patrick lee lucas

some words of wisdom on authenticity

2012-02-01T10:20:00.003-05:00

The creative artist does not work in a vacuum of intuitive genius; he is grounded in the craft. His duty is to get so fine an education, to be so versed in the chosen science or craft in which he works, that Intuition and Inspiration may plant their foothold in his heart. -- Sophy Burnham

tom ford on the creative process

2012-01-31T22:23:00.003-05:00

http://vimeo.com/33599333

my friend and fellow designer extraordinaire sent me a link to this tom ford video on the creative process and creative professions. it's worth a gander to see the story behind this fascinating designer, his life of design, and his sources of inspiration.

and while you are at it...you might check out suzanne's blog, too, for design inspiration...

learning spaces slide show

2012-01-30T18:18:00.010-05:00

this is a copy of the slideshow i presented in late january focusing on learning spaces and the work of my third year studio. all of the images represented herein are student work or were uploaded from the web through a search on 23 january 2012 with the search terms "learning spaces."

blurry boundaries for design

2012-01-20T17:12:00.003-05:00

here's a quick squib from the NEW YORK TIMES about one designer's ability to stay fluid in pursuing work. food for thought for all of us in the design industry: DESIGN ACROSS BOUNDARIES.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/arts/16iht-design16.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

making history active

2012-01-20T16:45:00.003-05:00

at the end of the second week of school.....and under the leadership of their teaching assistants...students in my history and theory class hit the streets to MAKE HISTORY ACTIVE. today, students searched for circles, groves, and stacks as basic design elements using the buildings on our campus.

design manifesto

2012-01-20T16:25:00.004-05:00

in my third year studio, students have been reading stewart brand's HOW BUILDINGS LEARN, a brilliant design manifesto. having just finished the chapter on MAGAZINE ARCHITECTURE -- a passage skewering architects and designers who pander to the public in gimmicky and flashy buildings and spaces -- our conversation turned to the manifesto as a statement of intent by a designer. i asked students to borrow a quote from brand as a starting point...and to articulate a design manifesto for themselves.

so, i began nosing around online for a few examples....and here's what i found:

A TERRIFIC MANIFESTO ON DESIGN EDUCATION
http://designcrit.com/mfa/design-education-manifesto/

THE MANIFESTO OF THE FUTURISTS FROM 1914
http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/architecture.html

and ONE ON SUSTAINABILITY
http://www.core77.com/reactor/04.07_chochinov.asp

what's my design manifesto?
MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE ONE OBJECT, ONE SPACE, ONE BUILDING, ONE PLACE AT A TIME.

what's yours?

stewart brand : how buildings learn

2012-01-13T16:40:00.000-05:00

my students in third year studio and i are greatly enjoying the writings of STEWART BRAND. with great illustrations and salient examples, brand's HOW BUILDINGS LEARN forms part of the intellectual backdrop for a studio about LEARNING SPACES : SPACES THAT LEARN. together, we're looking at two library spaces on campus, querying the image and content for libraries in the future.

board of governors teaching award

2011-05-18T16:38:00.007-04:00

i received the university of north carolina 2011 board of governors teaching award. you can read about it online at the unc page or with this pr piece from uncg.

the folks from our campus photographic services department kindly made a movie of the presentation at graduation on 06 may 2011. if you'd like to see that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN24l8UhaAI

monticello + fallingwater

2011-04-11T15:23:00.008-04:00

each spring, first year students from our program travel to monticello + fallingwater on a single trip with often quite memorable experiences in dining:

[1] way too much fast food in a 48-hour time frame, balanced by the amish-style country breakfast at the castleman inn (grantsville, md);
[2] entertainments with the on-bus movies (avatar, 27 dresses, and some documentary that i couldn't follow with parrot feathers being withdrawn from live animals);
[3] overnight accommodations in a building that i am quite sure doesn't meet building code;
[4] a 9-hour bus ride back through pouring rain, driving winds, and poor bus brakes...

...but those moments don't eclipse the opportunity to see up close thomas jefferson's great amusement on the little mountain and frank lloyd wright's studies on geometries in the forest...

...a terrific time by all.

i've been experimenting with quick sketch grids for visiting historic sites as a means to capture many details, because there's not ample time for overall sketches. i post the one from monticello and three from fallingwater...both accomplished during the respective tours.

neighborhood perambulations

2011-03-25T08:21:00.004-04:00

i am fortunate every day to be able to walk to work and enjoy my neighbors' flora in the form of flowers + blooming trees. using only ivan, the iphone, i stop to record this beauty...and as many know....post these images on facebook. in the spring, this usually results in friends from the north remarking how far advanced spring is already. i enjoy doing this because it puts a bit of beauty in the world -- something that i see that i can share with others.

roanoke ladder display

2011-03-04T08:54:00.000-05:00

at the art museum in roanoke, i saw a ladder happening made from stepping devices gathered from throughout the city. terrific alternative ladders and more traditional step and extension ladders, fastened together with zip ties, made for an interesting installation.

studio work continues

2011-03-02T08:50:00.000-05:00

headed toward spring break...but the students continue to press forward in teams of three as they work on JENGA 3.0. kara koy + cassie bradfield gather around their physical model, squaring up their ideas...

coordinating fashion + design

2011-02-25T08:26:00.000-05:00

blakeni, one of the terrific students in my second year studio this semester, sports fashion that echoes color selection in her JEGNA 2.0 unit. who says coral can't be both the color of clothing and of a kit of parts within?

teamwork : anna will climb anywhere

2011-02-21T08:40:00.000-05:00

anna (in blue, right), justin + faith gathered as a group in studio this week to marry their JENGA 2.0 schemes into a two story building...the fun continues as students start stacking their work.

cheese update

2011-02-21T08:35:00.000-05:00

one week later, and one slice of processed cheese still is with us on the mendenhall sidewalk. no signs of deterioration, other than a slight gray overtone...

means of egress

2011-02-16T13:35:00.002-05:00

what i learned in studio today : a swimming pool is NOT a means of egress...even when your concept is leap.

http://www.cypruspaphosvillas.com/Marilena_Sunset_Villa_No-1/images/61l.jpg

2011-02-16T08:42:00.000-05:00

members of the proud "german" team line up behind their COKE CAN CATHEDRAL, a yearly exercise in my history + theory class. the goal is to build as high a cathedral as possible, accepting the limitations of the cans as the team stacks. this brings home the lessons of all the near failures and failures of gothic construction techniques....and you can "drink" the cathedral after. don't forget to recycle!!

