Discipline: ASU Architecture Journal 06

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Before we redesign, we must reflect.

This year’s issue of Discipline invites students and faculty of the School of Architecture to reflect on our current systems of pedagogy. Furthermore, the current climate around the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated alternative forms of current and future education. The content of this journal acts as a facilitator of discourse around the abilities of pre-existing educational structures, as well as a means to respond to adversity and change. The process of change should exist as a collaborative conversation, invoking not only equity but also a sense of certainty in knowing that all voices are heard. As such, we hope to define the purpose of Discipline 06 as a means to celebrate diverse introspection of thought and methodologies towards Architecture within the Design School.

A Letter from the Editor

What you contain in your hands, whether a screen or tangible paper, holds the weight of its five triumphant predecessors, the presence of a pandemic, and the irrefutable future of an unalterable reality. For half a decade, Discipline has fought fervidly to capture and acquaint with its audiences the spirit of Architecture as it exists within the Design School. In doing so, it has traversed realms of architectural discourse through its commitment to practice, agency, research, and re-engagement. This year, our team has attempted to continue the pivot undertaken by last year’s edition, a change which saw an unprecedented 200 copies sold and thousands of views online.

Within the following pages lives a single effervescent spirit of introspection emanating from the contemplative words that delineate what she believes, why he teaches, where she has learned, how he will change the world, and who she contemplates.

Perhaps this year, the team’s decision to reflect proved somewhat prophetic, as if there were ever a time to do so, it is now. So we implore you, our esteemed reader, to do just that. Do not simply read the text that follows, but challenge it. Engage unfamiliar thoughts, act boldly, give heed to our suffering planet and the injustices, and while doing so, do not forget to take a moment to pause, and another to reflect.

I’d like to give my sincerest gratitude to Cathleen Kerbert, Brittany Bailey, and Hector Diaz for spearheading and continuing to propel this incredible endeavor, to Phil Horton, Michelle Fehler, and Marc Neveu for your unceasing support and the wealth of wisdom you have so generously offered. This year, the journal returned to its humble roots, with a team of just three. So to my co-editors, Meriel Vogliotti and Ananth Udupa, thank you for the many moments of vivacious conversation and memories filled with food for thought and food for stomach. I find solace in passing the reins down to you two, as I know you will continue Discipline with stride, with passion and without fear.

Just as always but like never before, the world as we know it is evolving at a rate beyond that which is presently comprehensible. But in the words of Robert Venturi,

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Architecture must accept that the future is fluid.

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And as architects, thinkers, and humans, we must do the same and live this change.

EDITOR Nasrynn Chowdhury

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Venturi, Robert. “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” Architectural Press/Museum of Modern Art, 1977

A Letter from the Team The field of design must be committed to the improvement of our world by being in continuous dialogue with the current demands of society. The fluid nature of the field makes it difficult to determine a long-lasting and effective model of design education, however the desire for large-scale changes to existing systems begins with mindful self-reflection.

Our intent to ensure quality design education should be recast with asking what we are trying to communicate for. In this unique global moment, we find ourselves in direct confrontation with the dated modes of discourse that no longer respond to the realities of our changing world. It becomes a question of whether or not we as a school are willing to change and test uncharted methods of education through strategies of solid implementation we can incorporate in order to prevail.

Design researcher and educator from Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Dr. Guillermina Noël, detailed ten suggestions for quality design education in her publication, “We All Want High-Quality Design Education: But What Might That Mean?” 2 She does not outline a concrete structure to architectural pedagogy that will flourish in every environment but rather describes the importance of context, collaboration, genuine inquiry and failure from students, faculty, and leadership. The Design School has been encouraging students to question their mental models and implement their design thinking into real life applications, through design-build studios. But, there is still progress to be made in better integrating design education and both current and future issues that the student might confront in the field.

We created this issue, putting together student and faculty work, to prompt reflection and direct engagement between the various parties within the School of Architecture. By defining the success and failure in this specific architectural education system we can inspire a dialogue to ground the fantasy of architectural education. This is a collective effort on part of faculty with researching different models, students with an open mind to attempt different learning methods, and leadership giving the adequate resources and funding for this experiment to flourish. Reflection and redesign are ongoing measures of development which may never be checked off as complete on the broader to-do list of the school. Nonetheless, we at Discipline see this issue as a step closer to achieving these goals.

Train to adapt through change Incorporate context Find the root of problems Introduce real world implementation Collect data on valuable skills in the field from graduates Encourage teamwork Emphasize process of learning itself Integrate research and evidence into studio Highlight sustainability Promote diverse perspectives to answer questions Ten suggestions for quality design education, Noël, Guillermina (condensed) Noël, Guillermina. “We All Want High-Quality Design Education: But What Might That Mean?” She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, Elsevier, 31 Mar. 2020, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S2405872620300101.

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In light of the protests and deaths that have distressed our country in the latter half of this month, the Discipline Team would like to stand in solidarity with the victims of systemic oppression in demanding justice and change. It is even more important to stress the act of reflection during times of anger and action. We must all make it our prerogative to educate ourselves and understand the gravity of the plight of the countless African American victims we see plastered across our social media. Mutual respect, communication, and action are the only ways of working towards a resolution and building an equitable society. If you are able, please donate to the following or call your local and state representatives so that, together, we may support this cause that plagues our nation: Minnesota Freedom Fund, Black Visions Collective, Campaign Zero, Unicorn Riot.

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A Letter from AIAS AIAS_Organization

Architecture can now be done from a bedroom or home office but an architect’s work will be incorporated into the physical world. Now that we have experienced something completely life and societyaltering, we have the opportunity to benefit from this strange experience. We have started examining architecture’s role in the medical field from hospital design to antimicrobial interior materiality.

Technological advances have allowed us access to reviewers from all around the world, but what does a virtual studio mean to us now and how do we improve it? Our school was our communal space, but how does a communal and public place translate in light of a pandemic? These are the sorts of questions that began to surface.

The conversations revolved a lot around the coming fall semester, and what initiatives we wanted to incorporate for our peers.

Reflecting as architecture students has given us more pause. Our generation’s ability to communicate virtually was probably what kept us afloat, because that was the only way to communicate, and it was a way of communication we were already versed on. We have found that we miss each other dearly. Our time in studio was cherished.

Our work improved from our peers’ input.

We had structure. We found that it has been really easy to miss how things were before COVID-19, but more rewarding to plan our long-term strategies for expanding our AIAS chapter and creating ways to continue the conversation. This unique situation has changed everyone and we are thankful that we still have each other to reflect with. We are really proud of how our fellow architecture students made due with their situation, and we look forward to seeing you all soon!

AIAS

We brought in social media with the advent of @studiomatexaias.asu on Instagram to establish some semblance of our peers’ critiques in studios. Informal peer to peer advice from someone at the same level was something that a lot of us thrived on. We hope to adopt educational aids like tutoring and office hours, programs that would have steadied many students in light of this pandemic. We have aspirations to set up workshops and recorded interviews for students to continue improving their hard and soft skills. Moreover, we hope to be a more present and open student group in spite of any other obstacles that we may encounter as a student body.

08 REFLECT

As AIAS at ASU underwent a shift in leadership, goals, and initiatives in the midst of a pandemic, reflection became our most significant outlet. In March of this year the world experienced what we see as a sort of worldwide power outage; it felt like since we were all confined to our spaces, we all started to come together over conversations, something that a lot of us had not been making time for before. Discussing issues of unpreparedness and adaptability, architectural education has been a topic of interest with many seeing these abrupt changes as an opportunity for reconsidering the ways in which we do things.

Alternative Desert City Yuchen Zhao_Year 4 Bryan Maddock

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n the future of Phoenix, Arizona, a largescale housing project proposes thousands of people to move in a centralized desert city. By addressing problems of traditional skyscrapers, the project creates an opportunity for platforms to network in the sky. The project aims to mend the tragedy of urban sprawl by promoting vertical growth through the project’s system. Hybrid use spaces and density are used to meet all the needs of different living styles within Phoenix. In response to the environment, the project provides connections, green spaces and large amounts of shading that support a close and walkable environment in which to live.

different from all previous projects. The essence of Alternative Desert City was to attempt to solve urban problems by taking a building system that could house 5000 people as a carrier. Therefore, it was a project concerning urban scale, which required us to think about the existing problems of the city as a system. Secondly, the project was based on the “future,” which not only expanded our creative mind but also made the project a concept-led design.

The approach of Alternative Desert City was different from previous semesters which focused more on the site analysis and research. For instance, we took precedents studies as the approach at the initial stage, Alternative Desert City is a studio design and most of the conceptual designs and project I completed during the first semester large-scale designs were new to us. For of my senior year in the fall 2017. The example, we talked about the concept and project featured a unique design theme faults of Nakagin Capsule Tower of Kisho with requirements and scale which were Kurokawa, and discussed the Utopia urban unfamiliar to us as undergraduate students. design of Peter Cook which have elements of Undoubtedly, the project had a profound innovation and rebellion as the carrier. The influence on my architecture studies. discussion of the precedents greatly inspired us during the semester. Moreover, the multiple According to the curriculum of Arizona State design schemes proposed subsequently University, we had to complete five different allowed us to brainstorm and think about types of studio design projects at five sites urban scale problems. We proposed three during the first four semesters, including a sites and schemes to solve three different shading structure, gallery, cemetery, housing, urban problems, and guided an in-depth and meditation center. The design works discussion to design for one of the three during the first two years focused on small problems. In the later stages, we switched scales and practical meanings. Through between large-scale (urban) and small-scale these types of design training, we learned (housing unit). ways of architectural thinking for solving local problems. Additionally, we learned Our goal was to try to make the design the basic abilities and skills for architecture proposal not only a Utopian fantasy design. For instance, we learned how to but also to try to solve the problems establish inter-relationships for a building of different scales more effectively. We and site, how to make program layout for wanted to see how people might adapt buildings, as well as how to create more to daily life in the new urban system. This fascinating spaces. However, Alternative type of daily life is also a comprehensive Desert City, which we started later, was representation of natural environment

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(lighting, ventilation, etc.), circulation, arrangements of infrastructure, and housing unit types, etc.

To sum up, this semester changed my perspective of architectural design. My perception of architectural design switched its focus from practical meanings to conceptual aspects for the very first time. I discovered that besides small-scale and local problems, the contents of architectural design we learn in class are also concerned with politics, the economy, and society. Furthermore, I learned

that designs are more than just fantastic imaginations; they have both academic and practical inspiration significance. After completing the project, I started paying more attention to the importance of a clear concept in a design scheme. This semester taught me that regardless of the method or means used, a project should have its main concept run through. Moreover, drawings and models serving the design are powerful tools in architectural design.

Overall, the entire semester taught me valuable lessons that will be applicable in my future career and studies.

REFLECT

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Saori Tessa DesRoche, Julia Lopez_Year 3 Jose Bernardi and Cheri Jacobs

Throughout the process we learned that the first step to design is to identify and define the problem/s we want to address.

It was important to research who are the individuals that are in greatest need. We learned from individuals about their specific needs and aspirations as human beings and how design is essentially and most importantly about being fundamentally human. Each individual has a story that is pieced together through places, memories and emotions.

How did we learn this? We learned by what was already existing. Our first visit to the site led us to examine The Gerardo Building and the historic El Fresnal grocery store in downtown Phoenix. Within the perimeters, we found objects; blankets, shoes, clothes, names engraved on the exterior facade.

All traces of people who were here at one time and who left their mark within the site.

The importance of using this to enhance the design and using materials that were already onsite as a way to emphasize that design doesn’t always mean using “fancy” materials, rather using readily available materials to create an adaptable solution to a problem. We began to experiment with different aspects of design that could

contribute to the healing of minds and establish a connection between the past and the future. Through study models, we began to play with the notion of using therapeutic activities that could help us build on this already existing structure. We researched activities such as weaving and origami and found that they have proven to be therapeutic for the mind and encourages healing. We then began to design and insert a structure and connection between the two buildings. We drew inspiration from the ancient art form of Saori. “Sai,” meaning everything has its own individual dignity and “ORI” meaning weaving. Where there is a tear, healing is needed. Woven by fragile victims’ hands; through weaving , they find an outlet to express emotions, to find peace in this safe haven. The weavers speak into the threads as they weave, their stories are shared to the people who shine light upon their creation. Eventually growing, it becomes a testimony of healing souls.

