This semester I am taking part in what is being called "Networks Studio: Crossing Infrastructures" which is a 2nd year grad student wide  (94 students) studio effort.  The idea is that, while broken up into individual studios of around 11 students each, we will all share a joint site and overall ambition. 

Each separate studio will approach the site and program, which is the site of the proposed new international bridge crossing between Detriot, MI and Windor Canada, from different angles and motivations.  The end result will hopefully be 94 unique proposals ranging over 14 different approaches all converging into an overall shared disciplinary conversation about infrastructure and architecture's role...responsibility? within it.

My particular studio section, led by Professor Thom Moran http://bit.ly/tLm7mu, will be investigating the "Big Box" and its place within architectural discourse.  Studio brief...

Spatial Products:

"Instead of assuming that the vast interior spaces created for the smooth functioning of global commerce are so common that they do not warrant study, we will start from the opposite assumption: they are so advanced that we need to learn more about them.  We will proceed outward from our own expertise, buildings, investigating how architectural agency can come from an architectural detail or product, permeating the nuts and bolts of global commerce with new sensibilities."

The untangled, non-architect jargon, goal of this course is to investigate Big Box stores from the point of view that they are totally awesome in the advanced ways in which they seamlessly move merchandise from the store to our pockets.  

Our first task was to research the way in which these stores are put together, through stealthy measuring techniques.  The result of which were larger than life drawings as detailed as we could possibly make them.