04:00

And we're done!

With final reviews wrapping up today another year of school has closed. Much more on that soon.

After a long silence I will be starting a long series of post on projects from this semester, and perhaps a retrospective of the past three years.

Until then, everyone should stop by our Year End Show this Friday. It is one of the best chances to get a sense of the school.

Year End Show

Friday May 10

5:00-7:30pm

UIC AA Building

845 W. Harrison Street

Rome Prize | Thomas Kelley

2013-04-20T00:49:45-04:00

UIC at it again with the Rome Prize!

Congratulations to Thomas Kelley.

His work can be found here. Here is a quick look at Thomas' recent undergrad students' works at UIC.

Exactly Wrong - Robert Becker

This is the Second Rome Prize won by SOA@UIC Faculty in the last three years with Sean Lally's win in Landscape Architecture.

In other news... Did anyone come to see Michael Webb? One the best lectures I have ever attended. Genius !

Lecture | Michael Webb

2013-04-15T20:50:37-04:00

Lecture
April 16
6pm • 1100 A+A

Michael Webb
Professor, The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Cooper Union
New York

Open House

2013-04-09T12:16:09-04:00

I just wanted to give a shout out to all of the Accepted Grads that came (an didn't come) to the Open House this last weekend. It was great to meet you all, and I hope every had an enlightening time. I always enjoy the open houses as they help me reflect on why I go to UIC. For any of you that are still on the fence, I will once again refer to this post.

It essentially explains the Ideology of the school, and exactly the reason I am here.

The view from Cannon.

Also a thanks to JGMA, SOM, and Cannon for letting us all take a look at your offices.

Douglas A. Garofalo Fellowship | Candidate Public Presentations

2013-03-30T15:48:25-04:00

The UIC School of Architecture is proud to announce the three finalists in the inaugural search of the Douglas A. Garofalo Fellowship for the 2013–2014 academic year. Named in honor of architect and educator Doug Garofalo (1958–2011), this newly established nine-month teaching fellowship provides emerging designers the opportunity to teach studio and seminar courses in the undergraduate and graduate programs and conduct independent design research. The fellowship also includes a public event in the spring.

Each candidate will give a public presentation in room 1100 of the Art and Architecture Building. We welcome you to attend:

Tuesday, April 2, 12pm
Andrew Holder

Wednesday, April 3, 12pm
Tiffany Wey

Monday, April 8, 12pm
Molly Hunker

Lecture:Mirko Zardini

2013-03-08T18:58:26-05:00

MONDAY NIGHT

Mirko Zardini
Director and Chief Curator, Canadian Centre for Architecture
Montreal

Lecture
March 11
6pm • 1100 A+A

The Risk of Failure

2013-02-28T10:43:17-05:00

In a recent article of betterymagazine.com our Interim Dean Robert Somol posses a question to an OSA architectural network workshop and students from the Manchester School of Architecture.

Somol asks, "How do we mobilize the risk of failure in a world that demands security?"

Check out the responses and conversation here, and let's hear what everyone has to say about it.

FreshMeat/Possible Mediums

2013-02-19T11:59:00-05:00

There has been a flurry of activity over at the FreshMeat website this year, and in the last week a handful of interesting articles have popped up.

First is the Possible Mediums: Rapid Reactions.

"This post will consist of our experience and interactions at Possible Mediums." In the article we get a look at the conference at Knowlton from three UIC perspectives.

As well as a look at Possible Mediums there are also a handful of studio updates from the undergrads; including a look at last semesters Cemetery Studio led by Grant Gibson.

”The goal of this studio is to design a place for the remains of the dead. A simple and direct, yet extremely conflicted request."

Also take look through some of this semesters progress in the studio blogs.

Cheers

FreshMeat + Knowlton + Archizines

2013-01-30T23:47:00-05:00

OHIO PEOPLE!

Fresh Meat, UIC's Architecture Journal is coming your way!

"Fresh Meat has been invited by One: Twelve, the Knowlton School of Architecture’s student journal, to join them in a panel—titled Little Architectures: Publishing, Prose, and Practice—that will prelude the opening of the Archizines exhibition there on Friday, February 1. Fresh Meat and One: Twelve will each present a topic—on authorship and collaboration respectively—followed by a panel discussion with Elias Redstone of Archizines, and Brandon Clifford of MIT and Matter Design. The discussion will be concluded with the ARCHIZINES exhibit opening and reception.