The site allowed us to continue to build on the idea of creating a self-sustainable community for the individuals in need. We designed additional pods for transitional shelter, a health facility that would further cater to this community, and a food service and dining hall for people in need. It is important to open our minds to design that has the ability to shape lives for the greater good and allows us to become advocates for people whose voices aren’t being heard. We live in a world with many kinds of rules and restrictions. We are unconsciously affected by those rules and restrictions, and it often can be very difficult for us to get rid of our fixed notions, this is why we believe that design should be accessible to all and that whatever we do, we must always reflect on what is already existing in order to create a better future.

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pring 2019, the third year interior design studio was tasked with exploring and examining the role of design within the topic of homelessness in the valley of the sun. At the core of homelessness is the legitimate human aspiration of belonging to a “home.”

The aim of this project was to create a homeless shelter that was to provide solutions capable of being adapted to different human conditions, all while finding ways in which design can contribute to an individual’s healing experience by providing alternative solutions in the arduous journey from fear to hope.

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DESROCHE, LOPEZ

Amit Upadhye teaches as Adjunct Faculty in the ASU Design School and also is the founder of small architecture boutique, Amit Upadhye Architects. He has worked with multiple high profile companies on a national and international level, including MORPHOSIS, Gensler, Jones Studio, Richard and Bauer, Marwan Al-Sayed, Architekton, Aedas, DP Architects in Singapore and Anant Raje Architect. His projects have been recognized by the AIA, Contemporary Forum and Spirit of the Senses home tours, showcased on Dwell, Archdaily, Architizer websites and Arizona Republic, Inside-Outside publications. He was brought up influenced by the great works of Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn in Ahmedabad, India, such as Mill Owners Association, Sanskar Museum, Villa Shodhan and Villa Sarabhai by Corbusier and Indian Institute of Management. He is passionate about meaningful work in Architecture that is responsible, sustainable, poetic and phenomenological. He has combined his passion for architecture with yoga to better define the motion of buildings, creating an environment working towards inner and outer minimalism.

UPADHYE, UDUPA

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Ananth Udupa: Interview?

Amit Upadhye: Sure. After my Chai.

Ananth Udupa:

What was your experience learning architecture in the Indian education system and how was it organized?

Do you have any memorable projects from your time in school?

ASU to look outside and seek inspiration on the survival tactics of these desert plants. These natural structures influence my designs to this day.

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My 4th-year low-cost housing project was published in the college newsletter which got some attention. I was recommended by my professor to work on a research project in Ahmedabad conducted by the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. It was about Gender Awareness in Architecture.

My low-cost housing site was the one they chose as well, which is one of the largest squatter settlements in Ahmedabad called Lakhudi Talavadi. It is a dry lake that was taken over by squatters who were mainly nomadic tribals (Rabari tribe) and shepherds by profession. This tribe is matriarchal in its structure and women design their own homes while the men herd the cattle. We studied in detail how women prioritized planning of the homes and published a book in German and English for the university.

My education fell in the transition from the analog and digital world.

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The architecture schooling process was a movement from abstract to reality. The first and second year were the foundational years where we learned the basics of anthropology and anthropomorphic studies — how much space a human needs. We also learned principles that based on biomimicry, namely basic drawing and observation of our surroundings. We would take a picture of a leaf and lay trace paper over it, finding patterns out of those photographs; we also learned how those leaves were tracking the sun and suggesting wind direction, which immensely informed one’s design process.

In fact, I constantly remind the students in this year’s 3rd-year studio class at

Third-year looked at the quantitative aspects of sun and wind, as well as more pragmatic issues within building design. We also learned how to compose and draw construction documents; the final project of the 3rd year being a complete set of construction documents that were critiqued and grilled by an external reviewer who was trained under Kahn. That was really a different kind of torture. Fourth-year was for housing, fifth-year was an urban design studio, and the last semester was either a design thesis or research thesis.

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Back in 1986, we had to take entrance exams and aptitude tests including a drawing test to enroll in architecture. I was very excited to be in the top 20 out of 500 applicants who took the test. It was a great start and a boost to my morale after not having such a good school experience due to corruption, politics amongst teachers, and more. However, I enjoyed college and worked really hard. I do not remember going to bed before 2 AM during my 5.5 years of undergrad, but it was fun and stressful at the same time. We had some wonderful professors who were trained under Louis Kahn on the Indian Institute of Management project and some who had returned from MIT. There were no computers back then and no internet so we were left at the mercy of what the profs taught us and the limited library we had.

UPADHYE, UDUPA

Amit Upadhye:

And now an adjunct professor at ASU, you have experience in the American architectural pedagogy. What are some differences you see and what do you think should be translated into ASU’s architecture program?

This is an interesting question! I came to the US via Singapore as I never had the money to pay for my graduate school in the US. I took a 4-year break to work with James Stirling+DP architects’ prestigious national project, The Esplanade Theaters. This gave me exposure to the westernized Asian world outside of India. I came to the University of New Mexico in 1997 as my mentor, Anant Raje who had worked for Kahn on the Indian Institute of Management, was an adjunct faculty there. Coming to the US was a wonderful experience for me and I grew by leaps and bounds under the guidance of Prof. Kramer Woodard. I absolutely loved the openness of the US educational system. It is one of the most progressive pedagogy models I have come across thus far. What was astounding was how students could enroll for any program at any age. I had a student in my graduate program who was 76 years old and another 56 years old.

I found western education has complete freedom for migrating from one major to another in order to make your life what you wanted it to be. I met some of the absolutely brilliant minds who opened up my thinking pattern. I molted the old skin and took on the new outlook to Architecture. It gave me unprecedented confidence.

The Indian education system, on the other hand, gave me a great foundation of drawing by hand, sketching the historical ruins, sensitivity towards materials, light, climate, and emotional intelligence which I think should be emphasized in the US schools. Hand and mind coordination is a basic instinct in a human; that motor skill is instilled right from childhood. “Thinking Hands” by Juhani Pallasmaa is an incredible book about this relationship that I recommend you read.

During the 1st and 2nd-year undergrad, we would be asked to sketch at least 400 drawings per week of random things around you. The ability to sketch and put an idea onto paper was very important at the subconscious level.

Emotional intelligence is understanding what the client really wants in a project.

Recognizing that is the key because a client is not always able to communicate innate desires properly. So, it becomes an architect’s responsibility to correctly interpret and visualize the client’s desires. I have a friend in Gujarat, India. He once had a client who came to him and gave him a poem and said to him, “if you can understand this poem, then you will understand what I want in this house.” Because my friend is already a poet, he was able to decode all of that and ultimately build a house based on the poem. This project became experiential as though you are walking through someone’s poem. That is something that is not being necessarily encouraged, which is something I am trying to implement as an adjunct faculty at ASU. I request my students to use their right brain first, the artist, spiritual, metaphysical side, to express these ideas and then give the structure of logic using the left brain and balance pragmatics and poetics.

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The ability to sketch and put an idea onto paper was very important at the subconscious level.

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With the technological advances, we have lost that architectural diversity because of dependency on HVAC systems and other artificial methods, but that is only taxing the planet. The passive approach is diminishing

in architectural education, but that was something drilled into our design education.

First, you deal with the problems in a passive way and then you bring in active measures to supplement the passive. Now what we are doing is making 4� thick walls and putting glass without any shade, which is taxing the active systems and ultimately the planet.

I love computers as tools but there is no

substitute for making a quick hand sketch.

Until the program that you are using does not become first nature to you, the computers will continue to overpower the architects. It is clear to me that my students work in silos because we emphasize the use of technology to translate an idea from mind to screen when it can quickly be drawn out and legible to be constructed.

In 2007, Eddie Jones had seen the documentary, My Architect by Nathaniel Kahn on his father, Louis Kahn, (which I encourage everyone to watch) and he came to me to organize and participate in an intense architecture tour spanning the history of Indian architecture from medieval to modern. That year, I embarked on a wonderful architectural tour along

with Eddie Jones, Marlene Imirzian, Douglas Sydnor, Jacob Benny, and Robert Oshatz.

It has been over 13 years and we still talk a great deal about the influence it had on our work. I organized an exhibition at UNM with the help of Prof. Kramer Woodard upon our return and gave talks at AIA, UofA, and Phoenix Art Museum.

In my work, there are many instances where that ethos trickles. For example, the Essence of the Desert house that I have done in Scottsdale is directly influenced by the sun alignments that I saw as a kid, watching the sunrise exactly on the axis of the sun temple which was built in 1052AD. A thousand years ago, they knew exactly how to align on 23.5 degrees latitude on March 21st and September 22nd equinoxes. That is the ethos that I experienced.

Going off of that, the US is a new country culturally, especially in comparison to India. How do you think The Design School can emphasize a discussion of developing a similar ethos to what you experienced, here at ASU? I think ASU is already doing exchange programs and study abroad programs similar to what I experienced. But, I would highly encourage those to be emphasized even more. If you can, take summer trips like Jose Bernardi is doing at ASU, travel around the world. It can be expensive, but it all pays off in the end.

For us in India, we were surrounded by cultural artifacts so we didn’t need to travel much. We used to have study tours every semester where we would take a whole class on a 2-day trip by bus or train to various architectural sites in our own or neighboring states. We also had projects where we measured these ruins, came back to school and drew all of them by hand as a group

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Indian architecture has a great ethos that rubs off and plants wonderful seeds in the psyche of the students. There is a lot of historical inertia but also a lot of depth there, which all rubs off in your upbringing.

You soak it up like a sponge; the impact is tremendous. All of that gets taught in the undergrad when you are surrounded by this ethos. This becomes an important aspect of being a student in that part of the world.

UPADHYE, UDUPA

How do you see your Indian heritage affecting your architectural design process?

and had exhibitions, which then became research catalogs in the school library.

At ASU, I did something similar a few years back when I travelled to Los Angeles with my 5th-year class and my other faculty, Tom Hartman and Phil Horton. But I would suggest going to Chaco Canyon and

the Anasazi ruins to observe how they have learned to build but also how they responded to the climate passively. The professors should go with you and point out things that are unique to this region.

I would love to hear more about your experience practicing architecture and its effect on your teaching initiatives. How do you see the two relate?

It should be the dream of every architect to practice ultimately after getting trained by mentors. Training under mentors sharpens your pencil on a pragmatic level but also at a poetic level. I have a very small boutique practice where I craft projects with great attention to detail. To me, the detail is the fundamental aspect of design. Mies Van De Rohe did say “God is in the details”. I interpret that to mean that the devil is in the detailer. If that is the case, then architecture is in detail because it is coming from within.

I am working on a residential project right now in Paradise Valley where we have over 90 custom architectural details. It is very fulfilling when one approaches Architecture

to serve it rather than to milk it as a business model. In Indian culture they say, “pehele siddhi fir prasiddhi”, meaning, “first penance then fame”. There is no shortcut to success.

My mentor, Raje used to say, “do not embark on teaching till you have reached 40”. I do not know if I followed that literally, as I started teaching at 36. It was more of a quest within myself. What really helps me in teaching is the passion for Architecture, understanding of construction, structure, learning from the history of architecture, sun path, and most importantly the confidence that comes with years of being around the block.

You mention Anant Raje, your mentor from Indian Institute of Management. But you credit many people to have served as mentors in your architectural journey like Eddie Jones from Jones Studio. How did seeking mentors influence your architectural education, practice, and eventual return to teach architecture?

There is a very famous quote from Louis Kahn, “there are a lot of professional architects but only very few are architects.”

Architecture is a serious profession because there is a tremendous amount of responsibility towards culture and society.

There is not as much freedom as a painter or sculptor. Because of that, I think of architecture as a monastic profession where one should work with mentors who can teach that which is not taught through

books or even by the Universities. And having a mentor is different from having an instructor in class.

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To observe is to be openminded without prejudice of any kind.

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One learns by being around a mentor at a subconscious level by mere observation which invariably sprouts when one endeavor

to practice later. To observe is to be openminded without prejudice of any kind. Let go of any ego or prejudice and observe how your mentor approaches to design. My own mentor used to say that everyone should be very humble as they learn because that is the only way to truly absorb their design process.

The humility of a pupil invites the mentor to freely give the secrets.

pencil takes references of Linea Occultae — the geometric underpinnings that one cannot see in the finished product or in the publications either — is the best form of architectural education. I feel that all my mentors who taught me come to my rescue in my thought processes to help guide me.

