brief intro - I'm applying to m. arch 1 programs this winter (no previous arch. background) and have taken a few introductory design classes in order to develop a basic amount of architectural content for my portfolio. i'm happy with the work i have now, but would like to add a few more projects before deadlines this fall.
i've browsed the archinect boards many times and haven't found a place where people have posted sample project ideas that prospective students could use to sharpen their design/thinking skills and might be able to use as portfolio work.
i was hoping this might create a nostalgic discussion about your favorite intro design projects as undergrads or early graduate work.
i'll begin (this came from a semester spent at LAIAD):
my favorite was being asked to choose 8 consecutive moves from a historic chess game and model them in space. the z-axis represented time, therefore after each sequence of moves, the next set would need to be higher than the first (ultimately creating an 8x8 cube). the need for the pieces to sometimes "float" in space added a challenging engineering component to the project. the process went as follows:
-choose an historic game from chessgames.com and find 8 consecutive moves within the game that contained a significant level of "action"
-as chess can be seen as both graceful and combative, focus on the way you see the game (i.e. a battle, or a dance) and use this to develop your form language
-create two distinct "pieces" that would represent black and white and decide how these would move in space to represent moves on the board (i.e. how they jump over existing pieces, how the respond to captures, etc)
-begin with an 8"x 8" grid (each piece, square or not, will occupy a 1" space on the grid) and develop a form language that allows you to successfully model each move as it moves across the board (x,y) and through time (z).
the rest was pretty open ended. the most interesting projects were those that ignored the grid-work of the board and instead chose to focus on the movement and relationships between the pieces.
hope this helps anyone from a non-arch background looking for basic project ideas they might attempt to add to their design portfolio!
my first project in the first studio in grad school was to take a Mondrian painting and recreate it and come up with a method for where all the lines and everything went, and then be able to present that and explain it in a coherent manner
mildly amusing actually, but still seemed like kind of a waste of time
some people got destroyed in that crit too, the first one to start weeding people out
i always hated those first projects of the semester where it was some theoretical excersize though
those were a struggle to care about and then you always end up wondering at the end of the semester why you had to waste the first 3-4 weeks on that, when it would have been better spent on your actual project
Jul 10, 08 9:28 am ·
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Favorite Intro Design Projects
brief intro - I'm applying to m. arch 1 programs this winter (no previous arch. background) and have taken a few introductory design classes in order to develop a basic amount of architectural content for my portfolio. i'm happy with the work i have now, but would like to add a few more projects before deadlines this fall.
i've browsed the archinect boards many times and haven't found a place where people have posted sample project ideas that prospective students could use to sharpen their design/thinking skills and might be able to use as portfolio work.
i was hoping this might create a nostalgic discussion about your favorite intro design projects as undergrads or early graduate work.
i'll begin (this came from a semester spent at LAIAD):
my favorite was being asked to choose 8 consecutive moves from a historic chess game and model them in space. the z-axis represented time, therefore after each sequence of moves, the next set would need to be higher than the first (ultimately creating an 8x8 cube). the need for the pieces to sometimes "float" in space added a challenging engineering component to the project. the process went as follows:
-choose an historic game from chessgames.com and find 8 consecutive moves within the game that contained a significant level of "action"
-as chess can be seen as both graceful and combative, focus on the way you see the game (i.e. a battle, or a dance) and use this to develop your form language
-create two distinct "pieces" that would represent black and white and decide how these would move in space to represent moves on the board (i.e. how they jump over existing pieces, how the respond to captures, etc)
-begin with an 8"x 8" grid (each piece, square or not, will occupy a 1" space on the grid) and develop a form language that allows you to successfully model each move as it moves across the board (x,y) and through time (z).
the rest was pretty open ended. the most interesting projects were those that ignored the grid-work of the board and instead chose to focus on the movement and relationships between the pieces.
hope this helps anyone from a non-arch background looking for basic project ideas they might attempt to add to their design portfolio!
wow..... that is precisely the sort of stuff that got me to switch out of architecture school.
my first project in the first studio in grad school was to take a Mondrian painting and recreate it and come up with a method for where all the lines and everything went, and then be able to present that and explain it in a coherent manner
mildly amusing actually, but still seemed like kind of a waste of time
some people got destroyed in that crit too, the first one to start weeding people out
i always hated those first projects of the semester where it was some theoretical excersize though
those were a struggle to care about and then you always end up wondering at the end of the semester why you had to waste the first 3-4 weeks on that, when it would have been better spent on your actual project
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