Photo of the Week: Alphabet Sky

One of the great things about design and architecture is that it is historically a path for both intellectual, creative, and financial mobility in our society. You can start in architecture school at a community college and; if you've got acumen, intellect, and curiosity; can be enticed to finish at whatever school you want to go to. This is a good place to study architecture but you should be good enough to succeed anywhere in architectural school. I started at UT-Arlington and finished my education at Columbia. I like to move.

It is part of the lore of these programs that we send some of our very best students to the very best schools for their final professional years or for post-professional work. Some of us see this as a way of validating and promoting our college. In addition to the great students who study here for an M.Arch. there are students who have graduated in the last three years who are in Princeton's graduate program (2 of them), Rice's graduate program (3 of them), UPenn (2 there), Yale, Clemson, Columbia, Pratt, California College of Arts and Crafts, and UCLA.

There are 23 students from the college that I know of this year who are applying to other schools to continue their studies after either a B.Sc. degree or a professional M.Arch. They are applying to the best programs in the country- Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA, Cranbrook, Yale, Rice, UMich, UMinn, Clemson, Princeton, SCI-Arc, MIT, Cornell, Penn, and RISD.

This picture is part of a project by an architecture student at Yale. She took pictures of the sky through buildings to make the alphabet. It should be a font.

I only tell you all about these people because it is exciting to see some of you really excel in your work and I want to encourage you by pointing out what you all ae earning in this degree program. You're studying for a professional program. If trends hold, in three years about 60 of you will graduate with a B.Sc.Arch. (pre-professional) degree. In four or five years 40 of you will graduate from our college with a professional master's degree. In three or four years 3 to 10 of you will be studying at Ivy League schools. Any of those accomplishments are exceptional and few people work hard enough or study enough to be literate in architecture culture, to understand the discipline of architecture, and to be a licensed professional in our society. A focused, articulate, architect / designer is a status, responsibility, and a privilege that can't only be measured in pay scale. It does take work. You've really got to like this sort of study or this will be an unbearable haul to get a degree in something you do not enjoy actively doing. It is an honor to get to watch your careers, no matter where you all go, unfold. You'll be a memory here before you know it even if you stay as long as you can.

John, if you're out there, and I hear you are, give us a comment on this post's subject matter or just tell us about what's going on in New Jersey.

Attention

I M P O R T A N T I N F O R M A T I O N

The wire models should be completed at a 1" = 1'-0" scale, not at 1/2" = 1'-0"!!!

A G A I N W I R E M O D E L S A T 1 " = 0 ' S C A L E

Submission Process & Format

Building of the week (18 years ago)

HOTEL and CONVENTION CENTRE in AGADIR by REM KOOLHAAS
Agadir, Morocco, 1990 (Competition)

Rem Koolhaas was born in 1944. After having lived in Indonesia between 1952 and 1956, he settled in Amsterdam as a journalist for the Haagse Post and as a film screenplay writer, before leaving for London to study architecture at the Architectural Association School. Two theoretical projects come from this period: The Berlin wall as architecture(1970) and Exodus, or the voluntary prisoners of architecture(1972).

A scholarship obtained in 1972 allowed him to stay in the United States, where, fascinated by New York, he started to analyze the impact of metropolitan culture on architecture and published Delirious New York, a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan.

At this stage, Rem Koolhaas wanted to progress from theory to practical application and decided to return to Europe. In London in 1975, he created, with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture(OMA), whose objectives were the definition of new types of relations —theoretical as well as practical— between architecture and the contemporary cultural situation.

Modeling Events

If you are using foam and you want to try a model without pins you may choose to purely subtract from the foam to represent your ideas and concepts. You are diagramming information on these models. You are also welcome to sculpt both sides of the foam if you find a use for this technique. Craft is important in these models so if you are sculpting the foam use the correct tools and sand to finish.

Important craft issues ::

Sand off any black markings that may be on the face of your foam before you commence your work.
Sand foam with a fine grit to finish (models should be smooth).
If stacking the foam because you have smaller than 2 in foam, use Aileen’s tacky glue (gold bottle) and spread evenly between the two layers, apply pressure (stacking books on top), and wait for it to dry. Follow by sanding the layers smooth.
When using paper you may choose to stack two pieces of paper together, but never use glue.