This needs a certain amount of faith, to be honest. I know it is a vulnerable word but I have no choice!

To observe how they talk and how their

There needs to be a paradigm shift in thinking which needs to be pushed by students to define the demands of what students want to learn. What is most disappointing to me is when students come out of university into the offices and have no clue of actual practice because their perspective is defined by the dreams creating a big divide between dream and reality. The industry is way behind academia which is constantly pushing forward. There is very little awareness during architectural education to relate what students dream of and what is realistically possible. There are a few “starchitects” like Thom Mayne and Zaha Hadid for whom the industry bends backward to build their designs. But, how many people can you count that can make the industry bend backward to manifest their dreams right from get-go?

Jason Schupbach and Marc Neveu are both trying to bring the school to the next level.

Can architecture be modeled after SCI_Arch?

I am not sure. But, besides the talent of creating fantastical worlds using computers, a simple brick should equally inspire an architect. We must better balance between pragmatic and idealistic when teaching future generations.

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I definitely think that architecture education needs more emphasis on its experiential quality than intellectual. One can intellectualize however much one wants but if that doesn’t become an experience, then it just remains as an intellectual jargon.

Architecture education needs to bring back the learning initiatives taught through construction; there is no substitute for the hands-on experience of building something.

UPADHYE, UDUPA

Your perspective has been enlightening in response to a lot of our questions as students; we are grateful. As a conclusion, we have spent all of this time looking back. So, where do you see architecture education shifting moving forward?

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Essence of The Desert House, Paradise Valley (2008) This building design was inspired by the phenomenological principle of living in the desert, finding shelter within the shadow of boulders. The residence has multiple cuts within the exterior stone to create particular shading and cooling effects on the interior. The selective exclusion and inclusion of barriers are derived from Upadhye’s interest in the movement of light.

Upadhye also designed the interiors the home. This project has been highlighted on multiple blogs and published in regional magazines.

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Summers House Renovation, Phoenix (2010) This project looked to remodel the master bathroom, patio, and enclosing carport; sustainable methods of harvesting the natural rain water, desert landscaping and using solar energy were incorporated into the design as well. The bench in the master bathroom was designed specifically so it glows with the path of the sun throughout the day and by night, it is charged to stay lit. The attention to detail in this project was highlighted on the AIA home tour and has been recognized on other blogs and magazines.

On the Experience of Space Meriel Vogliotti_Year 3 Amit Upadhye

I

find it valuable to formulate a clear thesis on the experience of a space I intend to design at the beginning of every studio. In this way, I allow myself the freedom to fully explore a single sense-making idea through a unique architectural element within the given constraints of the studio. I find this approach valuable as a way to begin the design process because it focuses entirely on the architectural order of a building.

This allows me to cultivate a curiosity over the potentiality and the limitations of what the architectural language can evoke within an individual. This semester, I chose to explore the role of the staircase in communicating the feeling-tone of a space within a library.

This spring semester, our third year studio set out to challenge the programs and functions traditionally associated with public libraries.

We were tasked with designing an ‘urban living room,’ or a library which holds the capacity for community-oriented programs catered to the 21st century individual. The studio began with case studies of local branch libraries which informed the project site and development of the parti diagram.

The process helped determine the idea for this project which is a library that articulates different levels of privacy between each floor through the element which connects them, the stairs. The idea informed the structural system which allows for an unbroken linear procession through the building from west to east. A truss system supported by four steel columns on each corner holds the floors and eliminate the need for a grid of columns which would interrupt the flow of the interior. The building is divided into four floors and as one moves

vertically through the library, each ascending level invites the user to slow down and settle into a contemplative state. Liminality, or the phenomenon of passing through something, became central to the role of the stairs in framing the space a user will enter.

The spiral cast-in-place staircase located on the extroverted ground floor signals a slowness to the beginning of the procession.

The grand concrete staircase is meant to be a heavy presence in the cafĂŠ area that draws the attention of the users. Passing from the ground level to the second level is meant to feel as a social act; to watch others and be seen yourself. As one ascends the steps, the line of sight to the second and third level staircases is unbroken, giving a legibility to the procession within the building.

The linear metal staircase is light and floats in the middle of the double height library space. The staircase is wide and open to the floor above to unite the second and third levels into one large room. The final staircase is nestled among the bookstacks on the third floor and performs as a dark tunnel that leads the user to a floodlit space.

VOGLIOTTI

To me, the most interesting thing about architecture itself is that it is experienced through all of the senses in time.

Experimenting with the elements of architecture has been extremely freeing as a student because my focus can be solely on learning. I believe that the objectives of an architectural studio system should encourage experimentation, exploration, and genuine curiosity within students rather than the realization of a polished product.

Our collective fixation on the image can distract us all from the importance of curiosity in the studio experience.

30 REFLECT

The wooden stairs are encased to further separate the space of the library to the spaces for yoga and meditation located on the fourth floor. The liminal experience of passing through the dark staircase is meant to draw the individual into an introspective inner space before arriving at the top floor.

Snyderman House Shelby Ben-Shalom_Year 3 Elena Rocchi

While there was still a somewhat traditional lecture style presented in the class, there was no harsh memorization of dates and buildings. Rather there was material presented and we were encouraged to sketch our notes rather than take down

tedious and wordy details. As architecture students, this made much more sense to me.

This tactic also taught me more because rather than knowing who designed a building and when, I could identify buildings much quicker. The project that I favored the most was our first “3-D drawing” assignment.

We were able to choose from a range of architects and essentially researched one of their projects from documents only from the time frame of the project. Going through fifty year old architecture journals was research in its own but after seeing how an essentially dead style of architecture was presented in its own modernity was not something I could learn in a classroom setting. After researching Michael Graves’ Snyderman House, I immediately knew how I wanted to execute this project. The house shows a literal layering of different elements, especially the facade pieces. Creating a digital model of this house and applying it to paper elements helped me create the piece I had thought of when I first saw the house. Recreating a piece of famous architecture in a way that it had never been seen before felt challenging but rather rewarding.

When learning about art and architecture from the far past, I always felt a slight disconnect. It wasn’t until learning in depth about the recent sixty years that I felt that I could really pursue this as a career.

Seeing architecture that was influenced by politics, war, the societal conscious, and economics shaped my mindset even more.

Architecture is not simply a building in an anonymous landscape, it is everything that directly and indirectly influenced its existence.

SHALOM

he semester of fall 2019 has been the most transformative component of my education. One class and project in particular was with Professor Elena Rocchi, APH 405 Contemporary Architecture. While there was an array of styles and architects covered, what stuck with me the most was the Postmodern era. The style itself interested me but the underlying societal influences and the characteristics of the epoch is what really grabbed my attention. Up until this point, everything I had learned about architectural history felt cemented in the past. While the Postmodern is also locked into its place in history, I felt a sense of familiarity and nostalgia for it. Even after learning about more recent styles, I feel the most connected to the Postmodern. While the Postmodern style is not completely new and borrows from past styles, its eclecticism is what makes it so unique to me. The criticism against the Postmodern was somewhat covered in class and I researched on my own as to why some despised it so much. While the objective facts were presented to us in class, my subjective opinion is that we saw the Postmodern born after an era of fragility and scarcity.

The idealistic and Utopian mindset of the Modernist movement had failed and not lived to its grand expectation.

The somewhat mechanical aspects of the Modernist movement seemed more about pure function rather than comfort and humanity.

32 REFLECT

T

Stack House Cesar Lopez-Rodriguez_Year 3 John Lee

T

his multi-family housing project was one that was fully driven on the existence of the social and economic divide that currently exists within downtown Phoenix.

The site is located at the intersection of Central and Hadley, typically considered an underdeveloped area of the city. This neighborhood is known for empty lots and crime, but can also be characterized by its strong community. The aim of the project was to dissect its unique social landscape and design a way to improve the community without displacing its residents.

I began by researching buildings produced by architects who had also worked with complicated social issues and limited budgets. I dove into the work of “Sustainable Housing” by Tatiana Bilbao, “Half House”

by Alejandro Aravena and “12” by a student organization called Matericos Perifericos.

I realized that a shared similarity between these vastly different projects was the human essence at the center of them. The idea is that architecture isn’t about creating aesthetic or curated experiences, but rather the way in which the work itself facilitates people’s ability to take ownership and pride of their own spaces and communities.

Upon reflection, this building is a multifamily housing project that aims to improve the neighborhood in a thoughtful and controlled manner which doesn’t alienate its inhabitants. I looked to do so without having to rely on creating an overly complicated design, but rather creating a monolithic block made from very simple materials such as masonry and wood with thoughtful openings that offered the public a glimpse of life on the inside as well as giving community members an opportunity to sell and food and other goods. In turn, the parking lot transforms into a community market in which everyone can participate. I looked to improve the lacking street frontage

“

There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.

�

The more I read it, the less I understood it.

It seemed to me like this was the opposite of everything I normally thought. Until it clicked. It made me rethink everything that I thought I knew. Kundera spoke to me in a way that nothing I had ever spoken to me before. To me, passion is finding the right balance between my own beliefs and those who challenge them. I want the life

LOPEZ-RODRIGUEZ

Personally, my passion for architecture emerged when I embraced my fascination of the fast-paced American lifestyle which was something completely foreign to me upon my arrival in the United States. I found myslef living for the moments in which I felt a helplessness of having to complete many different things, yet overcoming them all at once. My passion is finding the correct marriage between fast and slow; between rushing to get things done and appreciating the things that have brought me to where I am. It was during my second year of college, whilst doing research for a class, that I came across an interesting quote by Milan Kundera:

I live and the architecture that I produce to be about celebrating moments over tangible materials. As architects, we can change the built environment, but we can also craft moments for the lives of those we touch. We have the unique ability to create, to destroy, and to impact the lives of others in a way not familiar to many practices.

34 REFLECT

this neighborhood had by proposing a commercial corridor along Central Ave, one street south of the light rail station. My aim within the larger project was to create an organizational system that could be used lay out the units within the larger floor plates. In order to accommodate the variety of different unit types available I decided to make everything into a module of 8 to accommodate for brick walls. The project is a multi-family housing project that acts as empty slate on which life can happen. This project aims to give community members an opportunity to interact with one another in a way that this neighborhood has never allowed for.

REFLECT

36

LOPEZ-RODRIGUEZ

A Design Build Studio in the time of COVID-19 Felipe Mesa & Catherine Spellman_Professor

What can you do in a design build studio when you can’t work in group or build?

We decided to create a video remotely, to explain the importance of our studio to the architecture program, to the community, to spread our academic activities, to fundraising and mainly, to continue working together with a positive attitude.

This is the script of the video:

Complexity as a process: In architecture complexity is a goal and a process.

When you accept the complexity of the project: the site, the budget, the client, the materials, the environment, the ecosystem, the desire to make something beautiful, architecture is more inclusive.

History of design build: Design build has a long tradition in the profession.

It also has a tradition in education.

We can do design build here at ASU. Participants and donors: This is Marc, he is the program head for architecture, and is a big supporter of the design build.

MESA, SPELLMAN

Representation vs. action: Architecture is a profession.

In education professionals learn by doing.

Musicians play music.

Doctors treat patients.

Architects design in order to build buildings.

….

This is Jason, he is the Director of The Design School, and also supports the design build. ….

This is Steven, he is the Dean of HIDA and is helping us navigate university processes. ….

This is Catherine and Felipe, they are the faculty leading the design build. ….

This is Tom, we are going to work with him and his community in Camp Tontozona. ….

This is Alison and Craig, they are financially supporting the first project. ….

This is Grady, and he has been going to Camp Tontozona since he was a little kid and he loves this place. ….

This is Andy, he is an owner of a company that does design build.

The company is advising and financially supporting the design build. ….

This is David, he is a structural engineer that is helping us with the structural design of the design build project. ….

This is Joe, he is the director of Facilities and Development Management.

He is helping us navigate the many

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Design Build Studio: This is a pencil.

This is a piece of paper.

This is a drawing of a design.

This is a pavilion.

These are students.

This is faculty.

This is a group of campers.

This is a design build studio where all these things come together to create a project for the community.

rules and regulations we need to follow. …

This is Ed, he is Campus Architect at ASU and supports the design build. …

This is Jim, he is the Executive Director of Auxiliary Business.

His group is helping finance the design build project. ….

