Archinect - Harvard University - GSD (Quilian)

the last post

2009-12-06T22:25:50-05:00

Three and a half years ago I put everything that fit in a mid-size sedan and left the high desert of New Mexico to the shores of the Charles river in Cambridge. All this just to have an excuse to start a coveted school blog at archinect (hehe). Over 100 posts later, and six-months after graduation, it is finally time to end this school blog. But it won't be long until you see me here again from the other side of the pedagogical divide (details below).

Before I go on I would like to thank everyone that read and commented on this blog. Now to tie some lose ends (sorry, this is a long post):

So... What happened with thesis?

GROUNDED! was selected for inclusion in this year's PLATFORM exhibit and publication. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself among the theses of my friends, and Chinatown INSERT! collaborators, Marrikka Trotter and Trevor Patt. We were grouped with projects that deal with Authorship, joining studio work and lectures by Joshua Prince Ramus, Rodolfo Machado, Jos...

DISCO Project 3: City Hall Plaza

2009-08-02T11:00:47-04:00

The GSD's Career Discovery program finished a little over a week ago with a final project in Boston's famed City Hall Plaza. A challenging site for any studio, but for a 2 week project with brand new students even more so. The students, however, rose to occasion and made proposals with vision and energy.

We began the process this time by doing site research. As in the previous projects I wanted the analysis to give my students a point to start from. Thus I asked each of them to make an analytical drawing that looked at one issue closer and tried to understand the architectural elements that make that condition possible. Some chose light, sound, wind, edges as they relate to public/private relationships, plazas, etc...

They then began the hard work to develop that concept. They used it to develop the program, the sequence of spaces, circulation, structure, facades, the ground condition, and the siting of the building.

By the final we had three main typologies emerge, the spr...

DISCO Project 2: The two house project

2009-07-12T00:25:20-04:00

Among the most difficult things about teaching Harvard GSD's Career Discovery (DISCO) is to be clear on what you are actually teaching. Students come with expectations of learning how to 'build a building' and are surprised to be taught the architectural process instead. Furthermore, although all my students seem to be interested in architecture for grad school the course should strive to teach them something they can take with them even if they choose not to go into the field.

Until this moment all I have come up with is that I am teaching them an alternative process to the scientific method, which after all is what most of us learn as children. In architecture there really are not any hypothesis and no replicable final results. The best you can hope for is to have stuck to your process as much as possible and that it yields a final product with coherent, and systematic internal logics. How would you describe our process?

PROJECT 2 PROCESS

For the second project (a two-weeker...

DISCO Project 1: The Stair Project

2009-07-01T17:40:17-04:00

The only way to describe any 6-week design program, such as Harvard GSD's Career Discovery, is INTENSE. Intense for the administrators, instructors like myself, but specially for the students.

I empathize, back about ten years ago I did my first two semesters of design school in two six-week semesters over a summer, with studio meeting everyday. And one of those was with UF's infamous professor Bernard Voichysonk, a man known for being a GREAT professor who was rumored to occasionally destroy drawings and models (never happened to me). I did not sleep.

This is a little different as no one here is in design school and we are all aware of it. However, design is design and it takes a lot of time and it takes its toll on everyone. Some of my students decided that this was not for them and out of the eleven I started with we are down to eight.

This is the process we took during the first project.

The first week project was to design a new staircase for the Laurentian library...

What's Next...

2009-06-18T18:14:57-04:00

You know that moment of boredom you are supposed to feel after thesis is done? Well not for me... in fact I may be busier now!

24 hours after my final review and with little sleep I got on a plane to Madrid to do some research. I am working there on the next three books of the TransUrban series with Christian Werthmann, Thomas Schroepfer, and Andrew Tenbrink. I will post some pics soon, but we are studying, analyzing, and critiquing a couple of 'ecocities'.

The books are exciting but right now a lot of my attention is focused in the first week of my Career Discovery architecture studio. Eleven students from a variety of disciplines (from math to MBAs) and I are working together to find appropriate architectural languages for a variety of problems.

I will keep my blog open for the next few weeks to document my experience teaching this studio. Then I will say my goodbyes and hope that another GSD student takes over the blogging duties...

GROUNDED: Ecology as Frame for an Informal Community in Tijuana

2009-05-16T18:57:22-04:00

All the Images Below can be found at a better resolution in my thesis blog and Flickr Set. (you can also click on some of them to see them larger).

