When I met with the director of the graduate architecture program at Cornell, she especially liked the Abbey Church project and suggested re-ordering the portfolio so that project appears first. Also, she indicated that the admissions committee usually likes to see more creative endeavors that aren't necessarily related to architecture. In her words, "We want to see more of you, less buildings."
Unfortunately, I don't do much in the way of painting or freehand drawing (at least drawing not directly project-related), but I do have some photography that I decided to include, both as dedicated spreads and also as backgrounds on the cover, contents, etc. Those backgrounds seem to cause problems with some people, but my gut feeling is to keep them in.
Also, although I personally like the Burnham Center and the CORE Center projects, I'm thinking about yanking them from the lineup. I'm not sure they really show anything about my creativity that isn't already shown by other projects, but I'm curious as to what others think. Is there a compelling reason why I shouldn't yank them?
Luckily my first deadline for portfolio submission is January 8th, so I still have some time to make revisions, but I'm definately in the home stretch here. At some point in the near future I'll have to put a fork in this and try not to engage in any further second-guessing.
content-wise, is more difficult to offer critique on. here is my take though...
those tourist photo trips to orgeon and london are odd to me, first because they have nothing to do with the work they interrupt, and 2nd cuz they are not exactly artwork level photographs (to be blunt) and they don't read as much more than an announcement that you have travelled...so i am not sure what to make of them.
i would not cut out the tower project as it is at least interesting and shows you have some range. apart from the abbey church project your other work is expressed in an overly workmanlike way...good for getting a job, but am not so sure about showing your personality...
in that sense i am inclined to agree with the cornell lady...where are YOU in your work? it is certainly professional but i don't see much of you or what you are thinking as a designer. which is maybe something you could address most easily with more sketches and conceptual diagrams...
i would say the sketches you have included now are pretty much just hand-drawn images of the final design, and not evidence of a process. you know, when the starchitects sell their work they always have an image or two that expresses a kernel of an idea, maybe a few abortive sketches or models, and then the final model or the thing that gets built. there is always a story about how the design came to be. and that is missing from your work still. am sure it is there is a story for each project, but might be better if you could express it in portfolio.
i think the text falls short for a similar reason. it is very descriptive and short on interpretation. surely you must have had an idea about your work other than to meet a functional requirement? something about intention would be nice...rather than statements like "A sweeping roof visually unifies all elements of the project." (from the bloomingdale project) which is self-evident (or if not, then it isn't working). personally i would be much more interested to hear about some of the poetic ideas behind the project. like you do with abbey church...
there are some interesting projects in the portfolio but if i was reviewing the work i would be left wondering what you are interested in pursuing as an architect that you need to go to school to get. apart from the above i can't think of any direct ways to get that message across, but i do think it is important that it works its way in there.
I agree with jump. I can see an improvement from the first round, but it would be nice to see more sketches expressing concept or your idea... I have heard over and over again that grad schools want to see process in a student's portfolio: diagrams, process models, sketches etc..
also the photos in the background can be a little distracting, esp in the case of pg 24-25 (st. thomas). don't be afraid of white space.
about the photography, i don't think it is something you should include unless you seriously pursue photography as an art.... you've taken courses, you have a good camera, you take the time to set up each frame...etc. otherwise it is a snapshot not a photo, even if they turn out beautiful.
as for the core center & burnham, both could stay if you add some sketches, models, or renderings.
i think it is great that you have taken on the "personal projects." maybe you could explain why. what motivated you? the abbey is definitely your best.
sounds like you still have plenty of time to make improvements.
good luck.
I appreciate your comments... I'll need some time to digest them.
Articulating and documenting my process has been by far the most challenging part of this whole endeavor, partly because so much of it takes place in my head before I even put a pen to paper. By the time I get to that step, I usually already have a pretty good idea of where my design is headed. Also, so much of my "sketching" is done in CAD nowadays, which leaves no paper trail. (I've adopted the habit of making regular backups of CAD drawings throughout the process so that there's more documentation -- and also to refer back to a previous idea if needed -- but I wasn't always doing so.)
