- The acronym SNAFU which describes a "normal" state where things are a little bit off. Have you used Snafu in your design process? Is a snafu manageable?
- Tactics are the modes of creative opportunity that operate within the gaps and slips of conventional thought and the patterns of everyday life. What tactic do you use when you first start a project?
- LTL states, “while the subject changes, the tactics of investigation remain consistent. Each project begins with a close inspection of an existing situation, triggering a speculative “What if…” question that postulates an alternative derived from the logic of the given object of study.” When you are assigned a new project, what type of questions should you ask yourself when referring to case studies?
10 December 2018
Sang
On behalf of Sang on being able to post...here are her questions
09 December 2018
Week 15
1. A question for Chris: Why
have you chosen to use Snafus as a part of your work? How does this influence
the way you start to think about your projects also what do you learn by doing
these types of drawings?
2. LTLs reading talks about
the idea of “two seemingly incompatible conditions occurring simultaneously:
the normal (regulated military) and the fouled-up (Snafu). lf something is
normal, everyday, and ordered then how can it also be disordered, jumbled, and
otherwise out of kilter?” Thoughts???
3. “The old standards of
practice have been decisively critiqued by willful destruction. In order to participate in the building of
the reconstructed city, the practice of architecture itself becomes as
radically reconstructed as the architecture required by the changed conditions
of living. New principles must be articulated by the architect, and new tactics
invented and adopted.” Here Woods says
that in order to build a new city new practices or principles must be built or
established. What do you think some new principles
have been recently and what form does this take? Is it in the form of materiality, or function
or form?
04 December 2018
Ex. 04_personal Research Topic_2018
Your final exercise of the semester is a personal research topic. This topic may be related to your current/past studios, Master's project topic or other topic that you would like to graphically research for this course. Your topic may be directly related, tangentially related or reciprocal to architecture(al) thought. You may critique conventions, processes or projects. You may also decide to explore phenomena that are not directly related to architecture, in that, it is not a building, drawing or other.
By 9:00 AM on December 10, you must submit a 300-word abstract of your research topic via d2L Dropbox. Within your abstract you must clearly state the topic as a thesis of inquiry, your methodology for research and your expected out comes. Keep in mind, this topic must be formatted to fit the final document per the syllabus.
To view examples of previous research topics view the blog archive for April 2013.HERE
Please post any questions as comments to this post so that the entire class may benefit.
The format of exercise four and your final document shall be the same as the previous exercises, 8.5x11 Landscape format.
Exercise four will be included in your final document along with exercises 01-03. Your final document is due at noon on December 21. You will upload a SINGLE pdf file to the dropbox on d2L. Your file size may not exceed 20 MB. I will not open/review any document larger than that, and I will not review multiple files. If you do not meet these requirements your assignment will be considered late.
Label your final document files with only the following:
Final Doc_Last Name
By 9:00 AM on December 10, you must submit a 300-word abstract of your research topic via d2L Dropbox. Within your abstract you must clearly state the topic as a thesis of inquiry, your methodology for research and your expected out comes. Keep in mind, this topic must be formatted to fit the final document per the syllabus.
To view examples of previous research topics view the blog archive for April 2013.HERE
Please post any questions as comments to this post so that the entire class may benefit.
The format of exercise four and your final document shall be the same as the previous exercises, 8.5x11 Landscape format.
Exercise four will be included in your final document along with exercises 01-03. Your final document is due at noon on December 21. You will upload a SINGLE pdf file to the dropbox on d2L. Your file size may not exceed 20 MB. I will not open/review any document larger than that, and I will not review multiple files. If you do not meet these requirements your assignment will be considered late.
Label your final document files with only the following:
Final Doc_Last Name
02 December 2018
Week 14 - Power Point Sucks and here's why
1. Tufte states "Especially disturbing is the introduction of power point into schools. Instead of writing report sentences, children learn how to decorate client pitches and infomercials..." I absolutely suck at writing. Even sitting here writing you guys questions is difficult for me. I find more value in presenting an idea rather than writing about it. Do you find more value in speaking to an idea or writing about it?
2. While Tufte is very much against using Power Points, I feel like as architects our presentations differ than the ones that Banks are putting together for their investors. Are we the exception or have we been doing this whole thing wrong?
3. I have been always told that during a presentation if I talk about it there should be a diagram or drawing that support it. Tufte in this paper is arguing the opposite, that we should talk more and show less visuals. Why is our profession against some of these things Tufte is saying?
4. Why does it feel that the School or Architecture is arguable disconnected from the practice of architecture. Every "large" firm in Milwaukee uses PowerPoint for its building pitches, client meetings, staff meetings, basically everything. They all use templates and are a graphic nightmare, yet they still continue to be the largest firms in the entire state. Why is this?
week 14 - presenting your work
1. tufte shares and example of louis gerstner (then president of IBM) shutting down a slide based presentation being given by employees of IBM. displeased, tufte recalls "indeed, gerstner later asked IBM executives to write out their business strategies in longhand using the presentation methodology of sentence, with subjects and predicates, nouns and verbs, which then combine sequentially to form paragraphs, an analytical tool demonstratively better than slideware bullet lists." has peoples dependence on presentation tools such as power point hindered their ability to write analytically, or even structurally sound?
2. over and over again tufte expresses his disapproval of power point presentations because of their tendencies to stack information in a way that does not allow for people to learn and draw connection , giving the content a surface level, almost vain quality. he gives a few options that in his opinion enhances the viewers experience, one being "high resolution handout allow viewers to contextualize, compare, narrate, and recast evidence." how do we as architecture students utilize this, and do you think it is as successful as tufte believes it to be.
