A jury is generally thought of as a body of people who are responsible for giving a verdict in a legal case based on the evidence submitted to them in court. However, juries in architecture tend to function in a slightly different manner. They serve to structure and embody polemical tussles. Their existence produces a framework for intellectual progress, conversation, and questions, at times even subtle answers. Pupils present their work, questions, answers, some known and some unknown to the pupil themselves, to the jury. The role of juries may not be so much to pass a verdict but to pass on signs of light, paths towards knowledge and further questions.

As architecture looks to find legitimacy, clarity, and understanding beyond its institutional walls, it must also come to terms with the fact that not many eyes, minds and voices are represented and exposed to these opportunities for disciplinary advancement.

Architecture continually debates on how and why its value is diminishing, and questions why the public does not understand its intellectual and disciplinary advancements. Yet, it continually keeps all of its value and intellectual advancements within its own walls. The same rotation of names speak on the same issues, recite the same critiques and echo the same statements of manifestos past. The current format of architectural juries continue this auto-cannibalistic cycle.

What then is the future format of juries, if there is one? What would it look like? Who sits on it? Do they sit? What are the most effective voices? And how do we begin to diversify them?

Here we present an experiment in the ritual of juries. We will walk through the various aspects of a review but present it wholly online. The students received a set of questions, a set of inquiries which they answered over the course of the week leading up to the exhibition of their work. The students took this more extended period to think, analyze and understand their approach, process, and outcomes. This allows the students to not be stunned by the next non-sequitur question, only asked as a means to reinforce the student-professor dynamic. The exercise fosters a state of self-reflection upon one's decisions, a reflection that will be the basis of their professional careers. This format eliminates the usual voir dire performed by schools, which results in the same voices passing judgment, and in doing so opens a discussion to a truly democratic public.

The work will be presented step by step, aligned with the given questions over a series of days. This gives the work time to grow, for the reader to ponder responses, and for the project to be developed along with the reader. Each day will reveal a new aspect such as the precedent, the early stages, and various mediums. Aspects such as videos, drawings, and models will be discussed as a group and allowed to gain strength from its fellow companions.

Here we present an experiment in the ritual of juries. We will walk through the various aspects of a review but present it wholly online. The students received a set of questions, a set of inquiries which they answered over the course of the week leading up to the exhibition of their work. 

Our first studio presented is Lorem Ipsum: Narratives of Architecture which is being taught at the University of Southern California. The students partaking  the class are Yupeng Xu, Xianyuan Wu, Michaela Pierandozzi, Sarah Sager Alhomaidah, Hsi Yuan Pan, Li Wei, Leon Ordaz, Ashley Peng, Yuxin Liu. What follows comes from the studio syllabus and a serves as a general introduction into the themes and trajectories for the studio.

The issue at hand for Lorem Ipsum is the search for a non-originary architecture that does not rely on traditional modes of classical representation, imaging, and/or creation as a means of constructing a framework for context, that is both the object for contextualization and its own context. The studio focuses on the role of Architecture as the means of creating place and space while acting as the thematic framing for our memories and imaginations.

How do we know architecture when we see it? Even more, how do we know that what we think is architecture, or what idea of architecture our minds create, is architecture in itself? How can we begin to understand the multiple nuances which hint to or begin to frame architecture?

Can we begin to unravel the layers of architectural inquiry and start to find it in new and unusual ways? When we think of the city, we think of alleys, roads, cars, concrete, buildings, and everything in between, but those aspects signify more than their physical form to the people who pass them. That piece of trash on the floor is not just trash but a remnant of a life who passed. How can architecture begin to map and understand these meanings, and begin to develop tools to embrace their implications? How does Architecture narrate itself and can we find ways to construct the narrative of Architecture?

How do we know architecture when we see it? Even more, how do we know that what we think is architecture, or what idea of architecture our minds create, is architecture in itself? 

Can the environment of a studio move beyond the construction of an aesthetic and technique, and begin to be the framework for the creation of knowledge? Architecture is an object of thought, a structure of questioning, a speculative enterprise of intellect, it is forcefully enslaved by the production of artifacts, tactile objects, visual output, and vice versa. This studio operates with such two such opposing attitudes towards Architecture. The one we accept, use, and view, and one which is open for playful and whimsical exploration.

If Architecture, as a source of knowledge, both constructs and represents our reality, are we capable of creating our own? Can we begin to frame and write our personal stories? We look to read and understand Architecture, not through buildings, not through streets, but through what we see, experience, and remember.

By attempting to create, build, and represent a narrative of Architecture, and not architecture, we begin to understand where Architecture itself could exist. We analyze, misread, abstract, and reread the object of origin and start to translate it into architecture’s context. We question our own beliefs, contradict our immediate and instinctual responses, to wade through this constant and unfiltered translation.  

Narrative gives us a means by which to bend architecture’s language, to find new meanings. Once broken, it is impossible to revert to a previous state, and as such a freshly cut architectural puzzle comes to the surface to assemble and tear apart once again. Lorem Ipsum looks to understand, overstand, and map our imaginations through architecture’s desires and tools. We unravel aspects of architecture which have only existed in the shadows.