anybody know a website with student pictures of bass wood models?
im making some for my undergrad portfolio and I wanted to know if im on the right track.
any website with building renderings with markers are also appreciated. ! ill post pics if I can next time.
"pin up" is the hell that all UF undergrad architecture students must endure to make it into "upper division"...it's a presentation of your best work from the first two years (Design 1-Design 4)...it usually cuts the number of students in about half...if you don't make it, you find another major or another school...and to make it that more hellish, you have to wait half the summer to get your letter and find out that you made it...it was torture, but that is what makes UF's undergrad program so good...
yeah, i bet. we have something somewhat similar @ my school, although not nearly as intense or public. @ the end of the 2nd year, students compile and submit a portfolio which determines whether or not they can move on to the third year.
it was terrifying, almost made me change majors to interior design! But is does work and the weed out process there keeps the program strong while still giving people an opportunity beyond the initial acceptance.
What are the projects? The projects are all very pretty but without any pedagogical context. There are certainly some tectonic considerations at work, but I'm very curious as to what drives the process.
Usually, at least when I was there, we made context models as a class. These would be huge, like 15ftx15ft and take a long time.
There'd be a hole for the site, and each of us would plug in our models for the crits and pictures. That's most likely why you don't see context.
It's a great way to design. We'd have different scale models, from sketch to the final. You can see relatinoships while building models that you simply over look in 3D. I love designing in 3D, but designing with models is superior for many things.
Those site models just get trashed at the end of the semesters. A shame, really, as they cost a fortune and soooo many hours of physical labor.
adso, your comments are a little speculative considering what images you're looking at (presumably).
The curriculum of the lower division design studios is incredibly solid, and perhaps the greatest strength of the program. The specific pedagogical approach (at least as I experienced it) takes students through a variety of rigorous investigations. I'm certainly not the most qualified person to explain it, but I'll give it a shot...
The first semester typically begins with "the cube" project. Space is manipulated in these cubes and methods for its deliniation are discovered. Systems evolve along with their tectonic definition...in the end a clearly stated set of heirarchies (spatial and material) exists. The smaller investigations within the greater "cube investigation" take form as sketches, sketch models, 2-d sectional cuts (often organized in series), axonometric drawings and physical models.
Once the cube project reaches a reasonable level of development, it turns into a second project or investigation: the matrix.
From the language developed in the cube project, students create a greater system within which their cube is a part. Keep in mind that human occupation has yet to be considered; up to now, space, systems and context are abstract.
The first semester typically includes these 2 projects and another 1 or 2 depending...
Design 2 delves into architectural analysis, diagramming and representation. My professor organized our studio into 3 projects.
First, we looked at a highly sectional site on campus and created diagrams, collages etc that were representative of the site's vertical and horizontal rhythm, the human and vehicular movement through it, and other issues, such as implied planes that affected this movement and systems acting through the site. ALthough I may have not described it well...it was during this project that we began to see our environment differently (read - like an architect [in training]).
Our 2nd project looked at a SLR camera and literally disected it. We first diagrammed the movement of light during the moment that an image was taken. These diagrams (a series of 2-d and 3-d studies) eventually became (more or less) spatial models of the phenomenon as each student understood it. The difference from one final model to the next was quite incredible. Tectonic language was appearant, spatial and material joints were considered and deliberate, and a degree of craftsmanship entered in.
For our final investigation of the semester, we looked at Le Corbusier's Unit d'Habitacion in Marseilles. With the analytical tools from the first 2 investigations of the semester, we examined logic of the bldg and its many systems...
Design 3 began with a project called "Door-Window-Stair." But before we designed anything, our prof had us looking at a number of good examples of each element, and from throughout history. For example, I looked at the windows in the dome of StPeters in Rome...the thickness and intracacy of the sculpted edges that defined it...Another student made a beautiful series of diagrams of Scarpa's Olivetti Staircase...etc. We first considered what a door or window or stair was, took apart some good examples of them, and added to the foundation.
We still haven't deliberately "designed space for people."
Next, we did a series of light studies - small models to examine different strategies for manipulating light.
All the while (from the first class of the semester) we were looking at a "cultural narrative" that was to inform our eventual project. To keep it short, a painting, book, film etc was investigated, re-presented in a new format, and folded into the project. Ours informed the itinerarial aspects of our door window stair projects. The light studies and specific character of our elements (door window and stair), acted as layers in the process.
I have to go home soon....but this gives you an idea about the pedagogical context. 2.5 - 3 semesters of foundational investigations before we get to "buildings."
In the fourth semester (Design 4), the last before pin-up, our studio conducted 3 projects with actual sites and programs. Program and context were issues in the Design 3 studios, but still in a less 'real-life' form (there's a better way to say that...hope you get the idea).
Our class looked at Savannah GA, analyzed it etc, and created a series of interventions along an itinerary. Eventually we developed one of the interventions...
Second project - 2 week quickie, taking our Savannah investigations and putting them into a single, vertical thing.
Our last investigation was sited in the desert, and phenomenology was focused on as a defining aspect of the projects.
Keep in mind, as we learned during the first semester, we design our contexts before we get to designing our projects. This is crucial.
A Morphosis wet dream? More like a lurid marathon bukkake session at the blind perverts convention.
Those models and drawings are all over the place. Looks like a classic case of architecture students having severe OCD. It sure looks cool but it also looks like the busy work of people trying very hard to not be critical of what they are producing.
Just keep drawing and chopper'ing wood sticks or the teacher wont give us a good grade. Drawing this 38th section cut at a 23.67 degree angle is making me horny. Nose to the grindstone and we might get hired to be a model maker at a prof's local firm.