2011-02-16T08:36:00.000-05:00

who says teamwork can't be fun? cassandra brunson, left, phillip snider, middle, and nikki ware demonstrate the importance of "setting your goals" (the message on phillips' shirt).

who dropped the cheese?

2011-02-14T08:33:00.000-05:00

on valentine's day, no less, i was strolling on mendenhall headed to school and i looked down to catch the sight of this...

who dropped the cheese? there has to be a story here...

feng shui cube : new york times

2011-02-10T09:26:00.006-05:00

the sleeping space doubles as a night-time lantern.

during the day, mr. liu occupies the top of the cube. PHOTO CREDITS: joe fletcher, new york times

it's always nice when a project similar to the one you're teaching in studio appears in the NEW YORK TIMES...and that was the case today, with this terrific office/sleeping cube for a new york loft apartment. read more about it in the times.

sausage a-fryin'

2011-02-09T08:28:00.001-05:00

i've always liked teaching studio in the morning slot...just seems more right somehow. but add to that prospect a great big opportunity for breakfast, and you've just about sealed the deal. in building community this year, students in section 01 of second year studio have planned monthly breakfasts. cassandra brought sausage and fried it on a hotplate right on the spot. you should have seen the inquisitive noses around the building peeking into our studio space. fortunately the students brought a bounteous feast, so there was plenty for everyone who ventured by.

jenga 1.0

2011-02-08T10:14:00.005-05:00

austin's work deals with the a of GROOVE. this axonometric demonstrates how the two objects he design work together to manifest the concept.

kacie's board (the second of two) pulls together the various drawing elements + deliverables to tell us about the concept, WELL UP....a beautiful, cohesive presentation.

anna shows success with the first of three models due. students have been taking advantage of our woodshop, their own skills at their drawing boards, and our digital making facility, CAMstudio.

based on the classic board game, jenga, my section of this year's second year studio works toward designing very small residential units (300-500SF)....with some great success. check out the work of kacie leisure, anna berendt, and austin loman on their blogs.

acsa paper on activating history

2011-02-08T09:52:00.005-05:00

as advertised in the companion blog post, here's the acsa paper "beyond survey + discipline: design history + the first year opus."

...and if you'd like to see the work of first year iarc students on the opus, dial in here.

activating history

2011-02-08T09:33:00.007-05:00

ABOVE: in the lobby of the MHRA building looking at floor patterns, architectural forms, and finishes to think about design ideas of the entrance rotunda and the coming together of two axes. BELOW: some finger pointin' at key architectural and design features, natalie in deep thought, as the students look on. photo credits: brian peck.

last year, i gave a paper entitled: "beyond survey + discipline: design history + the first year opus" at the american collegiate schools of architecture annual meeting in new orleans on the practice of activating history from a series of one-way lectures to more experiential forms of learning. this year, my teaching assistant, natalie, and i have pledged to transform iar221 with rich experiences that demonstrate to students first hand the lessons we learn in the classroom. last friday, we went for a field visit to campus looking for circles and axes...drawing on lecture material from ancient rome. despite the drizzle, i believe students began to apply what they had been learning in the classroom. for a copy of the paper, see the next entry in this blog.

near the end of our journey in the music building, where natalie speaks to the class about the notion of architecture as frozen music, utilizing the evidence of the floor patterns in this lobby space between the recital halls in the building. photo credit: brian peck.

do i smell sausage?

2011-02-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

the breakfast buffet, from above. photo credit: brian peck

nothing like some grits + sausage to get the gastric juices (and brainwaves) flowing. one of the lessons i have learned in teaching is that food always seems to get the conversation flowing. as a celebration of finishing our first project in second year studio, students provided an AMPLE breakfast. apparently the smell of sausage frying (thanks, cassandra!) caused a bit of a stir in the building...dee-LISH!

temples + sacrifice

2011-01-29T14:27:00.004-05:00

in history/theory, we continued our exploration of ancient greece and the buildings and objects that come to us time and again as people continue to use these as a model for buildings today. i think the students were a little blown away at the prospect of george hersey's postulation that greek temples, ultimately, represent sacrifice. read more about hersey's book here. and here's a great review on the PILASTERED blog....and one more that links hersey's work to daniel rykwert's THE DANCING COLUMN.
here's a sketch from my greece/italy travel journal that i made in 2006 when wandering around europe with 29 students and another faculty member that year.

kit of parts

2011-01-29T14:10:00.007-05:00

for studio this week, students presented their proposals for the KIT OF PARTS project....JENGA 1.0, in which they elaborated three kits in three spaces. claire and i reviewed, along with the class, 36 projects on friday....36 more to come on monday.

because iar202 is a writing intensive course, students have been working on their WRITING as part of the design process. read corry's post and abigail's to get some sense of the work they are doing in this regard. claire and i selected their work to feature downstairs near the faculty offices...

putting history into practice

2011-01-25T14:13:00.001-05:00

one of the sub-themes of the history/theory course is ACTIVATE the practice of history by taking a close look at the campus environment. from time to time, the students forage in their discussion groups to look for elements and principles in our most local built environment as REAL WORLD examples of what they're hearing about in class. in this photo, students pass by the gove health center as they explore...

