What was the most important thing/skill/concept you learned at the School of Architecture?
Organization of information and processes, and design thinking.
Who made the most lasting impression (most influenced you) and why?
My most lasting memory has to be a class trip in 1973, led by Val Michelson, to Greece and Holland. Val energized my interest in architecture and its potential to positively effect the built environment.
What is your favorite memory from your studio days?
Again, the highlight of studio for me was our class trip to Greece and Holland in '73. A close second would have to be John Myer's 1967 studio with emphasis on city planning issues. These two studios gave me a great macro design foundation in planning issues that re-occurred often over my career.
Please identify one (or more) memorable design project that you worked on while a student at the School of Architecture.
My most memorable project had to be the design of an energy conscious future in an era of increasing energy scarcity for Val Michelson's Structure in Design class. It was my eye-opener into a future that would of necessity be very different from our past. Val's class challenged us to think of how that future could be achieved in the context of design. The Minnesota Zoo was another of my most memorable projects. I was just a beginning design student and not at all experienced, but this project really showed me the possibilities of design.
What major forces (such as individual architects, design philosophies, rendering styles, research methods, etc.) do you remember influencing you significantly as a student?
Again, Val Michelson's organized approach to design and design thinking, though it would be 20 years before we actually had words to describe design thinking, were very influential for me. Leonard Parker built on this foundation with a studio that translated these concepts into a work flow on projects that pulled the ideas together for me and made them practical in every day design problem solving.
Cite an example (be specific) that illustrates how you used the education you received at the School of Architecture to positively impact (or better) your community, city, nation or the world.
Early in my career I wrote a master plan, under the guidance of Val Michelson, for Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids, MN. The plan was intended to guide the college through various building projects as it expanded its campus. Several years later, we had the opportunity to design and build many of these projects. Similarly, I undertook a study of the Sullivan bank in Owatonna, MN, with the goal being to research the original design of the building, document the changes made to it over the years, identify materials original to the building, and their disposition, if removed, with the intent to guide future remodeling and restoration work in the building. As part of this work I invented a building-centric relational database in analog form several years prior to the publication of commercial digital relational data bases. My data base of the building has guided several remodeling and restoration projects on the building over the years.
No comments :
Post a Comment