STUDENT FEEDBACK REQUEST

Hello my dear students.

Now is your chance to give me feedback if you would like. I value your input on whatever aspect of the class interests you. Positive or Negative.

Please post in comments of this post as you or "anonymous" if you would like.

I value your feedback.

my picture and sentence

When we are dreaming alone, it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality. –Dom Helder Camara

MY PK

please post in the comments suggestion if you would like me to contribute with a PK presentation of my own - the subject being the PROJECT. explaining the foundation and frame of the project.

it will probably be a PK-lite (half as long)

post in comments section yeah - nay. you don't have to give reasons, just yea - nay.

Pecha kucha question

do we need to describe what the classes project is about. In other words does the begining of our pk have to be an introduction to the overall project? also do you have any do's and dont's for it? Things that we need to mention and maybe some things we can omit.

T munis 13 DAYS

To begin with – I am having trouble finding an off campus SPACE for the presentations. The location I was initially looking at did not work out. I found an alternate location – but is available May 8 (Friday). So that is an option, but only if EVERYONE is down with the change.

Additionally, if there is the desire within the group that something fun occurs afterward, I’ll need help/volunteers. I cannot do everything myself.

Also, I want to have a flyer/invitation for the EVENT - any volunteers (if more than 1 want to work on this, good)

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So from what I saw last night – most of you are behind, and some of you should be worried.

If it wasn’t clear, the intention of “sketching/diagramming” as a technique is to generate A LOT of ideas/options. Then pick 1/a few options to develop. While I may have said I don’t care if you end up with a building – you should care. You are in architecture school and to not end up with a building filled with spatially complex/interesting spaces is a lost opportunity.

I am not sure if that was clear – so I am clarifying it now. It’s the desire that you move to REAL architectural drawings.

By now you all should have an idea of all you programmatic spaces pretty much worked out – circulation worked out, have ideas – be working on façade.

Here is a list of important drawings you need if you wish to clearly explain your project.

SITE PLAN – explaining context in which the museum sits, and how people access/interact. This drawing establishes the RELATIONSHIP to the neighborhood. I would LOVE IT if someone would produce a FIGURE/GROUND drawing of the neighborhood – and when I say neighborhood; I mean ALL of red hook. (Is there anyone who doesn’t understand what I am asking for?)

CIRCULATION/PROGRAM – it is important that you have drawings that show how the building FUNCTIONS/OPERATES. How do people move through the building – what is happening where – etc.

SECTIONS – this is another drawing that shows how the building FUNCTIONS/OPERATES.

PERSPECTIVES – drawings that attempt to express the EXPERIENCE of the space.


Honestly, plans are not that interesting to look at. But you can’t just show “pictures” of your building you have to explain how it works through image. What is the INTENT of EVERY IMAGE. What is the INTENT of every little thing, in fact?

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Do not do a “power point presentation” is my suggestion. You may use power point if you would like, but do not make a “power point presentation” - do you understand the difference?

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Side note about orthographic drawings – I am sure you all have realized that at the scale you are drawing, it is difficult to figure things out – everything is too small, leaving no room for detail. This is a problem which you must figure out how to overcome. There are some very simple answers/ways, but you have to figure them out for yourself.

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In class I discussed the strategies of “additive” vs. “subtractive” in the context of the existing building, remember?

Does your design process begin with an empty shell and add things, or do you begin with all the floors intact and remove them as you design.

Additive vs. subtractive.

In regards to the PRESENTATIONS it’s the aspiration that these blog post will be numerous enough that preparing for the presentation is a SUBTRACTIVE process – meaning you have too much stuff, and you need to distill it down. That’s the hope.

And if you haven’t watched any pecha kucha on-line yet, shame on you.

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FOR MONDAY – bring EVERYTHING you have – not just stuff you want to show me. we are going to try something NEW Monday. I will not have a projector – we might be able to use the one upstairs. But I want you to be prepared to SHOW ME DRAWINGS as explanation – and not explanation with words.

If you are feeling COMPLETELY LOST – just do the drawings I have listed – don’t think, just DO.