photo credit : brian peck

weatherspoon exhibition : 70 years of collecting

2011-01-22T12:25:00.004-05:00

i'm working today on the final design elements in the WEATHERSPOON ART MUSEUM's 70 years of collecting show, which opens on 06 february 2011, along with the unveiling of their catalog celebrating this great greensboro and uncg institution. i encourage you to check out their museum's terrific new website and the amazing cultural resources in the collection.

about brian's chair blog

2011-01-20T16:18:00.003-05:00

TWIST CHAIR [jonas lyndby jensen]
http://www.seatingzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/twist_chair1.jpg

i want to be brag a little bit on a student who, for two semesters, has taken up the responsibility of administering the CHAIR PROJECT for my history/theory class: BRIAN PECK. as part of his duties as an undergraduate teaching assistant in that course (12 total in that capacity), brian has set up a CHAIR BLOG as a resource for the students. with a specific interest in the chair as a design form, brian is rapidly working toward a passion in that area. check out the blog here, where you can read stories, snippets of popular culture, and ruminations about design. worth staying linked...and checking back often.

the implications of inspiration AND imitation

2011-01-19T14:24:00.002-05:00

http://eliinbar.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/la-tourette-eliinbar-sketches-20100002.jpg

today in history/theory class, we talked about some of the first efforts by humans to make objects, spaces, buildings, and places and the commonalities one can see from a review of sites worldwide. later, i received a link about influence by CORBUSIER on the work of other designers. this link leads you to a visually interesting and thought provoking blog. any thoughts about implications of inspiration AND imitation? where do we draw the line?

where do good ideas come from?

2011-01-11T17:28:00.004-05:00

nosing around online during this snow day led me to the work of STEVEN JOHNSON...he has written a couple of books about thinking and design and creativity. claire and i looked through a couple of his postings on youtube. clearly he's a brilliant sketcher and idea man...check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=related

check out his blog here.

stonehenge : reading response ii

2011-01-11T16:40:00.005-05:00

adapted from work completed by iarc history/theory course veterans JEN YANCEY + CATHERINE YOUNG, this stonehenge reading response offers yet another option for students in the current course to report on some of what they are seeing in our new textbook (A GLOBAL HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE) and in the ever faithful text (UNDERSTANDING ARCHITECTURE).

sources for images on this post :
http://celticmythpodshow.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/stonehenge-wallpaper-4.jpg
http://crystalhatchlings.com/EasterEggs/Images/Stonehenge.jpg
http://www.viajesmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/stonehenge_closeup.jpg

heliopolis : reading response

2011-01-11T16:36:00.002-05:00

in providing different kinds of reading responses, i drafted this hand-drawn READING RESPONSE on the KHUFU pyramid in egypt at giza.

stonehenge : reading response

2011-01-11T16:05:00.004-05:00

i fashioned this simple slide show to give students in my history/theory of design course an opportunity to see an example of a reading comprehension. students work through the assigned readings for the course and select one particular object, space, building, or place in the reading and report on it. they are to include a title, concept, a minimum of three images, and writing to document their understanding of the assigned reading. here's my effort...

the semester begins, second year studio

2011-01-10T17:02:00.006-05:00

[in the photo, our "middle" pragmatists are raising hands...one a bit tentatively, those to the left represent the conservers while those standing right assume the role of originators.]

under the organizing principle whole > sum of its parts, the second year studio began this morning with an assessment of strengths for the students via the change style indicator. this rubric helps groups of people to learn who are originators, conservers, and pragmatists. for designers, this is an imperative lesson to learn. as teams assemble, one wants to be sure to balance the boat in the studio. the results from our class? MANY MORE originators than conservers, in a proportion of 3:1. of the 24 students and two teachers, only five people stood to the left of the pragmatists. i'm way at the originator end, while my erstwhile teaching assistant, claire keane stands to the right (third in the photo) in the line up.

originators value NOT following the rules + bucking the system....i'm not quite sure what this holds as far as the semester.

what stories do chairs tell?

2010-10-14T16:16:00.007-04:00

http://thephotographerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/rocking-chair.jpg

what stories do chairs tell?

a rocking chair, handed from generation to generation, brings strong images to mind…

the knowledge of sustaining life through a midnight feeding for a newborn – in the dark shade of a nursery – soothing tears and sharing new beginnings…

the comfort of a sunny afternoon with a favorite book – the chair gently swaying back and forth – as the autumn leaves sift from the trees…

the security in knowing the remembrances of your ancestors – who traced and retraced the patterns of time in their rockings – calling to a rich past and invoking the promise of a better future…

the wisdom of a beloved grandmother knitting together stories – and perhaps knitting or shelling peas on a front porch – as you learn family lore and share moments of a life lived well…

…you begin life in a rocking chair and you end life there, two perspectives of the world from this seated and ever-in-motion position.

In the history and theory of design course, students study MODERN FURNITURE CLASSICS to build design vocabulary of seminal seats from the mid-twentieth century to present.

In undertaking this documentation and memorization process, students learn (through their own sketches) the attitudes and postures of designers and designed objects – a form of storytelling through material and representational expression.

Consider the stories of the chairs in this post, drawn and illustrated by KARA KOOY, DAJANA NEDIC, and BLAKENI WALLS...

...what do their postures suggest?
...what kinds of comfort do they bring?
...what do they say in their forms + details?

CHAIRS FEATURED IN THIS POST...

Kubus Chair : Hoffmann
Mae West Lips (Marilyn) : Dali
Zigzag Chair : Rietveld
Selene Stacking Chair : Magistretti
Superleggera Chair 699 : Ponti
Barcelona Chair : Mies van der Rohe
GF 40/4 Chair : Rowland
Highback Lounge Chair : Bertoia
Butterfly Chair : Ferrari-Horday
MR Chair : Mies van der Rohe

Learn more about the CHAIR CARDS project on a blog moderated by curator BRIAN PECK...

http://chaircards.wordpress.com/

compass : which way did it go?