On the next day, both One:Twelve and Fresh Meat will collaborate on the design and production of a “mini-publication” that will engage the same topics discussed at the ARCHIZINES LIVE EVENT.

For more information, check out their post on One: Twelve’s website."

Portfolio Day 2013

2013-01-26T13:25:49-05:00

Come One, Come All

Friday, February 1

6-730pm

Studio Zago

2013-01-16T02:28:00-05:00

And we are back, and this is our last semester of Architecture school, ever.

After a long semester of research into the form and techniques of Incusion, we start our journey into the application of those technique to achieve "Novel Effects."

What exactly those Effects are... I will let you know in a few months. I can venture to say that they will aspire to be political/economical/polemical to some degree.

Our project will be designed on the site of the, now closed, Fisk Power Plant in the Pilson neighborhood of Chicago. We are in the initial research phase of site analysis and program discussion, but the project aims to have larger urban implications, to possibly include city policy.

One of the main focuses of the class is that we are not hoping to bring the level of Abstraction down to the standards of build-able Reality, but rather, promote Reality to the intellectual level of Abstraction. Essentially, to not dismiss Abstraction for the "truth" of Reality. The end...

Looking In Climbing Up

2013-01-11T17:42:00-05:00

I don't believe I ever posted this project.

This was a competition entry for the ComEd Powerful Design Competition here in Chicago. The brief was to design a new Lineworker training facility for ComEd, a power distribution company.

This was our Second Place entry.

Team-

Matthew Messner, Evgeniya Plotnikova, Matthew Schneider, Maureen Rahman

The concept of our design was to wrap the classrooms, administration and a public learning area around a dynamic indoor hands on training area. As trainees climbed the indoor poles they would come up to the level of the class rooms and circulation of the building.

Cheers

Studio Berlin 2012

2013-01-08T22:50:07-05:00

In true Studio Berlin fashion, this last summer's group has put together a short film on their escapades throughout Europe. Enjoy!

A GO GO

2013-01-03T15:18:00-05:00

As promised here is a look at the final product from Sam Jacob and Jimenez Lai's Repitition Studio.

But First. I wanted to thank everyone for reading this blog and making it one of the Top 12 blogs on Archinect. Very Awesome. Thank You.

For the mid-term I investigated the idea of the conflation of Section, Plan and Scale though a model and a large drawings. Patterns and Architectural drawing conventions were used to create an Architectural Drawing of a Non-Architecture.

The Final was a distillation process of lessons learned from the earlier work to produce an Architecture. Color was taken out of the equation to bring the drawings closer to more normative conventions, but pattern was still used as a means of defining territories within the project.

Programmatically, the building is comprised of large urban mansions and more dense "couch houses." Its perforated cubic form is suspended above its site.

Thanks for checking it out.

...

Final Push

2012-12-07T04:00:21-05:00

Only a few days left in the semester.

Finals one Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Third Year Grad finals will be all day Wednesday. Mine in the Afternoon.

Stop by and take a look.

Here is a peak at one of my drawings.

Designing the Election: Part II

2012-11-06T01:24:00-05:00

Here is the second of two posts about the design aspects of the election. In our Designing Criticism class we have been discussing what the design of particular aspects of the campaign tell us about our electoral process and our democracy.

This first essay,was by Adrianne Jørgensen. It can be found here.

This is my contribution. Happy Voting.

As Seen on TV: American Democracy
Matthew Messner

It is through the Presidential electoral process that we can read the American ideal of democracy. It is no secret that every last detail of every campaign is meticulously planned. It is a system that is designed and, ironically, agreed upon. While in reality it may have nothing to do with what democracy really is, it is exactly what might make it all so American. Nowhere is this more clear than in the televised debates.

In recent elections, the main debates have taken the form of a three part series. The first is the classical ideal of the debate with two candidate...

Designing the Election: Part I

2012-11-05T21:41:00-05:00

The first of two, this is an essay about the design of the election. In our Designing Criticism class we have explored what the design of particular aspects of the campaign tell us about our electoral process and our democracy.

This first essay, by Adrianne Jørgensen is about the furniture of the debates. The second essay will be ready for your morning coffee, before you go out to vote.

This debate comes fully furnished.
Adrianne Joergensen

The last thirteen Presidential debates have had one thing in common: they are exclusively a made-for-TV production. And like other television productions, their power dynamics are not ruled by the actors, but by the architecture of the set.

