Archinect : News : Cal Poly Pomona Senior Project Review; Class of 2008

Kristine Chua-Suminski - K-8 school for kids with High-Functioning Autism

I hadnï¿½t the faintest idea about what to expect, while I was driving thirty some miles to Cal Poly Pomona Senior Projects Reviews as a jury. Since recent 'jury duties' in Sci Arc and USC left me with slightly high expectations and presentation wealth, I figured this would be a good opportunity to discover what the poor cousins were doing with 'limited' software and hard cash resources...
Pleasant surprise was, most projects, presented on standard 3.5'x8' boards and hand modeled by cardboard and balsa wood, reflected close attention to the world we live in, people we need to take care of as architects and personal imagination we must work with.
Pleasant surprise was, lack of superficial research and case studies of starchitects to anchor projects in equally superficial pedigree assimilations.
Pleasant surprise was, students' and faculty's unpretentious attitude and honest commentary on projects. The criticism were centered on the project, not on the faculty.
This was a school of architecture far from a signature building, media savvy professors and visiting dignitaries, who brought in the latest gossip and strategic alliances from East Coast, Dubai and/or something.
Welcome to Cal Poly Pomona, where they don't need to follow a fashion style. Here, the ideas are homegrown and hit the terra firma against the all odds and drainage conditions. No more of that Maya gray flat surface, where all buildings sit on without neighbors or other signs of life.

Tony Pacheco - Orphanage in Baja, Mexico

A brief sampling of projects I attended;
The School for the Blind was a real exercise on designing a handsome building that thoughtfully utilized every inch of available surface.
An observatory on top of a mountain nearby made you want to go there and look at Pluto. A church from a converted industrial building alongside the freeway made you want to pray.
It was nice to see orphans were well taken care of in Baja, Mexico.
A performance arts center could be build alongside a shopping mall.
A public park extended over the San Francisco Bay.
And you could follow the twelve steps in one of the most poetically designed buildings.
A Rodeo Arena was another one.
There were many more meaningfully developed projects, but I was already committed to something else for the following day.

Sergut Berhanu - Bath house in Ethiopia

No, they were not about half-baked ideas geared towards a possible job in a loudly famous architect's office to stack PR person contact cards upon graduation.
They were more like coming from responsible students who understood the value of their contribution to the build environment might indeed benefit the very society they were coming from. I have not seen one project that was not buildable and therefore had to hide behind the latest digital euphoria of so called sculptural nonsense.

Lyle Fricke- the Big Bear Observatory.

Potential employers should take note.

Congratulations to all students and their teachers for the graduating class of Cal Poly Pomona Architecture School, for displaying talent and letting everyone know they are a class act by their own... Great work by all!

Slideshow of the projects
Flickr Album w/ Credits

Project Credits: (to be continued)

Kristine Chua-Suminski - K-8 school for kids with High-Functioning Autism
Tony Pacheco - Orphanage in Baja, Mexico
Sergut Berhanu - Bath house in Ethiopia
Lyle Fricke- the Big Bear Observatory
Derek Cunha - San Francisco Park
Brandon Henry - School for the Blind
Kenny Cho - Villa Torre
Stephen Nieto - Disaster Preparedness + Relief Center for the city of Santa Monica
Jimmy Gil Macias - The Elena Luz Children's Center
Payal Patel - Global Warming Awareness Center
Seth Trotter - A retail bridge challenging the deadzone created by the 101 freeway, Los Angeles.
Houston Drum - Skyscraper University, Los Angeles

With special thanks to faculty members for inviting me;

Sarah Lorenzen
Axel Prichard-Schmitzberger
and,
Alexander (Sasha) Ortenberg, Ph.D, AIA
Judith Sheine, R.A.

this is awesome!!! i am so proud of my alma mater! thanks for writing this up orhan.

congrats to the cal poly senior class of '08. i know a few of you personally, and am very proud of you guys, all of you.

keep up the good work!!!

- dreadlocks dread, Jun 13, 08 | 3:46 pm

Orhan, great review and very cool work.

I understand that you're opening a dialog here, but I think that the confrontational tone, which you're no doubt employing for rhetorical effect, does that dialog a disservice.