And if they can make nicer anal models, then why cant they take nicer photos ar at least learn how to light their subjects with proper lighting so they look less like digital pictures from an amatueur porno shoots?
...and sorry about shooting the lens Mr. camaraman
the above is specifically about the PIN UP TOP TEN
the other undergrade and grad work links i just saw show models and drawings in a much more elegant presentation and look like thoughtfully crafted work.
those pics are from the pinup. it's one hall where you get a 4' or something strip. You have no control over the lighting, unless you went to the photo lab.
Your comments are a little off base, imho. While you can see that there is bass wood, museum board, and one or two look similar, you can hardly judge the quality or sophistication from here.
I like what I've seen, and I can't say that about one other single school that I've seen work come out of in the last 8+ years, including UCLA my grad school (there are some that are very good, but some not so much).
One thing UF does is teach you about space and experience, and how these relate to each other. These are qualities that were completely dismissed by the blobbers and Maya. Qualities that should be paramount in creating great architecture.
We designed our first building in Design 4. Most studios didn't. It was a great project. Mario Gooden, our prof., borrowed video cameras and we documented our site this way. Still the best way to capture a site, imo.
Design 5 we designed follies and a bath house. Design 6 we went to Savannah and Charleston. Great times, great places to move up in scale and complexity.
Design 7 we went to Manhattan for a week. Design 8 we went to Italy for 4 months.
Great experiences, great school. I need to build a model.
everyone was required to make quality models. if you took pics of an entire class, they'd all be crafted well. It's true you get get carried away with perfection, but I believe it is far better than people crafting crappy models and missing the material/physical relationships that can only form with craft.
When I was there, and that was waaaay back 92-97, process and critical thinking were the most important qualities to any design. It's only in the first few design classes that craft is actually emphasized. From that point on, it's just what you do. Presentation is a fundamental part of architecture and I do believe that this early emphasis helps to form a foundation that comes into play for your entire career. I've seen so many students and practicing architects that have no craft, and it shows in their drawings, models, and design.
It's easy to slop a computer model together, but when you actually have to build it, then you have to solve it.
from what i remember from my time there, the photos of the "top 10" pinups were usually taken by the secretary of the department, so that's probably why they are poorly lit...and the hallway situation that trace described...
also, admittedly a lot of UF models tend towards overarticulation of sticks...but it is important to note that most of the models in the pinups are not buildings but rather "spatial constructs" as AP said in his rundown of the pedagogy...
occasionally the huge site models go on for later uses...for example the huge model of one of louis kahn's projects that was used as a site for one of robert mccarter's classes (the one with the dangerous wire trees on the wall in the department office) is now featured in his big new book on kahn...
the coolest site model that i've ever seen was from one of paul kariouk's grad classes...it was made entirely of cast wax...it was lit from below and looked incredible...
yeah, there were some amazing bases there. It was truly inspiring to walk through the studios and look at others work. You just can't do that with computers.
I fell victim to the too-many-sticks syndrome, but I did learn from it.
I still have my design 5 tower. Took me over 24 hours with a small torch just to make the center truss! Was worth every minute and I plan to keep that baby forever. Maybe build the thing, someday...
I have to disagree, j, that craft drives the design process at UF. As trace mentioned, it's second nature. Design is driven by a careful and thoughtful analytical stage, and a process oriented design stage. The boundary between analysis and design is sometimes blurred, but both phases of the process are rigorous and employ plenty of critical consideration.
A final model is arrived at after a series of investigations that take shape in a variety of media, and the levels of tectonic/material/spatial development evolve along the way. A final model on a lower division student's pin-up board is a representation of 2 years of foundational investigations (as described above). Craft is something you learn in the first semester, while picking up other BASICS of representation and spatial definition. These projects are full of content, especially considering where they lie in the continuum of an architectural education.
Thanks for the detailed response, AP. Exactly what I was wondering about- getting that level of tectonic consideration out of first year UG students. It's easy to dismiss student work as eye candy when there's no explanation of process, but your description reassures me that the high level of craft is an aspect of a rigorous design process, not merely the objective of it.
I love blobby digital fancy graphics as much as the next guy, but it's nice to see the act of MAKING is still alive and well.
I was looking at some of the UofF student's work and I have a question.
what are those models with half exterior half interior representations.
the ones you can see the stairs and the glass windows hanging?
Sectional models. It gets the students thinking about the project not just in plan, or circulation, but how the concept works from a different point of view.
i feel like a little bit of an ass for posting images of my own work (the first three) as a counterpoint to the significance of basswood modelling as a technique of architectural representation, but, trace, you sound like a COMPLETE ass, and i feel like a rebuttal is in order.
"It's easy to slop a computer model together, but when you actually have to build it, then you have to solve it."
It's also easy to slop a basswood model together. Results are what matters, difficulty is relative. I assure you that in all of the images above, the people that "slopped together" the model certainly had to "solve it."
"It was truly inspiring to walk through the studios and look at others work. You just can't do that with computers."
Correction: YOU can't do that with computers. Printed renderings aside, Columbia has a couple of 3d printers that will spit out a physical model overnight in either ABS plastic or this beautiful, smooth, sandy material. Sure, it's not BASSWOOD, but come on, not all of us went to UofF, you can't expect the world from us peons.
And, for another angle on the "you just can't do that with computers" remark, I have seen renderings made to look _exactly_ like a photograph of a basswood model, and some that look _exactly_ like a photograph of a chipboard model. Are you going to bring your physical model to a job interview, or are you going to bring a portfolio with photographs of your work? Are you going to put a physical model in your monograph, or are you going to put in a photograph of the physical model?