This is Michael, he is also an owner of a design build company.

He is helping us start our nonprofit company.

Orange Build: Liability is another complexity in design build Especially for a university To deal with this we are starting a private nonprofit company Which will carry insurance to cover liability It is called Orange Build It will serve many types of students and many communities Forest Place: This is our first project It is called Forest Place and it is a place in the forest.

It is: modular, flexible, adaptable, stable, light and strong, permeable, and ecological On this project you can: gather, view,

climb, eat, play, learn, rest, sleep, enjoy the forest All this is accomplished with a triangle Wood: Wood is a great material.

It is organic, affordable, local, renewable, beautiful and students can pick it up and move it around.

Forest Place development: In the Forest Place project we are building: eight triangular bays, each with three columns and diagonal and horizontal connections.

It has 23 platforms with different heights.

There are two climbing walls and trees in several of the bays.

Construction documents: These are the construction documents.

Where you can see foundations, columns, beams, struts, platforms, and metal connections in detail.

Construction manual: This is a construction manual that shows how to put the project together step by step.

The shop: For a studio like this you need a great shop.

Which we have here at ASU. This is Ben, one of the shop instructors.

Budget: Every element cost something: concrete, wooden members, screws, nails, metal plates, etc…

In the Forest Place project all this adds up to about $70,000 WOW.

This is Phil, he is Associate Director and he is helping us with fund raising.

1 year in advance: Design build projects take a lot of planning.

We have to start one year in advance of building.

So, we have started the next project Also, with the triangles.

It is called “The Entrance.”

Credits: Alex, Arielle, Boyana, Breeana, Carolina, Catherine, Cody, Cody, Devon, Erika, Felipe, Grandon, Hemanth, Henry, Jakob, Jui, Julien, Ke, Kyndra, Lamarra, Lindsey, Michael, Mollie, Nicholas, Omar, Oran, Quiara, Sean, Yanet, Zachary

MESA, SPELLMAN

Technical details: A project like this is mostly about the connections.

It is an erector set.

All our connections are made in galvanized steel and will be strong and will last forever.

Fund raising: BUT… there are many ways to raise this money.

We can write grants, we can ask industry partners and community partners for support, we can start a Go Fund Me. For the Forest Place project we have support from Tonto Creek Camp, The Construction Zone and ASU.

40 REFLECT

Anyone could build it, with a little collaboration.

The Rules of Consciousness Nasrynn Chowdhury_Year 4 Abigail Hoover & Ben Perrone

A

true form of progression can only occur alongside a certain degree of reflection; what has been that will allow the future thing to be? How is it that one ever unequivocally treads forward unaware of where he or she has been? Or without wondering and discovering which experiments have malfunctioned, which have triumphed, and for what reasons? In this way, I think architecture as a discipline inherently lends itself to a great deal of introspection. We have been taught to avoid at all costs the invention of CabriniGreen II or to imitate the graphic stylings of Mr. Ingels.

city of 2.93 million people, and I joked that the only Canadian I knew was my cousin, whose name I proceeded to nonchalantly speak. His jaw dropped; it just so happens that the two were inseparable childhood friends. Perhaps this was just an instance of absurd coincidence, but in any case, if we’re so taught the criticality of context, this fundamental query must stand: what is the extent of the context we must consider?

More importantly, can we even define these extents? And if we cannot (which I believe to be the case), then why does our scope of relevance terminate at the perimeters of the site itself?

In our substantially inward focus and pursuit, we often fall prey to the erroneous belief that our field exists within a vacuum when the reality is painstakingly the contrary. Context, context, context. Architectural education has harangued its pupils about this, reiterating the necessary sensitivity her design must display towards its context (though one might argue otherwise). But within the chaotic infinitude that is human life, almost all matter relates in some way. I was once in conversation with my friend about the city in which he was raised, Toronto, a

In the fall of 2019, I took a class titled The Quest for Enhanced Consciousness. At first glance, the name itself seemed a bit pretentious, but then I skimmed the description, which went something like: in this class we will learn about and discuss the history and evolution of the human’s search for an enhanced state of being, from the Greek pursuit of knowledge to psychedelics to modern biopharma and technological advances. Call me a nerd, but I was genuinely intrigued. And so I enrolled in the class, and, (at the risk of sounding dramatic),

CHOWDHURY

The following exploration re-imagines the conventional theater in the year 2050, speculating the threshold of digital mediation within the built environment. In a progressively digitally-mediated world, how does the virtual alter the physical whilst obscuring the demarcation between reality and fiction? This query is navigated through a succession of three proposed typologies of theater with varying degrees of digital immersion. The art of performance exists at the mercy of subjectivity, thus creating a dichotomy between the objective, the

physical shared world, and the subjective, its virtual counterpart. The three typologies follow: Plato’s Theory of Forms, La Reality Virtuelle, and the Cartesian Theater, each increasingly “subjective,” with greater virtual illusion. Likewise, the form of the architecture is subject to this progression, allowing the spectator/actor to physically ascend as his or her world becomes saturated in the virtual. The theater, defined by its seating and stage, formally dissolves but is vertically reassembled as a continuous ramp, enwrapped in an ensemble of four mobius strips. Just as its physical constituents begin to marry, so too do its human users, the actor and spectator often becoming one.

42 REFLECT

that was the moment the Architect and the Philosopher in me fell in love.

In this manner, the Architecture of the virtual and physical activate one another and ultimately cohabitate.

With the advent of mass media, today’s interconnections have become manifold, or perhaps simply visibly substantiated.

We must not be so puritan in our thinking.

We must instead attempt to seize these favorable circumstances by allowing our Architectural fantasies to be whisked away by, for a lack of a better term, a Bacchanalia of multiple realms of thought.

And in being seduced by what she had once considered alien, She might bear mutants, unpredictable and disobedient, who may just start the revolution that will one day liberate Her.

REFLECT

44

CHOWDHURY

Interfaith Emery Karenzi, Rikkie Pedregon, Susan Liu, Yuchhen Zhao_Competition

T

o define one’s architecture aside from the context of where the building lives is impossible. This is the case especially with the Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda during the country’s civil war in 1994. One hundred days of killing left Rwanda in cultural, socio-economic, and medical shambles. To this day, Rwandans are working to rebuild the country and the people’s faith in the prosperity of the structures set in place.

Moments of healing like that from the genocide are moments of unity, the weaving of a new fabric from what was torn by catastrophe. And with these situations, understanding the feasibility and implementation of architecture is of utmost importance. This includes understanding native construction methods, utilizing local resources and creating a timeline for construction which is possible to execute.

The initial assignment was to create a Prayer space for just a 100 people. But, after taking into consideration all the factors affecting such an assignment, we created a campus that will be built in phases, by people and by the same budget that was intended for just the church. This project would become a significant feature for the community to commemorate and continue the healing process. We went about the project with the goal of creating a malleable form of architecture that works well with history, environment, people, and enriches the existing building system.

The Rwandan culture has integrated sustainable methodologies into their day to day lives. Specifically, in designing this space, the team looked at the ‘umuganda’ cultural practice, where the people of the various communities gather together

KARENZI, PEDREGON, LIU, ZHAO

46 REFLECT

1 Common Restrooms 2 Bamboo Field / Gray Water 3 Solar Panels 4 Water System 5 Bamboo Process & Construction Atelier 6 Learning Spaces 7 Playground 8 Amphitheater 9 Chapel

by federal mandate to provide services cleaning their surroundings. This principle of comradery between citizens could be used in this project from material extraction to completion. The process starts with the planting of bamboo, a very profitable and resilient plant to the region. The site located in Rukomo-Rwanda, is made of a system which would feed grey water to the bamboo fields for irrigation and filtration, functioning as another layer of infrastructure designed to house the production of bamboo agriculture, from harvesting and processing, to when it becomes a construction material for the construction of a campus, including a community center, makerspace and prayer room.

The ceiling of the church is crafted with the aim to filter the natural light sourced by skylights. A bamboo roof structure rests on steel columns, connected to the stone retaining walls by steel anchors. The retaining walls around the nave, mimics the sloping environment that the campus sits on. The bamboo fields in the prayer space inspire a specific ambiance of peace and privacy for growth but also a space emphasizing the altar describing the function of the space.

Architecture for the people and by the people is a meaning interwoven in the process of concept design and construction of this project. It is through this unified effort and more exploration of the structures that will lead to construction of a church that will not only serve the community, but surface as a fruit of its hard work and unity, and also lead to strengthening bonds among participants. The strength of the people is the strength of the bamboo which makes up this space. It is grown natively, constructed, and holds up the fabric which we use to breathe again.

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KARENZI, PEDREGON, LIU, ZHAO

Secluded Social Hailee Rother Matt Salenger

D

esigning is a process, not the result. I have learned to dig deeper, think deeper, design deeper. My depth of learning has expanded to extend beyond the surface, down to the roots. As I designed, my projects would evolve naturally. They would start as a thought and grow branches and leaves, until I would rethink and dig deeper. The branches were cut and forced to grow differently.

The preliminary design of all my projects were planted on the surface. I would hate what they came out to be since they were not given proper thought and nutrients. At this point in the process I would replant the seed and begin again, using what I enjoyed about the first design and morphing the parts that were not working. I would design deeper each time I came to an “end” result, making small changes that would all build upon one another to become fully grown. But as we all know, in the design world there is no end, and nothing is ever fully grown. There always seem to be something more we can do, digging deeper, thinking deeper. But at some point, we run out of time. Time pushes us all to the brink, thinking up as much as we can, as fast as we can. But as I approach the end of the allotted time, I develop my ideas to a point where they are communicable, and I end up not being able to see my successes. My failures are in the spotlight: the incomplete drawings, mess-ups in the model, and compositions that need to be revisited. To others though, they fail to notice the flaws.

I scrap my designs, but I never forget them. There were always the original roots that sprouted my next idea. The process of digging forced me to redevelop and reflect on my designs after every iteration instead of only at the “end.” I learned through reflection, redevelopment, redoing, and digging. Even

when I was stuck and the soil was hard and dry, I had a helping hand. Peers, friends, review boards, professors all help me to apply more force to break the surface to get to the next layer of thought, the next layer of design. A community was fostered through hardships, trials, frustrations, breakthroughs. In growing my connections, my ideas followed. Sometimes though when I push myself and trust my instincts my ideas begin to sprout naturally and wildly and become everything that I want them to be.

My community helps me reel in my thoughts, trim the stray branches to get to the point where the idea is presentable, clean. I do not rely fully on the communities, because at certain times we must rely on ourselves and trust ourselves. We must trust the process.

I have noticed throughout my journey that it is impossible to reach my full capabilities by watching, having people tell me what to do and the steps to take to reach the end result. I learn by doing and discovering on my own – thinking to myself “what is the best way to do this? How do I become more efficient?” My own curiosity pushes me to dig. There is more than one way to design and we must all find our niche, discover what makes us grow the strongest and stand out individually. Everything grows under different conditions: more sun, less sun, high temperature, less water. There are a million variables that contribute to growth, so following one person’s successes that made them grow is not a way to encourage individual growth. We must experiment, adjusting these variables to discover what works and what does not. Eventually we will fine-tune the conditions to get to the point where we thrive. All it takes is some digging.

REFLECT

50

ROTHER

I think about the process. I think about how to get from Point A to the Point B. I think about where I started and how far I have come and how much further I am going to go. I think. I hope I never stop thinking, because if I do that means I have run out of ideas and how does one design without ideas? That is why we must think. We must think individually and collaboratively.

We must dig to think of questions to ask ourselves, dig to the next level of thought, dig to our next idea. I know if I stop digging, I stop growing – no new seedlings, blossoms, buds. I want to blossom. I want to dig.

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ROTHER

A Letter from the Director of the Design School Jason Schupbach

Along with the leadership of the School and the University, we have been spending a lot of time reflecting on what the next academic year brings, and what is ahead for our graduates.

Here’s where my head is at: For our students who are returning, we promise to continue to deliver the best education we can in any given circumstance.

While we will work hard to have a safe in-person experience in the Fall, I think we all realize that architectural education will be forever changed by the last 6 weeks.

What have we learned about the remote education delivery method that is good?

Was the schedule easier for some students?

