Sunday, July 26, 2009

Monday Pin-Up Schedule

It looks like we will have some visitors, at least for a time.

You should start your presentation with your title and the three sentence statement. Then- with as little said as is possible and nothing said about anything but architectural ideas and the facts that make them apparent. You will be cut off if you say, "I wanted..." or any other first person reference while talking about the project. Reading the project statement is acceptable. Bringing the project to life through your presentation of it is imperative.

We ALL will start pinning up at 13h00. We'll pin up in the front two rooms on the first floor. EVERYONE should be pinned up in the front first floor rooms at 13h15. We'll do a quick walk through, then we'll start at 13h30.

13h30
Chelsea
Andy
Cameron

14h30
Luis
Christina
John
Frank

15h30
Katie
Nichole
Eddie

16h30
Phil
Jordan
Ryan
Cynthia

17h30
Brittney
Edgar
Jeff

We'll just put the work in the studio and leave after we're done. We'll come back to it Tuesday to clean up and pack the models. If you are not going to be there Tuesday then you will need to have someone take care fo yoru part of the clean-up and packing for Lubbock.

Work

Work Hard. Make smart decisions. You're not alone. Here's a screen cap of my designs for one block of 34th Street.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Tuesday - Teacher Crit and Clean Day

On Tuesday Marti and I will share with you some of our work and we'll do a cursory clean up of the studios. Let's meet at 13h00 on Tuesday and be gone by 16h00 with the studio cleaned, cards and keys turned in, and your critiques of our work shared.

I'll show you my designs for Lubbock's 34th Street (to be voted on in a bond election in November), my redesign of a tidal island in Long Island Sound for a new U.N.H.Q. (honorable mention competition entry), my stadium for The Los Angeles Pacifics in Santa Monica (second place competition entry), a design for a boating museum on the Seine in Paris (I was beat by our Professor Chris Taylor in that competition), my Civic Center in Curtis, NE (the town and school don't know I designed this for them), design for wind turbines on the TTU campus (being considered by the Chancellor and President), and my design for a campus lawn between the TTU admin and SUB buildings (nobody who parks in that lot I'm replacing likes this thing- which is the university administration).

I'll try to convince Marti to show her redesign for Galveston Island, her High School in Houston, her floating park in San Francisco, her Hannover study abroad project, and her new project researching the effects of water depletion in the Ogallala aquifer on towns on the High Plains.

That sounds like more than it will be. A lot of the new renderings we both have have never been seen by anyone. We'll just show a few images of each project- enough to present the narrative.

Monday Schedule

We'll all pin up by 13h15 in the two crit rooms on the first floor. You should put everything on the wall and in front of reviewers that you think helps build the project narrative. We'll go through from 13h15 until 13h30 getting the wall looking good. Here is what was sent to the potential reviewers:

CoA@TTU Montréal Summer Studio 2009

PROJECT REVIEW
Monday 27 July 2009 at 13h00
McGill SoA First Floor Crit Rooms

PROJECT STATEMENT
Urban Centre
at Place d'Youville, Montréal

How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run –
And all for nothing it had ever done
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under,
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.
excerpt from “A Brook in the City” by Robert Frost, 1924

Place d'Youville sits on the former Little St-Pierre River waterfront edge of the old city. It is akin to Canal Street in New York- once a brook, then a canal, then a sewer, then paved over. The studio site is a through block hole in the northern edge of the Place. Under the place in front of the site lies the ancient sewer that will tie the project to the Archaeology museum at the other end of the sewer. Under the site lies the foundations of the former city wall. The Parliament of Canada once sat ablaze in a riot in the Place. On the south side of the place, outside the old city, sits the Grey Nun's Hospital, the generator of the skewed secondary grid in the city's fabric.

The project program is generically speaking an Urban Centre. The studio, whose focus is urbanism, is the last in a sequence that starts with representation and moves through form, program, structure, and envelope before getting here. Each student, through a careful reading of the site and its surroundings in highly contextualist terms, has come to a particular position on how the building and the city will meet and how the project is shaped and will shape event structures in the city.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Public Project View :: LTL

Representation Techniques :: Tom Ngo

John Hejduk :: Wall House 2 Project, Isometric

Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis :: Representation Techniques





Even they still use extension lines!  Please note that yes these are perspectives.  The choice is yours whether to draw an oblique, isometric, or perspective, but your choice should privilege a view that best describes your project.  The drawing should also show the ideas embedded into your project.  Read the project diagram portion of your final drawing list, this diagram must describe programmatic elements (specify types of program, such as the scale, intensity, path/place etc), event spaces and their cycle, and tectonic systems (structure, material difference, components etc).

