abstracts fa12
TRANSCRIPT
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7/31/2019 Abstracts FA12
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Bad example:
The X project by architect Y has merit, but
how can it be improved?
Better example:
The widespread use of concrete during the
Brutalist period came at the convergence of
advances in formwork technology plus a spik-
ing demand for publicly-funded civic projects
in the post-war years. Ys public housing and
government office building projects exempli-
fied this convergence, but fell out of favor
with the discrediting of these socio-economic
practices and popular dislike of Brutalisms
aesthetic attributes.
Given a contemporary convergence of newformwork technologies and available fund-
ing for public projects, how may Ys project
be continued? What specific experiments in
concrete design could be re-applied to cur-
rent challenges of working at such scales?
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Bad example:
What is the future of computation in archi-
tecture?
Better example:
Over the past 15 years architectural culture
has been animated by a debate over the uses
and disadvantages of digital technologies for
design. In the academy this debate has taken
the form of a split between those designing
processes and others designing objects; in
the profession a distinction can be found,
between those trying to digitize construc-
tion and those digitizing what one might call
appearance--displays, facades, etc. It is not
hard to imagine a truly bifurcated profes-sion in the near future, with crises felt most
acutely within architectural schools them-
selves.
What has architecture learned about the
digital ethos that can help produce new ped-
agogical structures--informed by digital de-mands but not indebted to outmoded spatial
assumptions? Conversely, how can this pre-
dicament serve as testing ground for what
architects have learned about computation?
question the method
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Bad example of a thesis question:
What should housing for small regional cities
look like today?
Better example:
In 2002, city officials in Lubbock, TX, passed
a law mandating xyz for all buildings above
xxxy xyz. This development was in keeping
with a growing nationwide tendency in the
United States since the 1992 passage of
the Federal Land Ceiling Act, which favours A
actors over B actors. In Lubbock, this devel-
opment has resulted in the YYY built form,
a form which tends to keep out DDD from
access to economic privileges located in the
citys exurbs. Can a practice be devised thatmakes visible and questions these asymme-
tries of privilege...... ?
more than just another project...
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Bad example:
Today, more than fifty percent of the worlds
population lives in cities. Nowhere is this
more prominent than in Asia. What is the
future of urban life in Asia?
Better example:
Situated at the confluence of the Yangtze
and Chia-ling rivers, the city of Chongqing is
the largest city of Szechwan province in Chi-
na. In the last twenty years, the transforma-
tion of the city can be said to be symptomat-
ic of a wave of transition seen across several
regions of Asia. Chongqing has drawn in xyz
millions of populations from the hinterland,
specifically from xyz provinces, who now
occupy the ABC area of the city. The ABC
area, as it stands, has evolved into a vastdormitory township, marked by xyz relation-
ships. How do temporal shifts in population
have a bearing on architectural responses
to growth? In turn, how might simulations
of particular strategies for worker housing
catalyze stability or flux within ABCs fabric?Can we extrapolate to new social models
that may emerge?
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Bad example:
How does weather influence architecture?
Better example:
Ever since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit,
there have been increasing pressures on
governments to pass laws restricting energy
usage in machines, including buildings. Slowly
but surreptitiously, new building codes have
been written that determine the form of
buildings and cities, written by scientists, en-
gineers and lawyers, without the input of ar-
chitects. What would it mean for architects,
with their agenda of aesthetic and social
forms, to intervene into this techno-legal pro-cess? To this effect, I will look at the xyz area
of Chicago, a city with xyz consumption of
electric power a day, with abc population and
economic pressures, in order to explicate.....?
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How far can you stretch a type before itbecomes unrecognizable?
There exists a possibility for an entirely
new method of architectural classification,
a minor practice of typology that isdefined much more by its morphogenetic
characteristics (eg: resistance or propensity
for change) than its formal attributes.
Architectural types -- such as the diner -- are heavily reliant upon culturally-reinforced
behavior patterns, which in turn significantly influence how we might inhabit this
architecture. Typology itself consists of a stable collection of parts with the most general
sense of how they relate, a constellation of Dinerness; [This is] a monolithic and immutablesense of the type.
But what about local mechanisms and contingencies of inhabitation, the diverse diners and
subcultures that result from that? What is the tolerance or limit of this Dinerness? And to
what extent can the type be made responsive to local scale contingencies before it becomes
unrecognizable?
thesis (question) hypothesis (hunch)
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7/31/2019 Abstracts FA12
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Architectural types -- such as the diner -- are
heavily reliant upon culturally-reinforced be-
havior patterns, which in turn significantly
influence how we might inhabit this architec-
ture. Typology itself consists of a stable col-
lection of parts with the most general sense
of how they relate, a quasi-gestalt of Diner-
ness; [This is] a monolithic and immutable
sense of the type.
But what about local mechanisms and con-
tingencies of inhabitation, the diverse din-
ers and subcultures that result from that?
What is the tolerance or limit of this Diner-
ness? And to what extent can the type be
made responsive to local scale contingencies
before it becomes unrecognizable?
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