First of all, I want to thank everyone that helped me in the final push of the project, many staying with me until the wee hours of the morning for several days.

Big heartfelt thanks to:
Izabela (MLA), Joaquim Mendoza (Architect), Stephanie Tam (MArch), Simon Bussiere (MLA), Melissa Guerrero (MLA), Jonathan Evans (MArch), Neil Freeman (MUP), Pedro Santa-Rivera (MArchII, MAUD), Ilana Cohen (MLA), Darwin Marrero (MAUD), and Linda Chamorro (MLA). I also want to thank Eric Howeler, Teddy Cruz, Shauna Gilles-Smith, Christian Werthmann, and Margaret Crawford for listening and working with me.

This would have been both harder and not as fun without all of you.

+++++

REGION
Strategies to improve the social condition and clean the water of the Los Laureles Canyon (Haven't really changed since Midterm).

The Following Masterplan is a prot...

less than 3 weeks left...

2009-04-25T15:39:04-04:00

An update of my fruitful contradictions

T-Day is May 13th or 14th and the freaking out begins now!!

Liveblogging Koolhaas, Bhabha, Kwinter...

2009-04-03T18:36:16-04:00

It is 6:30 and I got to go into the VIP door using a press pass... pretty sweet.

You can probably follow the action here (all weekend for the entire conference):
http://rosebud.design.harvard.edu/live.sdp
you can also follow it in our student blog.

LIVE BLOGGING:

8:38 - Ok, I am done. Personally, I am going to wait until the video goes on-line. I need to watch it again, specially to Bhabha. However, I have renewed energy to go back and work on my thesis. I think it is very much tied to the issues discussed here, and these are the issues that interest me. Time, Agency, and Environmentally Urgency. How can spatial design mediate these three conditions? How can we do it without being over-bearing?

I also want to add that I am happy to see this discussion at the GSD. It would be better, however, if it was encouraged in the studio.

8:34 - Kwinter brings back the idea of humility, we need to be willing to listen. Interesting coming in the context of informality.

8:30 - ...

trays ZINE - ECOURBANISM V OBLIVION

2009-04-01T01:24:20-04:00

Some very dedicated editors at trays just designed and published a ZINE!

Some copies will be printed and distributed to people attending the Ecological Urbanism conference and the open house for admitted students. They are, however, making the ZINE PDF available.

The Zine was edited by James Moore and Zakcq Lockrem and designed by Cara Liberatore and Shelby Doyle.

ENJOY!

Ecological Urbanism Conference - Student Blog

2009-03-29T20:37:26-04:00

There is a weird air around the GSD lately and I think I can smell expectation with a hint of anxiety. Some of this is evident before every Open House, but this time it is different. I think the difference is what is turning out to be an epic Ecological Urbanism conference and exhibit. Just looking at that speaker list one notices that they are throwing the proverbial kitchen sink into this thing.

You will probably be able to follow many events in the webcast, but we all know that is not quite enough. MArch II Dan Handel and I are organizing a series of more informal platforms to document the conference.

So far we have set up a blog to provide multi-disciplinary student perspective on all the festivities and outcomes:
http://gsd-ecologicalurbanism.blogspot.com/

We have a flickr image pool where everyone can upload pictures they take during the event:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1068168@N21/

We have a twitter:
https://twitter.com/GSDecourbanism

And who could forget facebook:
ht...

Critical Activism - (draft)

2009-03-20T15:52:52-04:00

Since the beginning of the year I have been wanting to write something expanding on what I meant by Critical Activism in my '09 prediction. The following is a first DRAFT of an essay I am writing describing what I see as an emerging practice model. Influenced by Allison Smithson's 'How to Recognize and Read Mat-Building', it is partly a manifesto and partly a look at a trend in contemporary practice.

I will not have time to really work on it until after thesis ends, so I wanted to share it while still relatively close to the feature that inspired me to write it.

A few weeks ago a senior GSD administrator, after hearing about my thesis and precedent studies, plainly asked me if I wanted to “just be an activist.” I am not sure what he meant but it seemed a clear example of the academic and professional anxiety that still exists around activism. Regardless, the comment made me question what it would even mean to ‘just’ be an activist.

First, I wanted to understand the anxiety ar...

Loud Paper Boston Zine round table

2009-03-19T22:03:40-04:00

On my previous update post I forgot to talk about Loud Paper's Boston's Zine round table.

