Week 66

In an effort to streamline the thesis process starting in Sept, I wanted to take all of my remaining elective courses this summer. I was supposed to do a design build but it unfortunately fell through, so I decided to take a class I had heard good things about from some other architecture students, a class on modern Chinese history, not architecture or art history, a full history course. It was nice to take a class and not have the pressure of other architecture students, critiques, or any of that performance anxiety that comes with design school; I could just take a class and try to enjoy it.

Taking this class outside of architecture made me think of the relationship design students have to architecture school. Some love it to bits, some hate it to its core, many are indifferent to it and simply “want to finish” at any one time you can feel all three of these or any kind of mixture. There are such highs and lows but I have always wondered, is it the architecture or the education that drives students so mad? You can take the architecture student out of school, but can you take the school out of the architecture student?

During the class, I would continually compare lessons and ideas learned in the class to contemporary architecture, my mind would just drift into that direction, and think about how I can apply this knowledge, or just the architectural side of it. I guess that means that architecture students do love education, beyond simply just architecture. We are always thinking about the applications of what we have learned, it is never enough to simply research or discover something; how it will be perceived and integrated are far more important questions we ask. In that regard I did really enjoy the class because it gave me a new breadth of learning in an unfamiliar topic. I really want to visit China as I learned to have a respect of its history and for what the Chinese people have done and what they have had done to them.

image reference 

Week 59

I have been told I have a very businesslike demeanour in studio, maybe not once you get to know me, (I am actually a pretty big softy) but on the onset I try to give off that impression without even thinking it sometimes, maybe because I want to excel or try to avoid drama. I’m almost ashamed to admit but on more than one occasion I have said to myself “you’re just going to focus on you work this time” and there is always a distance I try to keep with other students. However that never really pans out, and the more time you spend with people and the better you get to know them, they become your friends and even sometimes something like a family member.  

Well Steph has left for Japan. It was at a really weird time, that small amount of space between pens down and pin-up but we did get to spend some time together before she left and I got some time to say goodbye.

I especially like this photo, she looks like she is listening to what I am saying, but even if she wasn’t, she was pretending to, which is just as good.

Miss you roommate!  

Week 58

My final vertical studio at UBC SALA was an interesting one. There were obvious deficiencies as any initial offering of a course would unfold, the best part about it though, it was all done together.

I was quite upset the day of the final crit, up until right after my presentation. Our professor did not let us know the order until right before, which she had a reason for as she explained quickly to all of us; I remember something about not worrying about who goes where or something like that, either way I didn’t really buy it. But even in the few prior days before pens down, I was not happy with the amount of work I produced. The only explanation I have is there were a lot of other things other than studio which I was committed to do, T.A.ing, being a tech, blah, blah, I hate to make excuses but time just seem to get away from me, and some of my peers really turned it on and produced some great things I did not think they were capable of. Kudos to them, needless to say my wall was a bit scarce (I focused intently on a few drawings, but lacked a scope of drawings) c’est la vie.

I was scheduled to go last in the morning which I was happy about since we decisively had much better and well known crits in the morning session. However because some of my fellow students went long and the professor did not keep to her duty as time keeper, (sounds trite, but it is an important aspect of a design prof in a final crit. Am I wrong?) I was pushed to the afternoon, where my crits were our resident structural engineer and a recent grad of the school from 2ish years, and someone who was late who didn’t even see my presentation. What made it worse was after I was told we needed to break for lunch, and I would be going in the afternoon, we had a 45-minute talk with the morning crits, more than enough time for one more presentation in the morning (maybe it was 1/2 hour whatever I was pissed).

Anyway, all of this led to me being a bid of a princess that day, but whatever I worked my ass of this semester, so I presented, and it went well, they had points about things that I could have done, but I took it a different way, honestly I didn’t get anything from the crits I would have not gotten from my fellow students, which either speaks well for them or disparagingly of the crits. After the presentation the next student started to present and Avery handed me the notes he was taking for me. This is something the school does (assign students to take notes for others) which really helps as you cannot always process the entire conversation during a crit.

