Updates - thesis D7 mid-review - Prof. Davis

All

 

We will be grouping up with Professor Cody’s section for the mid-review, and the date is now confirmed for Friday 10/23.

 

This is a critically important threshold review for each of you, and you are urged to take it extremely seriously.

I personally will be looking at several factors, a few of which are outlined below:

 

·         Ability to state what you are studying in your thesis semester(s) with clarity and knowledge, and in a succinct manner. Note here that I have specifically not described “it” as your “thesis statement,” because I believe that these are still in flux and somewhere along the way in an evolutionary process; however, just because I’m realistic about whether or not you can at this juncture state your thesis statement in three sentences, do NOT let this derail the requirement of being precise and thoughtful about your intent. You must be able to speak intelligently about your ideas and about your project (even if the statement itself is not polished). You must be engaged in the struggle for clarity itself – and for yourself.

 

·         Ability to describe what you have made and why you have explored your ideas in such a fashion. And in a truly and fundamentally architectural fashion – in other words, spatially. Spatially. Spatially.

 

·         Volume of production. Be voluminous. Produce lots of work – of course of great integrity. As we have been discussing, it is the very production of drawings and models.

 

 

 

Minimum requirements for the mid-review:

 

·         Most current written statement, typed on 8.5x11 sheet, including your name and date. Binder clip this sheet together with older iterations, chronologically from most recent (front) to oldest (back).

 

·         Mini project “brief” in the same format as we had been describing previously: “statement,” “brief,” “operation.” Important to understand what you have been making. Typed, 8.5x11 sheet.

 

·         Study models, all of them to date. I would like each of you to consider how you are showing and presenting your work – how you intended each model to be viewed when you made it. Perhaps there is a way in which your ideas – and therefore your models – are intended to be viewed, and therefore

 

·         A series of presentation boards, 30”x40” portrait orientation, (however many boards are needed), including:

 

o        Drawings, all of them to date

o        Sketches, all of them to date

o        Model photographs – (consider how you might photograph your models in specific ways and in specific light conditions so that the photographs themselves support the ideas for your thesis)

o        Architectural precedents (drawing, photos, etc) which are compelling based on your ideas and your trajectory of study. Of course you will create drawings analytical sketches to identify how you see the precedent in a specific manner that supports your own ideas.

o        Site searches, these may begin with lists of words – or qualities – such as we have been discussing. But now must be “fleshed” out with images, sketches, photos, topographical maps, and other documentation which again show why you are thinking that a particular site, or even a particular typology of site, will lend itself to your trajectory of study. This is far beyond the convenience if Google Maps (or Earth), my friends. This means you have to leave your computer and go old school – research, library, history, your own photographs and sketches.

o        Other supporting information which will be important to show as it pertains to your individual studies.

 

 

A few other points:

 

·         Anything short of the items listed above will be considered an incomplete presentation.

 

·         For those of you who don’t know me yet, you should restrain yourselves please from using the boards themselves as a vehicle to demonstrate your creative computer skills. In other words, do NOT rely on snazzy, catchy, out-of-the box photoshop graphics to present your work – rather, channel your creativity into the architectural studies themselves and allow the boards to be clean, un-cluttered, professional, and clear-headed. (I AGREE WITH THIS COMPLETELY)

 

·         You should scan your work and create a clean computer generated series of boards. But you should also feel free to pin up trace, sketches, original colored pencil drawings, and other work. The message here is that you need to be working toward a computer presentation, but I do not want you to be belaboring the digital aspects if that’s not where the ideas themselves are. Production and volume of work is much more important than a super glossy presentation (but of course it still all has to look good and have integrity) – this is a working mid-review.

 

·         You should be prepared to declare something definitive about what site, or site typology, or site condition, or context you will be exploring as you move forward through the rest of the semester (and next). You may adjust your declaration as you go further along – but the declaration at this point establishes a critical next intersection of where ideas and “plastic” interventions interact with physical place.

 

·         We will have a major pinup on Tuesday (just our section) 10/20 as a pre-cursor to the mid-review. I want to see everything before we get to the mid itself. Push to make great strides for each of the upcoming classes. (WE SHOULD PLAN TO DO THE SAME)