3. recount a presentation you have given (slide based or otherwise), how do the tools and methods you used to present your content/work were effective or ineffective?
4. agrest states "...the understanding of the world based on establishing similarities between things, images, and words-in short, representation worked by establishing analogies." she goes on to give alberti's definition of beauty "...for example, a chain of signifiers that goes from nature to the human body, to proportion, and then to geometry allows for a particular concept of beauty to be transposed to architecture." as designers, how do we use analogies to help us today?
5. "the representation of the gothic, classical, and beaux arts styles serve to link the old and the new, imposing the new by representing the familiar. architecture becomes self-referential and buildings are representing other buildings, thus transferring their history and myths to the new." what are some examples of modern buildings being represented by other contemporary buildings and why do we do this?
2. over and over again tufte expresses his disapproval of power point presentations because of their tendencies to stack information in a way that does not allow for people to learn and draw connection , giving the content a surface level, almost vain quality. he gives a few options that in his opinion enhances the viewers experience, one being "high resolution handout allow viewers to contextualize, compare, narrate, and recast evidence." how do we as architecture students utilize this, and do you think it is as successful as tufte believes it to be.
3. recount a presentation you have given (slide based or otherwise), how do the tools and methods you used to present your content/work were effective or ineffective?
4. agrest states "...the understanding of the world based on establishing similarities between things, images, and words-in short, representation worked by establishing analogies." she goes on to give alberti's definition of beauty "...for example, a chain of signifiers that goes from nature to the human body, to proportion, and then to geometry allows for a particular concept of beauty to be transposed to architecture." as designers, how do we use analogies to help us today?
5. "the representation of the gothic, classical, and beaux arts styles serve to link the old and the new, imposing the new by representing the familiar. architecture becomes self-referential and buildings are representing other buildings, thus transferring their history and myths to the new." what are some examples of modern buildings being represented by other contemporary buildings and why do we do this?
Week 14 Questions
LTL:
1) Throughout the opening few pages, the essay makes reference to the unexpected and chaotic with respect to a conditioned norm. What is your opinion on the necessity of rules or 'the norm' to serve as a backdrop for innovation and chaos to shine?
2) When discussing form and function, LTL suggests renaming the common phrase "form follows function" to "function fucks with form." Why do you think they chose to word it that way instead of simply swapping the object and subject to "form follows function?" Specifically, the choice of words implies that form need not be a predetermined outcome (form) of a set of inputs (function) but that form is a multitude of possible outcomes that takes influence from the inputs, but not in a necessarily deterministic way.
3) LTL describes surrationalism as, "the self-conscious examination of the rational...Surrationalism is first and foremost a conscious, critical, and rational project..." If you consider the rational as "the norm" and surrationalism itself as a rationalizing reimagination of the norm, then would it not eventually result in the same rationalized norm that it seeks to reconsider?
Woods;
1)Woods describes the temporal nature of establishment and innovation by stating, "The architect must become, more than ever, a creature of the present, fusing all that is remembered and all that is dreamt within it..." What are the implications of equating the past with the established and the future (dreamt) with innovation?
2) Though Woods talks about the architecture of old as a service, his pleas for a new architecture with new methods, values, and tactics still treats architecture as a service. Why do we, as a profession, consistently value architecture based on its ability to solve a problem - to "save the world"?
3) Woods states on rebuilding the city, "Because the architect has a more intimate knowledge than others of the city's physical structures and their processes of coming into being, it falls to the architect to act in the void left by the disruption or collapse of institutional authority." He says this despite saying, several paragraphs earlier, "Architects are no longer able...to view the city from high above, as though it were an object to be manipulated and dominated." Do you see a non sequitur here? Is there a way for architects to take charge using our knowledge while still being cognizant of the greater society at large? Do we need to?
1) Throughout the opening few pages, the essay makes reference to the unexpected and chaotic with respect to a conditioned norm. What is your opinion on the necessity of rules or 'the norm' to serve as a backdrop for innovation and chaos to shine?
2) When discussing form and function, LTL suggests renaming the common phrase "form follows function" to "function fucks with form." Why do you think they chose to word it that way instead of simply swapping the object and subject to "form follows function?" Specifically, the choice of words implies that form need not be a predetermined outcome (form) of a set of inputs (function) but that form is a multitude of possible outcomes that takes influence from the inputs, but not in a necessarily deterministic way.
3) LTL describes surrationalism as, "the self-conscious examination of the rational...Surrationalism is first and foremost a conscious, critical, and rational project..." If you consider the rational as "the norm" and surrationalism itself as a rationalizing reimagination of the norm, then would it not eventually result in the same rationalized norm that it seeks to reconsider?
Woods;
1)Woods describes the temporal nature of establishment and innovation by stating, "The architect must become, more than ever, a creature of the present, fusing all that is remembered and all that is dreamt within it..." What are the implications of equating the past with the established and the future (dreamt) with innovation?
2) Though Woods talks about the architecture of old as a service, his pleas for a new architecture with new methods, values, and tactics still treats architecture as a service. Why do we, as a profession, consistently value architecture based on its ability to solve a problem - to "save the world"?
3) Woods states on rebuilding the city, "Because the architect has a more intimate knowledge than others of the city's physical structures and their processes of coming into being, it falls to the architect to act in the void left by the disruption or collapse of institutional authority." He says this despite saying, several paragraphs earlier, "Architects are no longer able...to view the city from high above, as though it were an object to be manipulated and dominated." Do you see a non sequitur here? Is there a way for architects to take charge using our knowledge while still being cognizant of the greater society at large? Do we need to?
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