The School’s curriculum will intensively utilize the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area and the Wenzhou region of China, where Kean University has an English-speaking campus [...]
“Michael Graves’ philosophy is to draw by hand first so that the students see, “feel” and experience the new building spatially. Then, only after the drawing is complete will the students transfer the design to a computer so that the computer becomes an execution tool, not an ideation tool.”
— businesswire.com
51 Comments
As much as I hate his work I will admit I like his emphasis on drawing by hand. Old school.
having met him, he's also a really nice guy. very humble. but not a fan of his work either.
and he's actually smiling in a picture. wow, thats a first for a starchitect. usually they just look all stoic.
The hand sells the mind short, the computer sells the mind less short, and the mind sells reality short.
Graves' architecture is a drawing and a drawing is not architecture.
I prefer this qoute from the article - "“Students will develop a well rounded understanding of the role of architecture in society, with a respect for its history and clear vision for the future.”"
I'm definitely not saying this is necessarily a superior way to teach architecture, but I'm definitely saying I'm happy this is one of many options for architecture school.
And, as I've repeated like a broken record: architecture is a physical act, and drawing by hand is a physical act, so I can appreciate that there is a resonance between them that can be significant.
The hand sells the mind short, the computer sells the mind less short
The hand is directly connected to the brain and there is a mountain of research about brain development based on physical activity. Computers make people (more) stupid.
Miles I understand your argument based on the use of the computer TODAY, but 10 years ago and 20 years ago I would disagree.
I've been using computers beyond what the software does for me since I was 10 (25+ years ago) so I don't see the computer that way. I see it as a mental extension.
On one hand you are correct - plug in some shit and out comes magical Parametric designs in seconds or fantastic looking sketches in Sketch-up.
On the other hand, if you are like me, it's makes architecture come to a virtual life that is impossible with the hand. You can't fly around in a sketch, you can't zoom in from 1 mile away to the cross hairs of a philips type screw, you can't make light do things it does in real life, you can't make the materials appear the way that they will on a rainy day or a dry dusty day, and you sure as hell can't make physics happen...
I just started working in Epic's Unreal Engine, it's only $19/mo...we know it's just a tool, but shouldn't the tool be the most accurate tool. see this
the hand is caveman scratching on stone walls, you can start there for maybe a semester, but you have to move on....don't let everyone else - gamers, film producers, hobbiests - pass us Architects by while we religiously devote ourselves to outdated tools, using stone tablets literally.
"“Students will develop a well rounded understanding of the role of architecture in society, with a respect for its history and clear vision for the future.”"
if you really adhere to this, you will abandon the hand quickly.
There is something very important about the mind-hand-paper connection that is missing from the way we interact with computers. I see it every day in my practice. I have to constantly tell my staff to get away from the keyboard and draw. I swear, I say to someone, "Here...take this detail idea and work up a few options." And I come back and they are in ArchiCAD, trying to model it. They could have explored five different versions in the time it took them to launch the program and set up the model space. And they could have dialogued with a colleague sitting across from them, sharing information real-time through sketching. And their head would have been more into it because of the Mind-Hand-Paper conduit
Of course, the computers can do things that are impossible to do with hand sketching. But in the pursuit of those things we have given up something very important. Use the computer for what it's good for.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
I just got a copy of the new book "Americans in Paris", by Jean Paul Carlhian and Margot Ellis, published by Rizzoli. It's a lushly illustrated account of the school and post-academy work of American architects who attended the École des Beaux-Arts between 1846 and 1946. H.H. Richardson, Paul Cret, Raymond Hood, Arthur Brown, Whitney Warren, Carrére and Hastings, etc. Spend some time with that book, and tell me that the hand is outdated. The hand is outdated today because practitioners have not learned how to use the hand, and because of that, we have lost a great deal.
A computer is indispensible to production, but regarding creation, there is no substitute to the hand. Like many have said above, the mind hand conduit is the fastest and most nimble way to get an idea out. In my firm a well done hand drawing always garners more admiration than any 3-D modeling effort for the simple reason that people like people. In other words, the craftsmanship of a hand drawing will always impress other people over the precision of a computer, and the imperfections of a hand drawing are what draw people emotionally in. Like a face with character, where there's imperfection, we see our own reflection.
If the hand is a window to the mind, then what can this Graves design mean?
I have this one on my stove at home. I look at it every morning:
I don't thinks it's as important as everyone is making it out to be, see the Acadia report on Archinect for Teng Teng's hand gesture modeling interface with the computer.
