Academic Portfolio: Working Document

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BIO: Joseph Raffin is a recent graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy. He currently works at Virtuoso Design Plus Build, working to build towards his career as a future practitioner.

He originally hails from Valparaiso, Indiana.

Growing up only an hour away from Chicago, architecture and urbanism have always been a chief interest. From 2009 to 2014 he studied at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture. In 2013 he received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture; and in 2014 he received his Master of Architecture with his completion of his thesis The Crisis of Aesthetic.

sor/ student relationship and towards a more collaborative effort. Not only does being a professor allow one to impart their past studies upon new students, it also allows the professor to expose their personal interest to critique and manipulation of the student as well. In this way, the professor and the student become partners in formulating a base of interest respective of either party.

Under the mentorship of many professors and friends, Joe has found interest within the subject of History and Theory. He employs a design process that focuses on critical experimentation rooted within relevant and contemporary dialog. This comes with an understanding that speaking about architecture is just as important as building it. That being said, the academic realm becomes a perfect incubator for these conversations to happen.

Wherein, they effectively become the foundation of practice.

What Joe plans on bringing to his students is a step away from the traditional profes-

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M E M O R Y B LO B S : m e m o r y , f o r m , and urbanity Year: 2011 Professor: Tony Martinico Awards: Vertical Studio Design Excellence Award Runner Up This project is an investigation in memory.

An eidetic image was employed to map out a site selected on Grand River and Forrest in downtown Detroit. The mapping was a stretch away from any scientific information. Rather, the mapping process had a central focus on layering, memory, and abstraction. As more layering occurred the map receded into more or less familiar forms. At this point the project seemed to be commenting on memory in general and its formal makeup. Forms were abstracted from the eidetic image and drawn within context of the site. Here the project took another turn and focused on the fundamentals of formalism and the tools of the architect. The final charcoal drawings represented the form as perspective, section, and elevation and plan all at once.

uniquely capable of picking apart form in a critical and methodical manner. This project carried ideas about the fundamental role of the architect that would manifest itself in future projects. Specifically, that the architect has the unique ability and tools to purposely position the individual respective to the form and vice versa.

This project positioned the architect as a professional, with a specific set of tools, 06

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e m e r g e nt u r b a n i s m : n o n- p l a n n i n g Year: 2012 Professor: Jan Mazur Awards: Vertical Studio Design Excellence Award First Place

to w a r d s planning by suggesting that each urban site has been already coded with a formal DNA. It attempted to link the project with some self defeating aspects of urban planning. After all, the most interesting projects, both formal and non-formal arise from the unexpected mutations of a best made plan.

This project is ultimately an investigation in the abstraction of form. It employs a much more pragmatic experiment than other two selected projects. Here a white paper became a representative tool for thought experiments on the nature of the tabula rasa. Prompted in the beginning to think about emptiness on a fundamental level and within the context of Detroit, the class formulated a hypothesis around the idea that emptiness is an absence.

On the other hand, small experiments found the paper, in its imperfection to already trace the beginning of formal abstraction. In this way, the tabula rasa becomes a filled region rather than a void. It turned the class hypothesis on its head. Since the tabula rasa doesn’t exist in nature, the imperfections in the site become a formal catalyst and natural diagram.

An article published on the project later speculated the effort to be a rethinking of 016

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T h e C r i s i s o f A est h e t i c : M . A R C .

T H ES I S P R O J E CT Professor: Wladek Fuchs Awards: Outstanding Thesis Award Runner Up While one of the selected projects was more pragmatic and methodical, and the other more scattered, this thesis attempted to employ the best of both processes. It was a constant battle between chasing loose ends and binding them together. This method was a challenging mental process in that required specifically defining seemingly vague connections to ideas in order to produce a cohesive thesis.

Thus, the underlying thesis in the past two projects becomes the overarching thesis in this project. That is: the true role of the architect is strategically and critically placing the individual within a unique space. In this project it is referred to the interstitial space: the space between spaces, the form between forms, and the idea between ideas.

The process began with a heavy amount of reading (Koolhass, Baudrillard, Eisenmann, Kipnis, Calvino‌etc‌).

Ideas from the readings helped to ground more loosely connected in contemporary criticism and dialog.

The culmination of this intensive exercise was a story about seven cities. The seven cities were a speculation on a future where the formal instincts of the architect would be most valued. It pits the metropolis in an age where the only scarce resource is a scarcity of culture. In this age both the urban planner and the architect need to become strong advocates of intensive formalist processes.

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c lo s i n g stat e m e nt Schools and practice have become very good at rearing professionals; experts in leading the client through the construction process.

Respectively, they are treated and appreciated as such. There is a need however for architects to also be experts in build form, order, and proportion. As well as a need for awareness that architecture, whether built by an architect or not, has very real and prominent political implications.

Architecture and formalism becomes then a social responsibility and no some whimsical fancy.

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