How could it save money for students if we go more digital? Should we ever make anyone sit through long lectures in person again? At America’s most innovative university, we will take the lessons learned

For our graduates, pandemics always change the world – ALWAYS – in unpredictable ways. We have given you the diverse set of skills necessary to take on any problem – and do we ever have some problems to solve! Already you were going into an unsure political and environmental world, and now you have a major, gamechanging health and economic crisis to deal with. I ask that you not be defeated, but to see all of these challenges as opportunities.

Build the world YOU want, not the world we have. So many opportunities exist to reshape our world now – and we all need you to help us figure this out.

To all of you: be bold, and be brave. It’s a long life we have ahead and every survivor of any crisis will tell you they emerged stronger and wiser on the other side. I have faith in all of you. Bravo to you all for everything you have done to make this a successful year! Your success makes me 100 percent sure we will go forward and be even better than before.

SCHUPBACH

and build the architecture program of the future, not return to the past. We were already headed in this direction with the ReDesign project, and now we will push even harder for change.

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I’m just leaving Architecture’s amazing MAYDAY event, an online celebration of student’s excellent work and a goodbye to our Graduates of 2020. I was brought to tears of joy by this event. Your spirit of community and the resilience of students and faculty in this difficult time was EVERYTHING.

1: Do you have any tacky glue I can borrow?

2: I am 300 miles away from you right now but yea I can ship it.

56

Hongkong’s Puzzle Peter Lam

M

onths of demonstration in Hong Kong have, for better or worse, remade the design of the city. The rough contours of the anti-government movement are visible everywhere.

These demonstrations have transformed the city in ways unimagined before.

Public spaces whose roles few typically questioned have all suddenly become sites of protest: shopping malls, underpasses, bridges, freeway columns, tram stops, and even roadway medians. Bricks and bamboo poles, typically used on construction sites and for scaffolding, have been fashioned into makeshift barricades by protesters.

Where do we go next and in what direction?

The once mundane sites have reconfigured

into spaces of political expression and have caused both the city and government not to take public submissive behavior for granted.

The reconfiguration of these mundane sites into spaces of political expression shows how Hong Kong’s public space

“

is clearly made by the people, not something simply given by the state, and certainly not to be taken for granted o observe is to be open-minded without prejudice of any kind.

”

The demonstrators’ outcry for a more democratized form of urban design is reflected in the transformation of their streets

This project aims to redefine what it means to speak up against the government.

Before, disgruntled citizens would protest while the other population would keep their distance, and the government would only intervene when times escalated. In the future, we envision a political climate where disgruntled citizens and the rest of the population could come together, and our project will act like a synthesized machine for co-existence. This type of demonstration would function more as a time for education in social awareness and a space for the public.

Rooted in values of inclusion and celebration, this strategy knits together an urban political

Inside the structure, one can find endless examples of political satire of the specific situation happening. The project bridges the gap between lifestyle, ethnic background, and political orientation by providing various scenarios to come together. This space offers the opportunity of pollical exchange — citizens can engage in dialog over the political satire and understand different points of view. In this way, the act of demonstrating becomes a resource to society as a citizen can gather and swap different perspectives, allowing the structure to be multifunctional — maximizing human interaction and human retention. Once achieved, this project has the potential to restore vital aspects of human well-being grounded in social interactions and territorial behavior. This blending of the public realm and discourse is especially significant here. Synonymous with collectivism behavior, this structure will serve as a subconscious continuation of the ideal world under a culturally political crisis.

The game TETRIS was an inspiration for the design of the proposal. Like the game, each compartment of the structure fits perfectly with each other to create a suitable cosmopolitan prototype. With its rectangle shape, this structure forms a high-density and efficient public communication space.

Each compartment will be distinct and showcase different activities, all the while being integrated and connected.

LAM

The creation of the following building is a response to Hong Kong’s demonstrations by re-signifying contemporary programs. It is a project that has a goal of diverging from disagreement and disunity and turns to unity and compromise instead.

However, there is a state of absence in a space where citizens can express themselves politically without getting entangled with the law, so this project bridges that gap by taking on the tough question of protesting and offers a number of civic amenities including arcades, public plazas, library, and performance spaces in the carnival state of being. This structure will be built via stacking different volumes together, with the base following the narrow-gauge tramway “Ding ding Tram” along Hennessy Road, which serves as a cultural heritage for Hong Kong.

activity for a future that more socially aware, socially savvy, and socially unifying.

58 REFLECT

and public spaces, while their defiance against norms and regulations is echoed in their recreation of the city. Some might argue that this new behavioral pattern has given Hong Kong’s urban planning an opportunity for an overdue facelift. These demonstrations have shown the world the power of collectivism as well as how creativity drives the creation of new design decisions and urban planning.

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LAM

First Impression Ashley Ontiveros Madriz_Year 1 Kristian Kelley & Elena Rocchi

B

eing in the Design School this first year is like the first step out of bed in the early morning. This year became filled with crazy experiences of late-night work and energetic mornings. I came to realize that this first year in the Design School let me explore my creative side. I learned that I usually strive for simple designs, but I also want to bring in a sort of complexity with it. I came across those “aha” moments, and when I sat at my desk, the hours flew by because focused so much on an assignment.

I think my first year in the Design School was an experience that I didn’t imagine.

It sounds odd because I am not using the word love, but I’m being honest when I say that the Design School has taught me to appreciate the work that I do. After all, there is no right or wrong design. The craft of the photographs was a wild ride because I definitely did some odd poses around campus to get the perfect angle. I found comfort in the words of every designer that I came across because everyone had their piece of advice that was invaluable to me.

The advice that you must accept that there are limits to your design; work is never really finished; and ask myself what if I changed my design in the slightest. I learned to be patient when I had to repeat the same cut sheet after sheet of butter board, only to fling it up into the air, and find something new. In all of these assignments, I appreciated the fact that I made an idea come to reality.

When I saw my butter board flung into the air, it was heart racing, but I realized that I shouldn’t obsess over my work because it meant that I wasn’t accepting the fact that you can always improve.

Sometimes I just know that when I walk out to any place, my mind switches to design, and I start thinking about the ways that my project could be better, or how that building does or doesn’t speak design.

Sometimes, I just know.

I would say that this year has inspired me to always strive for better design; to think outside the box. I also had the opportunity to meet such amazing designers and people around campus while in the Design School, being my professors, guest speakers, and my studio peers. I became so enthralled with the whole idea of design itself. I can sit down with my design friends and talk about the next project, and I can talk to my mentor about the cool assignments we did in the semester.

All of these moments became my first impression of the Design School, and I appreciate it all.

MARTIZ

The only difference now, after this course of two semesters worth of Architecture, is that I like what I do. To think about Architecture, I think about design, and when I think about design, I think about all of the moments within the first year that helped me get through the limitations. I learned to appreciate design.

How do I prove that I learned something in this first year in Design School? I think the use of the sketchbooks helped me jot down the most random thoughts and use it for reference when I worked on the latest assignments. I wrote down the simplest tip of advice from the Friday lectures and sessions from pin-up, and when I read back to them, I tried to put those to the test. I flip back to the first sketchbook of the semester, and I remember it was really hard to fill a quarter of it, and I also look back at the photos and Canson and butter board and bristol paper, and it all comes together to make up the year of finding a design for the first time.

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I had a set of ideas before joining the Architecture program: a lot of math, a lot of work, a lot of coffee, and a lot of anxietyproducing moments that would make me question my choice of career. It’s a lot of everything, and I think that being a Design student still has its own set of struggles and challenges, but this first year pushed me to embrace those challenges. I still hear those comments to this day: questioning how difficult the Architecture program must be in the future, and the amount of math and pressure to get a building to stand upright.

Reconnecting...

Ananth Udupa_Year 2 Karín Santiago

T

ell me, my friend. How do you feel about this life in design? Can we do this together? Ok.

We have made a switch to an alternate universe. Access by touch denied, we sit in one spot consuming incredulous amounts of media, an endless drive on the information superhighway. In this moment of overstimulation, we are asked to create, to build, to think in abstraction. How can we think apart from our lived context especially when we are constantly facing a technicolor square asking for clarity? Can we as a design school affirm that we have properly changed the curriculum to fit the times?

This semester, the second year final projects answered the word “transformation.” The class seamlessly morphed from its initial mode of physical modeling to virtual world building in wake of the pandemic.

Before spring break, each student was assigned a building on campus to observe and document various physical details in ascending importance. The second half started fresh; each student was given a column selected by the faculty instructors and asked to perform transformations throughout the weeks, ultimately creating a space inspired by not only the column but the process of transformation itself. With diversity on the transformations chosen onto the columns, each student ended up with a unique yet collective response to a prompt.

integrate physical and metaphysical, the second allowed the student to work towards understanding the process of one or two movements.

My personal investigation involved operations of splitting open and making void on Enric Miralles’s exterior column from the Sottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh, Scotland. To begin an investigation with a column intrinsically defines the purpose of any following transformation. A column’s purpose is to support, a solid uplifting a negative space for inhabitation. Nonetheless, questioning the premise of this definition begs the question, what is inside of a column?

I went about the visualization of opening and hollowing by defining weight, taking the positive and hollowing it into a void, and adding material to the negative. The path of light redefined the importance of the various parts of the original column, taking away emphasis from a central concrete column and placing it onto two supporting metal poles introducing a movement upward.

This motion of following the light defined the basic program to be a collaborative one, functioning as a meeting place for the community.

The main pitfall with this process was the lack of context. Though I acknowledge the experiment was to create a space and structure void of context and solely investigating the idea of transformation, The first half of the studio was successful reconnecting the new transformed space in defining the importance of detail, into a greater context would have been prompting students to investigate the detail an intriguing endeavor. It would have in connections within the building and its been interesting to push the students context. However, what was truly successful to further pursue a meaning and about this class was the second half. Though discourse beyond the visual. This might the first introduced specific construction entail emphasizing different disciplines like methodology and opened our eyes to better construction, biomimicry, and philosophy

OPEN

ROTATE

HOLLOW

DISTORT

CONNECT

DEFINE

ENVELOP

CIRCULATE

INHABIT

COMPETE

UDUPA

BEGIN

REFLECT

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Process Diagrams Progression from Enric Miralles Column to abstract building structure

in the process of abstraction itself. There is so much information that goes into the construction of our built environment, and it is very important to emphasize the various different disciplines that interact with our own in order to develop designers who are fully committed to the process not only of making but thinking.

This defining moment in history has invited the opportunity for us to collectively look out to the physical which envelops us and reevaluate our perspective. So, it becomes our responsibility to think how we can use this forced moment of reflection as a basis for a new architecture pedagogy.

“Manave Mandira,” song written by P.B. Sreenivas from Kannada film 1966, ThooguDeepa.

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The lyrics of famous Kannadiga songwriter, P.B. Sreenivas, from the song “Manave Mandira” makes one question the western definition of the individual, especially in times of crisis. Moments like this demonstrate the reliance on our community for prosperity.

Thus, our actions should emulate this perspective as well. I have found shelter in my home with my loved ones and the privilege to dream from the infinite capacity of the computer and rules of my work as an architecture student. But, we should not dissociate the fantasy that we have virtually created in the design school from the reality which we must design for and what messages we want to imprint on our society.

REFLECT

Me, you, him, her, we all are all mother’s children.

The thought of one heart is a home of love where god resides.

UDUPA

NaAnu neenu avanu avalu Ella onde thaaya sutharu.

Yemba bhava onde hridaya devaniruva premanilaya.

Angela Lufkin graduated with a BSD in Architectural Studies (Honors) from Arizona State University in 2015. She spent the following three years working as an urban designer at Utile in Boston, where she was on the winning team for the “domestiCITY for an Affordable Atlanta� design competition. She is curerntly pursuing her M.Arch I degree at the Yale School of Architecture, where she is coordinating editor for the student-run publication, Paprika!.

LUFKIN, CHOWDHURY

*rapidly googles tree species*

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Angela Lufkin: (jokingly) what other trees exist that aren’t Palo Verde trees??

Nasrynn Chowdhury: *laughs aloud*

“

We can’t not be political anymore, and we can’t keep pretending that our buildings aren’t.

”

Nasrynn Chowdhury:

Anyway, my interest in [practicing urban design] came out of my honors thesis at ASU. That was huge for me because it was the first time that I was able to craft an understanding of or think critically about what I was interested in. My project was centered around the design of a new urban system. I think urbanism in my time at ASU was always embedded in our projects implicitly though we didn’t have any specifically urban-scale studios. So the thesis was my opportunity to test out thinking at that scale, which was critical for me moving forward.

