First Semester of Graduate School

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My first semester of graduate school is officially finished. It finished on Saturday when we pinned up our semester’s work. At first, it seemed like a useless exercise because throughout the semester we regularly pinned up and discussed them. We’re also able to see what everyone is working on while doing it because we all sit in the same corner of the building. The final pinup added nothing new, so spending all day on the Saturday after classes seemed completely unnecessary. We started at 9:30am and our professor wanted our stuff up the night before. It took me two hours. Sure, I could have slovenly plopped everything on the wall, but 16 weeks of work deserves better than that. The last “assignment”, after our work was up, was to sit and look at them, and write five sentences. These are my five plus one:

1) The nascent education of an architect. 

2) The thoughtful representation of forms in two and three dimensions. 

3) The exploration of constructing. 

4) The constructing of space. 

5) The discovery of architectonic principals.

6) Letting go of intention 

1) The nascent education of an architect. 

This one is obvious and basically redundant. It’s almost an intro to my other five. Of course, it’s the early education of an architect. It’s what I’m at school for, however, we’re not yet designing buildings, and when looking at what we’ve done this semester, it may initially seem removed from architecture. It’s one thing a lot of us struggled with and questioned amongst ourselves or openly. Our first assignment was putting dots on paper in groupings of 4 and 9. How do you teach someone to become an architect and to do architecture? Especially when, according to Vitruvius, “The architect should be equalized with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning.” The pedagogy behind it is something that varies between schools and professors. There’s no concrete answer, no “right” way to do it. 

2) The thoughtful representation of forms in two and three dimensions. 

Throughout the semester, we’ve fluctuated between representing forms in 2D and 3D. Like I mentioned above, our first assignment was placing dots on paper (2D), then we graduated to constructing basic solids (3D), then photographing those solids (2D), back and forth. Architecture takes place in both of these worlds undulating between drawings, plan and the built structure.  

3) The exploration of constructing

Constructing, not in the sense of construction, like a building, but the geometrical construction of a page or of objects. For example, one of the first assignments we had after the dot assignment was to construct five different polygons, starting with an octagon with a radius of 3. The octagon starts within a circle and the circle within a square, so you start with the square first. Any assignment where we had to display photos they had to be constructed onto the page using proportions. Each time he asked this of us, we’d roll our eyes, not fully understanding his fastidiousness. I suppose what he was and is trying to make us understand is that in order to construct a building; the people building it have to know where and how to build it by looking at your documents. 

4) The constructing of space

The construction of space is a fundamental architectural idea, perhaps it’s a definition of what architecture is. For us (or me at least), it was about the best way to display the objects we created. How does the object sit within space and what does/can the space around the object tell us about it? 

5) The discovery of architectonic principals

Architectonic is a word that is frequently thrown. Even now, I struggle to grasp its definition, and how to use it properly. It’s a word that’s more like a concept. It is defined as, “relating to architecture,” or “having qualities of design and structure.” I’d say it wasn’t until the last assignment, when we were asked to design bases for our two models, that we moved toward architectonic principals.

6) Letting go of intention

This one didn’t come to me the night before as I stared at my work, but when I was presenting. One thing I realized about myself over the course of the semester is that I need to act on an idea I have and from it others will come, but also to be open about what will come from the process of creating. The idea of action rather than inaction, letting go of not knowing where or how to start, but starting. 

Throughout the semester, I kept track of our assignments so that I could look back on them and also to see our growth. We had 16. Below I list them in chronological order:

Assignment 1: Group dots in groups 4-9

Assignment 2: Take one of the groupings in the first assignment and reimagine it in 8 new ways

Assignment 3: Group 9 dots with 3 folds in the paper

Assignment 4: Flatten one of the above-mentioned folds and do a tonal drawing

Assignment 5: Reconstruct Frank’s geometric construction of a circle-5 diameters

Assignment 6: Use Bristol to construct the geometric forms in the previous

Assignment 7: Choose 3 from previous and create isometric drawings and do a tonal drawing with colored pencil

Assignment 8: Construct the intersection of 2 octagons at 90 degrees

Assignment 9: Find out how 3 volumes are related (cylinder, cube, pyramid)

Assignment 10: Create a 30 second video of the objects

Assignment 11: Work a complete set of drawings (plans, sections, elevations, projections)

Assignment 12: Take photos of your models

Assignment 13: Wood frame of octagonal intersection and axon drawing of it

Assignment 14: Mount 3 photos on core board

Assignment 15: Create 2 bases/pedestals for the intersection of forms

Assignment 16: Make a portfolio of 9 single sided pages