Research retreat

Interim reviews this week. For me, this was a new (and obviously exciting) experience, since I have managed to miss all of the interim assessments up til now somehow. The process was relatively casual which, at this stage is a good thing as the work I (and plenty of others) have is still a bit loose - Im happy with where the design is at this point  - I've got a fairly clear concept which is open to being adapted in a number of ways and directions but I'm still happy that, if it gets too close to crunch time I can just sort of halt development and go for a final design without the whole thing being too much of a compromise - again, this level of flexibility at this stage in the game is sort of new for me, though obviously it's a good position to be and really running out of time isn't something I should be worrying about if I'm being all organised and a good student and stuff.

Tower Project

A slightly randomly slotted in week away from the research retreat project to work on structures - For me, this week has been easier to engage with - structures is something I'd like to think I have a pretty good grasp of and the week flowed really nicely with the final result being pretty much what I had in my head at the very start.

From the very beginning, I had a fairly clear idea in my head of what our tower would be like - I managed to persuade the rest of the group that it was a good idea and things went into motion pretty quickly. The final design was - in my heavily biased opinion - really cool. I decided that anyone can just build a straight up tower and make it pretty and, seeing as this was a structures project, I should do something a bit more structural so we ended up with a sort-of-cantilevered-tower-crane-type arrangement which relied on tension to stand up. Aesthetically, the final result was a bit of a Russian constructivist pylon affair, but it worked and, come the presentation, I could actually talk and argue coherently about it, since I actually had a clear vision and idea of what was going on, which was sort of a first for me at presentation time...

I reckon this clear vision carried right through the (brief) project was what made it successful - there wasn't too much going on so I could actually present properly, rather than meaning to say things and being side tracked. I'd call it a success...

It was a highly elegant affair as these photos accurately document...

Research Retreat : ENGAGE

Following on from the (dare I say it) success of the sort - of introductory mediator project, we've now moved on to slightly more substantial fare in the form of running-'til-the-end-of-semester research retreat project. Initial thoughts are that it sounds like a really fun project to get stuck in with, if somewhat daunting.

Having completed the mediator project, I have a fairly clear idea of some of the less immediately obvious elements of the site and its background, however, when visiting for the Mediator, I wasn't treating it as a site analysis so some things sort of passed me by a bit more - there's quite a lot to take in, particularly as the brief is for a relatively large, complex building within the grounds of an existing large, complex and rather beautiful historic building.

My initial thoughts have generally been related to the fact that a new build would have to be carefully considered so that it didn't detract from what is already present - both physically and metaphysically (using that word makes me wince). In the same way, a building may itself be detracted from or at least not complimented by the existing structures and atmosphere of the place.

There's lots to be thinking about, getting down on paper and mulling over from different angles - this should be a good, full on project. 

Also included here for your delectation and delight are a few photos from the Edinburgh study visit - I took more photos than is really acceptable of the welding on that roof structure...

Mediator = success

That was pretty good, I reckon.

Today was the day everybody got together to present their various installations, films and whatever elses for the Mediator project. There were some really interesting, really varied bits and bats from borderline incomprehensible but fascinating bits of film, things that you had to crawl in/ around, things you could draw on, things you could be comprehensively baffled by and one thing that made people feel nauseous from a range of about 10 metres - which surely has to be a significant achievement for what is, at the end of the day, an architecture project.

Our 'light in a dark place' or 'rose in a box' project came together really well - it took quite a long time from initially going on the site visit and extensively distilling all our various ideas to coming up with a solution for what our installation would actually look like - even once we had settled on what we thought was a pretty simple idea, there was a huge amount of minor decision making and endless fettling to be done. The basic premise that we ended up with was a tall black box with a small eyehole - when you looked in, you could see an illuminated rose which appeared to be growing from below, but was actually hanging upside down. This was accompanied with 2 books explaining how we had ended up at that conclusion and what it all meant. The project was a really interesting way of dealing with some issues and concepts which are inherently quite flowery and vague. As a group, I think we were all happy that the final result was something nice and simple - a relatively easy to grasp idea that could have ended up as overly complex arty nonsense that made no real sense to anyone. 

WHOA.

It's semester 2! How did that happen?

I can't believe I'm already con my second semester at uni. If I were studying a sensible course, that'd be 1/6 of my university education over and done with. Scary stuff.