Granted, I sketch all the time in the office, worse than any engineer... because it's just annoying to translate a solution you have already solved in your head, so might as well produce final CAD's and forego the whole 5 versions of NOT knowing what you are drawing (i get paid by the hour a lot, so I don't mind the others sketching it out 5 times as I watch and daydream about something else).
Creation happens in the head, the paper thing is after the fact.
In short, Graves school will be a school of Style, one based on architecture through drawing.
here is a much better teapot
Creation happens in the head, the paper thing is after the fact.
That sounds like a reciepe for creating half-baked designs. The physical act of drawing is a vital part of my creative process. It is a direct visual feedback loop that influences ideation, which in turn drives the physical act of drawing.
Chris Teeter,
Having been a software developer since over 25 years ago, I can tell you for a fact that there is alot that we software and video games developers did OFF the computer designing.
I go back to TI-99/4A and Commodore 64. Yes, back to when audio cassette tapes was a common computer storage media. I've done graphics all the way down to machine language but trust me when I tell you that we used to do alot of he graphics work on graph paper before we started programming the data values of the bitmaps. We designed on paper. Some of us used graph mylar overlays and then we fill in the graph with one of a pallette of 16 colors remembering... keeping in mind the color attributes limitation of the video display processor. When it came to the visual art aspect, there was alot done off the keyboard. There was a time where we didn't have graphic art programs or they were hard to come by. Even when there were, there was often a great deal of convenience to hard coding the graphic data exactly where you wanted it.
There is alot of software design development that is done on sheets of paper such as flow charts, and other diagramming. We did alot of this on paper or on a dry erase board or chalk board and stick 'em notes. You had to visualize the software architecture or even the game mechanics and such so it was conceptually understood. Especially when you worked with other people. The issue with computers is that because you are working within a complicated UI that almost needs 4 years of college to know where the features are not to mention things that are often done intuitively in fractions of a second by hand like curves using a french curve and the eye, takes a great deal of hours just to do the same.
Computers 25+ years ago required you to know machine language in 65xx, 8086 or 80286, 68K or z80 or a TMS9900 and advance computer programming. The Amiga and other similar systems might have allowed you to program in C but still the dominant professional level of programming to do advance stuff was in machine language or assembly language for the particular processor and computer system.
It certainly was no point & click. With Autocad 25 years ago, your programming would have been LISP is I recalled correctly. Sometimes, you had to go a bit more low level but likely not for architecture/building design.
There is a time when people have to get away from the computer when it comes to ideation of ideas because computer operation requires a mechanical mode of thinking such as procedural processes and people time after time do not get into the creative mindset until they step away from the computer.
We used to do this more often in software development. This paved way for a very wide dynamic range of video games styles, types, etc. Very unique in many ways. The best games developed involved time to 'dream' and be truly creative and sometimes you have to get away from the computer to do that.
Yes, by nature, software development (albeit video games as well) is highly computer oriented but not all professions are computer professions. Remember that. Why should architecture/building design be a computer profession?
"Creation happens in the head, the paper thing is after the fact."
The paper thing is the head.
"The hand sells the mind short, the computer sells the mind less short..."
This is a dumb thing to say.
Pens, pencils, computer modeling programs, physical models or whatever are tools for developing and communicating ideas. As tools, they all have their uses, strengths, and weaknesses. Like the man said, use the right tool for the job (also, Measure Twice, Cut Once).
I will say that, in my experience, people who can't express their ideas effectively with something so simple as a pen and paper, generally can't do it with a computer either. Computers make the description and development of some kinds of ideas easier and quicker, but not better. Same can be said of hand drawing. It's not an accident that most of the initial conceptual design and planning work at my firm (one of the biggest and most successful in the world) is still done by hand. Computers are complex tools with black-boxed logic, non-direct interface, and requiring precision inputs. Hand drawing is simple, direct, fast, fluid, and loose. (And I still kind of wish I could convince our QA people to insist that all detail drawings be done freehand as well...but it's probably too late for that).
And, more importantly, you will always be able to impress the hell out of your clients by sketching out an idea right in front of them on a conference table with pen and trace as you're explaining it. They love that shit.
more importantly, you will always be able to impress the hell out of your clients by sketching out an idea right in front of them on a conference table with pen and trace as you're explaining it. They love that shit.
LOL - The polar opposite of watching someone try to figure out how to draw something in CAD.
Michael Graves’ philosophy is to draw by hand first so that the students see, “feel” and experience the new building spatially.
LOL, don't think, just feel it and maybe you can make some goofy teapots too!
