The Stormfront Thesis Unit infuses interests in the realms connecting architecture and atmosphere(s), ecology, geographies, energy, materials, and aberrant systems.
Alcorn, Bryan http://makethemsound.blogspot.com/
Bennett, Michelle http://theeye2011.blogspot.com/
Blair, Jonathan http://www.blairjonathan.blogspot.com/
Chesnut, James http://sweatindex.blogspot.com/
Chin, Snow http://snowchin.blogspot.com/
Cooper, Lindsay http://hypo-theses.blogspot.com/
Gerdes, Christopher http://expatcache.blogspot.com/
Hassan, Amna http://amnathassan.blogspot.com/
Holzwart, Christopher http://christopherholzwart.blogspot.com/
James, William http://accastellanus.blogspot.com/
Johnson, Nathan http://this-clonic-earth.blogspot.com/
Kim, YoungJoo http://wanderaroundinnature.blogspot.com/
Lee, James http://thermaldelight.blogspot.com/
Lee, Sang Hoon http://leesan-thesis.blogspot.com/
Mattson, Jessica http://borderinglines.blogspot.com/
Raczkowski, Kelly http://designrevolution9.blogspot.com/
Roussel, Cecilia http://mundanumental.blogspot.com/
Sauve, Lisa http://tracinggrade.blogspot.com/
Smith, Adam http://byarch.blogspot.com/
Tang, Michelle http://emptyswings.blogspot.com/
Wannemacher, Erica http://alteringinformation.blogspot.com/
Yuen, Robert http://gestalt-shift.blogspot.com/
Zhou, Wenchao http://wenchao-tbd.blogspot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Project: House as Thesis - DEMO SET
The opening gambit of StormFront was a design project intended to demonstrate and test the individual interest and tendencies as explored during the summer. As a gambit, this strategic and sacrificial move is dedicated to the advancement and strength of later decisions and efforts. To fully grasp the investment and power of the design work, we will now take a moment to assess the gains from the gambit, and how that move carries forward. This will occur in an exercise of reflection and response focusing on the criticism, new trajectories, and internal observations: the DEMO SET.
Remainin in tune with the multiple implications of our chosen words DEMO should be grasps on multiple levels:
In architecture DEMO is often the shorthand version of demolition. This implies the planned tear down or destructions of a building or a portion of a space; in other words, the opposite of construction.
Demo can also be in reference to the shortening of demonstration. Demonstration is linked to the act of showing the existence or truth of something by providing proof or evidence. In other words, constructing an argument.
Given these interpretations of demo - turn back to your House as Thesis project. Create a Demo SET for this project by red lining and noting on 1/4 scale versions of your drawings and on 1-3 photographs printed on sheets the same size as the 1/4 scale drawings. Respond to criticism, expose your own opinions, question the graphics, expose the strengths and weakness, demonstrate the new ideas, and determine what stays and what goes.
More specifically, at a minimum, each student should:
- RECORD the essence of the review conversation. Reflect on the content. Was it how you wanted your project to be discusses? How did your verbal cues help or hinder the communication of your ideas? Which drawings received the most attention?
- ANALYZE your methods of design. How does the way you worked demonstrate a method for design? How did the process lead to the resultant?
- CALL OUT / CIRCLE the most powerful design moves in demonstrating your interest as shown in the house.
- EVALUATE the representation techniques. How else could the drawings be read? Point out what was clear? Underscore what fell away or went unnoticed?
- SKETCH ideas for what the next iteration could be
- DEMO the house
- WRITE a 200 word reflection
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Project 2.1 Opening Gambits: House as Thesis
You will arrive on the first day of class in September with what can be defined as an ʻopening gambitʼ. This is a design project done individually that plays out the interests developed over the summer in a distilled piece of design work. In chess, an opening gambit is the first move in which the player makes a sacrifice, typically a pawn, for the sake of a compensating advantage later in the game. The first project you arrive with in September will be your opening gambit, prompting an initial stance and design probe into the territory. A sacrificial project, a way in to the work. This move can also be decisive, one that helps to set the tempo and outcome for the year. Take this effort seriously, recognizing that its best attributes and questions may become critical, but recognizing that the more ambitious effort, where flawed, will only yield deeper fruit – and where work runs awry, it will find new traction in the seminar and studio discussions.