Anyway, I'm more or less back in the groove now - thankfully we've got a comparatively undemanding project to kick off with - at this stage, it's all a little bit up in the air and arty but I'm enjoying a good bit of bonding with my new tutor group and I reckon we should be able to throw together a pretty interesting installation type thing in the next couple of weeks.

Hospitalfield house - the site we are to express the essence of in some way - is a really fun site to work with - there's a lot of sort of intangible stuff going on - a wealth of really difficult to explain concepts. I like the fact that there's a lot to work with, but at the same time, when I try to put ideas down on paper, I just end up firing off individual words which sort of have something to do with what I'm trying to say - I've now got pages of just words relating to this site and it's various intangible bits and pieces. It will be interesting to see where this one goes...

Aaand breathe...

Ok, I don't know what week we're on numerically at this stage, all I know is that the Habitat project is done finished and all that remains this semester is portfolio reviews early next week.

The last few weeks have been more than a little hectic for me. Being slightly behind schedule I've had plenty of catching up to do and it took it out of me to a quite spectacular degree. The weekend before the final presentation for Habitat I was reduced to a mere husk of an architecture student - barely a human being. In retrospect though, the hard work was probably worth it - I ended up with a design proposal I was happy with - proud of, even - and a vaguely comprehensible presentation.

In the crit space I was presented with the inevitable 'everyone's work is better than mine' feeling of creeping dread but I tried to maintain a positive attitude and  the presentation itself went pretty well - I got some useful feedback and actually wrapped up feeling fairly positive about the whole thing.

I am now really looking forward to semester 2 as I feel I know what to expect a bit more - if I can continue to improve at the current rate, I should hopefully be churning out some pretty impressive work by the end. It feels really good to be making such fast and clear progress - I think I need evidence of my own progress to feel as though I am getting somewhere. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'm really glad I'm doing this course. 

I am currently working on putting together my portfolio so it resembles something vaguely coherent - this is yet another opportunity to look at how far I have come in such a short space of time and how good the work can look when presented properly, rather than like it has been fired from a cannon or something.

Once the portfolio is presented it's time for a (dare I say well deserved?) break which will hopefully have me fully reinvigorated for semester 2.

Bring it on!

Week 10= frantic.

With an interim review looming at the end of week 10, I was confident I could have everything whipped into shape in time and put a nice presentation together. I was happy and confident, until the full extent of what I needed was revealed. Rather than just presenting the work I had been working on, I needed a complete proposal to present. Cue a week of slightly frantic, but highly productive activity. With the odd late night thrown in, I had a suitable chunk of work to present and was looking forward to getting it out there and some feedback being given. However, my questionable, potentially flu-like illness decided to rear its ugly head on Friday morning, meaning I was in no way fit to make the presentation which, as well as being extremely unpleasant, was annoying because it rendered all my hard work to meet deadlines somewhat irrelevant, and meant I didn't get the feedback on the project. Grr.

Weeks 8 and 9 have been a bit funny for me. I've been working on the habitat project, sort of making progress but at the same time sort of grinding away without a particular direction. The project is coming together nicely, but I still feel a little disillusioned with the whole affair, without wishing to get too philosophical or anything...

I've really not a huge amount to report on the habitat project. As for other little projects, I have just been working away at them in little bits of spare time I find myself with. The campus journey sketches are proving time consuming, mainly because I tend to do a sketch really quickly, intending to re-do it in a more tidy fashion, but it turns out really good so I end up with something which started out scrappy, then progressed into something neat and the end result isn't really either so I'll just do it again anyway. It's a bit frustrating but that seems to be how it's working for me.

Oh, I thought I'd sling this in too. Id doesn't really relate to anything but it looks quite nice and what is wrong with that?

Week 6-7

Week 6 was something of a welcome respite - a week of no tutorials and light on lectures and stuff. It provided a welcome opportunity for some catching up, finishing off, reading and perhaps a spot of relaxing.

This seems to be something of a recurring theme with the work I do but, once again I gained a lot of satisfaction from gathering together and refining my work, resulting in a sense of satisfaction - a sort of 'Ooh, look what I've done!' feeling, even though it was work which was already complete.

Again, it felt good to have done plenty of reading and feeling that I was properly on top of things again.

