Why Architecture?

Why Architecture?

It's a question that is asked all too often to me. 

When I was young and told people I wanted to be an architect.

Now, while I am majoring in architecture.

In a variety of different ways when filling out college applications some three years ago.

So, why architecture indeed. Why should I pursue a profession that lacks job security and is completely depended on the housing market and the growth of economy and population? Why not engineering? Or some form of medicine? 

It's because for us that truly love architecture, us who have a drive to design and innovate, the money is not our goal, neither is the fame, the bragging rights or anything along those lines. 

It's because it's born in us.

If we're lucky we find out at a young age that we have this knack and gift for wanting to design. To take our thoughts of what should be and putting it to paper, to then hopefully seeing one day that going from paper to reality. 

It's a true beauty to think that an idea in our heads can exist as a reality not only for us, but for everyone, in a very permanent way, a building. 

For me I fell in love with architecture at the age of either nine or ten, I cannot recall exactly. However, I do remember the exact place the this love affair began. It was while I was on vacation with my family in Florida, after spending a spell at Walt Disney World we had the tradition of heading out to my paternal grandparents home located along the Gulf Coast of Florida. They lived near the City of Sarasota. In this city is a home located right along the water's edge that once belonged to the head of Ringling Brother's Circus: John Ringling. The house was the Ca' d'Zan.

I was young and in love....with architecture.

It was only a day visit but I could not get this place out of my head. We drove back to my grandparent's that evening and in my head gears began to fire up that have yet to stop turing. These were the gears of creative thinking and the dream of architecture. Earlier that trip I bought a Mickey Mouse sketchbook, that book soon was filled with floor plans before I truly knew what a floor plan was. I had a copy from the Ca' d'Zan of the floor plans there I studied them over, and over and over again, and again until I began to understand how a house worked. Of course, being a kid I only wanted to draw large mansion type houses, not unlike this beautiful home. 

As time slowly went on it became known amongst my elementary school and junior high classmates that I wanted to be an architect. I kept a book about architecture with me at all times, and at times annoyed people by talking about it too much. 

When I was in 8th grade I remember my dad informing me that Google had this software available for free that was a 3D software. This was my chance at 14 to slowly start getting more serious about architecture, or in the least go from drawing on graph paper to using a computer. I installed it on my desktop and quickly took off with it. All my models in the start were quiet crude, but as high school came along I began to slowly get more and more into doing detailed models. Finally! I was able to show the world what was cooking in my mind, from houses, to towers to entire cities, this software allowed me to open the door from my mind to the entire world. 

Here are some of the models that I have produced using Google Sketchup. Keep in mind I was in high school when all of these were done.

Some say Sketchup is a toy and does not allow for good work. I say they just do not know it's full capabilities.

As high school went on I had to get quiet serious with my future. Time came to start to apply to colleges. To think what am I going to do in life? I guess it's a question that we all have to ask at some point in our lives, where time of pretend has to end and reality must begin. Luckily, for me the pretend of my childhood could grow to be my reality. I knew for about 8 years by that point that I wanted to be an architect. I had been reading the books, studying the greats and practicing my own craft that whole time. However, the question was: where to go? For me the question was easy. I wanted to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology. I knew it for Mies, Chicago, being the best in the area and one of the best overall and the school my grandfather attended in the past. My fear was, that I was not smart enough, academically, to get into the university. I figured that I did not have what it took to get in just on my passion and talent. I applied in December of 2010. I would worry constantly thinking; "what if I don't get in anywhere?" and "I can't get into IIT, that guy said they want to see a 27 on the ACT, I don't have a 27." Needless to say I was worried, this was the moment in my life to see if I could be given the chance to start turning my dream into my actual life! Not many people really have that chance in life. 

Well, January came and went, and still nothing. Then there was one day in February, a rainy, grey, overall bad day. I arrived home and before I could put my keys in the front door my mom opened it and stood there with this think envelope the the red letters spelling out: "WELCOME." That is one of the happiest moments in my life. At that moment I knew that here is the start of my chance to grow from a kid who fell in love with a house while on vacation and turn that passion into a career and a whole life.