The House as Thesis is simultaneously open to the definition of the term ʻhouseʼ, yet confounded by literal scale of a house (approx range 30sf-3000sf). The thesis as a house. A house to contain the thesis.
house > noun 1. a building that serves as a living quarters for one or a few families 2. a place or abode 3. a shelter or refuge 4. one of the 12 equal sectors in which the celestial sphere is divided in astrology 5. a familial lineage or dynasty 6. a residence for a religious community or students 7. a legislative, deliberative, or consultative assembly 8. a place of business or entertainment 9. a type of dance music mixed by a disc jockey that features overdubbing with a heavy repetitive drumbeat and repeated electronic melody lines
Examine the following:
- Who or what resides in the house? From what are they sheltered, and relative to what is inhabitation conditioned?
- Inside/Outside – how is the boundary defined and the threshold permeated? What kinds of veils condition the envelope or extents of the construct?
- Site: at multiple scales, in geologic and climatic material considerations
- Materials, Construction, and modes of Assembly
- Time / Timeline / Seasons / Duration / Weathering
All design constraints and parameters are to be defined by each individual student.
Arrive at the first class, with content in hand, ready for presentation and discussion:
4 drawings at 24”x24” dimensions
1 physical model, not to exceed 24”x24”x24” in volume
300-500 word statement on the work and its intentions
Present the work and engage the Thesis term. The House as Thesis will constitute 10% of your final seminar grade.
Summer 2010 Schedule:
Blog Posted: July 1st 2010
Definitions & Reading Notes: Posted minimum bi-weekly
(July 15, July 30, August 15, August 30)
House As Thesis: Due first class
(Date and Location to be announced)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Project 1.2 Lexicon
As a group, we will develop a lexicon of terms whose definitions will be developed by the readings, discussions and the work of the seminar. You will begin this work immediately and the subsequent definitions will be part of your postings to your blog – informing the dialogue of the Stormfront group.
Readings:
The following readings will be uploaded to CTools by June 15 2010. You may read them in any order you wish, however all readings must be complete by August 15th 2010. Additional readings may be circulated over the summer by the faculty. The readings are not meant to be inclusive or exhaustive but to create an entrée into the range of topics that the Stormfront Thesis Seminar will discuss.
James Corner, “Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes,” in Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, ed. James Corner (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 153–169.
Keller Easterling. "Introduction" in Organization Space: landscapes, highways, and houses in America. [MIT Press: Cambridge, 1999], 1-11.
Sanford Kwinter, "Wildness," in Far from Equilibrium, [Actar: Barcelona, 2008], 186-191.
Manuel de Landa, "Geological History 1700-2000 AD," in A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, [Zone Books: New York, 1997], 71-99.
Peter Sloterdijk, “Air/Condition,” in Terror from the Air, trans. by Amy Patton and Steve Corcoran [Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2009], 71-106.
Robert Smithson. “A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey,” [1967] in Robert Smithson: Collected Writings, ed. Jack Flam [Berkley, LA, London: University of California Press, 1996], 68-74.
Mark Wigley, "Recycling Recycling," in ECO-TEC: Architecture of the In-Between [Princeton Architectural Press: New York, 1999], 39-48.
Definitions: The Lexicon
From each reading, you will distil two salient terms, one topic-based and one that is descriptive or active. The terms you choose should be ones that you will consider as seminal to your thesis development. You will then use both the article and other sources/observations to actively evolve a definition or series of definitions for the term. Choose strong words that can activate an architectural thesis. Examples of such terms are as follows:
(topic based terms): Ground. Site. Atmosphere. Ecology. Shelter. Context. Infrastructure. Landscape. Geography. Energy. Surrounds. Scope. Feedback. (descriptive/active): Registration. Pulse. Lucent. Engrained. Exaggerated. Imbedded. Contested. Energized. Surrounding. Amplify. Harness. Situated. Atmosphering. Intense.