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I'm not saying that a beautiful basswood model isn't a wonderful thing, both to build and to have afterwards for a long time, but you ARE saying that computer-generated techniques of representation are inferior, and that's where I think you are dead wrong. Computer modelling is much more accurate, lifelike and versatile, and most clients prefer to see a photo-realistic rendering of their project than a basswood and plexiglass model. And, with digital fabrication techniques evolving rapidly, it's only a matter of time before 3d printing and milling become truly viable for both student work and widespread architectural application.
AND!
I can make $60+ an hour slopping together 3d models. How much do you get working in that model shop? I know it hurts... but only with acceptance can come growth. The basswood model is almost an anachronism at this point, a skill relegated in offices to low-paid, OCD architecture grads who know more about various types of modelling glue than they do about designing space.
Wow, it really sounds like you have something against building models.
Renderings are great ways to realistically visualize a space,but I think sometimes people get very involved in making them pretty rather than focusing on the idea. The same thing can happen with a basswood model though.
When it comes to problem solving in a basswood model, it directly relates to what you are trying to build. As far as a rendering is concerned, the problem solving process seems to be more of a computer issue.
Why make a rendering to look like a basswood model? Just build it.
I think there is a mediation between basswood models and using the computer for representation, but you shouldn't be so one sided. There advantages to both. I do think that pretty renderings, as well as a finely crafted basswood model, can manipulate how how views the project.
joed - I think you are missing the point. I do 3D renderings for 90% of my income, so I am well aware of how to build something in a computer. And I also know that when I want to fudge something, it's not hard. I just don't show it in the rendering.
You can't do that with a model. Either that 3rd floor extension is supported with something, or it falls down - literally. No gravity in 3D (and don't give me anything about reactor or dynamics).
I also did 90% of my graduate work via a computer. When I walk around a studio at 4am and all the machines are off, that's it. I only see what someone printed at one moment, and most don't print often because of cost. With models, you can walk through a studio at 3am and study everyone's work, up close. That's where I learned a ton - from the other students process, work, etc. I would venture that they learned from me in the same manner - a symbiotic relationship them studios were.
I think you can lie with a computer model. With a real model, you can't. It's there or it isn't. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. For students, particularly in the very early stages, it can be very bad.
So 3D is great, models are great. I don't think you can get by without both. 3D to quickly design, then models to test with, then back to 3D to test lighting, materials, etc. It's a process and these are just tools.
anyone with an basic knowledge of a camera could have compensated for whatever lighting situation exists in the UF critique hall. those pictures of the top 10 were just really bad.
otherwise, with few exceptions, the projects do totally look like students' wet dreams of old morphosis projects. intersections of shapes, shards, spears, sticks and other 'S' words (go pull your early morphosis monographs off the shelf) and 'expressive' buildings that stretch lazily over a maximum of their sites. sectional models and diagrams whose obscurity is matched only by their incomprehensibility (again just like morphosis). density of imagery (complexity is somehow better than clarity) shows an uncommon similarity of aesthetic and approach that does indeed indicate an unhealthy fetish with morophosis' projects and models. i think freud has something to say about this sort of thing.....
newold, you're talking about kids with no more than 2 years of arch school (those on the pin-ups), many of whom had not yet become familiar with Morphosis etc.
Imagine a student arriving at something Mayne-esque after having been introduced to the work of Corbusier? seem possible?
For the last time, those projects, especially the final landscape models that seem to be the subject, are arrived at along a process that involves as much analysis as it does design. We learned to think critically while making that stuff, to ask questions and not produce nonsense for some aesthetic cause. (by the way, none of the work is mine, so I'm not defending myself)...
The people represented on those pin-up boards (generally speaking) end up at Ivy League grad schools with advanced placement, and beat you out for a job because of the critical attitude and design sensibility that being at UF gave them.
You don't have to like it, but please, for your own sake, don't hate.
yeah, I had no idea who Morphosis was until 3rd year. Honestly, I don't think I owned a monograph and didn't know anything besides memorizing stuff for history classes.
That's a good thing.
The first few years are spent learning about space - something that I think so many miss. It's a long study, investigating spatial and material relationships without the burden of program (with a few exception).
"sectional models and diagrams whose obscurity is matched only by their incomprehensibility (again just like morphosis). "
I am not sure how a sectional model is obscure or incomprehensible - it is what it is, a section of space.
And lastly, AP is correct, Ivy Leagues and top schools love UF students.
you admit a morphosis complex ! I knew it. but there's nothing really wrong with being a fan and besides, them's just jokes son. just taking the piss 'for my own sake'. architecture is permeated with introverts who take any joke or challenge soooo personally.
and yes yes yes. long process, analysis, thinking critically, hurt feelings at the critics' misunderstandings (those a**holes). yes yes, I remember that well but everybody says that whether they end up with ghery-esque, dutch-esque, mayne-esque, blob-esque, DWELL-esque, or whatever else floats their boat. everyone claims that 'it's about something' but somehow come up with radically different results. my school thought they kept it real by producing infinite 2nd year corbu-philes who eventually became de-con-philes, murcutt-philes, dutch-philes (that was me), sustaina-philes, etc.....
but, ivy grad schools ?.... hoorah,.. whuptydo (!). Is this boy scouts with merit badges, homoerotic late nights, and pointless bragging rights; that's just being retarded. and beat me out of a job,.... do I know you ? your defensiveness is way funnier than the original work.
I wanted to say that I have also heard good things about UF and had an excellent prof who went there that I liked very much. Also, it's great that UF weeds out students after the second year. at many state schools, it's really common for dead-weight stragglers to be tollerated and coddled through all 4-5 years when they should have been kicked out. glad you alumnii or students like it so much.
trace, i think your point about 'not being able to fake it' in a physical model is off. the physics of a basswood model have nothing to do with the physics of a building. for example, you cantilever an entire sheet of 1/4x24x4 sheet of basswood off of any of those physical models if you used enough superglue. this would be 'faking' cantilevering a completely unsupported 1 foot slab 96 feet.
