Archinect - University of Tennessee (Lauren)

AR 121 - Drawing and (Video) Representation

2013-12-20T20:07:18-05:00

During the FA 2013 semester, for the first time, first year students were asked to make videos related to their design projects. In addition to line, square, rectangle compositions on paper and sawing MDF in the wood shop for model bases, students took video documentation of their processes and results and composed and edited video assignments to communicate ideas about design. The class (AR 121) was taught by David Fox, and I was one of the teaching assistants.

I was astounded by the work the class produced. They learned techniques like stop-motion and time lapse and practiced with different styles of video, including one documentary-style video about the process of designing a new desk with the laptop and not the drafting board as a guiding design constraint.

The concept driving this video-oriented course was that much of what people are interested in now is communicated through video. A drawing that took 40 hours to produce will no longer snare most clients the same way a...

A Socially Responsible Architect

2012-10-09T11:29:39-04:00

Here's the optimistic conclusion to an otherwise saddening little essay about the inability of architects in our current professional climate to address social justice issues. The rest of the essay (and probably the rest of the book, Out of Site: A Social Criticism of Architecture by Diane Ghirardo) is worth a read.

Narrative

2009-09-08T11:30:04-04:00

I am going to tell you a story.

Does that statement give you a small tingle of anticipation? Do you want to know how the story begins, what events form the story, what images transport you into it, what conflict arises, how the conflict is resolved? Imagine a group of people around a fire, spending long hours drinking wine and exchanging tales of past things and present things and future things. Imagine a movie theater at capacity, the light of the screen flickering over three hundred faces. Imagine a meeting in a church basement, a small huddle of women, each battling breast cancer and sharing their narrative about their sense of womanhood, their pain, their families. Imagine walking through an art museum. Imagine a friend with an anecdote about their crazy Saturday night.

If you don't have any sense of curiosity about the story, I might question your very humanity. Human beings love stories. More simply, we need narrative - I propose in the same way a tiger needs teeth o...