MEETING EARLIER

So I stopped checking my NYIT email - this occured at the time we removed the "hierarchy." I may or may not have mentioned that - use my personal email, which I believe you can access through the yahoo group.

So Bobby is meeting me at 5:10 - christine has apparently requrested a time.

Please post your time you would like to meet in the comments section of this post. We are going to be on a STRICT schedule of 10 minutes per person.

at 6 PM we will all be in the classroom meeting as a group for 20 minutes sharp. (those who want to meet, its not mandatory you come.)

and as an added bonus there will be a guest desk critic tomorrow, he may either contribute serially or in parallel.

so time slots should begin filling up between 5-6

Keep 5:50-6:00 CLEAR - NO DESK CRITS DURING THIS TIME


so....times

5:10 bobby?
5:20
5:30
5:40
break & meeting
6:30
6:40
6:50

you get the idea. I will also meet with people before bobby but all times must be grouped, I want to work outward - in an efficient manner.

so post times you want in the comments. HERE

meeting up earlier

I know you said that we could email you if we wanted to meet up earlier on Thursday because we have established a studio that doesn't necessarily run within the perimeters of the classroom and designated time frame of the class...well I emailed you after class on Monday about meeting up earlier like you had asked but you never got back to me...so I don't know whether or not to show up early tomorrow or not. Thought I would post on the blog just in case you check this and not your email. It would be nice to get a response, hopefully before its too late. Thank you.

Image Expression

Owen, how should the image gathering work? Are we gathering images that define ideas about our museum? Maybe you could explain what the images in the petcha kutcha are going to be based on.

UPCOMMING EVENTS (storefront for architecture)

http://www.storefrontnews.org/event_dete.php?eventID=91

RESEARCH BOOK CRITIQUE

I have been looking at the research book the class has produced, and I have comments/feedback. but What I am more interested in first hearing, is a self-critique.

As stated by the class - its primary function was to be of "use" to the individual students. and I would like the class to analyze/critique their own work, before I provide the feedback.

FEEDBACK

So the sidebar "gadget" that lists the blogs organizes them based on the recency of posts (the blog with the most recent comments at the top.)


I'm thinking it might be better to force an order that stays consistent throughout - that way, it will be much easier to move about.

thoughts? anyone have suggestions on order/organization of this information?

Email Updates...

Anyone know how to get updates sent to your email or phone for these blogs?

Oh and Owen, I still need authorization to be able to post on the tutorials and troubleshooting...can you email me the invite please.

Sketchup Madness...

Check out The Grain Terminal In 3D

pete

ps i had to log in under you for this blog because i dont have posting privilege under my username

A FEW MORE THINGS

Is anyone interested in working on the layout/format of the blog - I have fiddled around with it a little - It is based in HTML - the language used to create web sites. If you are interested in learning how to build web sites, this will be a fun challenge for you. It is represents and architectural problem - dealing with structures and hierarchies of information.

any takers?

Also, I have engaged in limited research relating to the tools that are available to us through these web sites. and it appears as though the options as it relates to the available tools is indeed quite large.

again, in the spirit of subversion and creativity does anyone want to take on the challenge to research some of the tools - and by tools, I mean the "blogger gadgets" (this link takes you to a single example) I know there are similar tools out there for flickr, and probably youtube as well.

and as a visual understanding the gadgets are found in the sidebar. they currently include the following
contributors
archives
my blog list
the blogger player
and photography player

but I know there are other gadgets out there that may not necessarily sit in the sidebar.

and by the way, the purpose of the blogger player and photgraphy player is in the spirit of the "happy accident" these are random images the people are uploading, but perhaps certain random photos will pop up at opportune times creating relationships through randomness. This is the "peanut butter and chocolate" form of creativity.

INTENTION OF "comments" BLOG

It is the intention that this Blog be used as a SPACE for communication between the studio and everyone else (the sacred and profane? no probably not.)

be sure to First look at the "MUSEUM OF DRAG (introduction)" page.

it is located here: details

but it is the desire within the studio to create conflict. And it is the hope that this might become somewhat heated as well - again one of the the themes of the studio is revolves around the question of "what is too much?"