Also, as I mentioned before, much of the process stuff for some older projects simply no longer exists. I produced mountains of sketches and a few models on the Villanova project, but I was let go from that job unexpectedly and wasn't able to make copies or take photos of my work. It was years before I could even get back to the site and get photos of the finished project.
For the academic projects, most of the early sketches and drawings were lost when my hard drive crashed a couple years ago. (Another reason for regular backups, lesson learned the hard way.) It's always possible to bullshit some process sketches after the fact, but that seems less than authentic.
I found some early CAD sketches of the Abbey Church and Burnham Center projects that I'll be able to include, but I'm at a loss for how to show much more on the other projects than I already have.
For the CORE Center, the project was more about creating some nice presentation drawings after the project was already built, so there wasn't much actual design involved... Which, IMO, makes me wonder why the project is there to begin with. Great for job interviews, but I'm not sure how it would help me in an academic setting.
As for the photography pages, I personally like them, but if they're not helping the portfolio I guess they should be yanked.
if photos really work for you then keep them in...perhaps changing how they fit into the flow a bit better.
but personally i think photography has to be as good as Ezra Stoller's work to be put into a portfolio as artwork. me, i am good at taking snapshots, but am not on that level and can't hope to be...the difference as i see it is that a great photographer can take a picture of a building and we will see the photographer as well as the building...a normal joe photographer will take a picture and all we will see is the building...which is not a great way to sell yourself to a committee looking for evience of you as a creative person...
as for process, well there is nothing to say you can't do it retroactively. show sketches of spatial relationships, diagrams of light and people moving through the places, whatever turns you on, whatever drives you to design. a sketch of the building that tells the same story as the model is ok, but not as telling about what interests you as an architect...
you may not have this anymore
but you can always make something like this after the fact
or even better something more abstract like this, from toyo ito:
which became the sendai mediatheque's absolutely stunning structural system...
anyway, in your case filling that gap really is important. otherwise the committee will not understand what you were trying to achieve with a design, where you like to start things, and what you might hope to achieve at grad school. if a project was about composition then show it that way, if it was about connection to nature, then show that, or if it was about structure then show the structure...what you show is not so important as much as having clear evidence that you are not just doing a job, that you have something you want to explore...
As promised on the 2007 M.Arch. Comisery thread, here it is: The Final Cut.
No doubt there's plenty of things I still could have done to make it better if I had unlimted time and patience, but it's beyond the point of second-guessing now. It is what it is.
I guess I'll find out how good it really is when I check my mailbox in early April....
Nevermind my previous message. Link works fine and portfolio looks great. I especially like your personal projects. I do, however, wish there was a view from within the atrium of the Daniel Burnham Center.
Best of luck. I'm sure you'll get into one of your top choices.
Thanks... Yeah, that atrium view would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Maybe one of these days I'll get around to constructing a 3D model of that project like I did for the Abbey Church.
hey...can i get to see your portfolio too...the link appears broken now...ofcourse this was posted long bak...but i have no clue as to wht to include in my portfolio...so was wondering if i cud get too see sm1s to get an idea.
This thread is almost three years old, and I no longer have the old version of my portfolio online. I'm in the process of re-working my portfolio for grad school admissions this fall, and I may post it online again once I've been admitted into an M.Arch. program next March or April. I don't feel comfortable posting it before then, though. Sorry.
ohhk...so was the portfolio you posted previously for an m archI course? m applying for a grad school for this fall too..for an ms or an m arch course..anyway..thanx for replying :)
I was going through the whole grad school admissions process at the time, although in retrospect, I wasn't anywhere nearly as prepared for it as I should have been. I'll be taking another crack at it this fall, now I've got a few more credentials and (hopefully) some more wisdom under my belt.
My portfolio! Look at it!
Okay, here it is for another round.
When I met with the director of the graduate architecture program at Cornell, she especially liked the Abbey Church project and suggested re-ordering the portfolio so that project appears first. Also, she indicated that the admissions committee usually likes to see more creative endeavors that aren't necessarily related to architecture. In her words, "We want to see more of you, less buildings."