3d models and basswood models are both representations. Basswood models are no closer to an actual building than 3d models are, unless they get up to maybe 3"=1' scale, in which case you could also make a detail model in the computer (and 3d print it if you felt like it).
the point of showing my images is that you can evoke a real sense of the combined effects of scale, lighting and materiality with a computer rendering, whereas basswood models are smoothed out abstractions that architects fetishize. if architecture is about designing space, then I say the means of representation that best exhibit spatial qualities wins. you say that basswood models have nothing to hide, that they are forced to come to terms with all of the assembly details of a building, but as an architect i know that you must realize that position is so wrong it's laughable.
to delugan fan: you would build a computer model to look like a chipboard model because it would save a ton of time and material waste and essentially give you the same product in the end (a "photograph" of a model). using a texture that approximates chipboard would do the same thing that using chipboard does: implying a generality to a surface that is only defined in a schematic way at a given point in its development as part of a project.
listen, i have nothing against basswood models, i find them as seductive as the next architect finds them, but i take affront to the notion that they are somehow better than 3d modelling. i have built my fair share of physical and computer models, and making a wall is making a wall is making a wall. i don't think that gluing two walls together is somehow more realistic or substantive than snapping a few vertices together. they both tend to gloss over what the actual detailed connection is.
in the end i think, trace, you have it right with this: "So 3D is great, models are great." however, my point is that, while they are both great, 3d is faster, more versatile and can get to a more realistic representation of the designed space. while i'm at it, i feel compelled to add, since i'm at columbia, that the computer is allowing some people to develop new geometries that a hundred years of mitre-sawing, sanding and gluing could never come up with. whether you appreciate these geometries or not is not particularly relevant; the potential of the computer in this capacity has provided a new territory to be researched in architecture, and the exploration of new ideas is always worthwhile, even if they fail in the end. you may feel like i am getting off track here, but you describe computer modelling and physical modelling as codependent parts of "process," but many people no longer include traditional basswood modelling as part of their process of design anymore, and are creating innovative theoretical and built work.
and on top of all of that, you don't need to chop down any trees to make a computer model (that comment might open up a can of worms, but so be it).
As a fellow Uf'er I gotta agree with both camps. On one hand we are stuck with sometimes icomprehensible stuff. It is done as mere studies, and I dont think that you should really be that critical, I mean are you critical of daniel libeskind;s macromegas and other studies.
Doing incomprehensible stuff gets you somewhere you didn't know you wanted to be. That being said, I believe that sometimes it has become a problem, and there are professors and administrators a little worried about the suject. Many professors are very demanding htta everything you do be completely related to your process, i nthat way it becomes comprehensible.
The argument over basswood models is silly. I think I did one my entire tiem in UF. One of my favorite fellow student-designers used chicken wire, and pink foam exclusively. The idea is to make your ideas come accross, computer helps, models (of all materiality) help, drawings help, in at least one ocasion for me a tshirt helped, etc...
I personally am not a fan of basswood, it is expensive, and implies a level of refinement that I find troubling. It is easier and better to do nice sketch models in the computer, I would never do a "skecth" out of bass wood if nothing else because of the cost.
While at UF i did appreciate one or two things I saw out of basswood, a professor there creates the most beautiful, small-scale models I have ever seen out of basswood. Those stand out in my mind as examples of great bass-wood work.
or you could just present a slideshow, which is what is done in many studios here. granted, many studios also print out tons of crap for no reason, but i hope that this will eventually get phased out. i think it is important to have drawings on the wall, but this is the case regardless of involvement with the computer.
(for the record, i still hand draft and build physical models often, and understand the value of their tactility. the only thing that i am arguing against is the notion that this tactility somehow makes them superior, much less necessary.)
Yes, there benefits to both. The thing I like most about a built model is the ability to pick it up and play with it. The computer presents just images. The computer can also show other things that a model can't, which is why we work with both. Basswood models to me are just for presentation, not for process. Just like final renderings. There is no form of representation that is superior to the other. What really matters is the idea and conveying that in the best way possible.
What I don't understand is that people seem to think that all this stuff is mutually exclusive and that each one is somehow better or worse than the other. That the first sketch done on a bar napkin is inferior to the final built basswood model. That model wouldn't exist without the first sketch. Just like the computer rendering wouldn't exist without the sketch model. Which is a superior tool for final presentation? Both really. The model informs the rendering in the same way that the rendering informs the model. A good rendering gives a realization of materiality that doesn't exist in the final model. Whereas the model gives an understanding of connections and space that a computer image cant convey.
joed needs to start making more physical models. His renderings show nothing more than poor-design on steriods.... "lipstick on a horse"...
(stop exploiting those displacement maps in mental ray... doesn't really help at all)
I've never been a big fan of Botta's work, but the models are pretty damn nice. Nicer than the actual buildings, really. Makes me wish Botta would just build out of wood because his aesthetic of horizontally striping everything seems to work better with monochromatic materials.
bass wood models
anybody know a website with student pictures of bass wood models?
im making some for my undergrad portfolio and I wanted to know if im on the right track.
any website with building renderings with markers are also appreciated. ! ill post pics if I can next time.
check out the university of florida student work section at link
uf students are masters of the basswood model
nice! i love the pin up section! great ideas for presentations.
