Archinect - the tri continuum

And It Hit Me All At Once

2015-02-04T15:32:48-05:00

So most of my life, I always strived to be a little more mature that I should be. I take on bigger responsibilities and became the 'mom' of my friend group. I rarely had time to be young and have fun. I was always focused on the future, and what it expected from me.

Well, I recently watched 'Archiculture' which is a 25-minute documentary of what it is like to be an Architecture student, with the perspective of 5 Pratt Institute Architecture majors and insight from architects and related professionals. While most of the documentary was what I imagined from my experience with studio culture, one insight took a strong hold on me.

A professional reminded me something I never realized about Studio. So far, I have thought of Studio in context of all the all-nighters, the failed designs that need to be reworked by the next day, the touchy-feely critics that just does not care how many hours were spent building a final model and almost always rip them apart... Well, surprisingly (or so to me)...

Reflections: Frank Lloyd Wright

2015-01-28T12:20:53-05:00

“There could be no separation between our architecture and our culture, Nor any separation of either from our happiness, Nor any separation from our work."

– Frank Lloyd Wright, Natural House

Lecture Series: Inga Saffron

2015-01-25T20:49:28-05:00

The Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture critic Inga Saffron gives insight in architectural criticism today. While many hope to read about immense projects done by a guild of architects known as 'starchitects,' most will often read smaller stories, set in their neighborhood, of buildings they pass by unknowingly.

Saffron talks much about Philadelphia, "a city of neighborhoods" and a newly transformed city for millennials. With the rise of population, density has become a large trend, and unfortunately with it, gentrification.

Indeed, new and expensive real estate are popping up like daisies diminishing the once vast sea of low row houses that was Philly. Many people are uprooted from neighborhoods that they have known all their lives to live in other darker, dirtier corners of the city. Some buildings, after being built, fail to connect the neighborhood and are unsuccessful in providing a sense of place in affordable housing.

Saffron's criticism is not the pieces of architecture themselv...

I: Introducing Project I

2015-01-25T19:52:10-05:00

A new semester, a new project. Our first project focuses on doing precedent analysis of any of the 13 listed modern homes (below) and then creating a 3-D model derived from what we learned in our analysis.

Schroeder-Schrader House, Gerrit Rietveld, Utrecht, Netherlands, 1924-25
Villa Stein, Le Corbusier, Garches, France, 1927
Lovell Beach House, Rudolph Schindler, Newport Beach, CA, United States, 1926
Tugendhat House, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Brno, Czech Republic, 1930
Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bear Run Creek, PA, United States, 1936
Villa Mairea, Alvar Aalto, Noormaku, Finland, 1939
Stretto House, Steven Holl, Dallas, TX, United States, 1989-92
Margaret Esherick House, Louis Kahn, Chestnut Hill, PA, United States, 1961
Villa Dall'Ava, Rem Koolhaas, Paris, France, 1991
E1027, Eileen Grey, Roquebrun-Cap-Martin, France, 1924
Bianchi House, Mario Botta, Ticino, Switzerland, 1971-73
House VI, Peter Eisenman, Cornwall, CT, United States, 1972-75
Double House, MVRDV, Utrecht, Netherlands, 19...

Reflections: Jade Doskow

2014-06-13T20:43:25-04:00

"‘Decay’ implies death; making these pictures is more about giving these structures a new life."

– Jade Doskow, on her exhibit World's Fair: Lost Utopias

Reflections: Stephen King

2014-05-15T11:20:02-04:00

“You are the grim, goal-oriented ones who will not believe that the joy is in the journey rather than the destination no matter how many times it has been proven to you.”

– Stephen King, from The Dark Towers VII: The Dark Tower

Sometimes you just need to remind yourself.

The Times They are A'changin

2014-05-12T03:58:00-04:00

I like books. I read to know things, know people, places. For me, I have to empathize to create, be inspired, and to dig into my thoughts.

So I recently finished a side reading of mine: The Master Builders by Peter Blake. To backtrack a bit, I took an amazing course on everything Frank Lloyd Wright at my university and as part of the class, did some research. While I used this book for the research, I didn't have quite the time to actually sit down and read it, so I waited until I could.

For those who do not know, The Master Builders is a three part story in which late architect and editor Peter Blake gives the audience his condensed biographies of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright, all respectively a master in Form, in Structure, and in Space. In short, Blake did a great job. I loved it and read it within two days. Couldn't let go of the darn thing it was that satisfying (which is what books are supposed to be!).

Going off of what I read, I found it very... frust...

Reflections: Theodore Baird

2013-11-04T20:29:04-05:00

"Things wear out. Roofs leak, pipes freeze, glass breaks, the oil burner falls apart and goes boom, the toaster no longer pops up. The catalog is endless, and it is humiliating. You can measure a life span in many ways, by class reunions, marriages, wars, depressions. How many ice boxes and refrigerators have you used up? Then there is a long list, a Chevrolet, two Fords, two Austins, three VWs, this makes one feel old indeed. Why I can remember driving across New York State Route 20 and enjoying it. . . We live in a beautiful and in a violent world, and the objects we use so carelessly and delight in most especially are all subject to the degradation of matter."

– Theodore Baird, "Shays Street," The Most of It: Essays on Language and the Imagination (1999)

Theodore Baird was an emeritus professor of English at Amherst College and notably a client of Frank Lloyd Wright with theTheodore Baird Residence or the Baird House on Shays Street, Amherst, Massachusetts, US.