First, to equate Digital Fabrication -> Research -> Maya -> Starchitecture -> Dubai -> East Coast -> Gossip and Fashion ... it's just too easy. For one thing, many people would link Digital Formalism more closely with the West Coast than the East, and this isn't about Tupac vs. Biggie anyway. Research is something that everyone can employ, it's a method, and when carried out well, everyone benefits, when carried out badly, call it out. You're on the jury, right?

The same thing goes for fabrication, scripting, modeling, whatever ... this school obviously uses a laser cutter, and there are amazing things that can be done with Sketchup and even free software - form doesn't have to be expensive.

And second, why can't we have both? Form is interesting and exciting, so is place, and texture, and research, and x, and y, etc ... Is a chipboard sculpture floating in empty basswood somehow more authentic and honest than a bunch of Nurbs on 50% grey? Can't we like Lebbeus and Hernan?

I think the most important thing is this: to uphold one thing as the true way at the expense of another is, at best, lazy rhetoric. At worst, it is to use the exact same tactics that the people you're implicitly calling out here use every day: petty academic turf wars and the dishonest division of the world into the One True Way, and the Others who get left behind by the Discourse.

Let's not fall into that trap again. We find meaning through making things with tools (digital and material), and through research (abstract and practical), and through living in places (in our lives and our minds). It doesn't have to be either/or, thankfully. Architecture is a Big Tent, and it would be foolish and shortsighted to push some people and ideas out of it just because our culture at large seems to be (hopefully is) moving in another direction.

- sevensixfive, Jun 13, 08 | 4:27 pm

i agree with 765.

there must be a happy marriage between the digital dazzlement and the fabric of a model. and in that regard, i did not see one hand drawing - and if we're to at best agree with the principle of eradicating the "Maya gray flat surfaces", (which these projects clearly demonstrate the ability to), i'd like to see the integrity shown in some kick-ass heartfelt hand (or hybrid) drawings...are ya with me??

nonetheless - they are very interesting projects that do demonstrate that we don't have to bow to the idiotic trends, fashions, and bullshit of blobitecture and archispeak (or even worse - a combination of all above mentioned) to show succesful design research is implemented in our upcoming ranks.

good job polycal

- kyll, Jun 13, 08 | 8:37 pm

i also agree with 765. to me it's all about looking past the method of representation and looking at the project's design merit, meaning simply because there is a basswood model, does not make every project made of basswood more authentic or exceptional. besides, i would not be the least bit surprised if the majority of these projects were generated using rhino...and it's not about having access to fancy softwares as any student will tell you (off the record) that most softwares out there can easily be obtained for free. having said that, i think there are 2 or 3 exceptional projects being displayed here while others look very familiar. like 765 says, call out the bad ones and learn from the good ones. in the same vein, a blanket disgregard of any project done with 'maya 50% gray' limits one from learning from the good ones.

- dot, Jun 14, 08 | 3:58 pm

orhan, are you saying the sci-arc students CAN't do any of the things you praised at calpoly?

do they choose not to, or maybe they did it 3 years ago and have now moved onto more abstract work? or are they really all unemployable arrogant bas-turds as you imply?

- jump, Jun 14, 08 | 5:15 pm

little touchy there, ey jump?

where are you reading this? nowhere in orhan's review was i able to infer that that is what he meant. i'm pretty sure he was reacting to the general trends going on in architecture schools all over, and not necessarily just at sci-arc.

don't worry. i think i get where this is coming from, though.

i've been visiting archinect for +/- 7 years now. it seems as though whenever cal poly comes up in threads it's usually bashed as being 2nd-rate.

let this dog have its day. sci-arc will always be "cooler" anyway.

and don't worry, statements like this:

"...maybe they did it 3 years ago and have now moved onto more abstract work"

don't make you sound arrogant or elitist at all.

