sketch : photo : blog

on wednesday, we gathered in the alumni house for a special presentation linked to the honor's college FOOD FOR THOUGHT series. during that session, i presented drawings in five of my sketchbooks to students. in addition to looking at florence through my own lens, i asked fourth year students, REBECCA LADD and DANIELLE WAYE, to also share their views of the tuscan city.

rebecca's gorgeous blog and danielle's beautiful photography certainly showed all in attendance the importance of recording and remembering the places we visit.

making history active

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.

monticello + fallingwater

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with the on-bus movies (avatar, 27 dresses, and some documentary that i couldn't follow with parrot feathers being withdrawn from live animals);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.

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!!

acsa paper on activating history

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

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.

temples + sacrifice

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.

putting history into practice

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

about brian's chair blog

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

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?

stonehenge : reading response ii

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

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

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...