With much anticipation, we finally started orientation and school this week. 48 grads, and 48-1 undergrad (a guy decided to ditch arch for computer science). 90% of the 2 day orientation was, in my opinion, rather bland, unrehearsed, and unnecessary. Many people left half-day. But here are some notes from the good 10%.

Professional Advisory’s Council – Supporting the UW as well as being supported by the UW, the PAC is in collaboration with the school.

The PAC talked about the “previously linear” trends that are changing to “integrate design with interdisciplinary” approach, “BIM”, “sustainable design”, and that it is “global process, in which Seattle firms are designing all over the world.” Well…duhh…but they also talked about the lack of firm diversity (white male dominance) and the 2030 Challenge (carbon neutral), which was new knowledge to me.

Talks of a Department of Architecture dates back to the 1890s at UW, and was realized in 1914 with the School of Architecture. Apparently, the small “School” was in a temporary building left over from the AYP Expo and was called the “shack”.

The UW owns property in Rome, in Palazzo Pio (Campo de’ Fiori), unsurprising called the UW Rome Center. It was founded by the Department of Architecture, and there are (expensive) studio study abroad opportunities there, as well as Japan, India, Mexico, England, and others.

We have a College "Swap Shop", a no-regulation recycling closet for unused studio material. Give/Take I guess. I want to see how it is at the end of the year.

Gould Hall, the architecture building, was designed by the faculty in 1972. It has a built in photo-lab/darkroom and woodshop.

Integrated Design Lab – still looking at what it’s about.

This is the 3rd year undergraduate studio. We're doing "STICK STUDIO" - more on that later. One thing, the author of all those Ching books, designed the studio...