Dear Readers,

Before I begin trying show you what will happen at the DRL this semester, I want to tell you why I am here. The answer is fear coated in luck.

The fear comes from the fact that this school, and particularly the DRL program represent an experience that is completely foreign to me. It appears to be an extremely informal world that is dedicated to an experimental view of reality. I think Brett Steele put it very aptly in his welcome remarks when he said that the AA is committed to teaching and learning architecture not as it is currently is, but in new ways that that we don’t fully understand yet. There is a very exciting comfort level with the undefined and intriguingly ambiguous here that seems very unique to me. I say it is foreign for me because my background is so practical. I grew up farming in the States, working with very large machines and very dangerous animals to solve very real problems. Professionally, my experience as a designer has been shaped by adapting, transforming and modifying the traditional materials and diagrams of architecture to create built work at the end of the process. Both experiences, as Brette Steele might say, deal primarily with architecture as it is already understood. There has been a real satisfaction for me in this practical world of building and working land that solves immediate needs for people I know. I can’t help but to take a portion of this feeling with me to the DRL in the form of questions about the relevance of these academic experiments and their beautifully exotic forms. It’s a valid question and one I have seen discussed on many blogs involving digitally advanced programs, but it is not one I wish to detail with you here.

What I hope instead, is to focus on the thought process and intentions behind the experiments regardless of what the final results end up being. The interesting thing here I believe is how the DRL teaches one to think; to pursue concepts to incredibly unpredictable conclusions. This process is what the school truly has to offer because the ever changing agendas are simply vehicles for the DRL’s way of thinking to be expressed and evolve.

So now you have it, my perspective and my bloging agenda. In many ways I think I am as curious to explore and understand this program as you are so please post your questions and thoughts and let the discussions envelope what you are interest in knowing.