N.B. This, of course is a minimum requirement to the summer portion of this seminar. If there are other readings that you are doing on your own, you are encouraged to derive additional terms for the lexicon. The evolving definitions should form a key component of your blog entries.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Project 1.1 Blog
Each student will initiate and create a thesis blog. This is a public record of your research space and a meta construct of the thesis and its extensions, projected publically into the world. Consider the name of your blog – your thesis will change and evolve over time. Organize the blog as will suit your work and consider the different spaces of information management and connection that may foster deep conversations emanating from the work. Use the blog to organize notes on the texts you read, have links to relevant websites, collect images, observations, critical texts, precedent projects, as well as to test out research and document evolving thesis work. Use “blogger” to create your blog: http://www.blogger.com. Your blogs should be up and running by July 1st 2010. Please email the faculty to advise when your blog is live. After July 1st we will circulate an email with all of the links, Each member of the Stormfront Thesis Unit will follow all of the digital domains. Contributions to the blog should be made bi-weekly, at a minimum, over the summer, and then weekly during the Fall term. Consider this construct as work towards the work, and a draft of a thesis document yet to be produced. It is likely that you will engage outside voices interested in your work, and this will help, along with the structures of the institution, to shape the entire endeavour. Maintaining your blog throughout the term will be worth 5% of the final grade. Some good architecture/urbanism/landscape blogs for reference (in no particular order):
http://infranetlab.org/blog/
http://pruned.blogspot.com/
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/
http://detroitunrealestateagency.blogspot.com/
http://www.dau-grainofsalt.blogspot.com/
http://www.eikongraphia.com/
http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/
http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/index.html
http://lifewithoutbuildings.net/
http://subtopia.blogspot.com/
http://www.longitudinalslum.typepad.com/
http://supercolossal.ch/#blog
http://varnelis.net/blog
http://remixtheory.net/
http://www.strangeharvest.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STORM
• noun: 1 a violent disturbance of the atmosphere. 2 an uproar or controversy. 3 a fierce outburst of a specified intuition or reaction. 4 a heavy discharge of objects. 5 a sudden heavy influx or onset. !6 a violent assault on a defended position
• verb: 1 move forcefully in a specified direction. 2 suddenly advance and capture 3 intensely vocalize
FRONT
• noun: 1 the side or part of an object that presents itself to view or that is initially exposed. 2 the position directly ahead. 3 any face of a building, especially that of the main entrance. 4 the foremost line of an armed force 5 the boundary of an advancing mass of air. 6 a particular situation or sphere of operation. 7 a deceptive appearance or mode of behavior. 8 boldness and confidence of manner 9 a position of leadership or superiority! 10 a person, group, or thing used to mask the identity or true character or activity of the actual controlling agent
STORM FRONT
• noun: 1 an aggressive stride demonstrating an embodied or apparent passion. 2 an unstable embedded mass intertwined into and altering its context. 3 a barrage of ideas formulated from the surrounding environment offering a noticeable and intense alteration to patterns, attention, and intensities. 4 the scale of the atmosphere to the detail of material. 5 a sign of imminent squall. 6. the sudden attack and capture of a site. 7 induced joyous anticipation of significant disturbance. 8 the cause of significant weather. 9 amplification of observation and anomalies. 10 one hell of a maneuver.
LOGICS AND LOGISTICS:
10.05.15. efforts commence to establish research in an observational and empirical basis into a charged condition seen as an instigator of work that amplifies infused interests in the realm(s) connecting architecture and atmosphere, ecology, geographies, energy, materials, and aberrant systems. Initial steps include the development and defense of terminology, a design exercise that prompts a stance, and logs of demonstrative correlations. To position both material and theoretical research in all cases, the definition and role of thesis will be investigated through existing examples, topics of related discourse, and group discussions. Input will be sought from a range of disciplinary domains and voices that will interrogate the work from the outside as we advance its compression and expansion from the inside. Strands of interest will be scrutinized at multiple scales to challenge design positioning conceptually and physically. Storm Front will conclude with robust demonstrations of the depth and breadth of these efforts on 11.04.27.
