BENJAMIN ARIAS M. Arch 2021
One:Twelve Journal offers a unique opportunity for students of the Ohio State University to contribute to architectural discourse while still attending school. This theoretical discourse has an intimidating barrier of entry, and the average student may not feel that their ideas are as valuable as the architectural critiques they read in class. One:Twelve Journal acts as a safe space where the students of Knowlton can share their thoughts on architecture without feeling judgement. Whether the writer is an undergraduate student first being exposed to architectural history with Jackie Gargus, or a third-year graduate student working through their thesis with Curtis Roth, all ideas are equally valued when writing for the student journal. Each issue of the journal centers around a specific theme, chosen by the journal’s leadership team. The theme provides structure, while allowing ample room for interpretation. Issue 16’s theme is organization, which offers the student multiple translations. They can write about how a building is organized, how architects organize firms, or even how architecture students organize against instances of injustice. In the average college seminar, the professor desires a particular understanding of the prompt and failure to address it in their understood way often translates to a poor grade. Through One:Twelve, however, any reading of the prompt is met with intrigue; a unique understanding is encouraged. A furthered conversation is the goal of the experience. There is a unique community built around One:Twelve; the contributors are all rooting for each other to write amazing essays because it makes the publication stronger as a whole. The publication is successful because of the collaboration. The experience of working through a new idea brought forward by a member is an opportunity to participate in discourse with other students. There is always a specified syllabus when discussing theories in seminar with Todd Gannon or Jeffrey Kipnis, but within One:Twelve meetings the ideas are always new and exciting. Over the course of the last year many new ideas have begun to form in the architectural community. It is the job of student publications such as One:Twelve to give students the outlet to respond to these ideas in our own way, without influence of the generations who have come before us. Every issue of One:Twelve is an opportunity for students of the Ohio State University to come together and publish our ideas, allowing them to reverberate beyond Knowlton’s walls.
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