101 Things I Learned in Architecture School. Matthew Frederick

UNIVERSIDAD IBEROAMERICANA (UNIBE)Walewska Espinal 09-0369

Prof. Magaly Caba

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En mis 4 años de ser estudiante de arquitectura sin duda aprendí muchas cosas, no todas en el aula, pues para uno poder crecer tiene que adentrarse al “campo”; pero sí aprendí lo suficiente dentro de clases. Mis maestros día con día se encargaron de hacerme ver que una línea no es solo una línea, sino que esta puede expresarse de diferentes maneras según su grosor, color y apariencia; que no vale de nada dejar las tareas de diseño para hacerla después de las demás tareas, porque no te va a dar tiempo a terminarlas como la pidieron, NUNCA... Que si un diseño no funciona estructuralmente, es porque la creatividad no fue suficiente; que uno no aprender a ser “el mejor arquitecto” ni aún con 60 años porque siempre hay algo que aprender (lo digo por testimonios)…. Y por experiencia propia que no importa cuanto te esfuerces, cuanto amanezcas, cuanto dibujes, nunca te sentirás conforme con el diseño que realices porque siempre va a haber más cosas que agregrle con el paso de los días (la imaginación es infinita).

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1. How to draw a line

2. A figure is an element or shape placed on a page, canvas, or other background. Ground is the space of the page.

3. Figure-ground theory states that the space that results from placing figures should be considered as carefully as the figures themselves.

GROUND = SPACE

4. When elements or spaces are not explicit but are nonetheless apparent —we can see them even though we can’t see them—they are said to be implied.

5. Solid-void theory is the three-dimensional counterpart to figure-ground theory. It holds that the volumetric spaces shaped or implied by the placement of solid objects are as important as, or more important than, the objects themselves.

6. We move through negative spaces and dwell in positive spaces.

NEGATIVE

POSITIVE

7. Suburban buildings are freestanding objects in space. Urban buildings are often shapers of space.

8. Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.”

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9. Sense of place.

10. Our experience of an architectural space is strongly influenced by how we arrive in it.

12. Design an architectural space to accommodate a specific program, experience, or intent.

13. Space planning is the organizing or arranging of spaces to accommodate functional needs.

14. Architecture begins with an idea.

16. Parti derives from understandings that are nonarchitectural and must be cultivated before architectural form can be born.

17. The more specific a design idea is, the greater its appeal is likely to be.

18. Any design decision should be justified in at least two ways.

Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1959Frank Lloyd Wright

15. A parti is the central idea or concept of a building.

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19. Draw hierarchically.

20. Engineers tend to be concerned with physical things in and of themselves. Architects are more directly concerned with the human interface with physical things.

21. An architect knows something about everything. An engineer knows everything about one thing.

22. How to make architectural hand-lettering

23. Reality may be engaged subjectively, by which one presumes a oneness with the objects of his concern, or objectively, by which a detachment is presumed.

25. Use your parti as a guidepost in designing the many aspects of a building.

26. Good Designers are fast on their feet.

27. Soft ideas, soft lines; hard ideas, hard lines.

24 “Science works with chunks and bits and pieces of things with the continuity presumed, and [the artist] works only with the continuities of things with the chunks and bits and pieces presumed.”

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28. A good designer isn’t afraid to throw away a good idea.

29. Being process-oriented, not product-driven, is the most important and difficult.

30. “A proper building grows naturally, logically, and poetically out of all conditions”

31. Improved design process, not a perfectly realized building, is the most valuable thing you gain from one design studio and take with you to the next.

32. The most Effective, most creative problem solvers engage in a process of meta-thinking, or “thinking about the thinking”.

34. Frame a view, don’t merely exhibit it.

35. I like view but I like to sit with my back turned do it.

36. Value drawings (rendered in shade and shadow) tend to covey emotions better than line drawings.

33. If you wish to imbue an architectural space or element with a particular quality, make sure that quality ir really there.

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37. Any aesthetic quality is usually enhanced by the presence of a counterpoint.

39. A static composition appears to be at rest.

40. A dynamic composition encourages the eye to explore.

42. Those tedious first-year studio exercises in “spots and dots” and “lumps and bumps” really do have something to do with architecture.

43. When having difficulty resolving a floor plan, site plan, building elevation, section, or building shape, consider it as a 2D or 3D composition.

44. Color theory provides a framework for understanding the behavior and meaning of colors.

41. Moves and Counterpoints.

Lo sencillo a veces se convierte en monótono pues es lo que estamos acostumbrados a ver día con día. Cuando se incluye contraste en el diseño de un edificio, es más interesante y enriquecedor admirarlo al momento de estar construido, porque te obliga a asombrarte con lo que vas descubriendo.

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38. The cardinal points of the compass offer associations of meaning that can enhance architectural experience.

Al momento de organizar espacios dentro de un diseño es imprescindible tomar en cuenta la ubicación porque esta define como el usuario se sentirá al momento de estar en esos espacios. La orientación es imprescindible en el organigrama funcional de todo diseño.

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45. Three levels of knowing. 48. If you can’t explain your ideas to your grandmother in terms that she understands, you don’t know your subject well enough.

49. The altitude, angle, and color of daylighting varies with compass orientation and time of day.

50. Windows look dark in the daytime.

51. Beauty is due more to harmonious relationships among the elements of a composition than to the elements themselves.

52. An appreciation for asymmetrical balance is considered by many to demonstrate a capacity for higher-order thinking.

46. Create architectural richness through informed simplicity or an interaction of simples rather than through unnecessarily busy agglomerations.

