CONCEPT
HOME embodies our earliest memories of architecture, our most private moments, and our most direct contact with others. In the context of the city it takes its shape most unequivocally as a negotiation between three scales of priority: the personal, the communal, and the civic.
This studio will attempt to imagine an architecture for this notion of home in the city. In doing so, it will explore the meaningful arrangement and juxtaposition of spaces, forms, assemblies and materials, as they choreograph a reverberation of experience at these three scales, from the boudoir to the street. This course will also explore the nature of collaboration and community within the studio, requiring each individual's work to elegantly coexist within a greater whole. Successful inquiry will result in a coherent, meaningful, poetic architectonic proposal for an original community in a highly charged urban context.
TASK
Aggregate architectonic proposals will coalesce into a single, contiguous residential community comprised of a small collection of main structures--most of which are to contain up to three individual residences each, with at least one serving a public / commercial function. In addition to the creation and manipulation of form, the careful consideration of open space will be an important factor in devising an architecture worthy of its context and its inhabitants.
SITE
The southwest corner of the intersection of N. Mississippi ave. and N. Fremont st. currently lies vacant, and veritably seething with possibility and potential. At the southern terminus of the vibrant 'north Mississippi corridor', this site inhabits a promontory overlooking the city to the south, acting as a natural gateway to the neighborhood on its plateau, and a potential beacon to the community downhill.
METHOD general:
Individual design assignments will support and be augmented by collective activities including teamwork on certain individual exercises, and group charrettes determining the direction of others. As for the individual assignments, there are enough single parts for each student to address in solitude; but each 'part' must be considered within the context of the others, so that the compound whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
METHOD specific:
• The first half of the term will follow an every-other-week format, oscillating between two trajectories of investigation:
• Odd weeks will focus on investigations from 'inside-to-out' (from personal toward civic)
• Even weeks will focus on investigations from 'outside-to-in' (from civic to personal)
• Issues under investigation will include:
o The everyday rituals of dwelling
o City of Portland Zoning code and density guidelines
o Materials, tectonics, and the body
o The local context, from under-served needs to an architectonic kit-of-parts
o The spatial interface of private and communal.
• Within the first two weeks, students will organize into four collaborative working groups within which explorations will be conducted remainder of the term.
• The organization of these groups seeks to foster individual contributions as well as coherence to an agreed vision, and coordination with the entire studio.
• Work will not necessarily be duplicated from one student to the next, and the different tasks which evolve should serve to take advantage of one's inclination and individual skills. However, the quantity of work will remain constant across the board.
• Great pains will be taken to assure the fairness and collaborative effectiveness of the working groups. One chance will be given to change groups after the mid-term.
• The second half of the term will focus on the coherent, enriching, and elegant coalescence of the initial investigations and experiments into a single community of inhabitation at the southern gateway of the North Mississippi corridor.
• Investigations and solutions will be presented to the Boise Elliot Neighborhood Association in a public forum, at various junctures within the process.
• As coordination and communication are absolutely essential to the successful progress of these investigations, a course blog will be set up as a clearinghouse for ideas, comments, and the public display of ongoing work.
THE TYPICAL WEEK:
• Mondays: pin-ups / critiques
• Wednesdays: desk-crits
• Fridays: films, field trips, intra-school activities ('last fridays') reading discussions
THE STANDARDS:
• You are expected to operate with all your faculties devoted to a meaningful, enriching, and enlightening process of thought, experimentation, discussion, discovery, and communication. This level of application calls for a practice of seeing through and beyond the surface nature of things, of voraciously researching every gap in knowledge and understanding, of fearlessly and playfully making proposals and performing experiments, of evaluating those proposals and experiments, and filtering the meaningful from the superfluous, of constructively helping your peers in this process, and of applying the highest degree of rigor and craft in constructing a clear and inevitable language of communication for your ideas and constructions.
• You are expected to complete all the assigned readings and to form a coherent critical understanding and judgment of them.
• You are expected to visit the site as often as you can--it should be your second home (after studio and before your bed).
• You are expected to keep a notebook / sketchbook within which you will record all process work, impressions, and any other miscellaneous musings, doodles, etc which may be of relevance to your current creative process.
• You are expected to compile the most meaningful or your studio work into a digital CD format (jpegs only!), turned in by the last day of the term.
EVALUATION CRITERIA
Coursework (see above) 75%
Studio Participation and Attendance 25%
All coursework will be evaluated based on the following general criteria:
Clarity 1/3
Completion 1/3
Creativity/Content 1/3
All work must be completed on time. Any work completed late will be marked down accordingly. On days where work is expected to be pinned-up, work must be pinned-up by the beginning of studio or it will be considered late. Work deemed incomplete will not be discussed during individual or group reviews and critiques.
Any absence will negatively affect your grade and accumulation of 2 or more unexcused absences (medical reasons only) will be considered grounds for an 'X' (no basis for grade). See the PSU Department of Architecture "Grading Standards of Architecture Studio Classes" in the Student Handbook for additional clarifications on grading criteria
COURSE CALENDAR
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