Archinect - Kent State University (Jacob)

Cleveland Rocks (feat: James Corner)

2009-12-20T16:38:52-05:00

From the CUDC with Field Operations...

Despite recent cruddy news (ODOT, med mart, the port, etc); this could be a Christmas Miracle.

Check out the schemes, they're pretty cool.

It promotes turning the Burnham Public Square (now a glorified bus terminal) into something(s) really really awesome. Studios at the CUDC have toyed with the idea in the past, I'm excited to see it happen.

And hey! James Corner teaches at my new school...what an odd coincidence.

post-cleveland (competition!)

2009-09-17T17:48:28-04:00

Check it out.

Post-
is a journal of architecture in the Great Lakes region. It focuses on the buildings, people and writings that have formed our received environment and is informed by a faith that said environment is sufficiently rich that it warrants consideration.

This recently formed journal started by recent KSU, CUDC, and tOSU graduates is calling for entries in an ideas competition on vacancy in Cleveland. For those interested...check it out. ALL YOU CAN EAT: A Buffet of Architectural Ideas

This also marks the official move to Cleveland 3.1; such that participants can claim residency in Cleveland without geographic restrictions...I'm at Penn, but I'm doing it!

Post-

The Last...

2009-08-23T23:38:10-04:00

So I would have walked yesterday, receiving my MArch from Kent State.

Rather, I'm in Philadelphia, ready to start my MArchII at UPenn. "Intensive Digital Methods" orientation starts tomorrow. I'm pretty pumped.

Sorry I abandoned you Cleveland / Ohio / The Midwest.

But one last service!

There's a Lecture!

I know this, because I was down at Kent the other week and saw a poster.

The Lecture:

Friedrich St. Florian
right here, yo
Sept 1st,
7:00 in the KIVA

So go.

Meanwhile, somebody back from good ol' Kent should pick this blog up.

Lecture 04

2009-04-21T12:44:31-04:00

The sneakiest one yet!

I was down in Kent today and noticed posters on the walls (and doors, and stairs, etc).

Apparently there's a lecture tomorrow. Thank my cameraphone for the graphic!

Peter Macapia
4.22.09
7:00pm
Art Building Auditorium (Art 202)

...and after that (retroblog #2)

2009-04-19T13:24:32-04:00

The second round of precedent. (1 week later)

Previously I mentioned the inauthenticity of Streetsboro. A study of brands along the mile long strip reveals almost nothing of local origin.

For this round of precedent study, I was working with MVRDV’s pig city. My colleagues: OMA’s Melun Senart, OMA’s park de la villette, Asymptote’s Steel Cloud, Governor’s Island Competition Entry by West 8, Governor’s Island Competition Entry by REX, and …..another one I can’t remember.

Now that we’d the hang of doing this, it was a bit easier.

“Streetsboro was put on the map initially because of its many cheese houses” …

… is a funny piece of trivia we found as we dug through the history of the town….it would eventually become highly influential in our quest for authenticity.

Streetsboro becomes Cheeseboro.

A partially transient farm over the ‘old’ Walmart parking lot provides all of the cheese and most of the energy to sustain the McDonalds across the street.

Suspend reality for a mom...

A series of thoughts (future, current, past)

2009-04-15T10:40:40-04:00

An entry in three parts:

First (the future)
Last fall I applied to post-professional graduate programs. Part of the initial draw for coming to the CUDC was the quick curriculum...it's essentially the 'new' 5-year professional degree. So, having spent a wonderful(ish) 5 years here, I'm off elsewhere.

This is what happened:

While initially bummed at the lack of choice, it's a blessing in disguise. (+ it's a tough year...having a choice is a good thing)...Penn was the school I really wanted to go to for my MArch, but chose against for a variety of practical reasons. This time around, after visiting and reading, I think it's really where I'll belong.

(I'm sorry if you found out here and not in person...I kept my good news/options somewhat to myself during the deliberation process)

Second (the current)
My studio is over.
At the CUDC, we do a 10 week deal instead of the full 15.
I still have friends doing the 15 week, where they're working a coda of a project...dealing wi...