"pin up" is the hell that all UF undergrad architecture students must endure to make it into "upper division"...it's a presentation of your best work from the first two years (Design 1-Design 4)...it usually cuts the number of students in about half...if you don't make it, you find another major or another school...and to make it that more hellish, you have to wait half the summer to get your letter and find out that you made it...it was torture, but that is what makes UF's undergrad program so good...
oh ok, i thought they were individual projects. damn, that sounds scary!
it's challenging, but actually quite exciting. The pin-up offers closure and a climactic event to 2 arduous years of lower division studios.
yeah, i bet. we have something somewhat similar @ my school, although not nearly as intense or public. @ the end of the 2nd year, students compile and submit a portfolio which determines whether or not they can move on to the third year.
it was terrifying, almost made me change majors to interior design! But is does work and the weed out process there keeps the program strong while still giving people an opportunity beyond the initial acceptance.
if you physically survive 2nd year you should be allowed on to 3rd
that was the consensus with us at school at least
the UofF work all looks like an early Morphosis wet dream.
that's 'cause they are one of the last places that care about craftmanship with models
Cant they just make a 3D model and make prints on glossy paper?
check out the models of brian mackay-lyons office. some of the best bass wood models around, no doubt.
that's funny. that was a joke, right?
What are the projects? The projects are all very pretty but without any pedagogical context. There are certainly some tectonic considerations at work, but I'm very curious as to what drives the process.
Usually, at least when I was there, we made context models as a class. These would be huge, like 15ftx15ft and take a long time.
There'd be a hole for the site, and each of us would plug in our models for the crits and pictures. That's most likely why you don't see context.
It's a great way to design. We'd have different scale models, from sketch to the final. You can see relatinoships while building models that you simply over look in 3D. I love designing in 3D, but designing with models is superior for many things.
Those site models just get trashed at the end of the semesters. A shame, really, as they cost a fortune and soooo many hours of physical labor.
Fun stuff.
adso, your comments are a little speculative considering what images you're looking at (presumably).
The curriculum of the lower division design studios is incredibly solid, and perhaps the greatest strength of the program. The specific pedagogical approach (at least as I experienced it) takes students through a variety of rigorous investigations. I'm certainly not the most qualified person to explain it, but I'll give it a shot...
The first semester typically begins with "the cube" project. Space is manipulated in these cubes and methods for its deliniation are discovered. Systems evolve along with their tectonic definition...in the end a clearly stated set of heirarchies (spatial and material) exists. The smaller investigations within the greater "cube investigation" take form as sketches, sketch models, 2-d sectional cuts (often organized in series), axonometric drawings and physical models.
Once the cube project reaches a reasonable level of development, it turns into a second project or investigation: the matrix.
From the language developed in the cube project, students create a greater system within which their cube is a part. Keep in mind that human occupation has yet to be considered; up to now, space, systems and context are abstract.
The first semester typically includes these 2 projects and another 1 or 2 depending...
Design 2 delves into architectural analysis, diagramming and representation. My professor organized our studio into 3 projects.
First, we looked at a highly sectional site on campus and created diagrams, collages etc that were representative of the site's vertical and horizontal rhythm, the human and vehicular movement through it, and other issues, such as implied planes that affected this movement and systems acting through the site. ALthough I may have not described it well...it was during this project that we began to see our environment differently (read - like an architect [in training]).
Our 2nd project looked at a SLR camera and literally disected it. We first diagrammed the movement of light during the moment that an image was taken. These diagrams (a series of 2-d and 3-d studies) eventually became (more or less) spatial models of the phenomenon as each student understood it. The difference from one final model to the next was quite incredible. Tectonic language was appearant, spatial and material joints were considered and deliberate, and a degree of craftsmanship entered in.
For our final investigation of the semester, we looked at Le Corbusier's Unit d'Habitacion in Marseilles. With the analytical tools from the first 2 investigations of the semester, we examined logic of the bldg and its many systems...
Design 3 began with a project called "Door-Window-Stair." But before we designed anything, our prof had us looking at a number of good examples of each element, and from throughout history. For example, I looked at the windows in the dome of StPeters in Rome...the thickness and intracacy of the sculpted edges that defined it...Another student made a beautiful series of diagrams of Scarpa's Olivetti Staircase...etc. We first considered what a door or window or stair was, took apart some good examples of them, and added to the foundation.
We still haven't deliberately "designed space for people."
Next, we did a series of light studies - small models to examine different strategies for manipulating light.
All the while (from the first class of the semester) we were looking at a "cultural narrative" that was to inform our eventual project. To keep it short, a painting, book, film etc was investigated, re-presented in a new format, and folded into the project. Ours informed the itinerarial aspects of our door window stair projects. The light studies and specific character of our elements (door window and stair), acted as layers in the process.
I have to go home soon....but this gives you an idea about the pedagogical context. 2.5 - 3 semesters of foundational investigations before we get to "buildings."
In the fourth semester (Design 4), the last before pin-up, our studio conducted 3 projects with actual sites and programs. Program and context were issues in the Design 3 studios, but still in a less 'real-life' form (there's a better way to say that...hope you get the idea).
Our class looked at Savannah GA, analyzed it etc, and created a series of interventions along an itinerary. Eventually we developed one of the interventions...
Second project - 2 week quickie, taking our Savannah investigations and putting them into a single, vertical thing.
Our last investigation was sited in the desert, and phenomenology was focused on as a defining aspect of the projects.
Keep in mind, as we learned during the first semester, we design our contexts before we get to designing our projects. This is crucial.
Hope that helps...gotta go...
oh, those images (of the pin-ups) are mostly, if not entirely, from the same year that I attended.
thenewold:
A Morphosis wet dream? More like a lurid marathon bukkake session at the blind perverts convention.
Those models and drawings are all over the place. Looks like a classic case of architecture students having severe OCD. It sure looks cool but it also looks like the busy work of people trying very hard to not be critical of what they are producing.
