Time: 5:56pm
Meals: 2
Life: On Pause

______________________

Quote of the Week:

"You know what, as long as mine looks really cool, I don't REALLY care if it worked." - Jared

______________________

Half of our midterms are over... We had a great critique last night that was equally informative and confusing. I feel fortunate to be able to listen to so many different points of view on the same model. I believe that we had seven people on the panel all of which, as expected, brought their own ideals into the conversation. It was so interesting to see where their minds immediately went... Which on mine, was the interior of a poorly crafted model. The project was to create a a form in Maya and then actually build it. We paired it with 5 surface study models, one wireframe structural model, and several drawings that described the way in which the model could be built. The most interesting drawing that we all created was a matrix drawing that displayed the rendered Maya model from every angle possible.

Anyways, back to my point: It seemed as if the panel wasn't that interested in what we created, but it what we could come from it. This idea of continual generation is very interesting. All of the panel members were very interested in the interior spatial qualities of my model... I hadn't even thought about the interior of my model. It kind of surprised me, because I didn't think that it would be a point of interest. In fact, it never crossed my mind. I'm excited to see how it will manifest itself in our next project.

For studio,We presented a project that was not yet architecture, but had qualities that will later become architecture. As I'm sure everyone knows, a student can not just jump into a project without some form of a foundation from which to grow. Our studio class is providing that foundation so that later we can exploit the information given for something much more interesting.
An old instructor once told me, "Candace, you have to know the rules before you can break them." Of course, like always, he recognized that I was getting ahead of myself and attempting to pull my horse while trying to redesign the cart.

I'm excited about my project for my Modern Tectonics class. We have spent a great deal of time researching Mies. Now we get to take an assigned building and redesign it... a "what would Mies do" project. The final product should utilize Mies' sensibilities in a new way. I have the IBM Building (330 N Wacker Chicago, IL). I am going to invert the Miesian elements. In other words, where there was once an I beam will now be a void in the solid facade and the outward pointing corner will now be an inward pointing corner while utilizing a double skin construction. I have yet to really start on the production end of this project but I have all of the materials to begin, which I think is half the battle. Including the okay from my instructor, which is what I needed before I could really begin.

Theory is always an interesting class. I really enjoy hearing everyone's take on the readings. Naturally, I am little self-conscience about speaking in the class because I never feel like I can fully say what I mean or that I've misread the article and I am completely off base. We are reading a lot each week and I am still having trouble developing an argument or conversation based on the articles because I am still digesting them several weeks later. It feels like we could spend weeks discussing some of the longer, more in depth articles instead of just an hour or two. I plan to reread everything over Christmas break so that I can spend more time invested in each piece, but that doesn't really help me now.
There is still one argument that was presented in class that i wish to rebut here because I didn't get a chance to because the topic was changed quickly.
A classmate made a statement about an article called Blow Up by Penelope Dean. Who is on staff at UIC and was present on our panel last night. In short, the article is about architects that were invited to design tea pots and divulged into the idea of scale, typology, mass production, etc. One architect began scaling up the form of a tea pot and placing it into an urban setting as if it were a building.
The statement was something like: "But it isn't architecture. It doesn't look like architecture. It's a tea kettle placed near buildings."
I wished I would have impolitely butted in and said: "So, define architecture then." I don't believe that one can dismiss an idea for architecture because it doesn't look like their idea of what Architecture is.
Architecture isn't just four walls, a door, a window and, if you're lucky, a chimney place through the roof. We all know that not all buildings are architecture and not all architecture is a building... so where does one begin to draw the lines around their idea of architecture? Do we shoot the arrow and then draw the target? I don't think that something has to be created to be considered architecture.
I am slowly beginning to realize that Theory only creates more questions and that questions can be answered successfully with another question. Most of my notes from that class are questions and not answers. I don't think that there can ever be a definitive answer to most questions, because it seems as if everything inside of this field is malleable. Or, that there are so many answers to each question one has to just choose the answer that fits them best or, just answer the question for yourself and quit worrying about what everyone else thinks. The latter part being the most intriguing.

Photographs from our Review

This is Chris' presentation


A Panel member looking into the interiors of the models - a consistent occurrence.




Mark