Lecture 03

2009-04-09T23:18:29-04:00

Another one.
This Monday.

(attn: ClevelandDesignCity blog-bouncer)

with new and improved poster by restless works

Wrong time. 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 7:00 not 7:15 yea.

t r a c e [check it out + indietecture]

2009-03-28T17:30:24-04:00

Check out our student journal.

here

t r a c e

It's been around for a few years....4 now I suppose.

The whole time, it's been a continual struggle to find people who are willing to set aside time to work on something that's specifically not studio. Editors come and go, and it generally takes a few people a lot of work with little support to get it done and delivered (one to each desk...like a newspaper). But the results are nice, and like much of what goes on, it's entirely student produced/edited. With the exception of the school's generosity in printing copies, it's entirely "the man"-free.

a little history

The great thing about this is that with high supply/low demand for printed space and no big brother to tell you what you can't write, it becomes a nice exploratory forum. My bits are typically about music and how it ties to architecture (as an art form / as a society/industry / etc.). Others are more straightforward: reviews of local buildings, updates on what some stude...

Lecture 2

2009-03-25T18:18:11-04:00

is about to happen.

(So, when this loops to Cleveland Design City, heads up.)

The method for publicizing these lectures:

The lecture is scheduled (this counts as a minor miracle).

Students create a poster. (restlessworks do it...feat: danny , among others).

Students post that poster on flickr.

I look at that flickr because I'm friends with the poster-creating-students.

I post that here (hopefully, in a timely fashion) because I feel it's important to share with the online community.

This blog gets posted to the ClevelandDesignCity blog

Professionals and alumni in Cleveland read it, and know about it, and maybe come.

Grass roots.

Waiting

2009-03-10T21:56:07-04:00

It's that time of the semester...
Midterm's aren't quite that far behind...
Finals aren't quite that imminent...
....and motivation droops as the first shades of nice days arrive in Cleveland.

Simmering until things wrap up.

In project news, we're repositioning ourselves to create our site as the afterpark of an expo. In 1936, Cleveland had the 'great lakes expo' featuring typical expo things. With the great lakes holding around 20% of the world's fresh water and the coming importance of that fact, along with the port's upcoming move over the next 20 years, we're poised to propose a centennial re-issue: Great Lakes Expo 2036(!).

This also gives us a reason to be somewhat unrealistically optimistic and utopian in some of our planning, and then explore how it gets repurposed afterward.

In other news:
Kent Facilities UPDATE! (a real email presented as a satire).

"Everyone,

This is your notification that there are added print room hours for TODAY from 2-5 p.m. There is a...

Post-Midterm ++VIDEO!!++

2009-03-02T21:16:56-05:00

Our midterm Jury was this Friday.

It went well - better than I could have possibly expected.

I was initially apprehensive because of the cast of reviewers. Because we’re working on the port site, and the port site is a real project, we’ve been in contact with a lot of real stakeholders within the city and region. Planning Commissioners, Past Planning Commissioners, Real Estate people, Developers, More Developers, Architects who Develop things, People from the City, Logistics people from the port, Etc. I’m continually immaturely afraid of the real world and the lack of realism that much of it seems to display, so I was afraid that the jury would be ‘stupid’ at best….with most of the comments mirroring my earlier complaints about how density and mixed use is the answer and anything else that didn’t turn the port into a large lifestyle center feat: Las Vegas style renderings of ‘people having fun’ would be incorrect. This isn’t just pessimism. We had been told this (more or l...

The Potential Myth of Urban Design

2009-02-24T00:09:53-05:00

Urban Design:

What is it? What's the scope? What do you do? What don't you do? How far is too far? How do you design anything that will be urban design? Can urban design happen?

DOES URBAN DESIGN EXIST!?

It's not the street grid that makes the city a nice place to be.
It's small catalysts that you can't design that do.

As an 'urban design student' we can sketch thousands of renderings showing populated parks and street frontages, but how does that translate? How do we do relevant things that work, and we can show? How do we show it? You can't spec out a nice space to be

"Large Urban Park, 52 acres, well maintained. Fill with diverse people, environmentally minded, highly interested in public transit. (TYP)."