2010-10-11T16:11:00.000-04:00

to react to the material in the FOUNDATIONS unit for the history/theory course, students manufactured a compass at one scale of analysis (artifact : space : building : place). look at the variety of instruments manifest....each with a slightly different twist about the meaning of COMPASS as a direction finding device. their products had to be in the form of a two-dimensional image, a three-dimensional form, a word, or a paragraph.

chair card throw down

2010-10-08T08:06:00.001-04:00

students in historyclass were subjected to the first ever chair card THROW DOWN...one student from each of seven discussion groups ventured to the front of the ferguson auditorium and were asked to draw jacobsen's EGG CHAIR....justin mcnair won for the red sea group.

check out the class contributions to the chair blog: http://chaircards.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/jacobsen-egg-chair/

a salute to DAVID NILAND...

2010-10-01T16:42:00.005-04:00

students in my history/theory classes for many years have heard about the WU-WU as a vertical form of architectural expression (size does matter, y'all!) and no greater example resides in the single columns erected by emperors of rome, among them marcus ulpius nerva traianus (or simply, trajan). in this VERY CLEVER composition created by kayla mcdonough we see trajan bearing his WU-WU much to the delight of the female site seers looking on...

many know that the WU-WU is a riff from my undergraduate senior thesis advisor, david niland, a professor of great delight, who insisted that students would only pass sixth year studio with design schemes containing an appropriately scaled and detailed vertical element...

mr. niland died last week (shortly after i invoked his name in class and explained WU-WU to the next generation of design students). his memorial service was today and this news has caused much flurry of activity across the web as many reflect on the greatness of this terrific teacher. i am particularly struck by the lessons i carry with myself from architecture school that i use everyday, and many of them came from the actions and words of a gifted teacher.

according to jonathan pool, "most teachers teach facts, good teachers teach ideas, great teachers teach how to think." thanks for helping me learn how to think...and for shaping who i am as a teacher, mr. niland!

it's CHAIR CARD time...

2010-09-30T10:37:00.004-04:00

we're on our second batch of CHAIR CARDS, a deck of 50 modern furniture classics that students must draw as one rite of passage from their design history + theory course. this year, undergraduate teaching assistant brian peck has been named the CHAIR CARD CZAR and has documented some of the work of students on a separate blog: http://chaircards.wordpress.com/

in the image...check out the beautiful coffee-rendered cards of jasmine collins, the lovely colored pencil efforts of kara kooy, and the workmanlike pencil renditions of nathan howell (a biology major taking my class as an honor's student). cool!

the RANCH project begins

2010-09-30T10:11:00.005-04:00

on wednesday, the students in my studio class gathered to measure the home of randy mcmanus. randy purchased the house a couple of years ago and has given a new lease on life to the 1959 commencement house, designed by woman's college students and greensboro architect edward loewenstein. this student project will focus on the public and private zones within the house. stay tuned for further developments.

reading comprehension

2010-09-18T12:25:00.004-04:00

in iar222, natalie and i have been perfecting the art of reading comprehension questions of different formats and approaches. check out the following blogs for some great examples of demonstration of reading and communicating prowess. congratulations to cassandra bradfield, kathryn frye, kayla mcdonagh, and justin mcnair as examples for raising the standards of reading comprehension blog work for the class.

http://cassandrashannon.blogspot.com/
http://kmfryeblog.blogspot.com/
www.kaylammcdonagh.blogspot.com
www.jgjmcnair.blogspot.com/

you'll notice that a common theme among these writers is that they explicitly deal with evidence, use quotes and citations from the readings, and strive to move beyond the boundaries of the prompt to articulate their own opinions. well done!

reading comprehension one

2010-09-09T14:55:00.000-04:00

in iar222, natalie and i are exploring a new system for reading comprehension. in years past, i have assigned in class quizzes and that eats up class time...although my former teaching assistant, gwen mckinney, derived some excellent quizzes on the required reading. one goal for those quizzes was to work from both a visual and textual standpoint. so, natalie and i amended gwen's initial efforts (plus a change in textbooks) to try an out-of-class system. here's the prompts the students received.

and here are selected answers from four students, one for each of the prompts.

james mcnair : response to prompt 4...this has a nice reflection on design voice embedded within...

http://jgjmcnair.blogspot.com/

daniel salgado : response to prompt 3...with great observations about looking at things from the perspective of two cultures...

http://danielsalgado-daniel.blogspot.com/

samantha smith : response to prompt 2...the textile analysis query (a beautiful analysis)

http://samanthalynnsmith.blogspot.com

willard weston : response to prompt 1...commodity, firmness, and delight....well done!

http://wweston.blogspot.com/

measuring up the BUNGALOW

2010-09-08T10:28:00.002-04:00

willing homeowner cecelia thompson graciously opened the doors to her home for our BUNGALOW project. an avid cook and blogger, cecelia's dining room seemed an appropriate foray for our studio on residential design. check out cecelia's very cool cooking + food blog, modmealsonmendenhall.com

the map project

2010-09-06T15:30:00.000-04:00

imagine you receive a prompt from your instructor to manifest a MAP to describe four explicit design sites in history in four related 8.5" square compositions with four forms...that's what students tackled last week in iar222. we gathered in the crit room for a pin up and a discussion...

natalie and i then selected eight projects, which are now posted outside my office. these include the work of dajana nedic, weston willard, jasmine collins, raul garcia, nathan howell, alyssa hankus, leslie canipe, and kayla mcdonough. congratulations to all selected for display and for posting on the blog.

and speaking of helpers...