It is my belief that the only way to have an educated answer (which we as architects like to claim we do)is to have experienced "too much." but again, the logic and reasoning behind the methods of the studio are located in the "general" blog.

April 2nd Update

I have returned, and will be working feverishly on adding several things to the
blog, including cleaning up previously written posts.

whats been written so far has been pretty much stream of consciousness, and I have not gone back and reviewed/edited. I'm fairly certain there are some incomplete sentences and grammatical errors within.

But I've realized this relates to surrealists ideas which will be further explained in one of this evenings post.

I have not checked what is up in a day or so, I plan to get to it shortly - but HOPEFULLY there has been a massive accumulation of images that are all tagged - (look through each others tagged images to find a general "self-emergent" structures - does that make sense?)

and please PLEASE PLEASE get some narratives up there - if they have been completed in illustrator, save them as jpegs and post them on flickr. (I still need to tag my images.)

PLAYLISTS - its not enough to just make playlist (and why are there so few of those? this should be easy.) there needs to be a NARRATIVE explaining how the different videos relate, and why you are interested in that relationship.

I've been talking about the studio - and the strategy of its online presence, and they are all excited to see the web sites. I'm attempting to build up some energy "outside the system" that can you can feed off of.

point of the story, is that once everything is cleaned up (my job), and there is plenty of content (YOUR JOB) I will be providing the websites to many people.


IMPORTANCE OF NARRATIVES:

as architects, its our job to understand the nature of relationships.

really, this video link says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FClGhto1vIg

this video is talking about the use of "systems of scale" to create relationships. There might also think in terms of "systems of color" and "systems of orientation" (even these circles can theoretically be rotated out of the 2d plane.)

But whats here is a very simple relationship - three circles are the same size. within "systems of color and orientation" they all relate equally. but begin creating differentiation through color and orientation, and you get a complex layering of relationships - and this, mind you, from very simple "systems."

as architects it is our job to understand and use these systems to create differentiation and heirarchy.


on the human scale and neighbrood scale these systems become much more in number and much more in complexity. you have social/economic/gender/political/agricultural/geologic/cosmic/atomic/genetic systems (of course I could go on).

It all quickly becomes WHITE NOISE.

It is our job through the use of a "thing" called REASEARCH to find and make visible and hopefully understand these underlying systems of the neighborhood.

The way we are going about this in this studio is through the use of the NARRATIVE. It is the hope that through the accumulation of narratives, these underlying systems will present themselves. (again with the surrealists bent.)




SO GET YER BUTS IN GEAR AND GET SOME NARRATIVES UP!!!
I want the number one question of the project to be "is it too much." it is my hope that the answer will always be a "yes"


Oh and on a side note, I got an email from our dear friend william pallmore. and while I have not looked at it closely, one thing I did pick out was that many of you were nervous about the outcome of the studio.

THIS IS GREAT!!! this is my intent, remember? It's my desire to keep you far from equilibrium. This project can be an amazing success, or a complete and utter disaster (and I really hope its one of the two - somewhere in between is of little interest)

but as for the future course of the project - if I have not made it clear, it is all up to you. I would like to begin working on your individual projects after monday, but its all up to you guys.

Also, while I have some general ideas about the future direction of the project, its going to be something we all discuss as a group. (on monday)

Be ready to present things on Monday that you've produced, talk about what you are interested in (which is what your INDIVIDUAL projects should be about.) you can print things out or show stuff on the computer. pick out certain videos that you like whatever.

but you will all have to get up and provide an narrative of what you have been working on all this time.

Its also important that the background drawings are done. I'm not sure if someone has taken responsibility for the "perspective" backgrounds. but if no one is interested I will do them. It will be fun. but I need the plans/site plan/elevations to do that, even if its abstract.

lets see what else - grades, it was my intention to provide grades on monday's class, alas no one was there. grades from the first half of class will be available the next time we meet.

thats all for now. oh and I defy anyone to go through the playlists I have set up and find a single video that does not related to the project at hand - I dare you. (except for the "general architecture")

March 31 Update

A few things – yes we had class Monday. I was late, and intentionally so. It was my plan to come in and find you guys all sitting there waiting for me. My plan was to then say “come on guys” this is your studio, you shouldn’t be waiting for me to get to work. I suppose it was a test, and congratulations you failed miserably. This project should be about ideas of excess scale, and you did a great job there.