It's pretty frustrating to go from architecture to this.

Mind you, I never signed up for this....(kind of). I did. But I didn't really want to. I'd be happier with some semblance of building things. Or the building scale.

And it's tough to reconcile my ...

lecture

2009-02-20T16:24:07-05:00

This happened:

And now the real post (photojournalist presentations, frustrating urbanism, model shop)

2009-02-14T11:55:47-05:00

Today the photojournalists presented what they had prepared.

Here’s a sample (not my group; but you get the idea).

It’s a nice opportunity to be working with this class so that as designers, we can see how we’re interpreted by another group and in turn, what that group feels is representative to show the world in order to ‘tell our story.’ These are purely the work of the photo studio after a week and a half. They were with us on our initial super-snowy site visit and have been making the trip up at various times throughout the last few weeks to catch the architecture student in his natural habitat.

The first round of these is somewhat on the news-reel side of things. Restrictions have been loosened, and the second iteration will likely be more fun. Ours may end up being a real-world spoof (post-review confession booth perhaps?).

Urban design studio is pretty frustrating for the architecturally minded. It’s a lot of land to deal with and it’s tough to know exactly where w...

Spendin' All My Money and Time - 'True Stories' thoughts + preblog

2009-02-12T22:53:34-05:00

Today I watched True Stories.

It’s a 1986 film directed/produced/written/starring David Byrne of Talking Heads fame.

I’m a Talking Heads fan, which is why I wanted to watch it.

However, it’s pretty interesting from an architecture/urban standpoint.
Byrne is an artist himself, and much of the Talking Heads music speculates about urbanity/architecture/society etc. (guitarist Jerry Harrison is a GSD dropout, and Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth met at RISD…) Architecturally, Byrne recently did “this” to a building, which as an architecturestudent/musician, I think is pretty nifty.

So the movie:

Self described in architectural terms as "a completely cool multipurpose movie."

It focuses on a town in Texas on the verge of celebrating their sesquicentennial with a “festival of special-ness;" an irony noting the inauthenticity of the presented city (also interesting after our sprawl-studio last semester and questioning the american suburb). The first part of it has some ni...

Look at downtown Cleveland, and what are we missing?

2009-02-02T18:01:03-05:00

Our project this semester at the CUDC is investigating options for the Cleveland Port. The Port of Cleveland is moving to a new site (over the next 20 years, as the Army Corps of Engineers dredges and fills some new land). The site has been a hot topic for development, (as has the whole lakefront), and there have been numerous designs, suggestions, and potential development but not much done. (And many of the existing designs seem shortsighted, misinformed, or intentionally contradictory).

The port announced an RFQ for designs a while back, and have received many entries from firms all over. We’re essentially working from the RFQ, trying to push some conceptual thought through before the big guns submit (This is what we’re told).

The site is pretty big…around 100 acres and generally empty (with the exception of piles of bulk shipments and parking for the Browns Stadium). It’s a lot of land to have a blank slate.

The really cool thing (I think) is that we’re teaming with a cl...

Spring

2009-01-21T16:44:52-05:00

Today was the first day of Spring studio at the CUDC.

There are 18 of us (14 1st year Grad - M.Arch, 4 1st year Grad MUD)
6 of us were here in the fall
11 of us were in Italy (not me).
17 of us went through undergrad together.

[Also at the CUDC: There are 6 returning 2nd year Grad students getting their M.UrbanDesign...they are all working on Capstone projects (thesish)]

Nobody went to a school other than Kent State for Undergrad.

I apologize to all for not posting last semester.
I plan on posting regularly this semester.

Last semester ended well. Studio projects were well developed and well received. This semester will be different.

How do we deal with sprawl and authenticity? becomes How does a city who's never known its waterfront get to know its waterfront

I'm going to try to incorporate images as well. Here's one I've been sitting on. It's much colder and snowier now.

In a second....

