First of all, I apologize for my late appearance on the site, but alas, here I am.  As an introduction, I want to tell you a little bit about myself and about Taubman College, the architecture school at the University of Michigan.

My name is Lauren and I'm in my last year of Michigan’s three-year Master of Architecture program.  I hail from the east coast, born and raised in suburban New York. I went to college at Brown University in Providence, RI and majored in one of their independent majors: Public and Private Sector Organizations, which focused on a collection of business theories ranging from economics and political science to sociology.  I was also premed.  That said, it was during my senior year, sitting in Dietrich Neumann's History of Contemporary Architecture class listening to him want to just "hug" the most recent case study building, that I found architecture as a real personal interest.

After Brown, I began to pursue my path in the world of architecture, and test whether or not it was really for me.  I worked at SOM in NY as a PR Coordinator, and after being around some of the most passionate people I had met in my life, I was convinced that I wanted to be a part of this world, and hopefully contribute to it.  So, after almost three years in New York, I found myself arriving in Ann Arbor, MI, ready and eager, and not just for the football.

Without any architectural training in my past, I started at TCAUP (Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning) during the summer of 2009, in the three-year Master of Architecture program.  During the first year, I learned the basics through a series of different charges: a bathhouse, an urban agricultural center and seed bank, and a library.  These three major studio projects served as vehicles for larger ideas involving the role of site, program, geometry, environmental conditions, representation and communication, context, etc.  More importantly, that first year taught me how to be an architecture student, and how to get the most that I can out of the program.

The second year was an exploration of ideas that required more depth of thinking.  In the fall: challenging the condition of domesticity as it relates to the original American Dream, given the nature of social, political and economic conditions today.  In the winter: understanding the role of history in contemporary architecture: site, geometry, material, effect and experience.  While these studios challenged my intellectual reach and application through design, they also helped me parse out more specific interests within architecture.

Now, as a student in my third year, I am in the process of working through my final design studio and formulating my thesis.  As a quick introduction to the offerings this year, I have attached the studio and thesis briefs explaining our available options.  I promise to expound more on Rough + Orange and AS-BUILT, the studio and thesis groups that I chose to pursue, as time goes on.

Any questions? Feel free to throw them my way.  I’d love to contribute to this blog with my own sets of anecdotes and information, as well as with responses to others’ thoughts and ideas…