2010-09-03T15:11:00.003-04:00

the images in this post show undergraduate teaching assistants as they help with map project grading. top to bottom and left to right...katie o'boyle, maiken schoenleber | kalani gonzalez (well just his nose + profile), kelsey rhode, alli wilson, clairissa anderson | meghan kaufman, greg hickman | charese allen, cassandra gustafson | brian peck, syd gaskins.

in 2003, after one round of teaching iar221 + iar222, i recognized that i would need help...and thus began a tradition of inviting students who had complete the sequence to sit in again as undergraduate teaching assistants...experts to help lead discussion and to get to know students on a more one-to-one level than it's possible for me to do (with class sizes in the 80s and 90s). two heads are better than one....and, this semester, 14 are DEFINITELY better than two.

introducing....

charese allen
clairissa anderson
syd gaskins
kalani gonzalez
cassandra gustafson
greg hickman
shane jones
meghan kaufman
katie o'boyle
brian peck
kelsey rhode
maiken schoenleber
carlos smith
allison wilson
i feel quite privileged in having these students be part of the teaching team.

introducing natalie lentz wall

2010-09-03T15:04:00.000-04:00

a new school year begins with new people. for three years in iar221 + iar222, i was lucky to work with the fantastic gwen mckinney, one of the best teaching assistants with whom i have worked together. natalie wall brings new energy and insights to her position as a teaching assistant for iar222 this semester...and she brings professional experience, a great undergraduate education (with a degree from our program), and brilliant communication skills. i have always said to surround oneself with good people....and i feel like in natalie i've found an important partner for this history and theory of design ii course.

the design thinking project

2010-03-02T10:19:00.002-05:00

today, we began to turn our attention to the design thinking project, a space in our syllabus to show our prowess about design thinking on some issue. students brainstormed a design thinking project with the following QUALITIES...

a project that...
...improves study skills
...benefits the team and society long term
...helps the community
...triggers design thinking in others
...shows both individual + group capabilities
...is fun
...students can put on their resume/in their portfolio
...allows the team to work with diverse people/majors for a different perspective
...incorporates many features/approaches/deliverables
...exposes strengths and bolsters weaknesses of the group + its members
...lasts
...is doable in the time allotted but allows the team to stretch/innovate/soar

watch this blog space for regular updates on this project. and if you have an idea about a design thinking project that embraces these qualities, pass it along.

delightful buildings + objects

2010-01-27T16:47:00.009-05:00

in the DESIGN CYCLES course, students have sought out spaces + places of delight. here's what they've come up with so far...

design thinking underway

2010-01-27T16:46:00.003-05:00

this semester, i have the distinction of working alongside students who undertake an investigation of DESIGN THINKING as an approach for life. you can follow their progress herein, but also on their individual blogs, listed to the right.

college park : let loose

2009-10-02T11:29:00.000-04:00

today in hss105, i turned the students loose to do a comparison of the college park neighborhood based on our group assessment of college hill. after the experience of a two week settling into period in the college hill neighborhood, it is my hope that the students will find much to discuss in their presentations on 6 october.

125 presentations : images of empire

2009-10-01T22:25:00.000-04:00

for this whole week in hss125, students have been delivering their topics to their peers for assessment and sharing. certainly every individual did well, and there will be a follow up post or two linking to their work....if i can get that work completed. i may come back and offer some commentary here after i've put some thoughts together for them.

the industrial complex

2009-09-29T11:18:00.000-04:00

today in hss105, the students and i pushed out of college hill into the industrial area to the south and east of this neighborhood. our steps took us to the wafco mill complex at mcgee and cedar streets, across cedar to fulton and under the overpass onto lee street. the loop closed by crossing back through the tate street overpass to campus. students noticed the lack of care and concern in maintenance along fulton, speculating about both the presence of homeless people here as well as the "behind the scenes" feeling of the place.

on the corner of lee and fulton streets, new apartments have taken over the former industrial sites and, before that single family residences along the street. there is also a sharp contract with the feeling of wafco mills complex, which seems more a part of the fabric of the neighborhood.

lee street feels very different than the neighborhood proper. along this thoroughfare, there seem to be four categories of building:
[1] the residential dwellings dating from the latter nineteenth century into the twentieth
[2] the industrial buildings that largely replaced them and shifted the vision of the landscape
[3] other store front buildings that provided a retail presence along the thoroughfare
[4] larger-scale apartment complexes constructed in the last several years (lee street/fulton = the largest)

america guided by wisdom

2009-09-25T17:55:00.003-04:00

http://www.bestpriceart.com/painting/?pid=5391

in hss125 today, i presented "visualizing empire," a presentation that the wonderful kim martin and i did for a conference three years ago. using genre painting, we frmed architecture as a trope within the works to help understand notions of eastern-ness and western-ness in the early republic....with polarities between civilized and wilderness, order and chaos, etc. students seemed most to resonate with thomas cole's "course of empire" series....moving from the "savage state" to the "pastoral or arcadian state" to the "consummation of empire" to "destruction" and finally to "desolation." with each of these works in a series, cole depicts a cyclical view of the world, periodizing history and tending to compartmentalize each state into a discrete phase through which each civilization passes (reference here the later work of frederick jackson turner and the advance of the american frontier). the point of the presentation, though, is the blended landscapes with elements of the two visions of the world...not either/or but both/and.

side streets + back alleys

2009-09-24T09:22:00.002-04:00

in hss105 today, we walked the side streets and back alleys of the college hill neighborhood to see if these streets actually represent microcosms of the larger neighborhood order....or whether they are something wholly different. at first glance, both rankin and carr streets seemingly represent the larger neighborhood....as does joyner. the alleys are more instructive where trash cans, sewer grates, fences, and other peripheral uses help inform the messiness of the general neighborhood hidden from every day view.

