So far, Year 2 of the 3.5 MARCH program seems a bit more manageable than the heinous Year 1. Frequent flashes of "ohmygod i can't believe i'm actually watching a movie and not doing architecture-should i be feeling guilty right now? hmmm...no actually i guess i'm ok, at least for now...but damn i really suck at structures i should probably be reviewing beams right now...hmmm..." continually distracted me while watching HERO last weekend.

Tho honestly, aren't we all "doing architecture", all the time? Passions/obsessions don't rest for long and any little thing may at any moment (moment about a or b, or would it be the hinge at c sigh) trigger the sleeping dragon. During HERO, it was my silent vow to someday create a space with the feeling of "the emperor's throne room with the blowing green fabric" during the final sword fighting scene...

I've created a curious and wonderful juxtaposition for myself this semester. I'm taking Digital Design from a late-90s graduate of Columbia's MARCH program while also taking Studio from our professor emeritus who left his native Lithuania for the West during WWII.

Our "textbook" for Digital Design is WIRED Magazine, while our studio shopping list includes the purchase a fountain pen and fountain pen ink (not India ink, whatever that is) for our design work. As you might imagine, all drawings are to be done by hand.

Having worked in high tech for many years, I'm a digital person almost by nature. However, I think there's a lot to be said for the learning and pragmatic value of hand-drawing and -drafting. And maybe I'm being sentimental here but purely out of respect for the profession and for our predecessors over the past few thousand years, I believe we should (dare I say) even take joy in floundering our way through a hand-drafted plan or perspective sketch.

Does anyone else have thoughts on this? Is hand drawing/drafting a waste of valuable time?

just gettin up and running, doing a little test while waiting for new (widescreen :-)) laptop to make its much-awaited appearance. quick foray through the archinect job postings results in a daunting list of software it looks like we will be/are in the process of/should be freaking out about... View full entry