If you are having troubles finding pins, try any craft store, varsity, target, kmart, rendr ect....they are there somewhere. If you are still having troubles get some piano wire with a diameter from .020” to .032” and cut it to your desired length. You will need wire cutters, this wire is tough and rigid.

Bring models on Tuesday so we can discuss any issues you are having. It is a work day, so you are required to bring work. You will not be allowed to just simply sit at your desk, there is always something to work on. In the following years you will have one studio per semester and you will be required to work for four solid hours. We are asking for two so get to work. Bring questions and concerns and we will all see you on Tuesday. This is the last day to ask any questions before we begin grading on Thursday.

Remember your official due date for all of this material is Thursday February 7. This day will be a pin up day so be prepared to have all your assignments collected, fixed, and ready to pin up.

Things to pin up on Thursday ::

Photo Mosaic
One Extensive List
One Duration List
Four Extensive Chart/Graphs
Four Duration Chart/Graphs
Four Profile Knives
Three Profile Sections of your room each on its own 24 by 24 sheet of Vellum
One Isometric drawing of your three sections projected at 45/45 on own 24 by 24 sheet of Vellum
15 Chronophotography Prints (use a consistent format no smaller than 3 by 5, do not crop images)
Three Event Models

Make sure to have plenty of binder clips and pins for hanging your work.

Building of the Week

The Polish Pavilion for the 2010 World's Fair in China. The design was selected in an open design competition from over 300 entries.

Chronophotography

Bring your camera to class on Tuesday. You need to be able to manipulate your shutter speed on your camera. If you do not have a camera, you should find a partner as soon as possible that is willing to share. You will need a partner to do this assignment.

The chronophotography assignment follows the projection drawings of your room. It will be due on Tuesday February 5. This should give you ample time to either check out one of the few cameras they have upstairs (the SLRs from Denny or the commercial grade digital cameras from Johnny) and or to develop your images if you decide to use a 35mm film camera. Remember if you develop your film get Matte prints not glossy! There are 200 of you, so be kind and return the cameras as soon as you are finished.

You should perform at least 15 events in your room for this assignment. It will take a couple of tries to get to know the technology. You will need to experiment with the effects of chronophotography. Do not rush this, we are giving you this time to have fun and create something beautiful. There are many ways to do this. But you are the creator. You can flash the room with a single on and off switch during the shot, use single light records (single LED lights on both hands are an example of this technique), or you could use draped lighting (white christmas lights are an example of the drape effect).

You will find more details in the assignment located in the left column of this blog.

Step by Step Process for Projecting

(click on image to start animation and ignore the last step so that you leave all work)

ERASED DEKOONING

In lecture tonight we'll talk about Robert Rauschenburg's Erased DeKooning. Rauschenburg is a Texan, of course. DeKooning was a Dutch master of abstract expressionist painting. In 1959 Rauschenburg was a young punk in NYC. Rauschenburg asked the master DeKooning for a drawing. Rauschenburg took the drawing home, erased the whole drawing, and retitled the piece Erased DeKooning.

More Manifests

You need to reprint your spreadsheets for tomorrow as well. There should be two manifests, one for the extents of things and one for the duration and then two sets of four graphs one set documenting the extents of your room and the other set notating the events that occur in your room and or the frequency of use of the objects that occupy your room. These spreadsheets are physical documents used to understand how you live in your room and how your things affect that space.

Drafting Supplies

I have rearranged the materials list to the left so that everything you need for tomorrow is above the X-Acto knife. If you don't have some of the secondary things then we'll be able to make do. I keep my drafting gear in an old tackle box.

Quote of the Week

From the late 1960s until very recently...architecture has been very "process" driven. That is to say...architectural form is the outcome, or registration, of a series of design procedures. These procedures are in control of the architect, carried out by graphic means, and have their own internal logic. That logic in turn is seen to be embedded in the architectural object as meaning and formal organization.
Stan Allen, "Trace Elements" in Tracing Eisenman

e.g. - Eisenman Architects
e.g. - Morphosis

Drafting Tuesday

Don't forget to bring your drafting gear on Tuesday. We'll do an in class drafting assignment.
Bring at least one 24 by 24 sheet of vellum.