Unfortunately, I don't do much in the way of painting or freehand drawing (at least drawing not directly project-related), but I do have some photography that I decided to include, both as dedicated spreads and also as backgrounds on the cover, contents, etc. Those backgrounds seem to cause problems with some people, but my gut feeling is to keep them in.
Also, although I personally like the Burnham Center and the CORE Center projects, I'm thinking about yanking them from the lineup. I'm not sure they really show anything about my creativity that isn't already shown by other projects, but I'm curious as to what others think. Is there a compelling reason why I shouldn't yank them?
Luckily my first deadline for portfolio submission is January 8th, so I still have some time to make revisions, but I'm definately in the home stretch here. At some point in the near future I'll have to put a fork in this and try not to engage in any further second-guessing.
LIG,
the layout is much better than first version...
content-wise, is more difficult to offer critique on. here is my take though...
those tourist photo trips to orgeon and london are odd to me, first because they have nothing to do with the work they interrupt, and 2nd cuz they are not exactly artwork level photographs (to be blunt) and they don't read as much more than an announcement that you have travelled...so i am not sure what to make of them.
i would not cut out the tower project as it is at least interesting and shows you have some range. apart from the abbey church project your other work is expressed in an overly workmanlike way...good for getting a job, but am not so sure about showing your personality...
in that sense i am inclined to agree with the cornell lady...where are YOU in your work? it is certainly professional but i don't see much of you or what you are thinking as a designer. which is maybe something you could address most easily with more sketches and conceptual diagrams...
i would say the sketches you have included now are pretty much just hand-drawn images of the final design, and not evidence of a process. you know, when the starchitects sell their work they always have an image or two that expresses a kernel of an idea, maybe a few abortive sketches or models, and then the final model or the thing that gets built. there is always a story about how the design came to be. and that is missing from your work still. am sure it is there is a story for each project, but might be better if you could express it in portfolio.
i think the text falls short for a similar reason. it is very descriptive and short on interpretation. surely you must have had an idea about your work other than to meet a functional requirement? something about intention would be nice...rather than statements like "A sweeping roof visually unifies all elements of the project." (from the bloomingdale project) which is self-evident (or if not, then it isn't working). personally i would be much more interested to hear about some of the poetic ideas behind the project. like you do with abbey church...
there are some interesting projects in the portfolio but if i was reviewing the work i would be left wondering what you are interested in pursuing as an architect that you need to go to school to get. apart from the above i can't think of any direct ways to get that message across, but i do think it is important that it works its way in there.
luck
gin,
I agree with jump. I can see an improvement from the first round, but it would be nice to see more sketches expressing concept or your idea... I have heard over and over again that grad schools want to see process in a student's portfolio: diagrams, process models, sketches etc..
also the photos in the background can be a little distracting, esp in the case of pg 24-25 (st. thomas). don't be afraid of white space.
about the photography, i don't think it is something you should include unless you seriously pursue photography as an art.... you've taken courses, you have a good camera, you take the time to set up each frame...etc. otherwise it is a snapshot not a photo, even if they turn out beautiful.
as for the core center & burnham, both could stay if you add some sketches, models, or renderings.
i think it is great that you have taken on the "personal projects." maybe you could explain why. what motivated you? the abbey is definitely your best.
sounds like you still have plenty of time to make improvements.
good luck.
I appreciate your comments... I'll need some time to digest them.
Articulating and documenting my process has been by far the most challenging part of this whole endeavor, partly because so much of it takes place in my head before I even put a pen to paper. By the time I get to that step, I usually already have a pretty good idea of where my design is headed. Also, so much of my "sketching" is done in CAD nowadays, which leaves no paper trail. (I've adopted the habit of making regular backups of CAD drawings throughout the process so that there's more documentation -- and also to refer back to a previous idea if needed -- but I wasn't always doing so.)
Also, as I mentioned before, much of the process stuff for some older projects simply no longer exists. I produced mountains of sketches and a few models on the Villanova project, but I was let go from that job unexpectedly and wasn't able to make copies or take photos of my work. It was years before I could even get back to the site and get photos of the finished project.