Then, only after the drawing is complete will the students transfer the design to a computer so that the computer becomes an execution tool, not an ideation tool.
Pull out that dusty ole drafting table and geet yer architecting on
There is a time when people have to get away from the computer when it comes to ideation of ideas because computer operation requires a mechanical mode of thinking such as procedural processes and people time after time do not get into the creative mindset until they step away from the computer.
Yes because watching someone churn out variations of postmodernist teapots is not mechanical whatsoever.
Creation happens in the head, the paper thing is after the fact.
Bingo, paper is a low-tech vehicle, propped up by geezers who wish to maintain their pyramid scheme.
The end is near.
CAD is defined by the constraints inherent within the system, similar in a way to playing chess. Each piece is constrained in its ability to move, both by its own inherent limitations and by the larger set of constraints within the game itself.
This - and commercialism - explains why parametrics is big (but not capital B Big). Every time some software is developed that allows computers to exceed their previous limitations - most often to some very small extent - a 'new' program or version is released to capitalize on it.
Parametrics is not a new idea: the ability to more easily implement it in software is. While "new" abilities have been implemented, many previous constraints remain. The addition of 'new' features mimics the pattern of the underlying system by introducing a new series of constraints which will no doubt be addressed to some extent in 2.0, 3.0, etc. until the next small 'b' big idea comes along. One of the unintended consequences of this 'new' technology is the propagation of the tool as the style (parametricism), resulting in everything from Schumacher leg-humping everything that moves to indoctrination of architectural students without regard for function, sustainability, etc.
I'm not arguing that computers are not powerful tools or that we should not be using them in architecture. I am saying that we should be aware of the constraints they apply upon us and the direct and indirect effects of their use on the design process. Because we can is never a good reason for doing something.
There is an interesting piece floating around here about not learning CAD if you really want to be an architect.
Is Drawing Dead?
if you have to figure it out by drawing it, modeling, etc...then you are visually challenged in the mind with the task. most contractors have a better perception of form and space than any architect I know...
Michael Graves architecture is what happens when the tool to think becomes architecture, and drawing is elementary and simple.
the paper vs computer argument is pointless. I can draw, just don't care to wait that long for the right thing to appear on paper when I can do it 20 times faster in the computer...all my teenage artist projects were exhibited and even put in calenders sold at school - Junior and High School, which is before college and after playing with crayons in kindergarten.
The point of this thread, as I see it, is to make a school "based on hand drawing" vs "based on computer tools" which are both bad basis for any school of architecture. who cares if you can or can't sketch - nothing to do with architecture.
Richard - I used a Commodore 128/64 (64 was built in) to make worlds in the computer when I was 10, obviously a kid with limited sources on teaching myself programming vs your background. but in short at 10 years old I knew there was more potential in the computer than the hand.
you old farts keep preaching the irrelevant...go for it!
Michael Graves architecture is what happens when the tool to think with becomes architecture.
the only point I made we should re-iterate, this goes for Schumacher as well Miles.
As a random side note, I am reading Evan Thompson's "Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind" and there is a chapter "Autopoiesis: The organization of the Living". Having read some Daniel C. Dennett in the past, I'm almost certain what it means in neuroscience and biology, but Architecture? I'm still struggling with that and will cite my own cartoon here on this borrowing shit from other sciences and professions -
Architectural Existential Comic Strip
if you have to figure it out by drawing it, modeling, etc...then you are visually challenged in the mind
The bastard child springs forth, fully developed, the product of a completely internal feedback loop. LOL
so, an article asking the same question I have: does NJ (or anywhere...) need another architecture school?
worth note: Graves will get to design the Wenzhou, China campus. Apparently he got paid $75,000 (sic) for this masterwork.
Developed from a hand sketch, I presume...
Garbage in, garbage out, regardless of what tool you're using.
Chris Teeter,
I agree with you that there is many things a computer can do and provide to a project that can't be achieved on paper and pencil/pen alone. There are things that a paper and pencil/pen can do that is incredibly quick and easy to do in real-time in matters of seconds that we currently have not met the same degree of ease. Lets remember, as architects/building designers, we have a full time job just trying to solve clients needs and we aren't paid enough to engineer/create software. Current tools as they are are at times cumbersome to do the simple sketches that a paper/pencil will provide in a degree of resolution or manner that would be comparable.
