more MULTIPLES

Here are some more images of the design studies from last week’s first critique.  This first study was intentionally titled ‘MULTIPLES’, as it was a study about multiple ideas, multiple explorations, multiple threads.  Working in both digital and physical models, the process focused on generating a lot of ideas, initial tests, and points of departure that we can now build on. 

At the end of the critique last week, the class voted on schemes to identify ideas that we should continue to develop.  As a group, we decided to continue to explore schemes that naturally grouped into three lines of inquiry.  The class is working this week to continue to develop and refine these three consolidated schemes into more resolved design studies.

MULTIPLES

Today we had our first design critique.  The goal was to produce multiple ideas and approaches to this project.  This work is not really ready for the world yet, and we are unlikely to build any of these schemes exactly as they are illustrated here. Yet somewhere in these initial sketches is a thread of what we will construct this summer.

These are first ideas, tests, and explorations. They are points of departure - beginning concepts that now need to be rigorously developed, questioned, and refined.

Arch Design + Build Summer 2016: Crit 01 from Mark Pearson on Vimeo.

PROCESS MATTERS

(thoughts on, and the significance of, the design process)

As any one of my former design students would know, one of my favorite topics of conversation in the studio is about the design process.  I am simply fascinated with how creative people think, and work.  I also feel like a solid understanding of the creative process is one of the key skills that I am supposed to be teaching in beginning design studios. 

I have been thinking about the design process as the Design + Build studio is starting to produce initial sketches and concepts.

Recently, Architectural Record dedicated an entire issue focused on Architecture +Creativity.  One of the articles profiles several architects who discuss their creative process, one of which is Steven Holl (another of my favorite topics), and his collaboration with the composer Raphael Mostel.  In this essay appears this quote by the Polish writer Slawomir Mrozek “Inspiration begins on page 60”.  This really resonates with me, and reminds me that it is often fruitless to wait for inspiration so strike, rather, you need to get several chapters into the work before you begin to understand your creative voice.

Similarly, and often, I will see students get absolutely stuck at the beginning of the design process.  As if they don’t know how to start, and are just waiting (desperately) for inspiration to strike.  Or they are trying to be too perfect from the start, as if they expect the perfect solution to emerge on day one.  But it doesn’t work that way.  You have to begin working, testing, and exploring.  And then eventually, with time and a lot of design studies, the really good work will begin to emerge.

So for the Design + Build class, at the beginning of the design process, I don’t want students to get hung up looking for that perfect design solution.  None of these first studies will be perfect solutions anyway, and they don’t need to be, they are just beginning threads.  Instead of waiting for the “eureka moment”, I want to see ideas, tests, experiments, what if’s, and failures.  I want the class sketching, making models, testing possibilities, and getting the “first 60 pages” out of the way.

Then we can begin to clarify, refine and develop. 

HALL OF PRECEDENTS

Today, the Design + Build class completed a precedent study.  I wanted the class looking at examples, a lot of examples.  Examples of pavilions, follies, and small structures designed by both architects and students.

The goal is to understand what has come before us, what has already been done, as a way to learn and envision the possibilities for our project.  The intent is not to copy these projects, rather to learn from them.  Perhaps in one of these examples is a spark that could ignite a design idea for our project.  Maybe a clear and compelling idea changes the way we might conceptually approach our project.  Perhaps there is an intriguing material to explore, a dynamic form, or a beautiful detail to study, learn from, and emulate. 

So today we filled the hallway with precedents.  Seeking to learn.  Seeking inspiration.

PRECEDENT

While the Design + Build studio is currently researching precedents, I am revisiting some old favorites. 

One of these is the Moore Honeyhouse by Marlon Blackwell.  This precedent has it all, relationship to site, context, concept, materiality, tectonics, detail and poetics.
http://www.marlonblackwell.com/work_residential_moore-honeyhouse.html
http://www.marlonblackwell.com/index.html

Another long time inspiration for this class has been Brian MacKay-Lyons ghost projects.  These are equally beautiful and contextual, built by students during the summer design build workshop know as Ghost Lab.
http://mlsarchitects.ca/ghost.htm
http://mlsarchitects.ca/index.htm

IT BEGINS WITH THE SITE

Design begins with the site.  (At least in my world it does)  Architecture is a poetic response to place, and circumstance.

Today we kicked off the summer 2016 Design + Build studio, and naturally, we began by analyzing the site.  We spent a portion of today’s class measuring, drawing, and observing the site conditions for this summer’s project. 

Students always seem to immediately grasp the necessity of having accurate site information with dimensional relationships, but I am also interested in understanding the more transient aspects of the place. 

Where is the sun, and how does it move? (This alone could be an entire project)

How do people move and occupy the site?

Where are the view corridors and potential relationship?

What else makes this place a place?  What makes it unique?

What are the latent aspects of the site, and how can they be revealed?

These questions will hopefully encourage students to think deeper about the site, and eventually lead to a design solution that is a response to the specificities of this place. 

How can our design exist here, and nowhere else?  Can it engage?  Create place? Reveal?

And so today it began with the SITE.  Very soon it will move to the IDEA.