Needless to say all the bullshit of time and which crits for who melted away instantly, realising this was my last vertical studio with the same group of students I came in with and just a year ago suffered through Culture of Making with. Thanks for the perspective Avery.

I have probably written this many times but nothing bonds friends like the studio, the small group working on the same issues, there is a great safety in it, one that fades as I take on thesis and probably will not re emerge until I find a practice I feel a kin to, but one step at a time. It kind of feels like you’re faced with a lone battle, one large project you have to face alone, after having the benefit of fellow soldiers to watch your back.

Don’t get me wrong I am excited for thesis, it is just a bit sad to think that part of that shared acedmic studio experience is over.                        

Week 57

My students just had their final design exam for the Thinking by Design class and I think a good time was had by all. Everyone was told to bring a variety of materials and tools to manipulate the items they brought to the exam. They knew they had to create something but did not find out what until they sat down. The only rule was no internet, students were encouraged to talk and were allowed to make noise and trade an discuss, the class writing a biology exam beside us got really angry, sometimes the dremel motors and hammers were a bit too loud, but it was amazing to watch.

It was quite something to see 150 students confronted with a problem and try to solve it in three hours. This reminded me of Ryerson and the “sketches” I did in first year. Quite similar except were quite limited in which materials we could bring. I remember as we were all working away, I could over hear professors “now we’ll the real work” and other talking points, I didn’t really understand until much later on.

What I got from these sketches is that really anyone can produce anything with enough time (notwithstanding concept), and that great designers and thinkers think quickly, make a decision and go for it. Architecture and design is not simply ideation concept or analysis and synthesis.

If you have been following major architectural essays throughout the last year, you have read the architecture meltdown, architecture for the 99%, and other offspring articles that have been generated as a result. I enjoyed this latest article and a quote that accompanied it.

“If you focus on design, you can call yourself a designer, if you focus on the implementation of your design, you can call yourself an architect”

- Cameron Sinclair

Whether you have 3 hours or 3 years to produce something, it seems that focusing on the design of a thing is not enough anymore, but how something comes to fruition is the new architecture.

Week 56

As this last studio of my M.Arch journey winds down I am becoming increasingly aware of how I want to position myself in architecture. I realize my strengths, my weaknesses, what I am interested in and what I am not. This is really what I was hoping to get out of a masters education, and it seems to be materializing. It feels like the right head space to be in while solidifying my thoughts for thesis in September. It feels that way, whether it is or not is another matter entirely.

Throughout my education I have never excelled at directing the experience of architecture. I have an analytical mind, the majority of my first degree was technical, I do not mean it was lacking in history and theory, there was plenty of that. What I mean is that thinking of how someone feels in my spaces or impressionistically how spaces are experienced, has never been at the forefront of my process. There is often not enough time in an academic setting to get this level of design, but that is not really an excuse, when you know that is a weakness. I have always found the crits go well when you can take your jury of architects through your project an discuss your hypothesis, analysis and synthesis of your decision making that constitute your designs, and almost nothing could be said of how spaces feel except for renders done at the last moment as a proof rather than a design tool on its own. I did however have a crit last year where something was said that really stuck with me “Anything you do, it has to be compelling, you can through all the process in the world, but if it is not compelling, that it is irrelevant.

I am getting in to all of this because I have got that stage in my studio project where my thinking has lead to a building that is functioning, understandable, been edited after that too far designing moment and still working with my concept stage. If I am lucky I get to this stage just as I am about to present, but somehow I have managed to get to the stage with 3-4 weeks left in the semester and none of this thinking dawned on me until my prof asked quite simply “what are your spaces like?” and I had no answer.

This bothered me for three days straight, because I had no system of designing this way, no approach to solving this quite indispensable question of architecture. Which in an academic studio is one thing, but in the world with clients and money and contractors where people have to live with this thing, is quite another. Architecture and everything else for that matter has a experience associated with it, whether it has been done purposely or not.

I wish I could say I had a eureka moment, where the heavens opened and instantly knew how to design experience by reading a passage from Zumthor (which I did try). However for the last few weeks I did explore how intensity and amount of light play a role in my building, which did not even come up in the final crit of course. But it felt like a huge learning experience and at the very least I realized how much I still do not know about architecture.