I have worked with quite a few computer platforms including the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 (which I still have), the Plus/4, Vic-2, Apple IIe,IIc & IIgs, and Amiga 500 and 1200, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A which I have 4 of them (two Black & Silver and two Beighe models), one PEB and a few upgrades and a GreenArray evaluation board which has two GA144A12 chips which consists of 144 18-bit Forth processor "computers" forming an array of 144 18-bit "Forth computers. Each chip providing up to 96 GOPS (96 BILLION OPERATIONS PER SECOND) for a cumulative of 192 BILLION operations per second. Nice parallel processing number cruncher. Bunch of classic equipment and upgrade equipment as well as newer systems.
Stuff from my software development stuff and still used for.
There is alot of potential for computers but computers do have their limitations either in hardware or software/firmware. Software isn't always intuitive and isn't always the most efficient option for a given task.
Neither th computer or the pen/pencil designs or is the source of creativity or creative thoughts. They are merely tools to transfer thoughts to a medium.
I agree with you that debates over which is better is pointless. They are different processes, different methods. Whatever works the most efficient for someway that allows the smoothest facilitation for creative thoughts beings transfered to mediums or communicated for a given person with least anxiety or other hinderances to creativity is perhaps the best option for that person.
I personally believe it is part individualistic and the particular task or step in a larger process that depicts what needs to be done.
Chris Teeter,
I agree with you it would be bad for a school to be totally focused solely on doing things by hand or by doing things entirely by computers.
A part of the education of architecture school is to train students on how to bring those creative thoughts (that is part of architecture) into mediums to communicate. How else can we work in firms if we can't communicate our thoughts. It is part of the process of architectural designing. I agree with you that we shoul be able to visualize in our minds but sometimes things are too complex for one person to fully picture in one's mind and needs to communicate it to a medium.
an interview with the acting Dean for this proposed school
All around sounds a bit odd to me - it seems as if the primary purpose is to create an architecture school in China which will be able to grant American-accredited degrees.
China has no shortage of architecture programs - starting pay is low and good positions are very competitive. The Chinese academic programs and licensing system are largely based on the US system, with a 5 year b.arch or master's followed by internship and 7-section exams.
And hand drawing is a staple of Chinese student work. I've seen incredible presentations done entirely in ink on board. A focus on this won't distinguish it from any other Chinese program. Given that the property bubble is bursting there will certainly be an oversupply of entry-level architects here for the next few years.
My guess is this whole proposal doesn't happen. It seems like a grasp at getting some funding from a recently-established Chinese-US university, and the Chinese are getting a bit smarter at seeing these deals for what they are.
for everyone who's never heard of them, some more info on Kean University
These kind of Western-Chinese university partnerships have been going on a while in certain profitable programs, occasionally with major lapses in academic standards. Recently Beijing has cracked down on enrollment in executive MBA programs by government officials which has been a juicy revenue stream for these foreign university in China campuses - the problem being that officials were attending to network with potential bribers.
Obviously that's not exactly the case here, but it doesn't sound like Kean University is the kind of upstanding and academically rigorous place that the Chinese could learn from. For $75,000, Graves may be selling his name a bit too cheap.
If so, I feel bad for him actually - what aging starchitect wouldn't sell his name for the chance to be famous a bit longer?
Nobody is saying computers are useless or irrelevant to creation, but I think some are getting compused with birthing and idea and developing a scheme, both acts of creation. There does seem to be some fear coming from the young'uns who might have missed the bus on drawing thinking that they might side step the evolution of mastering a trade by gizmos and tech magic. I don't fault them for thinking that way, afterall, that's the way they where marketed to. But to clarify some points that seem confusing...
I can draw, just don't care to wait that long for the right thing to appear on paper when I can do it 20 times faster in the computer...(yet)...most contractors have a better perception of form and space than any architect I know...
If you've already formed it in your mind, what is the "right thing". especially when you are begining to create? So do these contractors have a better spacial perception becasue of their dependance on computers? I think interacting with the actual three dimensions of the real world give many a good grasp of space, something that moving the hand while drawing is much more similar to than the button pressing screen interface of a computer.
who cares if you can or can't sketch - nothing to do with architecture....
Even a contractor knows this is a ridiculous statement. Contractors are sketching all the time to figure out things, unless they don't want to do it two or three times. Do you think they wip out the computer and printer everytime they want to "see" some thing?
...if you have to figure it out by drawing it, modeling, etc...then you are visually challenged
Or maybe you aren't affraid to study a problem before your sure it's right.
I've been using computers beyond what the software does for me since I was 10 (25+ years ago) so I don't see the computer that way. I see it as a mental extension.the mind with the task.