That passion for architecture never truly burned out in me, and it still has not. I know it never will.

So, now I guess I'm here, at IIT. It is an unbelievable challenge. I remember the first day of studio. Since then so many have fallen. We all thought that we were good enough and willing enough to endear the challenge that is studio and architecture school. Many have fallen, but now at this point in my life those of us that are still here is an amazing collection of talent. 

It use to be is your project good or bad. Now the question is: how good is your project?

At least that's how it feels. I mean to say that producing good work is the bare minimum expected of us. 

I complain about it more than I should, but I have to remind myself that I once was a kid sitting at the kitchen table crying while practicing my spelling words wishing I could be doing architecture and now here I am, with having assignments that literally are to design and create. 

I truly love every minute of it. 

So I guess, why architecture?

Because it is who I am. 

It's what I am meant to do. There's simply nothing else out there.

I love it. I don't care if I am never remembered for it. It's what I know I am to do, and I wake up everyday to be apart of it.

Second Year. Semester 2. Studio IV.

This will be rather a long post.

Well, this semester has been quite trying. By far the hardest, not only academically, but personally and emotionally. The latter two for reasons that happened in my personal life that have no need to clutter and drag down a blog that is meant to write about my life through architectural school.

I hope to cover the entire semester in this post.

Well, I guess we begin in January.
The semester started on a cold, snow covered day, with me not particularly looking forward to being back in school(due to an event that happened to me personally over the break). The previous semester ended with me being quite angry about architecture and I was not in the best mood to be creative again.
I walked into Crown Hall and saw familiar faces and also saw the lists of new studio groups. I was excited to see that I was placed with a professor that was(from what I've heard) one of the best in the College of Architecture. I also heard that she was one of the toughest, but I was looking forward to that.

This semester was the Masonry Semester.
We started working at the basic level of the unit itself.

Our first project was a frustrating one. In groups we were assigned to design a new masonry unit. I was working with a group of five, which it can be hard to get five people to agree on anything, so the creative process of this workshop was a challenge. We agreed on a rather simple design due to the fact that we just ran out of time left to design. We wanted to reach really far out into the edge of what can be done, like in the realm of blob architecture, but we settled on a simple curved design that could create curved walls easily as well as turn a 90 degree corner.
With this masonry unit we then had to apply that into designing a garden space on the southern end of Northernly Island. We also had to settle for a simple idea due to lack of time. This also proved hard for me personally, with walking around with a chip in my shoulder about life.

This was our presentation board for the project.

Our model would have been difficult to produce out of concrete in the short deal of time so my group left it to me to construct one out of wood.  

Here are some model photos of the unit and studies of it.

The large model was difficult to build. I take it as a compliment that my group only trusted me to make it. It was done completely on a band saw, two separate pieces that had to line up perfectly. The smaller model units we cut on a laser cutter to assure consistency and accuracy.

In the review, the two reviewing professors, which mine was one, gave us a very good review, which was one of the best they gave that day. However, it turns out when it came time for the grade(two months later at midterms) she gave our group a C, which was surprising. 

As this workshop came to an end, as we neared the end of January.

As work began on our next workshop, a case study of two chapels(leading up to our next project) I was still in a pit and struggling to be happy, especially with the struggles of another class which I lost countless nights of sleep over worrying about not passing that class, which was required for next year's studio. It was during this time that i decided, one grey, rainy Sunday afternoon in late January to head over to Crown Hall and just get some diagram work done for the case studies. If anyone is familiar with Crown Hall they will know that the desks near the walk ways are the worst, my desk was one of them. Well, this day I walked into Crown, set down my bag and coat and noticed a friend on the other side of studio and went over to talk to her. I realized that my phone was over in my coat and did not want to leave it unattended, just because a phone is easy for someone to walk away with. I grabbed my phone and headed back over to my friend, I was within eyesight of my desk, and had to be turned right at the perfect moment, because within the five minutes of grabbing my phone and walking back to my desk to work, my bag was gone.

