Teaching: Arch 155: Student Blogs

I am teaching Freshman year studio at Wentworth Institute of Technology this fall.

"Arch155 Design Principles l:
This course will focus on freehand drawing, utilizing drawing as a tool for the exploration of the built environment. Drawing as a method of “seeing”, the sketchbook as a recording device, and drawing as a tool in the design process will be studied. Weekly exercises will guide the course and weekly seminars will integrate the materials covered in ARCH115 Survey of Architecture I. Co-requisite: Arch115 Survey of Architecture I."


Wentworth's Architecture Department Course Catalog


My students will be creating their own blogs.  The assignment is listed below.

+ Select a posting from an Architecture related blog | website | app | book | e-zine.

Sample sites 

http://www.archdaily.com/ 
http://archidose.blogspot.com/ 

http://www.architizer.com/en_us/
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/
http://www.world-architects.com/en/
http://plusmood.com/
http://www.archidose.org

+ Write a short paragraph (3-5 sentences) describing how this article of Architecture sparked your interest 

+ Not because it looks cool… Why does it look “cool”? Why does it look “ugly”?
+ What is intriguing about the building | object | architect | form | materials?
+ List: Who | What | Where | When | Why
+ Include at least 3 images: Plans | sections | drawings | photographs | maps | diagrams | icons
+ Post to your own blog. In posting link, to original website or posting.

Blog creation sites 

http://www.wordpress.com 

http://www.blogger.com 

Please keep your blog professional! Including the username and title. I would suggest using your last name first initial as your user name, and something simple as the title.

Thesis: Final Crit

Thesis Statement: Landmarks and historic sites throughout the city have become cliche’ and kitschy, overlooked and then delegated to the realm of tourism. The people, who work and live in the city, are in turn, disassociated from these spaces because they do not engage these sites in their everyday activities. By focusing on one of these detached environments, this thesis will respond to issues of memory, perception, and the potential for the human activity of local cultures to inspire new and vibrant relationships within these neglected spaces of the city. A series of interventions will be developed that link and connect the tourist aspect of these environments with the everyday activities of the city’s inhabitants. The existing infrastructure that links these zones will also be redeveloped, rethought, and modernized. These associations will demonstrate how memory and the sense of place can provide the city’s inhabitants with a strong connection to the site.

Thesis: Studio: Model Making

Me making a 3D perspective model. The camera got shifted near the end and so you can't me making the model as well.

Thesis: Studio

Here it is... on you tube

Thesis: Studio

Our Master Studio space is really cramped. We moved to our student resource room.

5 Master students... 8 hours on a Friday night.......(6pm to 2am)

We have begun recording our activies every day now.... they will be complied into a video at the end of "death week". This is just a test video... a little fast at the moment, we will splice together the fun parts once we have time, for now...enjoy...

Special Topics: Masters Studio: 3D Renderings

These are the renderings from the previous post. I scanned my hand drawn renderings and then printed 2 enlarged copies of the sketches. I cut out different elements in each rendering to create a relief that would show the scale and depth in each rendering.

Special Topics: Masters Studio: Renderings

Special Topics: Masters Studio: Prelim Ideas: Diagrams

Schematic plan diagrams of American Apparel Factory in Los Angeles.

Two Fold: Publicized

Wentworth Article on Fashion Show

Special Topics: Ecotect Analysis Software: Prelim Light Studies

March 22nd @ 5:00pm

June 22nd @ 5:00pm

December 22nd @ 5:00pm

Two Fold: Synopsis Forward

Drama, stress, anticipation. It’s 3:30 on Monday 10.05.09. The set is in disarray. People are running everywhere frantically. The fabric panels are ripping off the fence. Our class is really worried that the extremely windy weather is literally going to sweep all of our hard work away. Finally we decided to puncture holes into the panels; which alleviated the strong wind tension in them. All the while Professor Phil Comeau is blasting techno beats into the quad.

04:15- Lighting and videographer crew arrives. They immediately begin running wires everywhere and angling lighting onto the runway. Pink film is attached to the lights.
04:30- The installation of the set is finished. The string panels are pulled out from the fence. The spatial environment is finally complete. We all hurry into Waston Auditorium to get our models ready.

