Archinect - Ohio State University (Emma)

It's Almost Here...

2011-05-19T09:32:10-04:00

Exit Reviews are starting tomorrow and we all can't believe they're here. They've felt so far away for so long. I'm probably about 98% done with my talk, I go Tuesday at 4:30 so I have time to polish it up. It's been a pretty great process and nice to take some time to really think about what I care about and what I really want to do once I am deemed to be a "Master of Architecture." My talk is entitled "Desiring Utopia: a micro-critique of futures past" and once I'm all done I'm happy to post more about it if anyone is interested. Below is the poster, you can also see it here, that has all the times and talk titles so if anyone is around Columbus during these times you should come check them out, everyone's invited!

end of Winter, beginning of Spring

2011-05-02T10:33:08-04:00

Hello again Archinect, I'm enjoying the new site!

The end of Winter Quarter was, as always, filled with excitement here at the KSA. My partner and I made a fun model of our proposed looping transit system for Ohio. (I'm pretty sure I can draw the state now without looking at a map.)

It's always exciting to see the school transform and get filled with everyone's hard work. We also got to celebrate with Final Friday, an event cooked up by Section Head Mike Cadwell, with some prizes that range from the usual best project, to more lighthearted awards.

Spring Break was wonderfully busy for me beginning with the opportunity to be a critic on final reviews at Kent, along with another student and KSA's own Bart Overly and Beth Blostein. Form there I went to Pittsburgh, Rochester, and Chicago for various things, which included my first NBA game. (Much better in person than on TV by the way, go Bulls!) While I was gone, the members of the Solar Decathlon Team who were in Columbus were ...

Toshiko Day 3

2011-02-25T14:53:46-05:00

Hello again everyone. Today was our last day in conversation with Toshiko and we spent the day talking about her think tank VisionArc, which is tackling global issues and considering design blind spots.

It was interesting to be introduced a bit more to the research portion of her practice that seems to infuse much of her teaching as well. She advocated for the expansion of the scope of architectural materials beyond just the built environment, towards energy, education, health, and government among other things.

She presented a lot of research and some student work. One example had to do with a comprehensive study of water and it's unblanced distribution around the world. According to Toshiko we have messed up the natural water cycle and created an "inedible spaghetti loop" that is unsustainable.

I was particularly interested in her views on the multiple scales involved in her global initiative, especially as they relate to the studio I am in now, where we are working at all sca...

Toshiko Days 1 and 2

2011-02-24T23:32:03-05:00

So clearly the live blogging didn't really work out, and I apologize for that, but I think this'll give me a chance to reflect instead of hurriedly typing everything I hear. (FYI Greg has a pretty great synopsis of the work we went through, I'll be writing more generally about overarching concepts I'm gathering in my head through our conversations.)

First of all I must point out how wonderfully humble and appreciative Toshiko has been of our diligent research and perceptive analyses of her work. At one point she remarked that we should just do all of her lectures for her. She is very open to our thoughts and opinions and a great story-teller, all of the makings of a good conversation.

We began by going through an overview of her body of work as well as some of her experiences at Cooper. She ended up in architecture rather serendipitously when John Hejduk found her painting a hallway white for an art installation and told her he liked it. It's very clear that Hejduk is her ultimate...

Toshiko is coming!

2011-02-22T12:11:28-05:00

Hello there archinect, we have some exciting events coming up this week at the KSA. Toshiko Mori, the Baumer visiting professor for 2010-2011, will be coming for three days starting Wednesday for in depth discussions of her work with graduate students and a public lecture. I think we're all excited since we've been talking about her and her work for so long.

In conjunction with this event, myself and fellow KSA blogger Greg, will be live blogging during the discussions over the next few days, so be on the lookout for that.

If you have any questions that we may pose to Toshiko, just post in the comments section and I'll see what we can do.

welcome back

2011-01-10T10:27:18-05:00

Hello again archinect!
After a wonderful winter break we've started the quarter here at the KSA. A few great things will be happening. First of all the lecture series, which has lined up some great people for both winter and spring quarters, you can check out the list on the Knowlton website.

We also have some new/ visiting faculty for the quarter including Charles Davis who will be teaching a seminar on race and place, as well as Jason Payne of Hirsuta who is teaching one of the graduate studios.

All of us in the G3/6th year/ final-year-of-grad-school studios have realized that this will likely be our last studio ever since we will be working on our exit review lectures next quarter. Our studios include the aforementioned Jason Payne whose topic is surface and more specifically hides, there is a lot of slightly disturbing but in a good way research going on about animal hides and taxidermy. Karen Lewis is running a studio inspired by the high-speed rail debate in Ohio, we'll be...

Back to real life and sleeping

2010-12-05T22:32:51-05:00

Final reviews were last week at Knowlton, hence why I've been a tad MIA since the first entry.

The studio I was in with Kay Bea Jones actually had two reviews. We've been working within the Weinland Park neighborhood of Columbus, talking to residents and engaging them in design clinics and such so our first was at the Schoenbaum Family Center.

Our studio along with an urban design studio from the University of Cincinnati and a landscape studio from Ohio State set up an exhibit of our work which will be there for a couple of weeks. It was really great to show the residents what we've been doing and see what they thought. Some funny comments were that the housing looked too nice for them to live in and things like that but it was great how open they were to our ideas. Our second review was the more standard review the next day, Thursday, and we had some great critics. We were all exhausted but I think everyone's work was really great so it was certainly worth it.

Following all of...

Hello There Archinect

2010-11-18T21:49:34-05:00

As recently as 3 years ago, I knew basically nothing about architecture except that I was going to apply to graduate programs to study it. As a senior at Northwestern University, I had studied math and art for four years and had figured out that I wanted to do something else. In retrospect, it was probably indecision combined with the naïve delusion that math + art = architecture that led to this very important decision. Luckily, even though I decided on a whim it has worked out wonderfully and with the help of coffee and a stubbornness to figure things out I’ve come to really love architecture.

I was born in Romania and moved to the US when I was 5 years old where I grew up first on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology and then in the suburbs in upstate New York. Then I went to Northwestern for undergrad, where my older sister went as well, and ended up at Ohio State for graduate school. Now I’m in my last year of grad school and excited/terrified/optimistic with re...