2008-10-02T00:22:29-04:00

"I'll try to blog more often"

...from a few weeks ago.

School is fine.
I'll elaborate this weekend...maybe.

The cliff notes:
Studio, we're coming up on our pre-midterm review.

The process we're using to design at times feels really forced, and it's often frustrating.

I've also been told that this is pretty much the point.

Like medicine that tastes bad I suppose...

A tie-over until a real post:

Our studio has a blog for the purpose of informing reviewers of our process/precedent work. Check it out by clicking on this colored text

Coming soon: a better description of our process, pictures of the CUDC, etc.

Look over there! ...a dry ice factory

2008-09-07T23:24:11-04:00

I’m going to try to blog more often.

As a side; it’s really bizarre to start blogging in a prominent blog. There’s no option to find my feet, so to speak, I just start immediately. I don’t have to build it up and wait until people find it, rather, people knew about it before I started writing. And bizarre too, because I’m immediately exposing myself to people I know in real life. …so hopefully I can work to make this an accurate portrayal of how I feel about my education. I don’t foresee specifically offending anybody, but I can’t make any guarantees (and shouldn’t have to). It’s more important for me to be able to be (tactfully) honest here than non-offensive.

I think that the more feedback I get from what I write on here will be the real benefit of this blog. In a way, I suppose the charade of anonymity that we call the internet is a good way to learn how we really feel about things. So…if something I say on here picks your brain, drop me a line.

I really want this to...

This and That

2008-09-04T00:12:36-04:00

So if the “this” is the Streetsboro studio, the “that” is this:

What I do in my spare time
or: Teaching is hard but awesome

So I teach.
Kent State is one of few universities I know of that lets TA’s ‘have’ a studio class. My class. My grades. My Critiques. My juries. My students (13 of them, in second year design)

Keep in mind, that teaching is what I really want to do with my life, so this is an awesome experience. Nevertheless, I’m continuously terrified (which is probably a good thing to have some degree of apprehension).

More than anything, I just didn’t realize what it takes to teach.
…and I completely realize that every teacher out there probably loves this admission.

I’d been on juries for second year before and it was great. I always felt that I was able to give appropriate advice both in terms of technique as well as conceptual speculation….but this is way different. I just didn’t realize how different it was to stick your head in the mix as a juror at the e...

The Site

2008-08-31T22:19:57-04:00

Studio this fall is an urban design studio.

Of all places, our site is Streetsboro, OH.

If you’re not from [Northeast] Ohio, let me explain.

Streetsboro is where I480 (the Cleveland “outerbelt”) ends
It is a major junction with the I80 turnpike.
The main drag is OH-14 which connects Cleveland to Pittsburgh.
The other main drag is OH-43 which runs through Kent, Ohio, just 10ish miles south.

The population is around 15,000; and statistically, it is statistically 99% white (and typically, 36 years old, married, and only speaking English). It’s a juxtaposition of people trying to “move to the country” from Cleveland or near-suburbs and people who really just want a house close to the interstate so they can drive home to Pittsburgh every weekend but still only have a 35 minute commute to Cleveland.

It’s chamber of commerce membership list reads like a “Who’s Who of American Middle-Class Nationwide Shopping establishments.” With the exception of a pizza shop and a few regional...

Isn't it ironic how people use the word 'ironic' to mean 'funny'

2008-08-25T15:51:01-04:00

Today was the first day of classes at the CUDC.

There are 7 of us (1st year Grad - M.Arch)
There are 6 returning 2nd year Grad students getting their M.UrbanDesign
There are 11 fellow 1st years in Florence Italy. All of them have been there before during our 3rd year undergrad.
Nobody went to a school other than Kent State for Undergrad.
I know (almost) everybody.

These are all facts that I wish weren't true.

Except for the small class...that will be refreshing after 4 years of semi-overcrowding.

And so far; we're doing an interesting project.
And although I know the faculty, I haven't ever worked with them before.
And although it's Kent...it's not 'in' Kent.

This blog will be a study in self-analysis for me.
I'm essentially engaging in delayed gratification..regarding my post-professional studies.