Just keep drawing and chopper'ing wood sticks or the teacher wont give us a good grade. Drawing this 38th section cut at a 23.67 degree angle is making me horny. Nose to the grindstone and we might get hired to be a model maker at a prof's local firm.
And if they can make nicer anal models, then why cant they take nicer photos ar at least learn how to light their subjects with proper lighting so they look less like digital pictures from an amatueur porno shoots?
...and sorry about shooting the lens Mr. camaraman
the above is specifically about the PIN UP TOP TEN
the other undergrade and grad work links i just saw show models and drawings in a much more elegant presentation and look like thoughtfully crafted work.
those pics are from the pinup. it's one hall where you get a 4' or something strip. You have no control over the lighting, unless you went to the photo lab.
Your comments are a little off base, imho. While you can see that there is bass wood, museum board, and one or two look similar, you can hardly judge the quality or sophistication from here.
I like what I've seen, and I can't say that about one other single school that I've seen work come out of in the last 8+ years, including UCLA my grad school (there are some that are very good, but some not so much).
One thing UF does is teach you about space and experience, and how these relate to each other. These are qualities that were completely dismissed by the blobbers and Maya. Qualities that should be paramount in creating great architecture.
We designed our first building in Design 4. Most studios didn't. It was a great project. Mario Gooden, our prof., borrowed video cameras and we documented our site this way. Still the best way to capture a site, imo.
Design 5 we designed follies and a bath house. Design 6 we went to Savannah and Charleston. Great times, great places to move up in scale and complexity.
Design 7 we went to Manhattan for a week. Design 8 we went to Italy for 4 months.
Great experiences, great school. I need to build a model.
everyone was required to make quality models. if you took pics of an entire class, they'd all be crafted well. It's true you get get carried away with perfection, but I believe it is far better than people crafting crappy models and missing the material/physical relationships that can only form with craft.
When I was there, and that was waaaay back 92-97, process and critical thinking were the most important qualities to any design. It's only in the first few design classes that craft is actually emphasized. From that point on, it's just what you do. Presentation is a fundamental part of architecture and I do believe that this early emphasis helps to form a foundation that comes into play for your entire career. I've seen so many students and practicing architects that have no craft, and it shows in their drawings, models, and design.
It's easy to slop a computer model together, but when you actually have to build it, then you have to solve it.
from what i remember from my time there, the photos of the "top 10" pinups were usually taken by the secretary of the department, so that's probably why they are poorly lit...and the hallway situation that trace described...
also, admittedly a lot of UF models tend towards overarticulation of sticks...but it is important to note that most of the models in the pinups are not buildings but rather "spatial constructs" as AP said in his rundown of the pedagogy...
occasionally the huge site models go on for later uses...for example the huge model of one of louis kahn's projects that was used as a site for one of robert mccarter's classes (the one with the dangerous wire trees on the wall in the department office) is now featured in his big new book on kahn...
the coolest site model that i've ever seen was from one of paul kariouk's grad classes...it was made entirely of cast wax...it was lit from below and looked incredible...
yeah, there were some amazing bases there. It was truly inspiring to walk through the studios and look at others work. You just can't do that with computers.
I fell victim to the too-many-sticks syndrome, but I did learn from it.
I still have my design 5 tower. Took me over 24 hours with a small torch just to make the center truss! Was worth every minute and I plan to keep that baby forever. Maybe build the thing, someday...
I have to disagree, j, that craft drives the design process at UF. As trace mentioned, it's second nature. Design is driven by a careful and thoughtful analytical stage, and a process oriented design stage. The boundary between analysis and design is sometimes blurred, but both phases of the process are rigorous and employ plenty of critical consideration.
A final model is arrived at after a series of investigations that take shape in a variety of media, and the levels of tectonic/material/spatial development evolve along the way. A final model on a lower division student's pin-up board is a representation of 2 years of foundational investigations (as described above). Craft is something you learn in the first semester, while picking up other BASICS of representation and spatial definition. These projects are full of content, especially considering where they lie in the continuum of an architectural education.
Thanks for the detailed response, AP. Exactly what I was wondering about- getting that level of tectonic consideration out of first year UG students. It's easy to dismiss student work as eye candy when there's no explanation of process, but your description reassures me that the high level of craft is an aspect of a rigorous design process, not merely the objective of it.
I love blobby digital fancy graphics as much as the next guy, but it's nice to see the act of MAKING is still alive and well.
I was looking at some of the UofF student's work and I have a question.
what are those models with half exterior half interior representations.
the ones you can see the stairs and the glass windows hanging?
Sectional models. It gets the students thinking about the project not just in plan, or circulation, but how the concept works from a different point of view.
can you do this with basswood?
how about this?
or maybe this?
or, for a really tough one, how about this?
i feel like a little bit of an ass for posting images of my own work (the first three) as a counterpoint to the significance of basswood modelling as a technique of architectural representation, but, trace, you sound like a COMPLETE ass, and i feel like a rebuttal is in order.
"It's easy to slop a computer model together, but when you actually have to build it, then you have to solve it."
It's also easy to slop a basswood model together. Results are what matters, difficulty is relative. I assure you that in all of the images above, the people that "slopped together" the model certainly had to "solve it."
"It was truly inspiring to walk through the studios and look at others work. You just can't do that with computers."
Correction: YOU can't do that with computers. Printed renderings aside, Columbia has a couple of 3d printers that will spit out a physical model overnight in either ABS plastic or this beautiful, smooth, sandy material. Sure, it's not BASSWOOD, but come on, not all of us went to UofF, you can't expect the world from us peons.
