Project 03: “Refine(d)”

Project 03: “Refine(d)”

It is done. I am proud to be one of the members of the 2008 4B contingent. Together we created such a huge amount of thoughtful and crafted work where seeing all three projects together, for each individual, has helped me understand our positive development as a collective.

Today was a very enjoyable day. I especially welcomed the structure of our formal / informal – review / critique / reflection. It was calm and insightful and it presented and helped to answer many questions and issues which I have been considering throughout the semester – The main one being a question of how best to represent and communicate an architectural idea (light and materiality in particular) through testing and proving the validity and purpose of design decisions with modeling. The necessarily rigid deadlines of this unit created tight timeframes, both in the group work and individually, which demanded that ideas be tested as soon as they were conceived. Time was of the essence and indecision, even hesitation (distinct from ‘pausing’) would immediately result in a lost opportunity.

My favorite part of Architecture 4B was the large amount of time that we were given to actually build physical objects and large models. I believe that most importantly this allowed room for mistakes to be made and I took this as an opportunity to explore materials and mediums which I have not previously worked with. I now feel as comfortable with knife, jigsaw, wood, glue, plaster, and toxic fumes as I do with the computer, drawing board, and written word.

The culmination of these risks and efforts is encapsulated by the one image; “Detail @ Night – 9PM” (posted above). It contains, fuses, and blurs together the architectural representations of my drawings and models, and together they manifest, abstract, and communicate the sense of place and activity that has driven the conception and development of my DDI architectural contribution, The Well-Being Centre. I consider what I presented today for Project 03 as being one of my proudest accomplishments. This is not necessarily for what is on display, but for all of the thought, learning, mistakes, and enthusiasm that backs it up. It has shown me the possible, teased me with the superfluous and impractical, and most importantly it has given me the confidence to capitalize on my potential to generate and build architecture.