Unless you've been working on the same program for the lask 25 years, my guess is the constantly changing program interface isn't the same extension that those who hone a hand skill for 25 years might be thinking of. Like a guitarist or potter who has interfaced with their art with the same medium for their whole experience, being able to think by drawing isn't something that depends on learning new programs. The more the tool gets out of the way the cleaner the creation flows, regardless of it's place on the evolutionary scale of technological upgrades, which again, are based more business's interest in selling you the next thing.
but in short at 10 years old I knew there was more potential in the computer than the hand.
I have a precocious ten year old who's patience level has yet to reach its full potential. And he's as impressed with bright lights and magic as I was playing atari games. He also would rather take the easiest road to fame and fortune while wanting to distance himself from his dear old Dad, the old fart.
you old farts keep preaching the irrelevant...go for it!
Growing old is pretty cool, it's just not something one can fathome at 10.
+++ Thayer-D
You have much more sensitivity to the world walking barefoot than you do while wearing combat boots.
Bernini, Apollo and Daphne, 1625
That's all carved out of marble. You might think 'so what', but you certainly wouldn't if you had ever carved stone.
Miles I think you do not understand what imagination is, and clearly based on Michaels Graves designs - he barely does either. I think midlander though is probably right, we are discussing all the wrong things here. Richard I think we are pretty much on the same page. Always wanted to know Machine Language though, but seemed daunting like the heavy metal concerts I heard about when I was a 10 year old. Thayer-D - thanks for the breakdown...I have been playing around in Epics Unreal engine and noticed a lot of 3dsMax functionality and adapted Maya etc...you have to remember I have been playing around in this since I was 10...so from Pov-Ray script based renderings (no user interface with buttons, just math formulas and text) to modeling programs of today - the inherent language of the software is very much the same - its geometry and math. Euclid and Descates...Bucky fuller started at Geometry and he is still 100 years ahead of his time....the hand computer comparison is NOT accurate. I really think you old farts do not get it. I used to have these discussions with Al Devido on our drives to Hamptons or upstate (Miles you may know him) and what was made clear to me after reading all the theory anthologies at same time was that you old guys got wrapped up in the tool - from Graves to Mies to Eisenman everything we were talking about was embedded deeply on the act of developing Architecture on a 2d surface with a pen. This is ultimately why the theory of the 80's fizzled and in delusion somewhat revived by the digital architecture of the 90's. (To Eisenman's credit he pretended to adapt the best he could given the educated embedness of hand drawing...he at least did a lot of iso's) This is also why Shumachers shit will not go anywhere... If you know and feel how to work in the computer then you have done many marble sculptures, and this is what I do not think you understand. I did this soaring eagle sculpture out of clay once in 7th grade, the art teacher went nutts and showed it to all the other students as 'this is what a sculpture should be'....none of that is lost in the computer for me, its lost in the pen though. There is no real depth on paper or texture or light - just illusions. The computer is even better than hand model building....contractors build with their hands and if you use the computers virtual reality so are you - virtually. Virtual reality is a lot more real than a static picture.
Nevermind what I wrote - just read the Casey Reas ACADIA article on Archinect. ...
Two points Chris, if I might. And thanks for engaging civily as I mean you no malice.
"...from Pov-Ray script based renderings (no user interface with buttons, just math formulas and text) to modeling programs of today - the inherent language of the software is very much the same - its geometry and math. Euclid and Descates...Bucky fuller started at Geometry and he is still 100 years ahead of his time...."
If only the art of architecture where simply a matter of geometry and math. At least that explains some of your thinking. There's so much more to a Gothic Cathedral than it's math and geometry, allthough undoubtedly it is a large part of their charm. Less obvious might be the delights of a stone Village in south western France or even Romchamp. (only seen the former in person). I guess it's how you want to define the problem, and I won't argue that my vision should be yours. Afterall, coming across Pompidou or Bilbao after navigating uniform 19th century stuccoed apartment buildings can be a delight.
I did this soaring eagle sculpture out of clay once in 7th grade, the art teacher went nutts and showed it to all the other students as 'this is what a sculpture should be'....none of that is lost in the computer for me, its lost in the pen though. There is no real depth on paper or texture or light - just illusions.
I think you might be missing that fact that many people who do a rough sketch actually see the three dimensional object in their mind. That's what isn't apparent to a 10 year old comparing a flashy computer rendering with their stick figure drawing. Drawing is an abstraction much like your clay eagle, only more so. Learning to conjour images in ones mind, whether they be through music, writting, or drawing is one of the things that will always blow my mind. Computers can do the same, but if math and geometry are the only languages they employ, I'm afraid they are the ones that will feel two dimensional.
