It seems like we have already been in school for weeks, but yesterday was the first day that we had any classes beside studio. The seemingly slow start is nice, but makes me anxious, because I know it is only a matter of time before things really heat up...

Anyway, yesterday was our first Theory class with Sanford Kwinter, which seems like it is going to be excellent. The course is going to focus on problems in knowledge and forms. One of the things that I think will be really interesting is that he plans to go beyond just talking about architecture, but instead will generalize the problem to one of design as a whole.

Our other class was case studies in technology. This is just your typical study a building and document it type of class, but I think it will be really interesting. I like that we get to focus on just one specific building (of our choice) in great detail.

Studio is still marching along of course. On a personal note I am definitely having a bit of trouble migrating from the mindset of the working world back to the academic one. I definitely feel that my work experience will be helpful to bring to projects, but it is tough flexing my brain muscle again after two years of the left brain side of things! I think it is made more difficult because our project is really dealing with a lot of complicated urban issues so it is tough to get a handle on it...

We will be starting our first visual studies assignment tonight. This is an interesting thing that Penn does to try and teach representation/presentation skills. The 600 level deals with computers and the structure of the class is essentially a 3 day/4 times per semester crash course/emersion into the program with a design problem. It will no doubt be stressful, but it is probably the best way to learn a program. More on that later!