Archinect - Columbia University GSAPP (Daniel Kidd)

Density in the Incubator

2008-09-30T17:17:30-04:00

The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics

The next time you’re in David Benjamin’s studio on the third floor of Avery Hall in the South East corner, don’t pick the most secluded ‘corner-iest’ corner of the studio. It is not such a good a strategy. If you find that you have made this strategic mistake, there may be some tactics at your disposal;

Tactic 1) You can try to bribe people to switch seats with you; And be sure not to tell them you want to switch because you hate your spot. Instead try saying something about the bad lighting and the onset of seasonal depression.

Tactic 2) You can try to be a little more extroverted and make an effort to go talk to your classmates about their projects and your own. You may be able to salvage your semester.

I think the main problem is isolation. I have had a very secluded desk in the past, and it was great. It was a bit easier to focus with less distraction, but the studio this semester is unique in that we are all collectively lea...

How I won the lottery

2008-09-09T23:21:09-04:00

You have a much better chance of winning the studio lottery than the 'actual lottery'

So technically I didn't win. Bernard Tschumi was my first choice (out of 17), but it is widely assumed that just about everybody puts him as their first choice. It's obligatory. You go to Columbia. Do your duty. take Tschumi.

So my actual, or 2nd choice was David Benjamin's studio. 2nd out of 17 isn't so bad, especially considering that I got my 3rd choice last semester (out of only 7). Nothing to complain about here.

It is a studio rooted in questions of technique, namely designing by interfacing Catia with several optimization software. Nobody in the studio knows Catia at this point so this could be painful.

The studio brief is for an airport in Mumbai, India. Just how we fit in the optimization is up to us. It could be anything from structure, to circulation, to optimal runway layouts to name a few. The software is not meant to do these things directly so a bulk of the challenge will be th...