If you know and feel how to work in the computer then you have done many marble sculptures, and this is what I do not think you understand.
So by being able to digitally model something - Bernini's sculpture for example - you think you understand the grain and texture and inherent defects in the marble; the shape and size and sharpness of the tools and the variable forces applied to them; the sequence of operations necessary for everything from handling the material to positioning oneself to work and all the other myriad subtleties and nuances of stone carving that take decades of dedicated practice to learn and a lifetime to master?
The use of tools to manipulate materials in the real world talks to you, but only if you use them, and only if you have the dedication and patience to listen to what they say. Your comments are so based on inexperience, so completely out of touch with this reality, that they are simply idiotic. And aggressively insulting:
Miles I think you do not understand what imagination is
Teeter, are you an asshole intentionally or is it just that you can't help yourself? This is not the first time. Not that I care one way or the another, or that it makes any difference either way. Maybe you should think about letting go of some of that ego. One way would be to try making something real, that will bring you down to earth pretty damn quick.
From your modest Archinect bio:
Chris is technically proficient in nearly every job typology and trade.
job typology? Patrik Schumacher, eat your heart out. LOL
Thayer-D, I think we are on the same page now, just different language for the same thing. Yes I know some people do have a better imagination than their sketch, I've worked for yes (old farts) that would call the office while cruising in their Porsche home letting me know the light wasn't falling in the stairwell correctly as I had rendered or I should change the floor stone to another to get the right ambient...but then there are those who see architecture through drawing. Just like Parametrics, designing by drawing is a bad idea.
Miles you are easy to mess with because you are wrong about so many things and on so many levels. You can do physics in the computer and I can teach you. I work on about 50-100 real projects a year either consulting or architect/engineer,etc... I limit myself in electrical work to electrical load letters (math is funny in electrical). The list of what I haven't worked on is shorter: Hospitals and Museums. Technically NOT proficient in: Curtain Walls, Sprinkler systems, Fire Alarms. I still hire or work with consultants for MEP to double check, and for structural if I have to I ask an engineer to review...but yes all typologies, however you want to interpret that.
What's on archinect is not fully representative since most of what I do is for others and since you claim to work with high-end clients you may also be aware that very high-end people don't like you talking about their work or publishing it. See my previous post indicating a Michael Graves house in the Hamptons which YOU are not aware of.
Miles, not to mention your portfolio exemplifies a mind of someone who has limited skills and imagination, eat your heart out buddy.
"designing by drawing is a bad idea." Except that for thousands of years that's how we created our built environment. Now it's a bad idea? I'm not sure we're on the same page. Architecture is about so much more than math and geometry. Maybe the need to over simplify a problem is the product of too much reliance on technology for understanding the world outside. Best of luck.
I work on about 50-100 real projects a year
Most people don't think of masturbation as a project.
Speaking of portfolios, the depth of yours - from strips stapled to the wall (OMG did you come up with that all by yourself?) to perforated plywood radiator covers - (masterful fabrication!) is legendary.
I'm astounded that your work hasn't been enshrined at the Cooper Hewitt.
I love that we are talking about representation as we would a built construction. I'm reminded of the time when Thom Mayne went off, OFF, on Kenneth Frampton, at a Columbia lecture, when Frampton called him a paper architect. Thom proceeded to tear him a new one, talking about how there were "1500 fucking drawings" for the golf course and clubhouse in Japan, and yeah it didn't get built, but the documentation proved; its built. Lebbeus Woods, Hejduk, Raimond Abraham, Piranesi, Ledoux.....My mind completes the space for me, construction, would only weaken them. I mean how many times have you seen a project in a magazine, only to visit, and be disappointed.
Two people come to mind Perry Kulper and Emma McNally these talents make me believe in the hand again.
Okay, back to the topic.
Can NJ use another architecture program? One is currently private, and one is run by a man that has been there since 1990, has been, at one time or another, a commuting dean and whose major achievement is renovating some existing buildings, that the red-headed step child of the NCE, was gifted because students were stuck off site for years in either a squatters hell-scape, or tired were tired of commuting. The dean of the program has chased away talent, over promised on tech skills, under performed on job placements, and has created programs that have only weakened the primary mission of the SOA. On top of all of that, did I mention this; he's been there since 1990! For god sake, what dean of an architecture program has been around that long, in one program? What kind person does that? I'll tell you what kind, the kind of person that doesn't have anything better, and failed at his attempt to be the President of NJIT. He has failed, and his students continue to suffer, because he has no new ideas, and the kiss-ass sycophants, are too busy praying that they get to be the next fuck up to take over there.