I also thought that it was really impactful to have my first year studios combined with the landscape architecture students; we thought a lot through topography and the connection between the building and the earth. I ended up considering landscape more than I imagined that I would at Utile, which is where I worked as an urban designer. I think that goes back to the fact that The Design School is genuinely multi-disciplinary where there’s landscape, interior, graphic, and industrial design, and I don’t think I realized how much it trickled into me — the understanding of how design operates in all of these realms. That’s something I kind of miss now because Yale is only an architecture school. When I was working at Utile, I was at one point designing a game for community engagement for the Boston city plan. It was funny because I thought, “oh I can design a game,” but I only felt confident in that because I had been around friends who were designing all sorts of things at ASU.

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Angela Lufkin: I ended up working as an urban designer after I studied architecture at ASU. I don’t think I necessarily anticipated that I would do this; I left school feeling like I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with architecture and a lot of people told me “if you don’t go to graduate school right away, you’ll never go back to school!” and I thought, “I don’t know if that’s true.”

LUFKIN, CHOWDHURY

What elements of your education at ASU most strongly translated to your post-graduate practice?

And in terms of ASU being situated in Phoenix and in a desert, as opposed to the conventional big city where you might not experience the same exposure to nature, how do you think that context translated to your education at ASU? First off, it was really funny because I realized how much I learned about the plants in Arizona. After I moved to Boston, I remember making a rendering and thinking, “what other trees exist that aren’t Palo Verde trees?”

But maybe that’s what I was trying to get at earlier regarding a sensitivity to landscape; starting architecture at ASU, everything felt a lot more in tune with that sort of context. And I think that made it challenging in some ways to work in a more urban city afterward. So working at Utile, to me, felt like going into a master’s program. I don’t think I fault ASU for not leaning into a more stereotypically urban

context — it would have been inauthentic — but I do believe that if you want to get an understanding of urbanism in a different type of city, you should just try living somewhere completely new for a couple of years. Because there was no studio or class at ASU that could have prepared me to work as an urban designer in Boston. I felt like I had developed the design framework to jump into something like that, but I don’t think that my undergraduate necessarily prepared me for that specific experience.

So then how was that transition from an architectural education surrounded by landscape to a practice in an almost entirely urban landscape?

When you’re coming out of undergrad, you’re also just learning how to be a real citizen of where you live. I moved to Boston where I didn’t have a pre-existing social network which, outside of work, forced me to experience the city differently than perhaps I would have otherwise. I felt so excited to take the T (the Boston subway) to work every day and loved the fact that I could walk to a bar at the end of the street. I learned as much about urbanism just living in a city like that, and it caused me to re-frame what it means in a desert environment — it’s something completely different. It’s impossible to wish that Phoenix could become like Boston. Though it is crazy how fast things are changing there.

I was just home over break and I thought, “Tempe feels like such a different city now.”

Seeing Tempe develop makes me think a lot about the invisible framework that already exists in a city which ultimately dictates what any new architecture has the potential to look like.

“

Whether that’s the forces of capitalism or zoning codes, all of those things are choosing a lot for you before you even begin.

”

I think that’s something that I learned at Utile, but also something that I can’t unsee now— I can’t see development without imagining the invisible world behind it.

Do you see that same sort of invisible framework in Tempe or even Phoenix, given that the city exists as a less conventionally urban context?

Yes, definitely. It’s funny, I remember talking to Max Underwood when I was in his thirdyear studio about Downtown Phoenix and

asking, “what’s up with Phoenix, why aren’t there any new high rises going up?” I was just confused as to why Phoenix wasn’t more

than it was, why all of the projects that were being built were just multi-family housing.

He replied, “well, there’s no market for it.” It seems obvious to me now but that’s really when I first understood that there has to be a market for someone to build a certain kind of

building, like a cultural building, or anything else. You can’t just wish your city looked differently because there are so many bigger forces that are shaping the way it is.

I think that’s certainly valid. It is interesting that the architect sometimes believes the larger context restricts their desire to shape the city.

What elements of your post-graduate practice have you observed translate into your education at Yale?

I’ve always wanted to be an architect, so even while exercising my interest in urban design at Utile, I knew that I would ultimately situate myself in architecture. The longer I was out of school, the more I understood what the big difference was between practicing as an urban designer versus practicing as an architect, especially in terms of their respective limits of influence. When I was contributing to both the Boston and Cambridge city plans, I saw how the work had a much larger impact on how the city developed in the big picture, but found it less immediately tangible or creatively fulfilling.

So I really knew that I wanted to go back to architecture school.

I think urban design was ultimately frustrating to me because it operates at a much slower pace and it can be very precarious. For example, I worked on projects for the city of Somerville where if someone else wasn’t reelected, the whole project might be paused or even completely scrapped. It was almost like a particular project was the pet project of a particular politician.

I think that because I had studied architecture at ASU, then worked in urban design, I viewed going back to architecture school as the opportunity to sharpen yet another pencil. Yale has called itself pluralistic, meaning it doesn’t have a single overarching ideology, so you are exposed to so many different positions in architectural discourse and ultimately have to decide for yourself where you stand.

If I hadn’t worked before, then I would’ve expected and needed grad school to give me everything. I think I’ve been much more focused while navigating this next phase of my education now that I’ve experienced different aspects of the profession and better know what I’m interested in, what I value, and what I want to get out of my time at Yale.

LUFKIN, CHOWDHURY

aesthetic agenda, you almost have to also build the world in which that exists. And that might mean trying to get grant money or going around the typical workings of things.

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Absolutely, I think it’s important to realize that when you’re in school, you’re the master of the universe in which your project exists, but it’s not really that way in the real world. If you want to build architecture that is pushing boundaries or has a certain political or

How does place (urban/cultural/ political/ social context) influence the institute?

I think this question is really central to contemporary architecture because place, and how we define it, is immensely political.

In the midterm reviews for my current design studio at Yale, we discussed how everyone has defined the scope of their projects in immensely different ways. Some students are doing these developer-type schemes that adopt a certain world view, others have taken on a post-apocalyptic future as a sort of contextual frame.

I think, no matter how you choose to situate the scope of your project, it’s always exclusionary. If you’re defining the socio-cultural context in a certain way, you’re choosing to incorporate some sort of value system or understanding of certain individuals and not others. I think what’s interesting about that is there’s no way around it. It can’t not be exclusionary because the world is just too diverse, there are too many people in it, and at some point, you need to take a stance on why things should be framed the way that they are.

Last semester, we designed an immigration center, and we were talking about it as a new institutional model. We discussed how civic buildings tend to have certain aesthetic

properties — which feels particularly relevant now given the potential for an executive order that may mandate all federal architecture to be classical. In the context of an immigration center where you’re trying to provide services to people who are viewed and treated in a certain way in these kinds of buildings, what that image of place means to them is completely different from what it means to my parents or someone else.

We can’t not be political anymore and we can’t keep pretending that our buildings aren’t.

And this also applies to ASU’s context; there’s a certain cost and class that is embedded in the type of glamorous, sexy desert aesthetic of the rammed earth walls and corten steel that we tend to fetishize in southwestern design — a lot of these associations start in school and privilege the aesthetics of wealthy houses in the middle of the desert. That is also an idealization of a very political and socioeconomic image of what it means to be desert architecture. When we idolize or use that as our precedent images, we’re also embedding a certain level of class into what we’re designing.

REFLECT

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LUFKIN, CHOWDHURY

Alternative Desert City Brandon Sheih_Year 4 Bryan Maddock

I also learned valuable programs such as Rhino and Adobe Illustrator. These two programs were essential to my renders as well as the design process. The tools that are implemented into each are incredibly useful to make quick mock models that would take you much longer to make on other programs… so get to learning!

How I learned was through the work of my contemporaries. When one student is doing well, it makes the others want to join in a friendly competitive sport of design. What made everyone do well in this studio was the project… it was such an alien in the midst of human projects that everyone’s interest in it became a passion. How did I learn? I learned by being inspired by other students, and seeing what they could do.

I really think that there needs to be more radical thinking studios at ASU since this is the one that confirmed I love what I am doing. It is a true shame that no more students will be able to experience a studio like this since the professor left. It was absolutely the most invigorating time I have had being a student studying architecture and I am scared that I will not experience that childlike feeling again. And of course we need to learn how to draw floor plans, and where to put plumbing, etc. but when that’s all we focus on, the full potential of creativity in a project is killed. Creativity comes first.

Necessities are second.

SHEIH

ome mantras I learned throughout my time in taking the Alternative Desert Cities studio were “go for it,” “think big,” and “learn more.” I have never had this much creative freedom with a studio and it was the most liberating feeling I have had as a student at ASU. Our professor pushed us to have “radical ideas” with no allowance of the mundane, traditional, megastructures we see today. There was no concern of logistics at first and I think that is how a design should start. Obviously we need logic in design… but what if we pursued creativity and beauty first and then molded our design instead of vice-versa? I learned to let my mind run free and then have logistics catchup.

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SHEIH

Genus in Design Oishwarya Sarkar_Year 6 Philip Horton

A

city is a large human settlement, a permanent and densely populated place where primary income opportunities are not based in agriculture. Cities have desingated sections for housing, industry, education, commerce, and other activities.

Though cities have been placed within Earth’s natural sites and hinterlands, its transaction has not been equal.

The road towards a sustainable future began with the reduction of carbon waste from our infrastructure to net zero carbon usage through renewable energy sources and finally towards positive energy infrastructure design.

The conversation about sustainability continues, but the ideation of involving nature into human society is left out.

Natural ecosystems existed before the anthropocene and went through many evolutions of organic systems that are highly compatible to the environment.

These systems often involve different tiers of organisms within the food chain and a keystone species.

Keystone species are organisms whose functions affect the livability of other organisms within its ecosystem. This term was first coined in the 1960s by Ecologist Robert Paine during his observation on the relationships between marine invertebrates of the intertidal zone. The term ‘keystone’ was metaphorically taken from the role of the keystone in an arch. Keystone species have the ability to design with tools which are parts of their body or techniques to create stable conditions. Its housing always cater to other organisms and have an afterlife in case of abandonment. Like a keystone species, humans design with tools created with resources found in nature in order to invent techniques to advance our lifestyle.

Keystone species are considered the most important species in their ecosystem due to the facilities they provide. However, humanity

In 2016, Paine published a paper on the “Hyperkeystone” species which was a play on the word “Hyper-parasite”. It is defined as a species that affects multiple keystone species across different habitats and drive complex and connected interaction between chains. Human exploitation along with non-tropic impacts have complex effects on target and non-target species within various interactive webs. Since the extinction of most megafuana in land ecosystems, keystone species are under direct human influence.

Due to this change, humans became the primary and dominant component of contemporary ecosystems. By targeting these species, we have depleted and compromised their valuable functions. This has created a new chain of interactions and changed the existing roles of various species.

A possible subsequent change could be extinction of the human race.

How is it possible to deviate from this possible faith? A solution is to strengthen ecological corridors within cities and possible hotspots to create cyclic chains to blur the boundries of nature and urbanspace

The keystone species usually maintains an hierarchy with their services. Hence, by studying its heirarchy, we can attempt to design for functions which will enhance the community without quantitatively calculating the parameters and results.

Along with typologies, the project works with five different conditons to address the urban geography. For instance, the abandoned Hohokam and live SRP water canals which can create scope for species hotspots. Or outdoor microclimating during summer to create interactive neighborhoods with basic local utilities around the city.

The keystone species observed in this project are Ironwood, Saguaro cactus and Leafcutter ants. Other organisms who do not fit the category of keystone species but are essential to represent desert climate adaptation are Social ants and Talus snails. While these organisms are of different species and function differently, all of them have shown common characteristics which allows them to survive in the Sonoran Desert.

For example, ironwood and saguaro have similar functions like insulation from heat, shading primary consumers and producers.

However, Talus snail only cater to themselves with their gastropod shell.

SARKAR

This led to the development of the idea to redesigning general typologies of various landscape such that they behave like keystone species. How to deisgn generously without over-designing? Can architecture which is generous create a new methodology of sustainable design?

This project illustrates an intention to reconnect human civilization with nature as well as act in harmony with other species.

Coinciding with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, one can begin to to inquire into novel forms of sustainability which are not human-centric.