So I have gone through the posts, and made comments also below are some general comments as well. I am in Chicago right now for familiy reasons, and it doesn’t look like I will be back in time on Thursday.

So I have gone through what has been posted.

Flickr there should be more images on there. Is anyone having a problem using flickr?

As far as the blog goes, I would like to separate/organize the blog into multiple blogs to better organize. If someone want to take the lead on that let me know. But I would like some narratives constructed here, again using text/image/video

The youtube playlists should have a narrative attached as well. Feel free to add/subtract/reorganize the playlists I set up.

Building research – no one has volunteered for, at the least I want an attempt to understand the module (brick/panel) used. This is done by a visual inspection of the building looking for “the seams.”

I also want a calculation of volume. (which will be compared to your other museum volume calculations). We need to have an understanding of scale – is it bigger than other museums? Is it smaller? If so how much.

There is more. I will write tomorrow. But to summarize. The main focus is an understanding of scale.

The attempt/desire is to get you all to understand this idea of “what is too much” and the only way to gain that understanding is from doing “too much.” We are not working for beauty here – we are working for understanding.

the more I talk about it, the more I think the understaning of relationships is important. How different things relate to each other. Objects in space, ideas people. These all have releationships. Right now the neighborhood is white noise to us. It is through this research that we are able to pick out the MEANING within this white noise.

I am stressing the narrative, because it is used to showcase/exhibit the relationships.

Rather than asking me what you think you should do within the context of these projects, make proposals. Don’t wait for my approval.

ugent:: SECOND STEPS

The blog posts labeled "tasks:xxyy" are the tasks that I'm suggesting people take responsibility for.

all these tasks are designed to better our understanding of the site/building/neighborhood. this is an important step in design, not to be skimmed (in order to break the rules we must understand that which we are breaking) - but still the same, things need to get organized and moving quickly. I want all the research completed/accumulated by next Monday April 6.

you should volunteer for things you are interested in, but you should also volunteer for things that you might find uncomfortable - for example, those of you who somehow have gotten THIS FAR without learning perspectives - I'm expecting you to be volunteering for the "BACKGROUND PERSPECTIVE DRAWINGS"

All of you need to spend more time at the site, and all of you need to get that museum visit in. we are not having class thursday so that you make sure you have no excuses. you should have nothing to show me that is not online anyway.

what I am trying to get you all to understand is that the studio does not exist within the 4 walls of that class room between 6-920 monday and thursday. you all need to be posting things now - so that they can be commented on in "real time" the aspiration is a "continous" feedback loop.

Come on guys LETS GET CRACKING!!!

ugent:: FIRST STEPS

FIRST THING:

I need Volunteers NOW that will help out those that have difficulty with using these web sites. Is anyone uncomfortable using these sites – please report. Come on, don’t be shy.

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FIRST STEPS:

YouTUBE.

Everyone is required to put together at least 1 Youtube playlist.
The playlist should be an attempt at a narrative (telling a story) of what you are interested in as it relates to the project. it can be compiled with all your own videos, or any of the ones I have posted.

Playlist naming conventions: firstname_last initial_subject
Example: owen_g::punk



Flickr

Everyone is required to put their photos online – and tag them appropriately. Either use the flickr page you have set up, or use your own – and add the photos to the group Kristen created – and unless I am wrong, other peoples photos (outside the class) can be added to this group as well? I also request that the pictures location be placed on the flicker map.

please tag all images with your names. also if you have any collages in illustrator, please convert to jpeg and post - please apply descriptions if necessary.

Blogger

Everyone is required to post at least once. what you post about is up to you - obviously it needs to relate to the studio, but it can be about any of the videos, anthing that is interesting about the site. it can be a narrative, a proposal on something to research.


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Whatever research you have done, post it!
if you have done research that is in the form of hard copy, provide a summary in the form of a post.
as with all post please make sure you specify your name.

DO THESE THINGS QUICKLY