Moderator:
Mimi Zeiger, Loud Paper

Speakers:
Braulio Agnese, Architect magazine
Chris Grimley, over,under
Ryan McClain, ArchitectureMNP
Quilian Riano, Archinect.com | trays
John Southern, Sumoscraper | Urban Operations Studio

We were there to talk publication and how it interacts with today's design practices. We began down that path but somehow it turned into a discussion of new vs. old media. This is an interesting discussion as long as it does not become a question of either/or. What is most interesting is to try to discuss what all these media can do for you.

For example, I find archinect most interesting when it does projects like MAPA and the Wiki experiment. Those projects tried to harness the power of the medium to do projects beyond their medium. In both cases the audience works along side editors (blurring the distinction) to create content that have palpable results.

...

Midterm Review - reviewed

2009-03-19T03:38:02-04:00

A thesis update... in my thesis blog: Midterm Review - reviewed

EXCERPTS FROM THE BLOG POST:

My goal is to create a holistic landscape, urban, and architectural strategy that channels and cleans water, re-vegetates the site, brings needed social services, and creates economic opportunities.

All this while always aware that top-down solutions seldom work in this context. The most important lesson from the frame and infill study is that all the designers included, from Cedric Price to James Corner to Teddy Cruz, were strategic on WHAT to design. That is to say that designing for conditions that change over time does not mean that design gets thrown out the window. Strategically giving over control over some parts of the design gives freedom to focus on the careful design of other.
...
Before I get into it, though, it is important to note how I will be using the Frame and Infill concept. Among my critiques of a lot of the designers that have used it is that the frame, although all...

Ins and Outs

2009-03-19T00:37:18-04:00

I just wanted to quickly update what is going on this semester.

I will make another update specifically about Thesis, but as you can imagine it is taking most of my time this semester. However, I am still meeting weekly with anywhere from 5-15 friends and colleagues to talk about thesis. We now dub ourselves the Thesis Super Duper Group and our weekly meetings are still part therapy, part kick in the ass. Funny how those hurt less when they are done by friends.

Even with thesis I get to do a few things around the GSD including...

1- INSERT!
My good friend Marrikka Trotter (founder of Department of micro-urbanism) asked me to help her organize a design/build team for a temporary library insert in Boston's Chinatown. We created a new student group called INSERT! so that projects such as this can continue in the GSD.

The team that came together is great and works well together. We have somehow seamlessly gone from 10ish proposals to three to one.

All the fun is here:
http...

Patterns

2009-03-01T18:56:18-05:00

Another week another lecture worthy of viewing and re-viewing. This time is a conversation on patterns. The panel featured a few of the designers in the current exhibit.

This panel is in part interesting because of the palpable anxiety voiced most clearly by Scott Cohen towards the end. He seems to think that patterns may be effective as facades and on fields, but are they architecture? The unease may come from the realization that patterning will eventually lead to a loss of design control (over the short run).

Interestingly, the conversation began by appropriating patterns for architecture using Christopher Alexander. However, he was quickly dropped.

I was disappointed by his exclusion for the rest of the conversation. After all, Alexander sees patterns in the built environment as a process that puts people in the middle of the process. He says that A Pattern Language is "a first step in the society-wide process by which people will gradually become conscious of the...

Spheres + Networks

2009-02-22T14:41:37-05:00

This is a must see GSD lecture:
Bruno Latour & Peter Sloterdijk
"Networks and Spheres: Two Ways to Reinterpret Globalization"

Spring 09 Lecture Poster

2009-02-18T22:22:57-05:00

Thesis Prep Mock Up

2009-02-11T18:02:03-05:00

Getting Closer...

GSD cartoonist

2009-02-05T16:23:57-05:00

trays just began posting some cartoons by KLAUS.

Among my favorites:

The epic Ben Van Berkel - Preston Scott Cohen conversation (cannot find it in the webcasts...)

Ordos Conversation (WATCH). For more comments on it check out Orhan's here in archinect.

It will be updated throughout the semester.

Bogotá - Brick and Movement

2009-01-17T13:51:29-05:00

What is it about vacations that as soon as you start having fun you get sick? This time in Bogota I wanted to do a tour of Rogelio Salmona's work, but instead I was bedridden for most of my last week there. I will leave that for my to-do list in my next trip. I did, however, get out to a couple of his projects.