Ultimately, this project is to create a methodology to evolve simple building structures of common suburban typologies within Phoenix,such as commercial retail strips, single-family housing units, and industrial offices, to provide innovative sustainble services and act as keystone species for the existing Desert ecosystem.

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shares similar characteristics and do not provide nearly as many services to other species. Ecological keystone species are far more generous than anthropogenic infrastructure.

Anti-Hostile Architecture Oriana Gil Perez_Year 5

The school design team agreed that for them public meant to design for all no matter who you are or where you come from, but some people around the world do not think the same way and we decided to study them to make our point stronger.

While researching we came across a design approach known as ‘hostile architecture’ intentional design strategies to maintain order and maintain “public” safety, most commonly targeting vulnerable populations who relate in public spaces. Some of the design strategies of hostile architecture go from sharp metal teeth/spikes along low garden walls to metal plates in benches, to let you know that this is not your home.

We consider this is an inhumane approach targeting homelessness. We still needed to address our own definition of public spaces as well as safe space. The design team decided to implement a new design approach that aligned better with their values while addressing the client’s concerns, we call it Anti-Hostile Architecture.

Anti-Hostile Architecture uses urban planning techniques, architecture innovative solutions to provide safe spaces in a humane way for all. For this design, we located the successful events around the area and tried to extend them and attract the population to our school. We decided to use the first Friday event happening in downtown Phoenix which brings art and people together. We designed an open gallery at the corner of our site to invite people to our space and showcase student work, as well as hosting concerts, art in place and many events in our open plaza. We also wanted to bring this openness to the interior of the school classrooms through curtain walls.

The building is covered by a facade that precisely angles creating movement while providing shade in specific study areas where we wanted to control the sun exposure. This facade also has another function, more poetical but aesthetically appealing and functional. We assigned a dark steel color to the East face of the facade planks and a colorful red to yellow degradation pattern to the West face of the facade planks. Functional since it gives two faces to the building, if you are going to the East you see a dark but interesting moving building due to the facade’s various angles, if you are going to the West, you see a vibrant colorful, moving facade. Poetically, the dark color on planks symbolizes the hostile inhumane architecture could be if it is not addressed to the real public while the colorful crescendo pattern symbolizes the approaches we as a society are taking to generate the public good and finally achieve social justice.

PEREZ

he warehouse district in Phoenix fulfills the need for a school in the area, a school that could reinvent the future of the neighborhood. A school of art with a focus on social justice was assigned in the area, due to the large population of homeless and criminal events there. Many agreed that the school needed to have a perfect balance between private and public to provide a safe environment. Problems arise while deciding the open spaces and the spaces where students would interact with the community.

Many mentioned that design approaches should take place in the area to keep the nondesire population away from the public spaces. Some in the power of making design decisions strongly disagree with this idea of keeping some out of the public area, but it allowed them to reconsider What is public space? Is it really intended for all the public?

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T

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PEREZ

1: Sorry, I think my audio is cutting out?

2: You’re good. Is someone singing in the background?

1: Sorry again, that’s my mom. * 1 has muted his audio

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Why I Teach Marc J. Neveu, PhD_Professor, Head of Architecture at ASU

T

he final review went well, all things considered. I, we, were done. In about a week, we would all graduate and begin our professional lives. A few days before graduation, the letter showed up at my parents’ house in New Hampshire.

Incredulous, they called me and asked how could I have failed my final studio?

The letter explained further that not only did I not pass my final studio, I would not graduate. (wtf)

As I walked back to studio full of caffeine, my thesis emerged. How can an architect represent the characters, the life, and the story that a building witnesses?

I was reading a lot of bad noir fiction at the time. So, of course, I wrote a story…it was a dark and stormy night in New York City. My midterm began with those awful first lines and continued on to talk about massive moving buildings that walked into Manhattan one night (think Archigram, though I didn’t know them at the time). With

“But it isn’t a building. You need a building.”

Those were the first words from my professor’s critique. “But I do have a building, thousands of them. New York is full of them.”

I replied. “No, but you need to design a building or you don’t have a thesis project.”

She said. “But I do have a thesis.” I tried to explain but it went nowhere. After a sort of nasty blow up, I didn’t get a desk crit again that year. The last few weeks of studio were a blur of cut fingers, incredible support from friends, and a lot of doubt about the whole thing. Just before my final review, my “professor” left the room. I sat across from a row of critics and in front of my project – it was a 12” x 36” model of one of the walking buildings that opened up like a book to show six buildings, drawn in plan, section, and axonometric, each on a single page. On the opposite page was a story of each building. The review went well – good conversation and I felt that I had been heard.

Then, a few days later the letter arrived.

I walked, but I didn’t graduate. The director of the program at the time explained that I needed to draw a new building or I would not get credit for the studio and, as it seemed like I was interested in fiction, why not design a library? Palm meet face.

I left very soon after graduation for a road trip to Alaska. It was just the tonic I needed.

Back in Boston in September, I began work in an office and produced a working drawing

NEVEU

the promise of a shiny new future the creature-buildings filled up with the residents of the city. A new city emerged, above the old dirty city below. Then, one night, they walked away. Years passed and the role of the architect – as someone who drew buildings to be built – made no sense. No longer needing to project new buildings, the architect’s role was to read the existing abandoned buildings and to tell the stories they contained. This would be my project for the final eight weeks.

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The story starts a few months prior. Our thesis project that year was a competition for the piers near battery park in New York.

It was an open competition, more about ideas than anything else. With so few rules, the first few weeks of the studio were a lot of wheel spinning and a too quick trip to see the site. A conversation at Espresso Royale café on Gainsborough St., near Wentworth, where I went to school, changed everything.

I had been going to this café for my entire undergrad. I knew everyone and I even fell in love there. There was another Espresso Royale café near Boston University. For some reason I had wandered into that other café, sat down and felt oddly uneasy. The plan was the same; the chairs were the same; and the coffee was similarly served in a pint glass.

But it was not the same. Back at my café, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was also a regular. I told her of my trip across town to the other café and how odd it felt to be in the same space but not the same space, like wearing someone else’s pants.

Not an architect, she thought it was obvious – the characters in the café were different. Of course, my café had the “artist” (skinny white dude with dreads who was really a mover), the creepy professor (thick leather bracelet, drank only espresso and stared, a lot), James the manager (nicest guy you ever met and had a huge crush on my friend), etc. The people, the interactions, all made this café, my café.

Just after the break, I drove up to Montreal and sat in on a seminar. The rare books library at McGill is a funny thing. It is buried in the middle of a big, ugly, sort-of-brutalist building. Once you pass through security, though, it all changes. Lot’s of wainscoting, busts and paintings of too many old white men, the instantly recognizable smell of old books, and big wooden tables. I sat down, at the far end and felt more of an impostor than at any time in my life. Huge old books, tiny old books, prints, and really smart people were in the same room as me. And, there was Alberto, asking questions, fingers at his forehead, eyes squinting and looking

We walked back across campus and into his office. He told me about the program and then we sat down to review my portfolio. He could not have seemed less interested as he passed over pages of really important projects from my well-known office. Then, he got to my thesis. “Hmm, tell me more about this one,” he said. I told him the story, leaving out the bits about my professorial abandonment, my failing grade, and my library project (not in the portfolio). We talked more about the role of narrative in architecture and asked me questions about a lot of people that I had never heard of.

He ended by telling me that I was in if I was interested in coming to McGill. I just needed to complete all of my paperwork for the application. Really?

I went on to grad school at McGill, worked for a while back in Boston, and then continued on to do a PhD, also with Alberto. I realized over time that, while my thesis was naïve, it was not without context. The questions I was asking had been asked by many other people before me, I just didn’t know them.

As I reflect on this, I realize that it has been 25 years, almost to the day, of my final review. A lot has happened in that time, personally and professionally. My experience in that studio has helped to define how I teach and what I research. It has also led me to believe that every student has something in them that is interesting and important. Helping them to find their voice, create the space to allow them to ask their questions, and to help them find their own unique path is really why I teach.

NEVEU

I called the architecture program at McGill in November to try and talk with Professor Perèz-Gomèz. This was my dream school and I wanted to see if I had a shot. I had called other universities, with no luck. No one would talk to someone who was not yet a student. “He is not here right now. He is having lunch at home. I will give you his number.” Said, Marcia, the admin in the school. I called his house. He was indeed having lunch and Louise, his wife, asked if he could call back. “Um, sure.” I gave her my number and then sat on my hands for an hour or so. Alberto did call back and explained that the program was small – only ten students are admitted – and, if I liked it, it would be great. But, if I didn’t like it, I would be miserable. He suggested I visit and see if it was a good fit.

down. I’d like to say I was engaged in the conversation, but I was literally just watching actors on a stage. At the end he introduced himself and asked if we could chat for a bit about my work.

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knew how to put a building together) that I submitted to the school. I passed. My “F” was replaced with an “A.” A few years went by and I worked on some really interesting projects – university buildings, a courthouse, a museum. It was fun but I wanted to go back to school. I put my portfolio together, redrew my quirky second- and third-year projects, and included my fancy computer generated professional work. At the end of the portfolio, was my thesis. Easy to remove if I lost the courage to talk about it.

Great Spectacle Oscar Jin_Year 4 Abigail Hoover and Ben Perrone

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he theme of this semester was public space in an urban context. The studio chose to focus on theater. In the beginning, I asked myself two simple questions: What is theater?

And why do people go to the theater?

However, with the development of technology, more and more people are not interested in theater and choose not to go to the theater to watch shows. In this digital age, the theater has lost its attraction to the majority of the population. Because of this, theater is dying and no one knows if theater will become a relic of history. My research and design strive to find a need for theater in modern society and seek a way to reform the theater.

My research started with interviews with the professors of the School of Film, Dance, and Theater at ASU. To gain a deeper understanding of performance and theater, I thought it might be wise to have a conversation with the people who have stood on the stage themselves.

A quote from Professor Woodson:

“

Live performance is a shared experience within a certain group of people in the same space at the same time.

”

When the audience is experiencing live performance, they are also in a way experiencing the emotion of the performers on the stage and that of the other audience seated around. Live performance always requires a live audience who are ‘active’ and able to savor the shows. There is never a private or personal experience in the theater, but instead a shared perceptual experience.

According to Professor Rachel, “theater should be a dynamic space and a highly interactive place so the audience is not only watching the show, but is also participating in the show” to understand what others are experiencing at this particular moment of performance. This interaction among audience and performance is to provide a highly immersive experience as well as to form a deeper connection with the story, the performance, and other audience members, which is the essence of theater.

I now understood that in order to bring people back to the theater and to prevent theater in existence, we need to break the form of old-fashioned theater through the redesign of the conventional architecture of theater and possibly even a new way to perform. Given the development of technology, we must find the crucial elements of theater that cannot be replaced by technology.

Based on the interviews with the professors and research about dynamic theater, I believed there to be three key connections in the architecture of the theater that together have the ability to bring people together

JIN

heater coupled with performing arts is one of the most precious gifts in human civilization. It is a place of story, a place of performance, a place of interaction, and a place of life. Everything that happens in life also happens in the theater. People are experiencing the space of theater emotionally, perceptually, and spiritually.

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in the theater: (1) the dynamic connection between stage and seating area, (2) the highly interactive connection between the performance space and auditorium, and (3) the natural connection between the indoor and outdoor.

The first provides the audience with an opportunity to experience a space in multiple ways, so that people can experience diverse enjoyment in the same space at the same time. The second is to allow moments in which the audience might blend into the cast, to participate in a show for an elevated theatrical experience. The third helps people grants comfort to those in the theater while also connecting the public circulation to the theater as a public performance space.

By uniting these three connections, I discovered a new method to theater design, not as an old-fashioned concept containing a typical performing stage and seating area, but as an open public space for dynamic performance and interaction. This new form of theater as a performing arts center, transforms into a space that encourages people to interact with their neighbors and communities, a space that provides people an opportunity to contemplate life in this busy world, and a space for people to witness life’s story. Because the practice of performance is from life and will be performed back to life; by making connection in the theater, people can see their lives on the stage as their lives are seen by others.

1 Corinthians 4:9, For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.

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Diriyah Museum Dalal Altassan_Year 6 Philip Horton

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iyadh is the largest city in terms of population, landmass, and density in Saudi Arabia.