47. Square buildings, building wings, and rooms can be difficult to organize.

Todas estas caracteriticas van variando gracias al tipo de clima que se desarrola en el hemisferio norte. Es imprescindible saber como funciona el clima y sus diferentes aspectos en cada lugar del mundo, pues esto define como debe ser la arquitectura en ese lugar. No se trata de hacer una arquitectura ‘’en vez de’’ , sino ‘’sobre’’ Walewska Espinal

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53. A good building reveals different things about itself when viewed from different distances.

58. The proportions of a building are an aesthetic statement of how it was built.

64. If you rotate or skew a fl oor plan, column grid, or other aspect of a building, make it mean something.

65. Always show structural columns on your floor plans—even very early in the design process.

68. Design in section.

54. Geometric shapes have inherent dynamic qualities that infl uence our perception and experience of the built environment.

55. The best placement of a circulation path through a small room is usually straight through, a few feet from one wall.

56. Most architectural forms can be classifi ed as additive, subtractive, shaped, or abstract.

57. An effective oral presentation of a studio project begins with the general and proceeds toward the specific.

59. Traditional buildings have thick exterior walls. Modern buildings have thin walls.

60.Traditional architecture employs a tripartite, or base-middle-top, format.

61. Less is more.

62. Less is a bore.

63. When introducing fl oor level changes, avoid the “Dick Van Dyke step.”

66. Columns are not merely structural elements; they are tools for organizing and shaping space.

69.Random Unsubstantiated Hypothesis.

70. Design in perspective.

88. An object, surface, or space usually will feel more balanced or whole when its secondary articulation runs counter to its primary geometry.

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71. How to sketch a one-point perspective of a rectangular interior space.

77. No design system is or should be perfect.

85. Gently suggest material qualities rather than draw them in a literal manner.

86. Manage your ego.72. Designs with models.

73. The two most important keys to effectively organizing a fl oor plan are managing solid-void relationships and resolving circulation.

75. Draw the box it came in.

79. Always place fi re stairs at opposite ends of the buildings you design, even in the earliest stages of the design process.

80. Cool drawing titles for schematic design.

89. Fabric buildings, or

background buildings, are the more numerous buildings of a city. Object or foreground buildings are buildings of unusual importance.

90. Roll your drawings for transport or storage with the image side facing out.

76. Overdesign.

82. True architectural style does not come from a conscious effort to create a particular look. It results obliquely—even accidentally—out of a holistic process.

83. All design endeavors express the zeitgeist.

84. Two points of view on architecture

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91. Build to the street wall.

94. A duck is a building that projects its meaning in a literal way.

92. “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.”

93. The primary mechanisms by which the government regulates the design of buildings are zoning laws, building codes, and accessibility codes.

Es imprescindible tomar en cuenta donde se emplaza lo que se va a diseñar. En mis años de estudio mis maestros me han hecho incapie en construir siguiendo un contexto; lo que me ha permitido diseñar con coherencia, buena organizacio n y disposición de espacios. Se trata se diseñar para tu entorno. Walewska Espinal

Esto lo aprendi al momento de estudiar a Robert Venturi cuando el diferencia entre lo grafico ‘’el pato’’ y la forma grafica del edificio ‘’’la caja decorada’’, las cuales definió como signo ‘’iconográfico’’ y ‘’signo simbolico’’, respectivamente. Cuantas mas metáforas despierte una arquitectura mayor será el dramatismo. Walewska Espinal

95. A decorated shed is a conventional building form that conveys meaning through signage or architectural ornament.

96. Summer people are 22 inches wide. Winter people are 24 inches wide.

dependiendo del tipo de clima en que se desenvuelva el usuario va a tener que utilizar mayor o menor cantidad de ropa . un usuario que se desenvuelva en clima calido se va a ver menos ancho tanto por su vestimenta ‘’que es liviana’’ como por el grado de calor que desprende su cuerpo gracias a la radiación. Un usuario de clima frio se va a diferenciar de los demás usuarios por la gran cantidad de ropa que utiliza para poder lograr confort en ese tipo de clima. Walewska Espinal

97. Limitations encourage creativity.

98. The Chinese symbol for crisis is comprised of two characters: one indicating “danger,” the other, “opportunity.”

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99. just do something.

100. Give it a name.

101. Architects are late bloomers.

Esto no es algo que lo haya aprendido por mis propias experiencias, obviamente, pero lo he aprendido gracias a mis maestros y a las grandes figures de la arquitectura que he estudiado en toda la carrera. Todo arquitecto va aprendiendo un poco mas con el paso del tiempo, nunca somos arquitectos completos, las nuevas apariciones en la arquitectura nos van sorprendiendo y nos hacen descubrir que no importa cuanto tiempo pase siempre vamos aprendiendo mas cosas de las que ya sabíamos .

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11. Use “denial and reward” to enrich passage through the built environment.

67. A good graphic presentation meets the Ten-Foot Test.

67. A good graphic presentation meets the Ten-Foot Test.

74. Many of the building types assigned in architectural design studios, such as museums, libraries, and assembly buildings, can be effectively organized by Louis Kahn’s notion of “served” and “servant” spaces.

78. “The success of the masterpieces seems to lie not so much in their freedom fromfaults—indeed we tolerate the grossest errors in them all—but in the immense persuasiveness of a mind which has completely mastered its perspective.”

81. Properly gaining control of the design process tends to feel like one is losing control of the design process.

87. Careful anchor placement can generate an active building interior.