As for his - and his because this has his fingerprints all over - specious claims about under enrollment, the program was fucked, because of many things, and not all of them can simplistically connected to the economy, remember, this is a state school, no one gets turned away. This dean chased away talent, made promises to certain individuals, that will go unnamed, and therefor lost the program that became the PAL at Stevens, which is in Hoboken, and has become a boon for every relevant firm in the generative architecture business. This dean has ruined the program, not by being adventurous, and trying to create new programs, but by being four steps behind the trends, and creating sub-par "mini" efforts, that schools much better have created.
In short, there are many reasons why, but this dean will never list that one of those reasons, is his own, failed leadership, and failed mission. Kean, if this program happens, NJIT will hemorrhage talent, both in faculty, and in students, and for capitalist ass-hat that is Urs Gauchat, he's only reaping what he has sown.
Kean seems to pride itself on tech, so the 'partnership' with Graves looks like a sales job. But Graves is being credited with developing curriculum, and if he's true to his word that's a good thing by virtue of the process he preaches. Which will no doubt be mitigated by his design nonsensibility.
The bigger questions: is this the new paradigm for starchitects, and how long before we have a Zaha Hadid School of Architecture?
sorry Miles been working on 15 different projects last 48 hours ;) i forgot to list not much experience in Mass Transit...my bad.
Thayer-D you familiar with bio-mimcry and the mess humans have made on this planet? I wrote a little fairy tale on the dangers of abstraction and just did comic strip exemplifying the evolution of the thinking man....we should all drink more!
Which is in topic with Kean and Beta's comments, why keep doing the wrong thing right?
You old guys read anything about what has been going on at ACADIA? maybe that would be the Zaha School?
actually Miles a lot of people want me to go into the radiator cover business, haha...and the strip thing, that was fun. Bjarke Ingels who is a lot more successful than you or I thinks that's what it's about.
Maybe Bjarke should be a Dean?
^ha, thanks for that B3ta. I take it your a dissatisfied alumn?
Miles - we've already got a Frank Lloyd Wright school of architecture. I think these kind of programs will have a hard time outliving their namesakes. Tastes change quickly - any dean focused on one approach will get stuck with a faculty of has-beens.
Wright started his own school. I was referring to existing colleges using starchitects - and vice versa - for promotion.
mid, i had a handful of great professors, most of whom, were fucked to some extent by this clown. i think as an alumn, i have an expectation that the program i left, would get better over time, and would find it appalling that someone would be such a narcissist and hold back a program because he needed a job. he's a rank capitalist twit, and he shouldn't be allowed to die, just so the school can be rid of his horrible decisions.
"A pivotal advance in design education is our Kepler System. Kepler is an electronic storage and retrieval system made possible through a grant from SSP Architectural Group and developed at the College. It provides a means for electronically storing all student work, including essays, drawings, 3D models and animations. Kepler provides students with an instant web-based portfolio; it gives teachers a means to calibrate their teaching in response to an individual student’s needs; it lets us assess the effectiveness of pedagogical changes; and finally, it acts as an encouragement to spur students on to do even better work. In short, it is an exhilarating pedagogical development within the College." WOW!? uh, awesome?
oh, and let me say something about the sycophantic ass licker that is the director of college of art + design. amatuer. clown. no talent.
Beta thanks for the links, but all they suggest is viewing architectural representation as art and not what they really are, which of course is a lot better than a "website" with Internet functionality 2.0 claiming to be an advance in arch education like say Kepler system....the name suggests its revolutionary. I applied there to teach once and most grads I know sound like you............but Graves as an alternate, other than his intended statement (in bold in my prior posts) it will probably become nothing else than a place for academic idealogues to deny reality for a bit longer. Safely not adapting, huddled in a cave on other peoples money. A bad form of Autopoesis - bacteria.
Chris Teeter,
I wouldn't recommend learning machine language of a modern Intel processor. However, if for the sake of learning it... I would recommend a simpler cpu such as a 6502 and similar cpu. The TMS9900 is a little more complicated due to a fairly advance system architecture of the time. In some ways, the TI-99/4A was very advance and sophisticated given it had a seperate memory for the CPU from the VDP where most of your computer program would lie... especially on expanded memory that you would find on an expanded TI-99/4A setup which is the only way to go for real ML programming on the TI-99/4A.
However, the Commodore 64/128 was an ideal system for learning ML for a beginner.