These are drawing techniques that can be used for your project diagrams.  They are done in perspective of course but similar techniques can be used for your project diagrams.  These have incredible detail and your projects do not..... no worries, you have program, structure, place space, path space...etc, etc..... just have fun, but please use extension lines..... 

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Project Summary

3 Sentence Project Narrative
a project title and 3 sentence text.
media: typed out in .doc format

Project Diagram
3 different each developed from the catalogs on:
programmatic elements
event spaces and their cycles
tectonic systems and components
media: graphite on 36” by 36” vellum

1/32"=1'0" Project Model (Tectonic Configuration)
Model in a new site model exploring these fundamental conditions:
Enclosed vs. Defined (spatial)
Surface and Mass (formal)
Projecting Space Out and Projected Space In (contextual)
media: foam, white museum board, and piano wire
model scope:
1/16"=1'0" Plan Projection Drawing (Urban Place)
Projection drawing exploring the status of:
project to its surroundings (both above and below ground)
particular contextual elements that shaped or are impacted by the project
general internal structures and sequences of the project
media: graphite on 36” by 36” vellum (fill sheet)

1/8"=1'0" Plan Projection Drawing (Building Section)
Projection drawing with substantial sectioning that explores the status of:
Skeleton : Held / Holding / Holder (structural)
Skin: Transparent / Translucent / Opaque / Thick (enveloptic)
Physiognomy: Place / Transition / Path / Servant (programmatic)
media: graphite on 36” by 36” vellum (fill sheet)

Public Project View
Using your own photographs or perspective drawing insert your project into the site using either hand drawing or digital media in a series of views of and from the site.
media: graphite, printer ink, and/or collage on 18” by 18” vellum or printout

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Project Catalog

On Thursday at 14h00 we'll have a discussion of this exercise. You will make three diagrams from these catalogs. Make three catalogs by interogating your models, narratives, and projection drawings using the following categories:
programmatic elements (specify the types, scales, and "families")
event spaces and their cycles (specify the cycles, frequencies, durations, volume, and "families")
tectonic systems and components (specify the structures and envelopes from element to component, to assembly, to bay/frame/branch/unit, to zone)
When necessary waterboard your work to gain the necessary information.

New Modeling Exercise

You should be in studio every day this week. A lot of you "failed" at making developments or engaging the coursework in the project this past week. A few were behind and seemed to have used the week wisely fro catch up. A few used the week, as it should be, to develop a project already seeing good development. We'll be in and out grading, teaching, and reviewing your work all week as well. If you want to work together on this then you should ask.

For the next few days please develop the project through a new 1/32"=1'0" scale model made of foam and paper (it can include some piano wire, if you want to use it to show linear elements but it should be made up primarily of foam and white paper stock).

We ALL will meet Tuesday to review these models, to get the final work list, and to hand out these 2/3rds grades.

Our final day of studio in Montréal is next Monday. We'll do studio clean-up and key hand in on the next day right after lunch. If you are bugging out then you will be expected to do your clean-up before you leave.

Stop work on the drawing class completely. An email is forthcoming to all of you in the drawing class on how we'll wrap that up.

Project Statement

Please send a project title and a very short (3 sentence) project statement (call it -narrative, proposal, concept, or process) to b.rex@ttu.edu. We'll use it to help grade tomorrow.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Second Grade

We will begin the second grading process Monday morning. Please pin up and have your work up on the wall before 09h00 that day. Below is the list of exactly what we will be assessing.

1 :: 3 sets of Planimetric drawings and 3 Projection drawings of your final three study models :: 15 POINTS

2 :: 3 Paper Models / 3 Foam Models (final three) :: 15 POINTS

3 :: Site Catalog :: 10 POINTS

4 :: 1 Paper Model / 1 Foam Model (final one) :: 20 POINTS

5 :: Event Catalog :: 5 POINTS

6 :: 1/16" Plan Projection drawing :: 35 POINTS

We have a new pin up location roster. Please pin up as if you were exhibiting your final work. We have only one week left here so let's impress. The way things are most often pinned up now is not thoughtful. Line up your work with your neighbors work. Be methodical with how you pin up your work. Think of your project and how you would present it to a jury....this is the way you should always pin up.

1st FLOOR ::
Mike
Micah
Jeff
Chelsea

3rd FLOOR HALLWAY ::
Luis
Cameron
Katie

3rd FLOOR in STUDIO ::
Ryan
Andy
Frank
Eddie
Cynthia
Christina
Jordan
Phil

5th FLOOR ::
Brittney
Nichole
Edgar
John

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Rest of the Week / Notes on the past Tuesday

For Thursday let's meet first at 10h30 (not 10). I'll give a presentation about drawing. Drawing class people must be there. "Outsiders" are welcome too. It will take about an hour. Then we'd like to have a discussion about the ideas presented and then head off to lunch at 12h00.