Television sets have their own archetypes, the most iconic being that of the talk show. Part office, part living room, this is the time and place for serious discussion and emotional outpouring to share equal ground. Furniture is borrowed from real life, but through the medium of television, ...

Incusion with Andrew Zago

2012-11-04T01:35:00-04:00

This Saturday we had our ARCH566 Research Seminar Midterm. We were joined by Jeff Kipnis, Jose R. Oubrerie, John McMorrough, Sam Jacob, Jimenez Lai, and Bob Somol.

The title of Arch566 is "Architecture considered in relation to art, customs, and legislation; in which several and diverse extraordinary methods of the architect are examined as to their novel effects on society throughout history, their mastery by students, and their application in a project of pressing concern" (that is really the title)

Tought by Andrew Zago and Sarah Blankenbaker.

From the Brief- "Invoking the political capacity of architecture, Winston Churchill observed that, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” Yet the exact nature of architecture’s efficacy in shaping the politics of life is both beguiling and elusive, resistant as it is to measure.
Borrowing from Churchill, these courses take as their assumption that the shape or form of a building is a political act, and that the...

Tom Leader Lecture

2012-10-29T13:17:01-04:00

Tonight Tonight

Work of Adrianne Jørgensen

2012-10-23T20:26:17-04:00

Asked for a single large image for our ARCH565 midterm with Sam Jacob and Jimenez Lai, this is the work of Adrianne Jørgensen. This measured approximately 5'6" in diameter.

Yokohama and 100 Posts

2012-10-22T03:09:00-04:00

This is my 100th post on Archinect. I would like to thank everyone for reading/commenting/complaining/sharing over the past 2 years or so. I have a bit more time left at UIC so let's see if we can hit 200.

In honor of 100 posts I have the pleasure of presenting my teams Honorable Mention project from the Think Space Past Forward Competition. Held earlier this year the brief involved redesigning the FOA's Yokohama Port Terminal using the information/brief that was given to them during the original competition. Alejandro Zaera-Polo was the judge.

The team consisted of Lulu Alzaid, Adrianne Jørgensen, Evgeniya Plotnikova, and me.

We opted to do the entire compatition through one drawing. No 3d modeling. There was some simple conceptual physical modeling (mostly in the form of a triangle snake toy) and obviously a lot of sketching. The representational technique was heavily influenced by Japanese narratives and woodblock prints, specifically the work of Hiroshige and...

Designing Criticism

2012-10-11T02:14:00-04:00

Of Bank Vaults and Prescription Drugs

There is a place in Wicker Park, Chicago, where you can by condoms and pick up Prozac prescriptions in a room with a 30' stained glass and heavy timber ceiling.

Wicker Park is the model of an 'ideal' urban neighborhood for the early 21st century American city. The term 'gentrification' is often used as an adjective to describe its recent history. It is still in the cities short term memory that Wicker Park was an impoverished immigrant enclave, often dealing with gang violence and insurance fraud arsonists. By the 1990's a large influx of young artist and independent galleries filling numerous low rent loft spaces. In the “this begot that” evolution of the area, adaptive reuse underlaid a great deal of the development. In fact, the area has moved beyond the discussion of “where will the poor people go now that the neighborhood is too expensive?” to what is the appropriate adaptive reuse of a certain “now considered historic” buildings...

More UIC

2012-10-04T23:01:00-04:00

I try to keep up with posting on this blog, but even my best efforts only cover one point of view pertaining to UIC. Thankfully there is FreshMeat. This years crop of studio bloggers (kind of a micro school blog) cover almost every aspect of UIC grad and undergrad.

The posts have now started in ernist. Read about the second year grad's adventures in urbanism or Sarah Dunn's Commun-ity remix of a studio.

If that is not enough remember there is a Graduate Open house tomorrow, Friday Oct.5 for potential students. Come, let us show you why UIC might be a place to spend a great deal of your next three years. While every other outlet tries to talk you out of being an architect, we will explain why now is a great time to be an architect.

Heather Wick shows us imagery of their great expedition exploring the city around UIC.

Cheers

House House House

2012-10-01T00:53:48-04:00

ARCH 565/Prof.Sam Jacob/Prof.Jimenez Lai/Process work sans any explanation.

Clumsy Form One Last Time

2012-09-18T23:44:00-04:00

So last semester a bunch of people got in a tizzy about this post. And then everyone was mesmerized by this post.

Well, Daniel Starcher has recently updated his blog to include the final renderings from his Clumsy Form project. Here they are. Check out his blog for a few more.