Emulators can be used instead of the original hardware and is compatible with most of the software for the Commodore 64/128. There is a some software that really needs the original hardware but mostly they are very elite demos that were written on the real machine and uses every little once of capabilities of the original chips which is not perfectly emulated yet as there are some emulation bugs.
One of the new technologies that I am looking at is castAR.
http://www.technicalillusions.com
https://community.technicalillusions.com
It will be interesting to see how this can be used in not only 3d gaming but also in non-gaming applications such as in architecture and other fields.
Miles:
"So by being able to digitally model something - Bernini's sculpture for example - you think you understand the grain and texture and inherent defects in the marble; the shape and size and sharpness of the tools and the variable forces applied to them; the sequence of operations necessary for everything from handling the material to positioning oneself to work and all the other myriad subtleties and nuances of stone carving that take decades of dedicated practice to learn and a lifetime to master?
The use of tools to manipulate materials in the real world talks to you, but only if you use them, and only if you have the dedication and patience to listen to what they say. Your comments are so based on inexperience, so completely out of touch with this reality, that they are simply idiotic. And aggressively insulting:"
In a sense, yes you can to an extent gain some of that. The technology of virtual reality, tactile feedback are all emerging technology and the computer technology is quite capable of achieving this and even more so at profound degrees of resolution.
Take a look at Wacom Intuos and already I can simulate a pen and have all that feel. I have an Intuos 4XL. Microcomputers has had rought 35 years of history in the mindset of those of us who have been involved with computing since they became public and personal. It can be. I wouldn't say they will yet have exactly the same feel as a real sculpture modeling because we don't have that tactile feedback stimuli. At least not a common part of our computing experience.
Lets remember, when we make 3d models of our buildings, we aren't exactly experiencing constructing it the same way a builder would. I would argue, at first as we get into virtual and augmented reality, we won't be experiencing things quite the same as a builder but certain experiences will transfer across. The ones that count at least for us. We don't care about sweating afternoons nailing. We care about how it would look and come together and experience the 3d space sometimes in a 1:1 ratio. Imagine yourself in a room converted into a personal holodeck while you are position inside one of these Omni Virtuix wearing a castAR glasses in a room "wall papered" in retro reflective sheets and working on a 3d virtual building in full scale. Now imagine the next afternoon, you meet with a client going to a table with the retroreflective sheet laid in a sort of curved bowl and they are wearing a pair of castAR along with yourself looking at a scaled down view of your virtual building at a model scale. You walk arount the virtual building and see it from different viewing angle as you move around it. Even through remote control rotate the virtual model of the building. They see it from their viewing perspective just like you. Imagine the possiblities that these emerging technologies can provide in terms of visualization and presentation? Imagine what they will provide.
The art of designing begins in the mind and the tools be it a pen or computers are the mechanism to facilitate communication and transferring of ideas into mediums that can be transmitted to others. We would not need computers or pen or paper or any of these tools if we were psychic and was able to transmit our thoughts and vision.
I wouldn't say that current computer technology can totall replace real tactile experiences but what kinds of experiences matters. Do I need to draw with a pencil or pen? Is the tactile experience of the pencil or pen the critical experience we need to do our job or is it the experience of composing our thoughts such as the composition of lines, color, virtual texture (which in time when high resolution tactile feedback becomes available to further enhance the emersion factor on all our varied senses) and so forth that matters.
I am not sure if the medium is crucial but I do believe the end results and the experience of composing design that matters.
Some people focus on geometry and so forth. I am not sure geometry and math alone is the "architectural experience". I don't think it alone can replace it but computers is not just geometry and math although the technical mechanics of making the software and tools you would use involves alot of math just like a simple paint program like Microsoft Paint. There is lots of math involved to make the application but it doesn't require a lot of math to use it and experience it. Same with Photoshop. The use and experience of software tools might not be mathematical even though what it takes to make the software tool that you experience is highly mathematical just like the computer hardware. It doesn't matter, people can experience writing a beautiful work of authorship on a word processor on a computer just as they did with writing on a typewriter or with a pencil and paper. Creative works still happens and the experience of producing creative works happens.
The mind is the engine of creativity. The tools are just the means and methods of facilitating the communication/conveyance of our creative thoughts onto a medium be it a magnetic or solid-state storage on an integrated circuit or a pencil/pen & paper.
Isn't anyone just happy to hear that a new school of architecture is in the making?
New Jersey has only had NJIT and Princeton, it will be nice to have another option for future students.
Congratu-fucking-lations!
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.