RACHELLE BROWN (GERE) M. Arch 2020
Why Do We Critique, Study and Dismiss, Anyways? Why do we even analyze architecture and design projects in the first place? We start off becoming aware of a new project and looking at the shiny new toy of our world. We then engage our education and training and begin looking at it in a more critical way. We either love it – beginning to learn from it and from its creator, considering how they built the work of art to look so effortless – or we begin to ask if this is before its time, taking much more time to study and understand the project. We study architecture to learn how other people in the past have solved their design problems. We dismiss designs for being too close to what the publications expect you to produce, designs that are too much flash and not enough innovation. It’s also frowned upon to push the aesthetic image of the design without having enough content when you look past those images. My time working with One:Twelve at Knowlton was fun, yet necessary. If we, as the next generation of architects, designers, innovators and artists, simply learn the content we are given in school and don't question why we are studying it – especially why we aren’t studying entire cultures or areas of the globe that do, in fact, have unique architecture – how far can we evolve as an industry? We risk burning out the range of possibilities to what we can design. Every design problem would have a solution, with two alternate options, and that catalog of choices is what architecture would distill down to. When we come together early in our careers to pose questions, independently study, and produce writings for publications such as One:Twelve, we choose to learn and acknowledge the past without requiring that what we were given is the only acceptable form architecture can take. I’m glad I was part of a group of students pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable, a group that worked to transform our school to allow for history as well as innovation. We cannot have one without the other. We cannot have either the historical or the innovation without critique. If no one talks about it, it is dead. This is why a field that is mostly visual requires communication through the written word for its survival. As an alumnus, I am excited to see what Knowlton does moving forward and how we will continue to evolve, helping to bring new ideas to our field and beyond, beginning to influence all those who interact with the built world. 45
