The Studio is Complete!

The Studio is complete! After a lot of disassembling, stacking, moving, loading, reassembling, building, planning, and cleaning we have finally finished. It took an entire group effort, working if shifts throughout the day and night. It took a lot of planning, trial and error, and communication to make this work.
The main features are multiple pinup spaces, main entrances in the corner, pinup divider, lockable storage walls, graphic inspiration wall, and a new set up in the work spaces. There is an integration of all the other studios into this new space. Some might include parts and pieces of past installations and some might be ideas and concepts. The open plan allows for collaboration and a community feel. Hopefully this space will encourage creativity and spark a change throughout the other spaces in the department.



The Pinup spaces on the North and South walls take from both the Second Year Bus Shelter project as well as the Third and Fourth Year Vertical studio collaborative Biomech Installation Presentation. These pin-up walls allow for break out crit spaces throughout the space.

"FUN,FUN,FUN"
This graphic inspiration wall includes many words that are indicative of the studio atmosphere spirit. There are also images included as part of the graphic from the high school art class at NGHS.


This Pinup Display wall separates the studio from the hallway that runs through the east side of the studio. This allows yet another space for pinup but more importantly a space on the hallway side to communicate the progress and activity of the students working within that studio. The panels have been recycled from the Lowenstein studio of Fall 07. The vertical elements are repeated as well as the highlight of the horizontal orange band running throughout the base of the space.


Since we got rid of the old panel/cubicle system in order to create an open, more dynamic studio space, we need to implement a storage system to replace what we were deleting. A few students made a proposal in the design development stage of the process to stack some of the overhead storage containers to create lockable and dock-able storage units that could also act as dividing partitions that might create smaller breakout spaces within the larger studio atmosphere.


There is also a light installation that grafts in some ideas the first year students explored in a light wall installation in there East facing studio. Overall I think many of the teachers and students are excited about the possibilities the studio will bring and allow in the upcoming year.

ARTcan

After a few weeks of holding a can drive in our studio, raiding our pantries, and going on can shopping sprees we finally had our Art Can Contest during Earth Week festivities at UNCG. There were many contestants from all over the university, most of which had premeditated designs. We had a few of our own but we ended up going for the "tree of life" which illustrated "growth". We had a perimeter of green labeled cans which encompassed the blossoming grouped varieties such as fruits, starches ( beans, potatoes) peas, tomato based, a few boxed delicacies, and last but not least...potted meats. Despite the fact that we faced some pretty stiff competition such as R2D2 and Mario from Nintendo...We came in third place!

Studio Installation - the work continues....

Jovana and Sarah ---its happy in their little world!  Jessica is working on her "between the lines" concept -- or is it "wedging in?"  Jackie just drilled in the last screw for window installation.  Sarah is installing her creations for the window wall.  Janel, Shannon and Rachel are working on the inspiration wall.  It's looking good!  Brooke and Melanie have been amending the space plan.  We have a plan A and plan B is in the works.  Brooke, Rachel and Gabe are marking off the grid for the inspiration wall.  Shannon and Janel take time out for grins.  Melanie leaves her mark.  I am sure it will be a special one.  

Studio Installation - a work in progress

Brooke did Doug's lobotamy free of charge!

Sarah is trying to choke Jackie.  They've finally lost it!

Bob the Builder is looking for bolts.  He's already nuts!

Gamma Project Process Photos

The studio is already looking very different than it looked a few days ago.  Here are a few photos of progress showing work and fun going on in the studio.

Brooke, are you going in or out?

NGHS Art Students Visit

These are some of the images I took while  we gave the students a tour around the Gatewood Building.  The students really enjoyed looking down onto the studios from the 4th floor.  The first year studio's window wall project and the thesis project books  intrigued the high school students a lot.  They said they really liked our building, and I believe they had an interesting time visiting our studio. 

check this out...

Some of you may have heard of this site but its really great for helping you generate ideas from inspirational words and concepts. Its a website calle Wordle.net. You can enter in a bunch of words, paragraphs, even your blog url. It will take the words used the most from what you input and generate a graphic. You can edit the color, font, orientation, even the language! I made this one by putting in studio scuola's blog url! Yall should try it! http://www.wordle.net/

Studio Scuola Installation Collaboration Revitalization

After meeting with Wade, we had a jumpstart in the installation model making charette. Breaking up into four groups, we focused on different areas of the space such as: overhead plane, special places and spaces ( nooks), centralization, and a specialized wall.

Group Ask "Ksa"

As a way of starting to look at our own studio environment, our professor had us each draw a card from a stack that. Each of these cards had on them a single idea based around: Learning, Looking, Trying and Asking. From this we were to choose on card under each category and from that apply that idea to the environment in a way that we saw fit. My group was based around the card Ask, where we were to create a visual representation of ideas and thoughts we have about the space. We took photos of the learning environment and then looked up words that would explain our feelings and actions about the space.