Thursday afternoon at 14h00 both Marti and Brian will be in studio. We'll start with a short demonstration and discussion of some drawing techniques and then we'll do desk crits until 18h00 while you all work on these plan projections.

On Tuesday:
We talked about the two sorts of comprehensiveness- a) to figure out something in its totality and b) to make something thoroughly understood by others.

We also discussed the value of a narrative to the project- how a narrative attracts and gives "style" to a project but also how it gives the design decisions you've made a standard or plausibility to be measured and weighed against. A narrative is analogous to a rationale you set up to define what's rational. It can be a "World", like Italo Calvino's INVISIBLE CITIES (That's what John's "Centre d'Etudes du Monstres Urbain" is.). It can be a "Process", like the first ten houses of Peter Eisenman (That's what Micah's "Traitements de Fenêtres Existant" is.) It can be "Uses", like both Koolhaas' and Tschumi's La VIllette. (That's what Chelsea's "Bureau de Villes Divisées" is.) And there are a number of other ways narrative (a rhetorical device) can generate and support a project. We'll point them out as you deliver them to the discussion and we'll help where we can to find it with you.

The main thing you need to do is keep drawing and exploring decisions. Figure out how you'd do everything in three different ways and then see which choices "fit" as a plausible project. Very nice projects will fall out of this work if you'll make speculations about things and relationships and such in drawing the project.

stories shape drawings shape stories shape drawings
(loop)

I will be in studio on Friday afternoon to do some old grading and to help when asked.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Exercise : Plan Oblique

On a 36" by 36" sheet of trace or vellum, with your project at the centre of the sheet and its context filling the sheet, construct the project at 1/16" = 1'-0" in plan oblique. The choice of angle is yours.
First you will gently lay out the drawing starting with the most important lines, edges, forms, and vectors that shape and demarcate the work, then you will gently layout your project in the space of the sheet and its influences. Build up layers of lines and make the drawing transparent (or at least translucent) with layers and depth of lines through which you will bring new information into the project.
This is due Tuesday at 14h00. We'll be in for a short time tomorrow (monday) but the day is a work day. All of these projects are in sink or swim mode right now. The projects are preggers but you are not yet showing. This exercise will be the last one before the next (2/3rds done) assessment.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Sunday Ride

Today is supposed to be the best day for the next few days. I'd like to take people around the mountain to UdeM and l'Ecole Polytechnique. Meet me at the Church of St-Michael and St-Anthony at the corner of St-Viateur and St-Urbain at 11h00. It will be a fast trip.
If you want to meet us over there then it is easy to meet up. The Université de Montréal subway station is near by on the blue line.
We'll be at the Faculté de Amenagement (the architecture school) at 11h30. We'll go up the magic carpet to the upper campus (where the art deco tower is at) and we'll be at the Bombardier Research Centre at 12h15. Then we'll go to the Ecole Polytechnique's Lassonde Pavilions at 12h30 and we'll wrap up there. Its all on one campus.

All that is within a 1/2 mile of the subway station Edouard Montpetit, if you want to meet us out there. You can bring your bike on the métro, if you want. It is not a real hard ride. You should be on your way home before 13h30.

Winter on McGill Street at Place d'Youville



Something to think about and imagine as you consider how the Place is used across the seasons.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Surfing a River When the Wave Doesn’t Move

The NYTimes today features an article about the cult of surfing the wave in Montréal at Habitat.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Friday Class

The drawing class will not meet today at 10h00. Work on your 1:1 detail drawings.

We'll check each person's progress at 14h00 and determine how we'll adjust this list accordingly. Everyone we speak to during these reviews will have to have significant progress. We'll just cross people off who don't have progress (with good craft) and move the list up in time. Everyone should be in class until we leave for the day.

Marti List
14h00 Jeff
14h30 Micah
15h00 Katie
15h30 Brittney
16h00 Phil
16h30 Andy
17h00 Nichole
17h30

Brian List
14h00 Luis
14h30 Christina
15h00 Cameron
15h30 Cynthia
16h00 Edgar
16h30 Mike
17h00 John
17h30 Chelsea

les Trois Etoiles

At "le fin de bout" (the end of the game) on Hockey Night in Canada they announce three stars of the game.

We (Marti and Brian) talked this evening and we have three stars from what we saw today:
La Troisieme Etoile : numero vignt-deux (22), Brittney "Tower of Doom" Molina
La Deuxieme Etoile : numero trieze (13), Eddie "Foam+Paper=Luv" Lacroix
La Premiere Etoile : numero null (0), Nichole "Itz ya Rolly Tee" Shook
Honorable Mentions: Chelsea and Jordan

I was very, very happy to see the informal interaction going on between you all today. I think many of you are aware of what your classmates are doing and how they are doing it. The way you all know what each other are doing is strange- you'd almost think...uh...you were learning from what each other are doing. In that spirit...