- dreadlocks dread, Jun 14, 08 | 5:42 pm

It seems that Cal Poly Pomona in recent years has done a good job of bringing in some young and interesting professors. That always has a trickle down effect on the students work and how the school is viewed.
With that said I think the critique of other schools based on a comparison to Poly Pomona's senior projects is absurd. Is it possible to praise a group of projects without attacking students who work really hard towards a creative and thought provoking architecture? Many of these students with "half baked ideas" have worked extremely hard to get into good schools (sometimes with considerable debt) where there is a system set up to explore architecture in both its built form and its long history of theoretical debate. These "half baked ideas" are actually an attempt at a thesis and not just a project with very standard student picked programs. Some of these students already went to schools like Cal Poly Pomona and have decided that they need a deeper exploration of architecture.
I can tell you the fundamental problem with Cal Poly Pomona's program. There is no studio culture. Students take their classes and go home to work on their "standard 3.5'x8' boards." This praise of how the projects were presented was the most degrading part of this review. Why should this standardization of presentation be praised? Because they are "buildable projects" and simple for you to critique.
There are people a Cal Poly who do good work and are interested pushing boundaries but from this review makes it sound like a hermetic vocational design school opposed to what's going on in the architectural world. I hope this is not the way it is and I especially hope that this is not the image Cal Poly Pomona wants to project.
Well done on making the students you praised seem a step behind the architectural world. But at least they are employable right?

- yepp111, Jun 14, 08 | 8:28 pm

ha lo,l dread. i

know, i am starting to get kind a defensive by default when people start bashing people for not fitting the buildability mold. no offense meant to orhan. i actually intended it as a straight question, without irony or smirk.

really what i meant was maybe the kids at sci-arc are doing just what Architectonicita said. you know come from the straight-and-narrow and now want to do something else.

there is an orthodoxy in the study of science that says any study in the field, no matter how absurd will pay off someday. it doesn't matter if it is practical. or indeed if it ever becomes practical, because knowledge is in itself valid and valuable.

take for example the study of anti-matter, which powers PET scans today. when the dudes was first looking at those clouds of positrons i am quite certain they had no function whatsoever (it was the 1930's!) but the work was still valid.

i really and truly believe what we have on the funky edge of architecture is of that persuasion. the end may not be in site but there could be a substantial pay off some day so i would like to see more not less, and i would also be happier if the study were not so readily bashed. there is a real culture emerging that sees it as perfectly valid to damn something just because it doesn't look like a proper building...

...ok, well maybe some if it is superficial, but that may be just cuz the profs are not requiring rigor (though i am not so sure about that either). i been doing this archi-thing since about 1990, so my perspective is pretty short, but i really think there is value in both the buildable and the not.

- jump, Jun 15, 08 | 3:45 am

Its kind of funny that Cal-poly pomona is compared with SCIArc without a hint of irony. SCIArc was formed from disgruntled, Ex-Cal-poly pomona students and faculty. Similar to the way AA was founded, by couples of guys who said fuck with tradition. Guess which school is pumping out pritzker winners... O.K its AA not SCIArc, but then again, AA is almost 200 years old. Time will tell if the America's AA will be the next influential school, thanks in partly to Calpoly Pomona.

- Xmanifold, Jun 15, 08 | 10:22 am

As a student, I absolutely agree that raising one method, philosophy or attitude toward design education over another is never beneficial. Here in the east coast a lot of us see this digital vs. analog, buildable vs. unbuildable, pretentious/elite vs. practical divide between faculty in the same school, and the only people who suffer because of it are the students, who are taught that 2-D drawings are a thing of the past one semester, then belittled for not putting in door-swings the next. Why would you discriminate against knowledge?

- CorBooBoo, Jun 15, 08 | 10:54 am

Actually i think it works best when you have all the people who disagree with each other all in one place. That way you if you're a student you can move from one True Believer to another like changing channels, and decide for yourself, or just decide it's all bs and do whatever you want to do.