And, for another angle on the "you just can't do that with computers" remark, I have seen renderings made to look _exactly_ like a photograph of a basswood model, and some that look _exactly_ like a photograph of a chipboard model. Are you going to bring your physical model to a job interview, or are you going to bring a portfolio with photographs of your work? Are you going to put a physical model in your monograph, or are you going to put in a photograph of the physical model?
-------
I'm not saying that a beautiful basswood model isn't a wonderful thing, both to build and to have afterwards for a long time, but you ARE saying that computer-generated techniques of representation are inferior, and that's where I think you are dead wrong. Computer modelling is much more accurate, lifelike and versatile, and most clients prefer to see a photo-realistic rendering of their project than a basswood and plexiglass model. And, with digital fabrication techniques evolving rapidly, it's only a matter of time before 3d printing and milling become truly viable for both student work and widespread architectural application.
AND!
I can make $60+ an hour slopping together 3d models. How much do you get working in that model shop? I know it hurts... but only with acceptance can come growth. The basswood model is almost an anachronism at this point, a skill relegated in offices to low-paid, OCD architecture grads who know more about various types of modelling glue than they do about designing space.
Wow, it really sounds like you have something against building models.
Renderings are great ways to realistically visualize a space,but I think sometimes people get very involved in making them pretty rather than focusing on the idea. The same thing can happen with a basswood model though.
When it comes to problem solving in a basswood model, it directly relates to what you are trying to build. As far as a rendering is concerned, the problem solving process seems to be more of a computer issue.
Why make a rendering to look like a basswood model? Just build it.
I think there is a mediation between basswood models and using the computer for representation, but you shouldn't be so one sided. There advantages to both. I do think that pretty renderings, as well as a finely crafted basswood model, can manipulate how how views the project.
joed should never show his work ever again.............. not ever.
joed - I think you are missing the point. I do 3D renderings for 90% of my income, so I am well aware of how to build something in a computer. And I also know that when I want to fudge something, it's not hard. I just don't show it in the rendering.
You can't do that with a model. Either that 3rd floor extension is supported with something, or it falls down - literally. No gravity in 3D (and don't give me anything about reactor or dynamics).
I also did 90% of my graduate work via a computer. When I walk around a studio at 4am and all the machines are off, that's it. I only see what someone printed at one moment, and most don't print often because of cost. With models, you can walk through a studio at 3am and study everyone's work, up close. That's where I learned a ton - from the other students process, work, etc. I would venture that they learned from me in the same manner - a symbiotic relationship them studios were.
I think you can lie with a computer model. With a real model, you can't. It's there or it isn't. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. For students, particularly in the very early stages, it can be very bad.
So 3D is great, models are great. I don't think you can get by without both. 3D to quickly design, then models to test with, then back to 3D to test lighting, materials, etc. It's a process and these are just tools.
anyone with an basic knowledge of a camera could have compensated for whatever lighting situation exists in the UF critique hall. those pictures of the top 10 were just really bad.
otherwise, with few exceptions, the projects do totally look like students' wet dreams of old morphosis projects. intersections of shapes, shards, spears, sticks and other 'S' words (go pull your early morphosis monographs off the shelf) and 'expressive' buildings that stretch lazily over a maximum of their sites. sectional models and diagrams whose obscurity is matched only by their incomprehensibility (again just like morphosis). density of imagery (complexity is somehow better than clarity) shows an uncommon similarity of aesthetic and approach that does indeed indicate an unhealthy fetish with morophosis' projects and models. i think freud has something to say about this sort of thing.....
newold, you're talking about kids with no more than 2 years of arch school (those on the pin-ups), many of whom had not yet become familiar with Morphosis etc.
Imagine a student arriving at something Mayne-esque after having been introduced to the work of Corbusier? seem possible?
For the last time, those projects, especially the final landscape models that seem to be the subject, are arrived at along a process that involves as much analysis as it does design. We learned to think critically while making that stuff, to ask questions and not produce nonsense for some aesthetic cause. (by the way, none of the work is mine, so I'm not defending myself)...
The people represented on those pin-up boards (generally speaking) end up at Ivy League grad schools with advanced placement, and beat you out for a job because of the critical attitude and design sensibility that being at UF gave them.
You don't have to like it, but please, for your own sake, don't hate.
yeah, I had no idea who Morphosis was until 3rd year. Honestly, I don't think I owned a monograph and didn't know anything besides memorizing stuff for history classes.
That's a good thing.
The first few years are spent learning about space - something that I think so many miss. It's a long study, investigating spatial and material relationships without the burden of program (with a few exception).
"sectional models and diagrams whose obscurity is matched only by their incomprehensibility (again just like morphosis). "
I am not sure how a sectional model is obscure or incomprehensible - it is what it is, a section of space.
And lastly, AP is correct, Ivy Leagues and top schools love UF students.
you admit a morphosis complex ! I knew it. but there's nothing really wrong with being a fan and besides, them's just jokes son. just taking the piss 'for my own sake'. architecture is permeated with introverts who take any joke or challenge soooo personally.
and yes yes yes. long process, analysis, thinking critically, hurt feelings at the critics' misunderstandings (those a**holes). yes yes, I remember that well but everybody says that whether they end up with ghery-esque, dutch-esque, mayne-esque, blob-esque, DWELL-esque, or whatever else floats their boat. everyone claims that 'it's about something' but somehow come up with radically different results. my school thought they kept it real by producing infinite 2nd year corbu-philes who eventually became de-con-philes, murcutt-philes, dutch-philes (that was me), sustaina-philes, etc.....
but, ivy grad schools ?.... hoorah,.. whuptydo (!). Is this boy scouts with merit badges, homoerotic late nights, and pointless bragging rights; that's just being retarded. and beat me out of a job,.... do I know you ? your defensiveness is way funnier than the original work.