PRIMARY : SECONDARY : TERTIARY

we also looked at changing uses for buildings....post office to a printing company....methodist church additions.....bank building to a police station....grocery to convenience store....movie theatre to a bookstore....what was one a mini-city with a commercial area that served more than a narrow population of students has over two decades transformed into what clay calls a strip. some of this has to do with the lack of diversity in what stands as the commercial core.

presentation workshop : the oil lamp example

2009-09-17T17:42:00.008-04:00

http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/athome/1800/objects/largejpgs/whaleoillamp.jpg

as students conclude the first segment of hss125, they will be analyzing a series of artifacts from the period 1750-1850. today in class, we worked together using an oil lamp and created a presentation to help them see that visual media can actually WORK WITH the topic to help underscore central themes and issues. by developing a three point outline, students reinforced salient concepts using this example...and will thus turn their attention to their own specific projects.

here's what we dreamed up:

introduction

decoration/form

lower/upper parts

rough/smooth

pyramid/light bulb

erotic shape

hourglass shape/waist

knob/catch fingers

clear glass material

transparency/see oil

smooth/fragile

provide light

cold/hot to the touch

use/context

parlor…idea of darkness

servants/served

compare/contrast to other oil lamps

whale oil industry

sperm whales killed in great quantity

pacific ocean focused

pass out of fashion/sustainability

conclusion

and from there, we drew up slides and worked up some visuals...i've put together a demonstration slide that looks like this...

and here's the whiteboard in the room with some of our scribbles on it...

not bad for less than an hour's brainstorm.

the mendenhall muddle

2009-09-17T17:32:00.005-04:00

the idea of infilling, central to today's (wet + rainy) class, informed our discussion in hss105. as we de-constructed the landscape along mendenhall street, students had the opportunity to use sanborn fire insurance maps to see changes along the thoroughfare in the early twentieth century. here are a couple of images from the handout.
as suggested within the handout, students thought about architectural style, their previous travels along tate street, and some additional ideas about the changing face of the neighborhood over the decades as buildings were built, some demolished, and new ones infilled.

the great revolutionary object round up

2009-09-16T17:59:00.002-04:00

the u.s.s. constitution

whiskey

slave shackles

the liberty bell

mt. vernon

a federal-style fireplace surround

the franklin printing press

moveable parts from both a gun + a gin

the ocracoke lighthouse

what do these things have in common? they represent objects selected by students and vetted by peers for material analysis in the hss125. stay tuned for the results of this work.

the INFAMOUS neighborhood survey

2009-09-16T17:47:00.006-04:00

so much of my work as a teller of stories relies on that of others. in architectural history and historic preservation, field work is key to understanding the built world around us. in hss105 yesterday, students took to the streets with a form i crafted to look at residential buildings along tate street. we counted everyday things along the streetscape...porches, shutters, doors, the presence of wood screen windows or aluminum storms, and the materials from which the dwellings were fabricated, etc. here's the form we used...

and here are the students using the forms along tate street...

and here are a few results recorded in my sketchbook...

even through this simple process, it's interesting to note what one learns by stopping, moving slowly, looking at the world around....and, oh yeah, maybe counting.

grids + diagonals

2009-09-12T18:00:00.001-04:00

i was struck, particularly today, that the notion of shaping space, whether one looks at the historical record and the ideas pierre l'enfant penned for washington, or the seemingly haphazard plan for the campus of the university, that several universal principles hold. it seems that the strong idea of a grid can be seen in both physical environments....but in shaping the quad, clearly its designers harkened back to jefferson's sense of space and place as he developed the lawn at the university if virginia. interestingly, jefferson also proposed a similar organization for the plan of the capital city, but that plan didn't come to fruition. what ISN'T built is almost as important as what IS.

in uncg news, the quad was spared from demolition, thus preserving this important character-defining place within our university community. check out the news story.

wrapping up with clay vocabulary

2009-09-12T15:41:00.001-04:00

as we finished visiting the campus today in hss105, we headed from the monolithic, modern library tower to the quad, peabody park, the business building, along spring garden to the moore humanities and research administration building, concluding our brisk walk + talk at the gatewood building. students took a CLOSE look at the library tower in this next image...

...now THAT's encountering architecture first hand!

it's all latin to me...

2009-09-11T20:05:00.001-04:00

in hss125, our explorations continued with visual evidence from the early and middling days of the republic. we endeavored to look at the great seal of the united states and the various mottoes and imprints there, as well as the images. check out much information on the topic of the seal at greatseal.com, where you'll also read the fascinating history of the decision to place the seal on the back side of the dollar bill in 1935, at the height of the depression. all of this conversation reminded me of the 1997 book, THE WORDS WE LIVE BY: THE CREEDS, MOTTOES, AND PLEDGES THAT SHAPED AMERICA by brian burrell. have a look.

rounding the bend with clay

2009-09-11T19:12:00.002-04:00

the students of hss105, gazing upward in the elliott university center entranceway.

today in hss105, we visited three buildings and worked hard to determine the centers in each of them. this exercise continues the larger conversation we're having about centers and edges....and the essential lesson is this: what is true for the "mini-city" of the campus is also true at the building level....thus clay's vocabulary can be tapped and adapted to the building scale...and likely to a room within the building scale. another classic text that sheds light on this basic IMAGEABILITY + LEGIBILITY of a city is kevin lynch's IMAGE OF THE CITY (1960). lynch's work is reviewed on the mobile city blog. worth perusing.

edges

2009-09-04T10:32:00.003-04:00

among the most significant edges on campus, the rail line on the south side of the "mini-city" clearly distinguishes us from the properties that face lee street. we were lucky enough that a train came rumbling by to reinforce the sense that sometimes noise is an indicator of where edges and stacks lie, according to clay's terminology. i have to say some of my most favorite moments on campus lie at its edges.

tea party!