Disagreement is good, kinda like archinect! ;D

- sevensixfive, Jun 15, 08 | 12:06 pm

SCIArc's history is in no way comparable to the AA - Appels and grapefruits - Plus that has nothing to do with this argument - Juxtaposition of different methodologies is what schools should teach- Not wether it's buildable or not -

SCIArc was created by people who left Cal Poly and those people turned out to be some great architects because of it - This situation could only happen in Los Angeles at that time - Definitly not comparable to London

The tone of the review of these students work is extremely off base and I would love to see whoever wrote it pushing these ideologies at the AA- It would go something like this - "It's a compelling project on how to use rapid prorotyping to create temporary shelters for displaced refugees, but then again you didn't seem to use and bass wood in your model. It just doesn't seem pure enough or buildable"

- yepp111, Jun 15, 08 | 12:55 pm

765,

I'm all for true believers, but they have to at least talk to each other and try to understand where the other side is coming from / getting at. I mean when two people at a review have differing opinions on whether or not plans and sections are "necessary anymore," the student is in a bit of a difficult situation.

- CorBooBoo, Jun 15, 08 | 9:17 pm

CalPoly Pomona is a great a school and I completely disagree that it doesn't have a studio culture. Plus, you don't graduate with a $100,000+ loan that you have to pay back while your Sci-Arc and USC coworkers are struggling to make ends meet. Besides that, I'd just like to mention that there is more to life than architecture. So let's not criticize and argue about what school is better. It's what YOU make of your life and career after you are out of school.

- gwhite28, Jun 16, 08 | 5:55 pm

I might find this article informative if it were even remotely well written and/or articulate. Kudos to the students at Cal Poly for work well done but I am a little concerned about the fact that someone clearly lacking in any intellectual rigor would be selected to jury the Final Senior Review.

As architects we need to communicate not only visually but verbally as well. That is one thing I learned at my fancy, East Coast, art school and something clearly lacking here.

- Intellectual Rigour, Jun 17, 08 | 12:44 pm

wow. as a society of "professionals" why cant we just say something nice once in awhile without an award being attached to it.

Would you all be as mad if the article mentioned some other schools instead.
Well I have to say I went to some reviews at MIT's Master of Science in Architecture Studies (SMArchS) in May and I tell you that the discussion was not that much more advanced then the discussions I have been in at calpoly.

It seems like the whole point was that the projects were good enough to stand on their own with out alot of architectural nods and references.

I think what you all have to deal with is that Calpoly is actually a threat to you now and that they are showing that they can produce the same level of work and thought as you "special" schools.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

- archpatriot, Jun 17, 08 | 1:38 pm

"As architects we need to communicate not only visually but verbally as well. That is one thing I learned at my fancy, East Coast, art school and something clearly lacking here."

That's unnecessarily defensive, bitchy and smacks of deep insecurity. Unless you are being facetious, in which case, I apologize for what I just wrote. I went to one of those fancy East Coast architecture schools and in general, the people there (and architects in general IMHO) were *horrible* writers. And not very articulate or engaged when it came to anything outside architecture. I didn't major in architecture in undergrad and I honestly think I came out of grad school with weaker communication skills and narrower thinking. Oh, and a heap of debt that I will never emerge from.

"It's what YOU make of your life and career after you are out of school."

Exactly. Which, when I think about it, is depressing, since I haven't made much of life after school and am still trying to figure out what to do. In general, this 'debate' is so pathetic-no one outside of architecture cares-the stakes are so ridiculously low and you people are too myopic to realize it. So you continue to go in circles, but very passionately.

- odb, Jun 17, 08 | 3:23 pm

I hate that "nobody outside of architecture cares argument." It's fun to banter back and forth. Just in case you forgot we are architects / designers. It's alright to enjoy talking about architecture without someone who dreams of being an investment banker telling you what you can't argue about. Why did you spend all that time and money if you do not enjoy it? Did you not know that school costs money especially at fancy east coast schools? You should have passionately invested your money in and IRA and a few mutual funds.

I completely disagree that Cal Poly has a thriving studio culture. I have heard this from really good students who went there and professors too -

- yepp111, Jun 17, 08 | 6:40 pm

You don't need to be Derrida to critique a review - Another really annoying thing that people do- In two reviews I have heard the two fall backs for architects - 1) Nobody outside of architecture cares about architecture 2) You have to be smarter than everyone to have an opinion.
So Yes Intellectual Rigour is important but obviosly not for this review -It did do a good job stirring people up

- yepp111, Jun 18, 08 | 8:43 am