Chronophotography

To the right you'll find an image bank of chronophotographs taken by students in their dorm rooms.
Below is an image I made myself in my apartment in Manhattan. What you see is the whole kitchen. The action being recorded is getting a glass out of the cabinet, reaching into the fridge, and pouring juice into the glass. It was done with slide film .To the left is also an assignment you'll start in one week doing chronophotography documenting the events that occur in your room. Please start reviewing what you'll need, checking if your camera will do these sorts of photos and where you'll get one if yours doesn't.

One of the first conceptual decisions you should make is whether you'll record trajectories of individual lights or if you'll find the "clouds of occupied space" otherwise shown with rope lights and light strings. How can you make the data gathered transition? Can you interpolate and translate the recordings?

We'll draw sections through these results, we'll make wire frame models of each of these, we'll make combinations of these things, and we'll model the aggregate in foam.

Art With Excel

I did not mention it but the first reading is available to the left (RDG#1). It is two very short excerpts from a book about mereotopology. (6 pages total)

Here's an interesting visual artist that uses MS Excel spreadsheet application technology to generate her art work. Click on her name to visit her site.

Danielle Aubert

Ex.#2 Charting Things

You make two excel spreadsheets.

• One has all the things that are objects in your room listed, categorized and measured in extensive and material ways. (Color, volume, location, relationship to other things, etc.)
• One has all the things that happen in your room listed, categorized and measured in durational, and situational ways. (frequency, duration, intensity, area, relationship to other things, etc.)
  

Make sure you record the size (volume) of everything. Use the calculations tools in excel, use cell shading, and grouping to complete and refine the two charts. You should be crafty with excel, as you would any other medium.

Print them each to fill an 11 by 17 sheet of paper.

________________

That's the most important part above. Spend most of your time there and less on this next part. You'll use these charts above a WHOLE lot in this project.

Then, using charting and graphing tools in excel, make four graphics of the findings in each of your spreadsheets (% breakdown of colors, etc.) Print each of these 8 graphics individually on an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper. (make sure that all graphics are oriented on the sheet the same way)

The TWO printouts of the spread sheets PLUS FOUR graphics of your chart of object things PLUS FOUR graphics of your chart of event things EQUALS 10 IMAGES.

You can include images of your room contents in the spreadsheet, if you wish but that is not a requirement, just a suggestion of one way of accomplishing this exercise.

cad class

Students signed up for the cad mini course will be released from those courses to attend our lecture this evening.

From: Snowden, Christopher
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 11:11 AM
To: Key, Brian; Perkins, Patricia
Subject: RE: AutoCAD

If they are only going to miss an hour on Tuesday I can work around this. I will be giving them a small assignment to do outside of class. Please make sure they know that they must be there at the beginning of every class. I will be allowing them to miss ONLY the 6:00pm to 7:00pm hour on Tuesday. They must be in attendance at all other times.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Chris Snowden
Research Associate/Instructor
Texas Tech University
College of Architecture
806.742.3136
christopher.snowden@ttu.edu

Assignment for Day #1

a) Read the Bounding Space Introduction (linked to the left).

b) Complete the Photomosaic Exercise (ex.#1- linked to the left) and have it ready for presentation at the beginning of class on Tuesday, January 15th. Have aluminum straight pins and binder clips ready to pin the document up.

c) Review the Course Syllabus (linked to the left) and the course website (you're on it) before the lecture on the night of Tuesday, January 15th.

David Hockney & Photomosaic Photography

I may seem to be passionately concerned with the 'hows' of representation, how you actually represent rather than 'what' or 'why'. But to me this is inevitable. The 'how' has a great effect on what we see. To say that 'what we see' is more important than 'how we see it' is to think that 'how' has been settled and fixed. When you realize this is not the case, you realize that 'how' often affects 'what' we see.