This post is intended to indicate to you who we think is on track.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Thursday Ride

Swing Down Sweet Chariot Stop and Let Me Ride...

The funkadelic party starts today at 13h30 (1:30PM) just outside the entrance to the Grande Bibliotheque Nationale du Québec. (la GBNQ @ 475, Boulevard De Maisonneuve Est, across the street from the bus station)

It IS the Berri/UQAM subway station.

Then we'll go west to the Place Bonaventure (800, De La Gauchetière Street, West & also a subway station), KPF's IBM Building (very close by the Place Bonaventure), CIBC Tower (across the street from IBM at 1155, boulevard René-Lévesque Ouest).

That set done we'll go to Westmount Square by Mies van der Rohe (also its own subway station).

Then, to finish the day, we'll go to the CCA for some free Architecture Museum love. (also near a subway station).

This tour has lots to see for many of your projects. You can get almost everywhere we're going (maybe everywhere) en la Métro, en la pied, ou Vélo. Come gassed up and ready to Roulleé!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Creative Questioning

The Truth is that in philosophy and even elsewhere it is a question of finding the problem and consequently of positing it, even more than of solving it...stating the problem is not simply uncovering, it is inventing...Invention gives bring to what did not exist, it might never have happened.
Henri Bergson

Wednesday Schedule

The drawing class will meet today at 10h00. Bring all of your drawings done to date and we'll pin them up.

We've revised the schedule for the afternoon. We're going to divide you all between us to afford a longer crit for each of you.
Marti List
14h00 Chelsea
14h30 John
15h00 Mike
15h30 Edgar
16h00 Cynthia
16h30 Eddie
17h00 Cameron
17h30 Christina
18h00 Ryan
18h30 Luis

Brian List
14h00 Jesus
14h30 Nichole
15h00 Andy
15h30 Phil
16h00 Jordan
16h30 Brittney
17h00 Katie
17h30 Micah
18h00 Jeff
18h30 Frank

Program

Urban Center :: Place d’Youville


The Urban Center is a meeting place and intellectual venue for architectural discourse in the city. The relationship between Use / Event / Program is critical to the Urban Center. How will one use the space? How will events happen in this space? What is the program of the place?


The Urban Center will present major lectures, symposia, exhibitions, supporting research and advocacy for urbanism. Using the program Exhibit : Present : Study : Distribute : Administrate how will the urban center relate to its formal context and geometry? How does the Urban Center directly engage Place d'Youville, its double facade, and its underground connection? The sewer will act as a passage between the Urban Center and the Archaeological Museum.


Program ::


Exhibit


Meet < individual & group


Study


Distribute


Administrate


You will create one new paper model, foam model, hybrid model (use both foam and paper), and develop a list of events that may happen at the Urban Center for Wednesday. Think about the types of events, their cycle, their duration, their intensity, and their audience and create a catalog using these terms. Look at your models and focus on the seeing the space of the event. Look at your models to create your event catalog. Use your program : Exhibit : Meet : Study : Distribute : and Administrate while building your models and your catalog.


Sunday, July 5, 2009

Welcome Back

We have 3 weeks of class left in Montréal. The final MTL review is on 27 July.
When you talk about your work for this class you do not, most often, talk about the things we talk about nor do you seem to put observations, facts, discoveries, and "hunches" together in a logical and persuasive way. Would you rather listen to a list of problems and how they were solved or would you rather listen to a story about a place? You seem to have problems in all three phases of Aristotle's "De Rhetorica"- Discovery, Composition, and Style. Discovery requires a disciplined curiosity. Composition requires disciplined editing, and Style requires a disciplined projection. Discipline includes professional habit and custom, focus, thoroughness, and iterative considerations. We'll help if you'll engage the matter.
Monday 6 July 14h00 : Have all of your drawings pinned up and models displayed somewhere in the building hallways (1st, 3rd, and 5th) or in the studio. Have the site observation drawings, the three final models, the isos and planimetrics of the models, the new paper models, written out current project statements, and a catalog with your work.
If you expect to see any of your work done before the first assessment "reviewed" then post a sheet of paper to the left of your work that says what should be looked at in that regard for today. If your material is not complete, pinned up, and ready at 14h00 then we won't be talking about your work this week.

In class today we're going to take time to have people present their statements. Then we'll have a talk about these presentations and the project in general, then we'll present a new exercise.

There will be no class on Tuesday.
There will be Drawing class on Wednesday morning.
There will be Studio desk crits Wednesday afternoon.
There will be a Tour on Thursday.
There will be Drawing class Friday morning.
There will be Studio desk crits Friday afternoon.