Bogota Brick
As you look out into the Bogota skyline one thing stands out: brick. It may be Bogota's cold climate and cheap labor but everything seems to be made out of this material.

Sometimes it can be used in a beautifully as in the Torres del Parque by Rogelio Salmona.

Bogota Movement
The other thing that may characterize this city is that because of its huge size mobility is very important. Bogota is now a case study for two of its mobility solutions; the Transmilenio* and the Ciclorutas.

*I find it also interesting that Giancarlo Mazzanti, the designer of Parque Biblioteca España also designed the pedestrian bridges and infrastructure for the Transmilenio. ...

Medellin - Infrastructure as Change

2009-01-03T11:06:52-05:00

When I arrived to Medellin by highway from Bogota the thing I first noticed was the ever present informal settlements in the mountains. But these were different, from the highway you could see the loops of cables carts moving in and out from the informal settlements and the metro that then moves the inhabitants from the mountains into the mainstream of Medellin's cultural and social life. However, you could already see that this culture did not only exist outside the mountainside comunas (the Colombian word for slums) as in the distance I could make up 3 black towers that I immediately recognized as Colombian architect Giancarlo Mazzanti's Parque Biblioteca España.

I have to admit that I was a bit fearful to go to the library as my family (that as I, all hail from Bogota) warned me that I would be robed "down to my underwear" if my wife and I even attempted to go there. This attitude comes from a seemingly endless war (mostly about drugs) in Colombia that at one time was the numb...

Thesis Update - From Frames to Lagos

2008-12-20T12:07:13-05:00

As I watch inches of snow fall in Boston my mind wanders to Tijuana, Nicaragua, and even Lagos.

I am beginning to more carefully tune my arguments, trying to learn from specific precedents as well as taking a closer look at work I have done in the past. Of my personal work I am specially looking at the NICAestudio, my first semester in the GSD, and the Vicenza studio project I did as an undergrad in UF. I am working on precedents and positioning within the contemporary discourse via my blog (where I sketch possible ideas) and my final paper.

The following are among my latest blog updates:
-Learning from Lagos
-Architecture as Bailout
-Frames and Infill

Out of all this soup of things, the diagram above has come back as key to my thinking. As I describe, this diagram I produced during the NICAestudio. The diagram was meant to say that the new housing in informal settings needed to be embedded with commercial and social activities and then critically set within the landscap...

last class

2008-12-10T17:09:50-05:00

Just had a pretty momentous personal occasion and I almost did not even notice it. At 4PM EST I finished the last class of my 8 year MArch journey. It was a conversation with Sanford Kwinter about relational aesthetics, Ai Weiwei, and whether they give us a clue on how to move forward in architecture.

All left to do now is work: two papers, the thesis prep document, and the actual thesis design.

Both classes I took this semester have helped me a lot with thesis. With Kwinter I really got into the political aspects of 'relational aesthetics' and Rirkrit Tiravanija's work. My last paper is going to be on Rirkrit's projects and a proposed connection to Teddy Cruz's projects as evidence of the 'New Synthesis' between art and architecture (the theme of the course).

Waldheim's 'Ecology as Urbanism' class was perhaps even more helpful. Through it I was forced to unpack issues I am familiar with (indexical design, parametrics, etc..) from another disciplinary perspective. I come ...

everyone's talking

2008-12-08T15:59:44-05:00

This is the semester when the GSD decided to talk. Maybe it is the new leadership, more vocal students, or the fact that my class is in thesis prep (forcing us out of studio and talk to each other more), or a combination of these things, but it seems to me that this semester there is an increase in conversations all over the GSD.

Internally, we changed the student communication system, from the good ol' studentannounce mass email system to students.gsd, a new website (for students only) with forums, blogs, etc... After the initial uproar and dissent over the change people seem to be getting used to it and, I think, it is changing the way we interact. The sometimes heated conversation over the system itself (people even began renegade communication systems) and some controversies around the new GSD Platform (which I will not get into in this space, but we will try to deal with soon, in a constructive way, in trays) and the poster have solidified its place in the school.

Also, th...

trays: VOTING BOOTH COMPETITION + POLITICS AND DESIGN

2008-10-31T18:19:46-04:00

UPDATE 12/05/08
RESULTS and analysis of trays' first sketch competition:
http://72.167.142.101/article.php?article_id=124
The overall winner:
“Throw Open the Curtains.” by James Brown, 2008-2009 Harvard GSD Loeb Fellow

UPDATE 11/04/08
The Jury is: Sanford Kwinter, Eric Howeler, Margaret Crawford, Timothy Hyde and the trays editorial board.