Friday was our Kenmore site visit, preceded by a visit to the Crannog centre which was, actually dead interesting. I always love seeing someone knowledgeable and enthusiastic about a slightly niche subject as our guide was with his Iron age history.

The site visit itself was an opportunity to get fully immersed in the site itself and gather and record information in whatever fashion was deemed appropriate - for me this was mainly photographs and sketches of the site and, perhaps more importantly the surroundings in terms of the natural and built environment. The overwhelming feeling I came back with was "Isn't Scotland bloody lovely?"

Week 7 was back to business as usual. It's felt really good because, for me this is a project I can really get totally involved with from the very offset - Analysis of Precedent was an involved project but it took me quite a while to get 'into' it - it wasn't until the final week of the project that I was fully in the groove. I think that the momentum (and understanding of what is going on) has carried over into this project so I'm good to go from the very beginning.

I'm already enjoying the many different aspects of this project - there's analytical stuff going on, research into history and design precedents, and creativity - at this stage we're writing back stories for the inhabitants of the house to be built, later comes the designing of the house itself.

I love architecture...

Week 5

This week has been a thoroughly satisfying one for me. Feeling thoroughly reinvigorated after a brilliant weekend in the Highlands, it was more or less business as usual - tutorials and lectures punctuating time in the studio working on the Analysis of Precedent project. There seemed to be a really good atmosphere and repartee within the group. At the start of the week things were a little frantic with everyone being very busy with something or other, but as the week went on, the project all seemed to fall into place in a very satisfactory fashion - we were like a well oiled machine and soon enough we were ready to present. Friday's presentation seemed to go well - our group managed to convey everything fairly well and it was genuinely interesting to see the approach of other groups to the same project, as well as finding out about the buildings which they had been assigned.

The presentations were rounded off with a little studio - based beer session which could have been pretty horrific but turned out to be a really nice opportunity to wind down and, in some cases hold vaguely coherent conversations with peers about architecture.

I'm really pleased with how the project went, particularly the final week.

It's kicking off...

Ok, I'm not really sure what the accepted format here is but I'm just going to do a sort of splurge of a train of thought type thing...

So, architecture at Dundee. Damn. We're in week 3 now, somehow. I'm pretty much settled in and getting a feel for the course and it's all fairly ace so far.

I get a good sense of having actually achieved quite a lot of stuff already which I think is one of the main reasons I'm enjoying it so much.

The Tentsmuir beach project in week 1 was a simple but satisfying excercise in creating something from nothing. It was all a little bit surreal to begin with, mainly because nobody knew anyone else. There was a really fun sort of awkward tension, even though we were getting stuck in hauling timber around the place and building things - everyone was fairly friendly by the end of the session and we had something very much tangible to show for our efforts. It felt good! I didn't get many decent pictures which is a bit disappointing but I blame the slightly awkward tension... 

Week 2 was the Inspiring Place project - an analytical project which was a really good opportunity to get out and about in Dundee. I spent a lot of Freshers' week getting out and about in Dundee to find my feet but with this project I was looking at it in a different way and it was a really interesting experience. I ended up presenting my take on an allotment on the Dundee Law. The presentation was quite daunting , partly because presentations always are, partly because I didn't really know any of the people I was presenting to but mainly because I had no real idea what was expected of me. I did that awful thing of looking at everyone else's pinned up work and thinking 'this is loads better than mine'.

In the end, the presentation went pretty well and I learned a lot from it. Again, there was a sense of satisfaction from having got a 'proper' project out of the way. 

Last week was the mapping entrance project which was a pretty daunting proposition - just how exactly does one map out a doorway in 1:1 scale? The project was a great opportunity to get to know the people in the tutor group - by the end of the week there was a really good team spirit to the whole thing and after a good deal of hard work from everyone we ended up with a really impressive end result. Again, there was a real sense of satisfaction at having created such an impressive thing from very little. It wasn't until the very final stages that we could get a proper impression of what had been done - this only made the end result more satisfying. 

The current Analysis Of Precedent project is a bit more involved - again, it feels really good to have something to really get your teeth into without it being an A - Level style coursework type thing.

I'm really looking forward to continuing to move forward with this course - it is a lot of work but so involving, so multi layered and so satisfying - I genuinely can't get enough. I'm sure I'll look back on that statement with some degree of contempt in the future but that's for another blog post...