Presenting Fat Alien

"often, architecture takes itself way too seriously or overcompensates to the opposite extreme resulting in formal one-liners. this project attempt to find a formal language that can be funny but without jokes. it is the Steven Wright of architecture, you will either get it or you wont." DS

Repetition Repetition Repetion

2012-09-14T12:22:00-04:00

Finishing up week three here at UIC.

I would be happy to say that I am in the home stretch of my Three Year Masters, but in reality it looks like I am going to stick around for one more year to get my Masters of Art and Design Criticism on top of my M.Arch. This is already starting to shape which classes I am taking. So far the shift into Criticism has been (technically this is a duel degree running concurrently) has been amazing.

So my class line up.

ARCH565 Topic Studio- Repetition- Sam Jacob and Jimenez Lai

ARCH566 Research Seminar- Architecture considered in relation to art, customs, and legislation; in which several and diverse extraordinary methods of the architect are examined as to their novel effects on society throughout history, their mastery by students, and their application in a project of pressing concern (that is really the title)- Andrew Zago and Sarah Blankenbaker (and sometimes Robert Somol)

ARCH587 Criticism- No Good- Robert Somol

ARCH520 Design ...

2012 Graduate Open House

2012-09-04T19:55:26-04:00

We are starting our second week of school at UIC. I will have more on what has been happening soon, but first.

The School of Architecture's Graduate Programs Open House will take place Friday, October 5, from 4:30 to 7:30pm. In addition to faculty presentations and an admissions information session, prospective students are invited to attend a faculty book launch for City Catalyst, an issue of Architectural Design guest-edited by Assistant Professor Alexander Eisenschmidt, and Citizens of No Place, an architectural graphic novel by Assistant Professor Jimenez Lai. To RSVP, complete the online registration form or contact Stephanie Niebuhr, Graduate Advisor, at sniebuhr@uic.edu.

I am sure I will be around to talk to perspective students as well, so come find me

"What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

2012-08-23T19:29:00-04:00

As part of the final presentation of work done for the AA/UIC Visiting school Doctoral Student Dipl.-Ing. Carin M. Schirmacher will be performing a short action in front of the Sears Tower tomorrow morning at 9am.

"Naming and Renaming buildings is especially here in Chicago a big topic (like the Marshall Fields/Macys). With this performance I want to question the naming rights and the causes that lie behind it in terms of architecture!"

Propaganda Flyers to be distributed during the act.

Dipl.-Ing. Carin M. Schirmacher
Research Fellow and Doctoral Student
Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, Germany
Chair of ArchitectureCulture - Theory of Architecture
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sokratis Georgiadis

There will be a few other short performances done in the area of the Sears Tower as well. Plan to be a few minutes late for work and stop by. Watch for a handful of Sears Tower Masked adorned Architecture students on the south side of the building along Jackson...

Sean Lally and Kirk Wooler - AA/UIC

2012-08-19T23:28:00-04:00

Two more to go!

The third in a four-part series of conversations on topics that are vital to the success of making ideas happen in the city.

6pm

Location: School of Architecture, Gallery 1100, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607.
Free and open to the public.

Sean Lally is a 2011-12 Rome Prize Winner, guest editor of AD Special Issue ‘Energies: New Material Boundaries’, Assistant Professor at UIC School of Architecture, and founder and principal of WEATHERS, a design practice that embraces and explores the overlap between architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design.

Kirk Wooller is Director of the AA/UIC Global Workshop and a Co-founder and Director at the environmental consultancy and architecture practice Remake Architecture, and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at UIC School of Architecture.

Felsen and Eisenschmidt - AA/UIC

2012-08-14T02:07:00-04:00

Here we go again. After last nights inspiring talk with Tigerman, the baton is passed to Felsen of UrbanLab.

The second in a four-part series of conversations on topics that are vital to the success of making ideas happen in the city.

Location: School of Architecture, Gallery 1100, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607.
Free and open to the public.

A photo I took for UrbanLab's 2012 Biennale submission.

Martin Felsen is a Principal of UrbanLab, serves on the Boards of Archeworks, Places: Design History Foundation, and the Extension Architecture Gallery, the Editorial Advisory Board of the Architect’s Newspaper, and is a Studio Associate Professor of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Alexander Eisenschmidt is Co-founder and Partner in the design practice Studio Offshore and an Assistant Professor at UIC School of Architecture.