For the academic projects, most of the early sketches and drawings were lost when my hard drive crashed a couple years ago. (Another reason for regular backups, lesson learned the hard way.) It's always possible to bullshit some process sketches after the fact, but that seems less than authentic.
I found some early CAD sketches of the Abbey Church and Burnham Center projects that I'll be able to include, but I'm at a loss for how to show much more on the other projects than I already have.
For the CORE Center, the project was more about creating some nice presentation drawings after the project was already built, so there wasn't much actual design involved... Which, IMO, makes me wonder why the project is there to begin with. Great for job interviews, but I'm not sure how it would help me in an academic setting.
As for the photography pages, I personally like them, but if they're not helping the portfolio I guess they should be yanked.
if photos really work for you then keep them in...perhaps changing how they fit into the flow a bit better.
but personally i think photography has to be as good as Ezra Stoller's work to be put into a portfolio as artwork. me, i am good at taking snapshots, but am not on that level and can't hope to be...the difference as i see it is that a great photographer can take a picture of a building and we will see the photographer as well as the building...a normal joe photographer will take a picture and all we will see is the building...which is not a great way to sell yourself to a committee looking for evience of you as a creative person...
as for process, well there is nothing to say you can't do it retroactively. show sketches of spatial relationships, diagrams of light and people moving through the places, whatever turns you on, whatever drives you to design. a sketch of the building that tells the same story as the model is ok, but not as telling about what interests you as an architect...
you may not have this anymore
but you can always make something like this after the fact
or even better something more abstract like this, from toyo ito:
which became the sendai mediatheque's absolutely stunning structural system...
anyway, in your case filling that gap really is important. otherwise the committee will not understand what you were trying to achieve with a design, where you like to start things, and what you might hope to achieve at grad school. if a project was about composition then show it that way, if it was about connection to nature, then show that, or if it was about structure then show the structure...what you show is not so important as much as having clear evidence that you are not just doing a job, that you have something you want to explore...
*bump*
As promised on the 2007 M.Arch. Comisery thread, here it is: The Final Cut.
No doubt there's plenty of things I still could have done to make it better if I had unlimted time and patience, but it's beyond the point of second-guessing now. It is what it is.
I guess I'll find out how good it really is when I check my mailbox in early April....
Link didn't work for me, LIG. Regardless, thanks for sharing. I'll try to post mine here very soon.
Nevermind my previous message. Link works fine and portfolio looks great. I especially like your personal projects. I do, however, wish there was a view from within the atrium of the Daniel Burnham Center.
Best of luck. I'm sure you'll get into one of your top choices.
Thanks... Yeah, that atrium view would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Maybe one of these days I'll get around to constructing a 3D model of that project like I did for the Abbey Church.
LIG, great job with the final version. Thanks for putting it up again...
anyone else going to post theirs?
hey...can i get to see your portfolio too...the link appears broken now...ofcourse this was posted long bak...but i have no clue as to wht to include in my portfolio...so was wondering if i cud get too see sm1s to get an idea.
This thread is almost three years old, and I no longer have the old version of my portfolio online. I'm in the process of re-working my portfolio for grad school admissions this fall, and I may post it online again once I've been admitted into an M.Arch. program next March or April. I don't feel comfortable posting it before then, though. Sorry.
ohhk...so was the portfolio you posted previously for an m archI course? m applying for a grad school for this fall too..for an ms or an m arch course..anyway..thanx for replying :)
I was going through the whole grad school admissions process at the time, although in retrospect, I wasn't anywhere nearly as prepared for it as I should have been. I'll be taking another crack at it this fall, now I've got a few more credentials and (hopefully) some more wisdom under my belt.
where did you apply?
For 2007: GSD, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, and Penn.
For 2010: Cincinnati, GSD, CCNY, Columbia, and maybe a couple others.
m applying to penn too...any clue abt hw much the gre scores matter? and hows uiuc?
Penn and UIUC aren't really on my radar screen this time... You might try asking on the 2010 M.Arch. comisery thread.
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