It was the horrible. My entire academic life was in that bag: my computer, my sketchbook, my notes and work for other classes, all completely gone.

If I was not already mad about things this definitely pushed me over the edge. 

But time does not stop and the world does not cease to continue on just because one person hit a bump in their life, it is not up to the world to stop for them, it is up to that person to push harder to keep up and pass up the world. 

This event really showed that I had to now be one of those people.

Time carried on, and fortunately I was able to get a new computer, one that I now guard with my life and never leaves my sight. The Case Study came and went, it went generally well and time was now here, in mid-Ferbuary for our first actual project- To design a meditation space/Field Chapel for the Effigy Mounds National Park In Iowa. 

My struggle with this project is that I could never really get my heart into it, I never found a passion and spark of inspiration for it, but that was my fault, I still had a chip in my shoulder from my personal life and that aforementioned class that was really beating me down. 

My thought process for this project was: how can people, and how do people interact with nature? and how can they meditate upon that in a building?

So I first isolated the senses that we experience nature down into four: light, sight, touch, and sound. I thought that these would allow the user to have a better thought towards nature. 

I approached this as putting one sense per room, or building. With isolating the senses the user can, once in nature with all the sense will have a better approach towards it.

Here are some of my early drafts for this meditation space

The entire odd shape for it came from me messing around with a lump of clay.

However, as time went on and revisions were made, and I really did not fight back when my professor wanted things different seeing as, to be honest, I did not care much about this project at all. I still think it was not the best, and when it came to the reviews the reviewers dug deeper into it much more than the rest of us ever did during the whole design process.

My drawings were not the best, but I made up for it when it came to our next project, which started two weeks after the field chapel ended. 

The model was a lot of work. To build these four separate buildings, I decided to build them using all individual bricks, bricks that only measured 1/4"x1/4"x1/2"

This was a nightmare in itself and I was not too pleased with the results.

  

As soon as the chapel had finished, we as a group of 14, had to take the brick county house, designed my Mies and figure out how he did it. He only ever did one floor plan and one perspective of it. This was done as an exercise to see how well we can grasp an understanding of masonry techniques. It was our last time hand drafting, or so they say, we've had many last times with hand drafting. I lucked out and just had to produce a detail axon of the bricks, very simple. 

The final project for the year was also my favorite project that we have done in school so far. 

To design a mixed use building on one of three lots at the intersection of Indiana and 37th. 

Not the prettiest site, but much room for growth and creativity. 

The assignment called for a mixed use building with retail space on the first floor with (a) dwelling(s) located on the second and third floor. I chose to do only one dwelling that would take up the entire second and third floors. We had the opportunity to write our own programs. For me, I decided to design a home for a family of three or four if the children shared a room. The retail space we were told not to give much thought seeing as it's good to leave that space as open as possible to rent as much square footage as possible. So with that in mind the space is generally just an open floor plan, with me ideally placing in a small design shop that is operated by the couple that lives above it. 

I wanted to keep this floor plan as efficient as possible with every space having a meaning, even allowing hallways not to exist, in the sense that even hallways are technically rooms on their own that just also serve as rooms. 

I started to think of how can a home be divided in terms of the family's privacy. I came to three zones: a public zone where rooms are used mostly for hosting guests and company, an intermediate zone where closer guests can be but also spaces that would regularly occupied by the family, and finally a private zone, where the space would be used almost exclusively by the family. These zones then became, respectively, the living room, the dining room and the family room. The secondary zones to connect these three were zones that could function in between, such as an office/workspace between the living and dining room, and the kitchen between the kitchen and family room. The third floor was just a place to house the bedrooms and a common/multipurpose room. 

In the end the entire shape of the building was derived from this idea of spaces.

Concept Diagram

First Floor

Second Floor

Third Floor

East and South Elevations

Longitudinal Section

Cross Section

Render

The honest truth is I am glad to see this whole semester gone. It has taken me around five months to write this entire thing seeing as it was probably the lowest point in my life, but it's not the knock downs that define us, it's the moments when we get back up from them that shows who we are.