Because of its hot, arid climate, Saudi Arabia has: very little and irregular rain, dry winds, and high evaporation rates that result in a scarcity of freshwater and reduced vegetation throughout the region.

The climate change Riyadh is challenged with affects air pollution and contributes to the urban heat islands due to the lack of vegetation or bodies of water.

Groundwater accounts for 50% of the irrigation system, which sometimes dries up due to a lack of rainfall.

Energy Use Because of this type of climate, a great amount of energy consumption goes towards the air-conditioning of buildings during the summer, which contributes to the environmental problem and the heat generation from human activity becomes more burdensome with climate change.

Passive Design Strategies They assist buildings in sustaining normal temperatures, and therefore minimize the extent to which buildings are affected by the surrounding environment. Strategies include glazing to wall ratio, thermal mass and insulations in buildings that can save a lot of maintenance costs and positively impact public health, and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) practices.

There are many new construction projects that are located 12-15 miles outside of Riyadh, SA that are currently under development

which are LEED certified. However, clients and business developers are not using local firms, architects or other local sources to lead these designs. 95% of these projects are being led by architectural firms that are outside of Saudi Arabia. The lack of local knowledge and training about sustainability is concerning in terms of where the idea of using sustainability in new constructions came from, as well as the loss of vernacular architecture which Saudi Arabia was known for.

The Living Building Challenge LBC not only works on new construction, but also on existing buildings as well. The process of retrofitting existing buildings provides benefits to the environment because it averts waste generation from building demolition and can be cheaper than new constructions.

Thesis Goal There are currently no Living Building Challenge projects in Saudi Arabia, therefore, this project will explore opportunities to design an inexpensive passive/Living Building Challenge using vernacular architecture techniques and implementing them to the 21st century. This project will be a readaptation of the Diriyah Museum in Riyadh and could work as a cost-efficient way to achieve sustainability in buildings. This effort will be locally driven by myself and a Saudi architect to make a change in the built environment and spread knowledge about the benefits of having sustainable buildings in the long term.

Site Plan

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ALTASSAN

Architecture of Musical Chairs Erin Bascom_Year 2 Marc J Neveu, KarĂ­n Santiago, Bryan Maddock

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conclusions as Elements. The basic elements of architecture change according to different environments and for different reasons which turn each architectural project into a complex collage of the historic and the modern, of the standard and the unique, complexity only revealed by closely the constituent parts under a microscope. Just as Koolhaas and his research team discovered, the ASU architecture students found a diverse array of moments within the larger picture their designated buildings. By the end of the series of assignments, students began to look at the built world with a more observant and critical eye. Students gained a greater understanding of the purposes of With Koolhaas’ Elements in mind, program these elements as well as the components head, Marc J Neveu, along with Bryan and construction that went into them.

Maddock and Karín Santiago, set out to Students greatly benefitted from a closer redesign the curriculum for the second look at the fundamentals of architecture. year undergraduate architecture studio After all, how can one design entire buildings at Arizona State University. Similar to the without first understanding their essential format of Koolhaas’ research, Neveu selected components. eight ‘fundamentals’ in which to focus the students’ work. These fundamentals The second half of the semester was spent are the Wall, Window, Door, Stair, Corner, utilizing the skills and perspectives gained Foundation, Roof, and Floor. First, each during the previous assignments. From student was assigned a specific building abstract compositions, students worked on ASU’s diverse campus. Then, each week through the various drawing types learned students were tasked with documenting in the first half of the semester to develop a one of the fundamentals as it exists in their building project. Unlike other studios, these building through a designated drawing type. were not independent projects. Each week, One of the main goals of this exercise students inherited their classmates’ work to was to increase student’s awareness of interpret and extrapolate. From sections, the basic components of architecture to diagrams, to axons and renderings, the and their functions. Students returned with projects evolved as they passed through the plans, sections, and axonometrics as well as hands of several different students, better more acute perceptions of the components understanding the prose of construction of architecture. Their works were assembled documents and how to orchestrate the into 4 volumes comprised of graphics and ensemble of building elements studied earlier. accompanying text demonstrating the students’ new perspective and critical eye.

Void of the vibrant colors used in Koolhaas’ publication (and a few hundred pages), Fundamentals still reaches some of the same

BASCOM

lements of Architecture, the most recent manifestation of the research led by Rem Koolhaas for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, reflects his opinion about the current state of architecture and the needed return to its basics. Elements of Architecture encourages the architectural community to re-examine its histories and dive into the potential of its basic elements. Koolhaas’ approach to the biennale was unique to other themes in previous years and caused considerable discussion about the history of architecture, how it exists today, and where it will go in the future — all with the focus on the fundamental elements of architecture.

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Reticulation Brennan Richards_Year 4 Bryan Maddock

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s a graduating senior I have had four years to experience ASU, specifically The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. I have had a positive experience at ASU, and this is due to the abundance of resources available. These resources were not always communicated to myself or fellow students, but I have seen a change in accessibility as I have progressed through school. Within the architecture program the removal of the milestone process alongside broader efforts to improve student’s financial standing and mental health gives me hope that the barriers of access that exist in higher education will continue to be removed.

My ASU experience began with learning the essential concepts of design. This was done through the spatial arrangement of voids and solids as well as drafting and physical models. At the time I didn’t understand how these exercises connected to the greater narrative of design and I wish I had taken the time to look at process work from built projects. I think understanding the necessity of a narrative and position in design was something that I would have benefited

from. There was also milestone constantly in my mind and it created an unhealthy competitive atmosphere in my initial studios.

This hindered collaboration between students which I believe is ultimately the most important part of design education.

In the second year of the program we began to engage site conditions, organizing systems, phenomenal qualities, and how to represent these aspects of a project. This was accomplished through site visits, physical models, drafting, and an introduction to AutoCAD, SketchUp, and Photoshop. I truly enjoyed the projects that focused on one single element of the design, whether it was light, water, or view. Being able to magnify this one element and then bring it into our final project was an effective way to learn a concept and then contextualize it. I enjoyed learning how to break down an existing system to its essential qualities and translate them into a project.

Moving into the third year of the program we began to deal with constraints. The first semester we dealt with building codes to design multi-family residential housing. This

For my final semester I am finding a balance between imagination and tectonics. While I was deciding how to move forward with my schooling I shopped around several schools in the United States across the board in terms of price and prestige. ASU holds its own against programs at schools with much more resources and funding. Higher education as a whole seems to be moving away from a generalized education and this requires students to take more ownership of finding the opportunities they want. I’ve seen this cause dissatisfaction amongst my peers but this is more of a sign of the times than an institutional issue. I think there is definitely a need to restore the collaborative attitude that digital design has consumed. Ultimately, what I do think about design education at ASU? I think it’s great. All of the pieces are there and the scope of change we are entering with the redesign process is exciting.

RICHARDS

As for my yet to be completed senior year, I have varied between an imaginative studio and a technical studio. Designing a typology for future Phoenix challenged me to use my visualization skills to create things I would not have thought possible in the past. I think technology has progressed to a point where we can create anything our minds can imagine but I don’t think that teaching technology should be a focus of architecture education. The narrative and position you are taking by creating something is

what we should be taught in school as opposed to a software that will be out of date within our careers.

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was done through completely digital work.

This transition to digital design as well as our isolating studio space killed the spirit of collaboration in my class. The second semester of this year was a vertical studio with the year above us. I truly enjoyed this studio because of the highly collaborative nature but it was significantly deadened by the attitudes of my fellow students. To this day I am confused why students moving into a field that is entirely collaborative were so opposed to working together.

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Zerkalo — My Dear Professor Elena Rocchi_Professor

My Dear Professor Vittoria, Yes! You were so right: “reflections” are essential in any sense, mainly, in this idea of bending backward-reflèxus. I am going to reflect right now, as I remember you and what I have learned of reflections, the phenomena that happen on surfaces of transparent means, as well as the act of thinking and rethinking.

Dear Professor: I never told you that your course was fantastic, enthusiastic, and well structured around a renewed industrial culture. I still see you arriving to class with your particular utopian impulse as the stimulus for us to reflect on the future of innovative technologies. You gave us these incredible “six memos” to reflect upon as the basis of our project and our entire life. After thirty-five years, they are still essential categories of our time: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency — six imperatives I learned as the future architect I am now. I remember: “choose only one,” you said.

I have chosen “lightness” for an intuitive reason. While reading the chapter, I remember Perseus’s myth emerging from the amalgam of situations as written images.

It emerged together with Perseus’s problem of escaping the Medusa’s inexorable gaze using a stratagem — cutting her head by looking at her image reflected in his bronze shield. Calvino’s description inferred an image in the absence of my mind: it was the Medusa by Caravaggio (1595-98), the oil painting of a mirror and its reflection I saw at the Uffizi in Florence. I first saw it from a distance, strangely mounted on an old convex carousel’s shield of wood. I recall the illusion I have had at that moment: it was as if the Medusa’s head was floating in the gallery space as a fragment of vision sent

from the past. There was no Perseus, but only the instantaneous picture of the Medusa he took in the moment he killed her.

Dear Professor: Calvino and Caravaggio’s use of Perseus’ myth are still part of my favorite discoveries. I use them to explain the complicated relationship between representation and reality as well as our necessity to build analog drawings — the architects’ stratagem to depict reality using indirect vision. In the act of Perseus taking the head with him, hidden in a sack as the invincible weapon against his enemies, there is the essence of what is implicit in analog drawings. In essence, one must keep a project’s reality hidden somewhere.

For many years it was difficult for me to grasp the spirit of this mysterious teaching that now, I can resume on two points. One: direct vision is what architects as Perseus must avoid using analog drawings; two: the reality as the monster’s head must be kept hidden. Professor, my students are in this exact moment asking me: Why are analog drawings an “indirect vision of reality?” I am going to try to answer them using something I have found since I left you — Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinema.

As another form of painting with nature, sounds, and not too many words, Tarkovsky produced movies as places. There, reality and representation interface as mirages and evaporations. Similar to Perseus, Tarkovsky used indirect vision in his films as the complicated system of traps to capture reality on set — mirrors, glasses, windows, crystals, and water as reflective fourth walls to render spatial dislocations and alternative temporal frameworks. In his movies, the reality is seen as a realm of unrepresentable fullness of vision regardless of any fixed point — as analog drawings portraying characters seen in mirrors or Caravaggio’s Medusa. As Tarkovsky’s movies, analog drawings recollect and gather objects, experiences, and the world around us as

ROCCHI

was your student. It was 1985 — the year I enrolled in Architecture school. It was in Rome, at Valle Giulia, in Villa Borghese.

That was a significant year. Your course in industrial design was a relevant one: it gave me something I still have — a book, Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988), as a list of values to be saved for the future. I was a young student; you were an incredible intellectual and a famous designer among those of the second Italian post-war that built projects for Adriano Olivetti.

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I

“I don’t know myself, I don’t remember, I close my eyes and I can’t recall my face.”

ROCCHI

vision halfway between reality and dream.

Like those movies, analog drawings have a liminal quality that echoes experiences in a spatiotemporal discontinuity: they are alternative worlds of reality tilted on a plane.

Merged and confused, spaces and temporal frames are no longer perceived as reality — a continuous occurrence — but as moments in time. As Calvino asked me, an architectural student of the late Eighties, I want to ask my student: what will be the future of imagination in the information society? Will the power to evoke “images in absence” continue to develop in humanity? For “us,” invention was based on direct experience and a repertoire of far fewer images. Our act of crafting personal myths depended on our capacity to combine fragments of memory in a suggestive unexpected way. But for my students, distinguishing direct experience from the virtual is much harder: for one image to acquire relief from the virtual is almost impossible.

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Dear Professor: I wish to cultivate this particular enthusiasm and utopian impulse I have received from you to help my dear students to distance themselves through the construction of stratagems. They need to allow drawings to develop selfsufficient forms as reflections. I was born in 1966. As the daughter of an in-between era in which experience was essential, I will keep investigating pedagogies of imagination, inventing their erratic methods as circumstances, and, hopefully, looking always for unpredictable results. Reflecting from the distance of today, here it goes my reflection bent back to you, wherever you are. From Six Memos for the Next Millennium:

“

Each life is an encyclopedia, a library, an inventory of objects, a sample of styles, where everything can be continuously mixed up and rearranged in all possible ways.

”

This essay is dedicated to my students and Professor Eduardo Vittoria (19232009), Italian architect and designer.