The Master of Architecture Design Studio’s goal was to locate a neglected space on our campus that could become livened with our open-air installation. We wanted to enrich this ignored space and transform it into an atmosphere that could not be imagined to exist there. We selected the barren volleyball court adjacent to the tennis courts after scrutinizing different sites thoroughly. Our studio chose to use limited amounts of everyday materials to enliven the limited site, yet used them with innovation: neon pink string became canopies and panels, white cardboard boxes morphed into projection screens, and hot pink fabric strips transformed into screens and partitions. Two-Fold relates to how all of these materials link and connect to each other. The intersection point results in a fold or kink in the material. All of the materials fold out from one plane and onto another.

05:00- One hour until show time. Our backstage in Watson is extremely chaotic as models are fitted, primped, and stylized. Everyone is laughing, animated, and ecstatic to see each other’s outfits. The photographer Jeff McMullin photographs every model and his or her contrasting or complementing pair.
05:15- Fabric, coffee filters, plates, feathers, flowers, safety blankets, candy, playing cards, pool noodles, trash bags, paper, forks…EVERYWHERE! 05:45- Frantic. 06:00- All of the models are finally lined up in the correct order. There is a buzz of excitement and anxiousness in the air.
06:11- Shows on! I lead the models outside, snapping photos as models clamor down the stairs. The doors fling open…Professor Phil Comeau yells to the crowd “Are you ready for the long awaited event?! I can’t hear you!” The first two models are nervous and keep asking me how they should walk down the runway.
06:12- Erik Polyzou and Amanda Cabey-Strout take off down the runway…the crowd goes wild! Erik dips Amanda in the center of the runway and the show takes off.

Once the models hit the stage, the lights and music were on, and the crowd was cheering; the space became alive. The event was successful because of the relationship of all these components. The show was better than I could have ever anticipated. 8 rows deep of spectators were surrounding the runway. All of the professors, students, and friends were really getting into the show and feeding off the enthusiasm of the crowd. Models were chest bumping, dancing, shimmying, twirling, and strutting with each other. I could not believe how beautiful the light was hitting the canopy, how excited the crowd was, and how well the models were strutting and interacting with the crowd.

06:23- Melissa Martinez twirls down the runway in a voluminous coffee filter dress.
06:32- Professor Justin Humphreys dances down the runway in a robot-esk garment constructed of paper.
06:43- Professor Robert Cowherd break dances in front of the crowd in a Frank Gehry reminiscent insulation suit. Followed by Professor Rob Trumbor swishing down the runway in a purple pom-pom ensemble.
06:55- The final two models are up. Professor Glen Wiggins, the architecture department head, struts down the aisle in a very shiny “emergency blanket” suit and enormous hot pink bow tie, followed by our studio Professor Beth Gibb in a lovely voluminous “paper wedding dress”. Professor Phil Comeau, our incredible DJ, plays the wedding march on the piano as Gibb makes her way down the runway, reminiscence of many professional runway shows. After Wiggins and her meet at the end stage, the crowd goes wild, Comeau blasts the music, and the 10 of us in charge come running out. It was fun to be part of the runway and the show. The models follow us and a dance party ensues.

I never realized how much of a connection fashion and architecture have with one another. Both professions begin designing in the same way: sketching, photoshopping, researching, and collecting inspirational images. Each begins with two-dimensional materials and develops an envelope in which people interact in or with.

It was fun to design, build, budget, and resolve real issues in the studio environment. In the typical studio situation, we design a building or space and never have the opportunity to see if our design works or not. In this studio exercise we were able to work with each other, test various sites around campus, develop a design, test it to see if it worked, resolve issues, and publicize and organize the event. I hope that the Masters program continues creating annual architecture affairs because our class has shown that through design, we can unite studios, professors, students, and the school with each other.

-alexandra dupnik

Special Topics: Masters Studio: Prelim Ideas

Special Topics: Masters Studio: Precedents

Two Fold: Set