2009-09-02T15:45:00.005-04:00

in "the tea party," painter henry sargent sets the theatrical scene through light and dramatic color, outfitting the work with greek revival furnishings and fine interior appointments, all a testimony to the burgeoning material culture of the early nineteenth century. in sargent's work, he investigates themes about who is included in and excluded from the social discourse of the party, where he mixes male and female figures in fine dress standing as genteel and fashionable images in the new republic. i posit that we understand the american landscape and its populace as symbolized in the boston interior he depicts. check out the image at the boston museum of fine arts: http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?recview=true&id=31744

themes about center + periphery continued the day in hss125, where we investigated a tea cup + a punch bowl, all in the context of "the tea party," a genre painting by henry sargent (boston, 1823). discussion centered around the ideas of space, style, and form in sargent's work, resonating from student forays into jules prown's three-step material culture analysis. themes that this painting gave rise to: worldliness, centrality/periphery, comfort, social discourse...belonging, gentility, refinement, and identity. as hss125 is an investigation of american empires, we elucidated these themes as a way of better illuminating gordon wood's "radicalism" of the post-revolutionary decades.

center + periphery

2009-09-02T15:20:00.003-04:00

september 1st brought the realization that school REALLY is underway! in hss105, we walked from the east edge of campus (tate street) to the north side of campus (market street), taking in the architecture along the way and speculating about meanings hidden and not-so-hidden in buildings. following grady clay's method for looking at the city, the students in class searched for fixes, district, fronts, strips, and beats. on thursday, they'll attempt to synthesize all of the efforts at analysis for the uncg campus. you can follow their efforts through the semester by the series of links on the right hand side of the blog. my initial foray is contained here, a page from my sketchbook.

one of the most obvious things about our walk was to understand the center of campus (as it happens...where walker avenue WOULD have crossed college avenue)....a spot between the library and the newer wing of the stone building, marked by the two porticoes of these buildings facing each other across the campus lawn. the specific spot is marked by a circle on college avenue. lots of alignment there....

on the periphery, students saw the "edges" of campus (what clay calls fronts)...and their advancement into the residential college hill neighborhood to the east. on thursday, we continue our exploration of edges....

and the pursuit of happiness

2009-08-28T14:09:00.003-04:00

in light of the hss125 discussion about american attitudes towards others, i thought this great illustrated essay by maira kalman "i lift my lamp beside the golden door" apropos for the week. the photo above is from her blog...and her drawings are quite terrific. enjoy!

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/i-lift-my-lamp-beside-the-golden-door/

american empires unfolds

2009-08-27T17:38:00.004-04:00

on tuesday in hss125, we considered jasper johns "flag" of the mid-century as an iconic image that, when looked at quite closely, reveals many layers of messages. this led to a greater discussion today about issues of american identity and some challenges that we have as a nation and our place in the world. at the core of this discussion, students read (and spoke well) from gordon wood's "radicalism of the american revolution." in this work, as students recounted, wood structures a series of evidence to suggest that the forces unleashed by the american revolution (and some consequences that resulted) emerged in the decades following the revolution in the early nineteenth century. students characterized a most interesting aspect of the debate as one that revolves around balancing individual freedom with social responsibility. not bad for the second day of class! see the students i am working with in their own "empire" on the handout below.

for his work, wood won the 1993 pulitzer prize for history....which got me thinking about other pulitzer prize history book winners...http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/History

de-constructing foust

2009-08-27T13:22:00.006-04:00

this morning, students in the hss105 course dissected and speculated about the foust building as visual evidence for values of the university. their first efforts at "reading" using the classroom of the campus yielded some salient observations about buildings and the language that we all use to talk about them. here they complete the "thick description" exercise (with a nod to clifford geertz) before we began our class discussion.

the building that represented the target for our analysis: foust (originally the administration building on campus), built at the end of the nineteenth century. above, my drawing that represents my "thick description" for the morning.

here's a terrific ca. 1905 image of foust all "flagged up," with the two towers marking the center of the structure. horizontals and verticals balance here as surface decoration, and the massive front facade, facing spring garden avenue, suggest the importance of the building in the community landscape. to respond to the observation of the student who indicated that foust "looked so different," consider the following additional historic image of the building (ca. 1900) and its built environment context. looks to be the only survivor...

the latter two images posted here are part of a neat digital exhibition on postcards by the university archives and manuscripts division of the uncg walter jackson clinton library. you can see the display, Postcards from the University, in its entirety online.

the semester begins

2009-08-25T08:34:00.002-04:00

today, i begin my journey as a chancellor's resident fellow for the lloyd international honors college at the university of north carolina at greensboro. i am teaching three seminar classes...the first entitled "you are your own gpu" which meets this morning, the second "visualizing american empire" gathers for the first time this afternoon.

in the gpu course, we'll be looking at local greensboro sites physically and then considering, through digital means, the same or similar sites across the globe. my thesis for this course is that despite the overwhelming amount of information literally at our fingertips, we know less about ourselves and who we are than ever before.

in the empire course, we'll consider the visual evidence of art, architecture, and media images as a way to look at the american empire at some critical junctures in the history of the nation. my central idea about this course is that our sense of "american-ness" is a much more complicated enterprise than relying on key iconic images of the nation to define us all.

in the third course, one of six sections for all first year honors students at the university, i'll help guide students in getting to know their campus -- and each other -- through attendance at arts and theatre performances, and through a common read of "enrique's journey" along with innumerable other explorations.

