Architect | Educator | Consultant
Desks will still be messy. Students will still have to make physical models in this studio. Gravity is a unforgiving collaborator. Materials create their own dialogues. Connections are the soul of creative expression.
It turns out that this hopeful day is going to be foreshadowed this semester! Indeed, I’m getting a taste of it next week!
I’ve spent a few days composing a proposal for a VR-for-architects class at NYIT. I just sent the proposal to the Associate Dean, and I don’t know what part I’m more excited about. The course textbook is Robin Evan’s wonderful project, The Projective Cast. Just talking about those chapters for 16 weeks is interesting enought. But the course only needs a few thousand dollars of equipment to run – that makes me hopeful that we really have a chance to do something unique at our institute.
Here’ the big parts. There isn’t a sentence in the sample that doesn’t sound so cool that I would want to take the course myself!
Our Survey of Parametric Design Tool for Architects midterm assignments are the design and construction of lampshades.
(Can you see how the last two assignments about domes are imbedded in the midterms?)
My office is a wonderful place to sit these days. Not only are the midterms whimsical and fun, but they draw the curiosity of folks in the department. And we can keep the bland overhaed lights off, too.
The curator of Gallery 61 wants to build an exhibition next year that includes these pieces. More news when things get decided…
Design/Build project delivery methods offer a ton of benefits to both architects and their clients. Architects skilled and interested enough to deliver services on the construction site are all the more informed the next time they sit at the drafting board. Clients who hire these architects don’t lose invested project knowledge when a set is handed over to a third-party contractor.
Professor Ford and I just presented “Simulating Paradoxes” at the ACSA Fall Conference. I am very proud of what we wrote. I am equally proud of the discussion we encouraged amoung our lovely peers.
My teaching schedule for the Fall has been set for some time now. And its pretty encouraging that a elective I wrote last Spring Survey of Parametric Design Tools for Architects has filled to capacity and has another semester to waitlist. I think I love teaching that class.
In several public presentations, Philosopher Daniel Dennett has offered his own description of the meaning of life. Paraphrasing, he advises to find something “bigger than you,” and to dedicate your actions to that purpose, that idea, or that inspiration. That’s hard.
In the Spring of 2015, Prof. Ford and I prepared two abstracts for the 2015 ACSA Fall Conference (themed “Between the Autonomous & Contingent Object”). The two abstracts were intended to take debating positions about the role of simulation in architecture, and both positions advanced the debate-style organization of the conference. One abstract was named “Simulating Paradoxes.” The other was named “Simulating Criticality.”
I was an artist presented a few days ago at the Byrdcliffe Open Studios. It was a exciting, loving, and humbling experience.
The premise of my Byrdcliffe Fellowship, and my subsequent work, is that architectural documents are an invaluable resource for forming a cause-oriented non-profit organization. Specifically, architectural products can be used to build a Board of Directors, to advance fundraising objectives, to galvanize volunteers for the mission, and ultimately to win the support of a community.