the mendenhall muddle

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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.