Perspective is a law of optics... The Chinese did not have a system like it. Indeed, it is said they rejected the idea of the vanishing point in the eleventh century, because it meant the viewer was not there, indeed, had no movement, therefore was not alive.

People tend to forget that play is serious

It is difficult to say why I decided I wanted to be an artist. Obviously, I had some facility, more than other people, but sometimes facility comes because one is more interested in looking at things, examining them, more interested in the visual world than other people are.

Once my hand has drawn something my eye has observed, I know it by heart, and I can draw it again without a model.

But, I would always be thinking of how pictures are constructed and colour, how to use it, I mean you're using it for constructing, makes you think about it, the place did as well.

Most artists work all the time, they do actually, especially good artists, they work all the time, what else is there to do? I mean you do.


David Hockney

Materials Information

To the left is a list of tools and consumables we know that we'll be using this semester. It is recommended that you buy the tools before the first day of class. We're working with a new store in town, RENDr, which is at the corner of Canton and 26th Street (in the same strip shopping center as J&B Coffee) to get you all these supplies in a timely manner. Crissy Griswold, the owner of RENDr will be watching this class website from time to time. It would be a great help to both Crissy and us if you would inform us if you think that the majority of the class already has one of these tools and we will not need to order it. You can do so in a comment on this post.

If you click on the material listings to the right you'll find we've linked a picture of the element for familiarity. Again, if you have a question about an item, make it a comment to this post, don't email us just yet.

The tools for the course, if you buy sturdy professional quality tools, will last you for your whole career in architecture. We still regularly use tools we bought in high school. There's a huge difference between student and professional quality and there's going to be a difference in the way the tool operates, just as with musical instruments or sporting goods. Many of you know what you get when you buy a guitar at ToysR'Us. The same is true here. RENDr stocks professional quality gear, will have competitive prices, and will be very convenient for you.

It is recommended that you buy the consumables only as you need them. The studios will be crowded and you will not have your own desk. You'll share desks. RENDr will have the paper materials as we need them. Home Depot and other building supplies will have things like paint, polystyrene, sandpaper, and spackling whenever we need them. Part of the course is simply sourcing all the tools and consumables you'll need as the semester progresses.

Questions made as comments to this post will be answered promptly.

Bios on the Instructors

Marti was born in Omaha, Nebraska and spent her childhood in Bennington, Nebraska, which is a farming town just beyond the reach of Omaha. She lettered in track and volleyball and was her high school class salutatorian. After high school she studied architecture at the University of Nebraska where she was an honors student, was the editor of In.Form, a peer-reviewed architectural journal, and was an exchange student student at the University of Hannover, Germany. After completing her her architecture studies for a B.Sc. in Architectural Design she studied printmaking and filmmaking at NU. She worked professionally for Keith Dubas Architects in Lincoln before coming to Texas Tech to teach for the last two years in second year studio, third year studio, the Montréal summer studios, and now in the first year studio. In the coming Fall Marti will be working in some advanced studies in architecture.

Brian was born in Warren, Ohio and moved at an early age to Texas. He lived as a boy in Killeen, Austin, Montréal, Quebec, and Garland. He graduated from North Garland High School. He played soccer, was a national bible quiz champion, and two time state drafting champion. Before going to university he worked as a civl engineering draftsman (he drew the parking islands at TownEast Mall in Mesquite), a high rise curtain-wall shop drawing draftsman, was a metal building designer (he designed the horrid Custom Cleaners building at Forest and Greenville in Dallas), and was self-employed as a residential designer doing houses in Dallas, Allen, McKinney, Garland, and Sachse. He attended Dallas County Community Colleges, the University of Texas at Arlington (B.Sc.Arch.), Carleton University (B.Arch.), and Columbia University (M.Sc.Design). While at Carleton University he spent a semester at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. He's worked professionally for Cooper Robertson + Partners in New York City, Humphries Poli in Denver, and Hildinger Associates in Dallas. He's taught at the Universities of Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Dublin Institute of Technology (IRL), and now TTU. He teaches foundation design, urban design, and site design courses. He designs and researches on "-grounds", as in campgrounds, fairgrounds, and other land based architectures.