I wanted to say that I have also heard good things about UF and had an excellent prof who went there that I liked very much. Also, it's great that UF weeds out students after the second year. at many state schools, it's really common for dead-weight stragglers to be tollerated and coddled through all 4-5 years when they should have been kicked out. glad you alumnii or students like it so much.
trace, i think your point about 'not being able to fake it' in a physical model is off. the physics of a basswood model have nothing to do with the physics of a building. for example, you cantilever an entire sheet of 1/4x24x4 sheet of basswood off of any of those physical models if you used enough superglue. this would be 'faking' cantilevering a completely unsupported 1 foot slab 96 feet.
3d models and basswood models are both representations. Basswood models are no closer to an actual building than 3d models are, unless they get up to maybe 3"=1' scale, in which case you could also make a detail model in the computer (and 3d print it if you felt like it).
the point of showing my images is that you can evoke a real sense of the combined effects of scale, lighting and materiality with a computer rendering, whereas basswood models are smoothed out abstractions that architects fetishize. if architecture is about designing space, then I say the means of representation that best exhibit spatial qualities wins. you say that basswood models have nothing to hide, that they are forced to come to terms with all of the assembly details of a building, but as an architect i know that you must realize that position is so wrong it's laughable.
to delugan fan: you would build a computer model to look like a chipboard model because it would save a ton of time and material waste and essentially give you the same product in the end (a "photograph" of a model). using a texture that approximates chipboard would do the same thing that using chipboard does: implying a generality to a surface that is only defined in a schematic way at a given point in its development as part of a project.
listen, i have nothing against basswood models, i find them as seductive as the next architect finds them, but i take affront to the notion that they are somehow better than 3d modelling. i have built my fair share of physical and computer models, and making a wall is making a wall is making a wall. i don't think that gluing two walls together is somehow more realistic or substantive than snapping a few vertices together. they both tend to gloss over what the actual detailed connection is.
in the end i think, trace, you have it right with this: "So 3D is great, models are great." however, my point is that, while they are both great, 3d is faster, more versatile and can get to a more realistic representation of the designed space. while i'm at it, i feel compelled to add, since i'm at columbia, that the computer is allowing some people to develop new geometries that a hundred years of mitre-sawing, sanding and gluing could never come up with. whether you appreciate these geometries or not is not particularly relevant; the potential of the computer in this capacity has provided a new territory to be researched in architecture, and the exploration of new ideas is always worthwhile, even if they fail in the end. you may feel like i am getting off track here, but you describe computer modelling and physical modelling as codependent parts of "process," but many people no longer include traditional basswood modelling as part of their process of design anymore, and are creating innovative theoretical and built work.
and on top of all of that, you don't need to chop down any trees to make a computer model (that comment might open up a can of worms, but so be it).
You do need to chop down a few tress to print out renderings of the computer model though.
As a fellow Uf'er I gotta agree with both camps. On one hand we are stuck with sometimes icomprehensible stuff. It is done as mere studies, and I dont think that you should really be that critical, I mean are you critical of daniel libeskind;s macromegas and other studies.
Doing incomprehensible stuff gets you somewhere you didn't know you wanted to be. That being said, I believe that sometimes it has become a problem, and there are professors and administrators a little worried about the suject. Many professors are very demanding htta everything you do be completely related to your process, i nthat way it becomes comprehensible.
The argument over basswood models is silly. I think I did one my entire tiem in UF. One of my favorite fellow student-designers used chicken wire, and pink foam exclusively. The idea is to make your ideas come accross, computer helps, models (of all materiality) help, drawings help, in at least one ocasion for me a tshirt helped, etc...
I personally am not a fan of basswood, it is expensive, and implies a level of refinement that I find troubling. It is easier and better to do nice sketch models in the computer, I would never do a "skecth" out of bass wood if nothing else because of the cost.
While at UF i did appreciate one or two things I saw out of basswood, a professor there creates the most beautiful, small-scale models I have ever seen out of basswood. Those stand out in my mind as examples of great bass-wood work.
or you could just present a slideshow, which is what is done in many studios here. granted, many studios also print out tons of crap for no reason, but i hope that this will eventually get phased out. i think it is important to have drawings on the wall, but this is the case regardless of involvement with the computer.
(for the record, i still hand draft and build physical models often, and understand the value of their tactility. the only thing that i am arguing against is the notion that this tactility somehow makes them superior, much less necessary.)
Yes, there benefits to both. The thing I like most about a built model is the ability to pick it up and play with it. The computer presents just images. The computer can also show other things that a model can't, which is why we work with both. Basswood models to me are just for presentation, not for process. Just like final renderings. There is no form of representation that is superior to the other. What really matters is the idea and conveying that in the best way possible.
i don't think any computer renderings, no matter how realistic and seductive, will ever beat this guy's models...
What I don't understand is that people seem to think that all this stuff is mutually exclusive and that each one is somehow better or worse than the other. That the first sketch done on a bar napkin is inferior to the final built basswood model. That model wouldn't exist without the first sketch. Just like the computer rendering wouldn't exist without the sketch model. Which is a superior tool for final presentation? Both really. The model informs the rendering in the same way that the rendering informs the model. A good rendering gives a realization of materiality that doesn't exist in the final model. Whereas the model gives an understanding of connections and space that a computer image cant convey.
joed needs to start making more physical models. His renderings show nothing more than poor-design on steriods.... "lipstick on a horse"...
(stop exploiting those displacement maps in mental ray... doesn't really help at all)
I've never been a big fan of Botta's work, but the models are pretty damn nice. Nicer than the actual buildings, really. Makes me wish Botta would just build out of wood because his aesthetic of horizontally striping everything seems to work better with monochromatic materials.
Got the link from a recent news piece.
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