and onto rome

2009-02-13T12:54:00.005-05:00

as we concluded class this week, we had made our way in the FOUNDATIONS unit and learned that rome, in terms of architecture and design speaks a language of SURFACE on an innovative system of STRUCTURE made possible by the use of CONCRETE. as we contemplated two specific buildings (the coloseum and the pantheon), it occurred to me the importance of thinking about the impact of these buildings in the city in which they sat. rome, as the seat of the roman empire, received the largest of the public buildings built in the republic, among them the coloseum. so in terms of SCALE, this large structure suggests that SIZE does indeed matter. as a roman citizen, to see the interior of the sumptuous pantheon with its seven altars and its incredibly rich surface decoration must have been an amazing treat, in light of the fact that not many buildings were quite so public nor quite so opulent. in this instance, the SURFACE treatment reifies the COSMOLOGY of rome in physical form, making the concept of the universe a physical one, re-SCALED to the roman landscape in the city. alongside this more lofty exercise, you learned about the base motivations for some emporers and leaders in roman society in both triumphal columns + arches...a subject ripe with gendered and sexual overtones. look for wu-wus...they ARE all around you.

atop the acropolis

2009-02-11T12:37:00.000-05:00

the collection of buildings at the acme of the athenian landscape suggest the quest for perfection by the greeks...in the development of the parthenon itself as an idealized building, and in the population of the acropolis with other buildings less perfect than the ideal -- the pastiche of the erecthion, the turning the grecian temple inside out at the propylaia, and the diminutive scale of the temple to athena nike. all four of these buildings speak in loud volume about the idea of PROTOTYPE : ARCHETYPE : HYBRID in architecture and design. as you consider buildings in the current landscape or artifacts within interiors, speculate about how each might represent a PROTOYPE based on an ARCHETYPE...or if perhaps the building or artifact captures a snapshot of the design process concretized into physical form as a HYBRID. also consider the importance of language, both architectural and written, in bringing shape to these ideas.

proto- : first in time, earliest
arche- : an ideal
-type : classified artifact or building
hybrid : containing mixed elements or different languages
akros : highest
polis : city

if the acropolis is the HIGHEST CITY and contains the ARCHETYPE as well as significant PROTOTYPES and HYBRIDS, what is the implication for the rest of greece in emulating these works....or perhaps ignoring them?

greece : landscape

2009-02-08T18:37:00.002-05:00

i find the relationship between building and landscape to be the chief difference between early greek structures and the previous architecture we have studied in egypt + mesopotamia. it seems that the greeks understood the foil a building provided to the mountainous landscape of the peninsula. by contrast, the light colored buildings of stone stood out against the verdant land around. in this way, the designers and builders of the many temples of greece understood the power of an interlocking relationship between their buildings + the environment.

hearth

2009-02-08T18:35:00.001-05:00

Inner Court : Palace, Phylos, ca. 1400-1300BC

court

2009-02-08T18:34:00.001-05:00

Temple Court : Palace of Knossos, Crete, ca.1700-1400 BC

porch

2009-02-08T18:32:00.003-05:00

Lion's Gate, The Citadel at Mycenae, ca. 1400-1200BC

continuity : change

2009-02-06T17:06:00.006-05:00

this week, we explored the embryos of many building building forms and elements that resulted from egyptian as well as minoan and mycenean architecture and design: post and lintel construction [columns], the megaron [porch : court : hearth], the tympanum [triangular panel above a lintel]; and the stool [the most common of furniture forms in egypt]. because all of these forms and elements are with us today, it's clear that we can trace their lineage back in time...what's not yet clear is the continuities and changes that those very forms represent as we move from greece, to rome, and the other "ancient" civilizations, and then on to medieval, renaissance, and modern time periods and expressions. using these embryos as rulers or guidelines for our study, then, seems most appropriate as we continue to uncover ideologies embedded within artifacts, spaces, buildings, and places this semester.

circles + squares

2009-01-30T10:15:00.002-05:00

much of our discussion this week in the history + theory course related to humanity's first efforts toward placing habitations + structures on the surface of the earth. far more than simply providing shelter, environmental theory suggests that these first attempts to come to terms with nature carry significant meaning. from the perspective of material culture, barthes would suggest that all of these human-shaped artifacts serve as signs for humans to bring order out of the chaos. at stonehenge, i speculate about humanity's reverence for the unknown and the possibility of meanings for the structure.

the opus begins

2009-01-23T11:04:00.006-05:00

the two-page handout to describe the opus project. funny that what one writes will be interpreted in so many ways.

as the semester has gotten underway, i return to my roots as i do each spring with first year students in our interior architecture program as we undertake a study of the building arts through time. this year, working with suzanne cabrera and stoel burrowes, fellow first-year teaching faculty, we established the opus project as a sort of reporting system for all four of the classes students take as first year students – studio, history + theory, drawing, and graphics. the goal of the single reporting system represents our collected and concerted efforts to reach across the boundaries of each course to find the common ground. students each keep a physical journal with notes from all the classes and then report the “best of the best” online at their blog sites. i, too, find myself carrying a journal, attempting to document if our time together transforms during the semester as the result of this project. it’s good to be drawing along with my students…i think we all forget how much drawing slows you down and gets you to really consider something from many perspectives. besides a sketch book is certainly a people magnet. if you are sitting in a coffee shop, in a meeting, in your office drawing in a sketchbook, people surreptitiously offer a sideways glance, an earnest peak over the shoulder, or more often than not a conversation about something they see in your work. not a bad thing, all in all, just makes it all a little more public.

and speaking of that…there’s this blog which i am attempting to address weekly as part diary on the project and part teaching journal and to put the opus project work out in a public forum. as part of our goals as educators, we share information with others…and this form of dialogue research suggests an alternative for sharing that is made easy by the blog world. i have many questions about the outcomes of all this, but for the moment, i am diving in with the best of intentions. let’s see how long it lasts.

one last thing for context…in the history + theory class, i have shifted to a one-semester chronology. my sidekick and super teaching assistant, gwen mckinney, and i have retooled the material we have learned and amassed over the last several years that she has been with me, streamlining and extracting the most salient kernels for distribution. it’s good testing ground, i think, for precision in class and out, but i must admit that it’s very scary to try all of these new things at once…but life is not fully lived unless it is lived to the hilt. and so it begins…