Second year design at pratt is the end of the fully theoretical- fully process based projects and the beginning of more pointed and architectural classes (i.e. very exciting). In the next few postings i will detail and give my thoughts on a few of these classes starting, of course, with design. In studio every section does the same basic project (a library) but in the beginning of the semester all of the second year professors give a presentation on their outlook on how that project should be approached and tackled. The eight professors views differed DRASTICALLY. While one professor noted that the semester would be about succinct hand-drawings generating clean plans and sections and stressed the importance of sketching another stated that the semester was not about a library but rather about "scripting" and noted to be ready for his computer bootcamp on the first day of studio. One professor resonated with me in particular. I firstly had to make the decision whether to go for a studio that was theoretical, computer-based and form/process based or a studio that focused more on the fundamentals of architecture and produced models/drawings that looked like actual buildings. I chose the latter- being that im still right in the beginning of my schooling i chose to focus on fundamentals. I can take a scripting course for a few weeks whenever i want- id rather focus on learning the history and theory behind things and look into the composition of buildings and drawings before i bother with anything considered "trendy". I find alot of value in many of the contemporary movements in architecture but as i said- theres time. Phillipe Baumann's presentation stood out because, although he was the only one out of the eight who had NOT taught at pratt before- i could tell he knew what he was talking about. Since he didnt have previous pratt student work to show he simply showed images of things that caught his eye- drawings (one in particular of a cartoon- kid-robot that had very interesting lineweights and composition) buildings, and even a monolithic concrete bus-stop. Well to cut to the chase i have him this year as my design professor.
As a professor hes not there to put on a show- hes there to teach- which in architecture school is a relief. He also gave everyone some amazing references to look into at the first crit- he harped on mies,
louis kahn and many other fundamental architects. While almost every other studio was doing precedent studies on the computer we started out doing hand-drawing. I studied the Seattle Central Library as precedent for what is to come.. more to come on that this week.



seatbelts.