ORIGINAL POST
trays is holding its first competition.

We invite you to SKETCH the ideal voting booth on Election Day, either on the boards that will be set up throughout Gund Hall (for those in Boston), or by submitting one 8.5"x11" sheet digitally to trays.gsd@gmail.com There are no restrictions in terms of materiality or scale - they can be pure concept. Everyone in invited to submit sketches.

A distinguished (yet to be announced) panel of faculty and students will select the best entries. We will attempt to construct the winning entry, either at the GSD or at a location to be determined. (Harvard Square? Boston City Hall?) TRAYS will also awa...

The Goreacle in the Yard

2008-10-22T23:11:50-04:00

Today was cold, so Al Gore came to give a speech about global warming. He was here to launch a series of new Harvard-wide green initiatives and encourage people to think deeper about these issues. Among the most interesting things he did, and something I had not heard before, is a rhetorical connection he sees between the environmental crisis and the financial crisis. The argument was that just like a global crisis can be started by a few people giving unregulated bad loans, a climate crisis can be started by a few people releasing unregulated CO2 into the atmosphere. Then he gave props to Obama.

Sadly, as Harvard President Drew Faust was listing the ways all the schools are helping the effort in detail she hardly mentioned the GSD. Regardless, it was nice to see the whole University come together, this is something that doesn't happen often.

NECN

More info:
http://www.green.harvard.edu/
http://studentgroups.gsd.harvard.edu/greendesign/

The GSD's New Orange Walls

2008-10-17T13:58:17-04:00

I have to admit to not being a fan of Gund Hall. I find the big open space - where anything can happen and everyone can see you - a bit oppressive. A building that exposes modern anxieties.

A few weeks ago people came into the GSD to see that the trays now had some orange boards sprinkled through the previously all-white space.

I like it, in a space in which regularity can be oppressive the orange boards become place makers.

It also kind of reminds me of:

Scott Cohen and Wes Jones Discussion - LIVE BLOG

2008-10-14T18:25:02-04:00

Wes and Scott are talking today, not entirely sure what about, so I decided to take notes and call it a LIVE BLOG.

Watch it LIVE: http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/events/webcasts/

Discuss and add your comments below.

10:00- Finished dinner with Wes and GSD faculty Mariana Ibanez, Scott Cohen, Michael Meredith, Jonathan Levi, Kostas Terzidis, and 4 students including me. The discussions turned from presidential politics back to branding, composition in architecture, and the connection between digital technologies and the technology Wes uses. A conversation among friends. Throughout the conversation, I think that they missed an opportunity to talk about the political value of Wes' work in light of the current economic system.

Also, someone pointed out that Wes answered every question using 'we'. It could be that Wes is talking about his office, but it really seemed like he was channeling an entire movement. And that may be his ultimate project: to be part (maybe leader?) of a grou...

Architects and the Web: Ferraries or Obamas?

2008-10-08T12:57:24-04:00

For the second year in a row I just got back from NOMA's national convention in DC. One of the most interesting presentations and conversations that I had in this surprisingly conservative conference was about the role of web environments in architectural practice.

This conversation called my attention because at its heart it is about the way we view the role of architecture and the architect in society. It is also a conversation I have had in other settings and seems to be something in a lot of designer's minds.

When I arrived to the presentation a lot of the older architects present were saying how digital communication feels cold to them. As I saw it, these practitioners were feeling the rug being pulled from under them. They are used to talking closely to people, digital communications do not give them the same type of warmth.

Then the presenter said something that I thought went to the heart of the argument; he told them that their website should be 'hot and seductive...

FALL 08 Lecture Poster - What do you think?

2008-10-02T13:17:49-04:00

So what do you think?

More about the Lectures here:
http://www.archinect.com/schoolblog/entry.php?id=80052_0_39_0_C345

By the way, to answer the last comments on that previous post, I ended up taking the Kwinter and Waldheim classes. A couple of weeks into the semester but I feel like this semester I am more than getting my money's worth. Both classes are intense.

Finally, anyone know of any good places to watch the debate in Washington DC tonight? I am in town for a conference and want to go out and see how real politicos do it. Be careful as you register and vote out there.