The image above is a collage of images of our studio space and some ideas and thoughts that we have had about how professors/teachers can best reach their students. So that everyone in the class may learn and pull the most out of that they are being taught. Some of the ideas are: weaving, branching, as well as an importance placed on color. Especially when so many schools today are being thrown up in such a rush so that they facilities can be put into use. How the occupants use and think about their built environment in not taken into consideration until the last moments if at all. These images have been compiled in such a way so that they speak to the human need to communication and learn from each other as well as the need to branch off and have time to think and find our own path. Allowing us all to make our own nitch in the world were we can each live and thrive happily.

The Architecture of Happiness

Analysis by Jackie, Rachel P., Jovana, Gabe and Emily

This book documents the role of architecture as a profession over centuries in shaping our environment and the rationale behind the decisions they have made.  I do not think any architect purposefully sets out to create an ugly structure.  Sometimes the best intentions do not pan out.

 We should acknowledge that the question of what is beautiful is both impossible to elucidate and shameful and even more undemocratic to mention.  The Architecture of Happiness (hereinafter Architecture), pg. 71 

Who is to say what is beautiful and what is not?  People respond to architecture in different ways based on prior experience.  A person might not like a gothic building because it makes them feel small.  I believe a building to be desirable or offensive on the basis of what it talks to us about.” Architecture, page 73. It seems reasonable to support that people will possess some of the qualities of the buildings they are drawn to. Architecture, page 18.  For centuries, classical architecture went unchallenged because it made sense to the user.   There was symmetry, order and beauty.  Symmetry makes sense to human beings because we, in fact, are symmetrical in form.  Architecture styles have come into being because we, as humans, allow exterior forces, such as religion, to shape our environments.  We are sometimes drawn to architecture that makes us feel better about ourselves or want to be better people.  After WWI, Modernism emerged because we wanted to make sense of a world gone mad.  We surrounded ourselves with function and order.  Ornament became a thing of the past. 

The properties of a room can directly affect the emotions of the people within.  An ugly room can coagulate any loose suspicions as to the incompleteness of life, while a sun-lit one set with honey-colored limestone tiles can lend support to whatever is most hopeful within us. Architecture, ppgs. 12-13.   Botton connects sadness with the ability to truly appreciate beauty.  He believes that someone who has experienced profound sadness will react more strongly to architecture.  It is with a dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Architecture, page 25. 

Our love of home is in turn an acknowledgement of the degree to which our identity is not self-determined.  Architecture, page 108   According to the author, we allow culture to define who we are and what our surroundings should look like.  How our neighborhoods and cities should look goes unquestioned because we allow culture to dictate to us.  The greatest changes in architecture came from revolutionaries that were both artistic and practical.  This book can be applied to the rapid growth in green design taking place today.  Architecture needs to respond to the practical and emergent problems that need to be addressed in order for our planet to survive.

Poetics of Space chapters10 Phenomenology of Roundness

"He had been told that life was beautiful. No! Life is round." Van Gogh
Life is a continuum made up of natural cycles. Bachelard uses the example of a bird on page 237. The bird takes branches, twigs, and moss to create its home,, molding them into a spherical shape which becomes its nest. It is this encompassing nest that protects the round offspring. The birds then give back by reseeding the earth to complete the cycle in which they first started. “One can neither see, nor even imagine, a higher degree of unity.” P.237 Bachelard also speaks of the world as a whole. “The round cry of round being makes the sky round like a cupola . And in the rounded landscape, everything seems to be in repose.” He puts forth the idea that roundness encompasses our daydreams. “For a painter, a tree is composed in its roundness.” P.239 “The world is round around the round being.”p.240 This idea relates to a permanence by illustrating our existence. The circle is a never ending process that either allows us to change our environment or for our environment to change us. By talking about these processes in the natural sense Bachelard alludes to humanities role in our built environment, and how the architecture of that environment affects the universe as a whole.

The Poetics of Space Chapter 9 Dialectics of Outside and Inside

“But what a spiral a man’s being represents!  And what a number of invertible dynamisms there are in this spiral!  One no longer knows right away whether one is running toward the center or escaping.”  (p. 214)  A person does not always know where they are in themselves, they are not completely exposed on the outside and are not totally at center within themselves.  They are constantly in a spiral going back and forth and never completely still in their emotions and intimacy.  “Being does not see itself.  Perhaps it listens to itself.” (p. 215)  The person who is always changing and running to and from the outside world can not physically see where the center is and know where they stand.  One must take what they know and feel within themselves and decide where they are in life.  When a person begins to realize this they can start to figure out where they are in the spiral of inside vs. outside.

As we study ourselves and our surroundings -

“Intimate space loses its clarity, while exterior space loses its void, void being the raw material of possibility of being.  We are banished from the realm of possibility.”  (p. 218)  Intimate space, though small and personal does not ensure complete understanding of self and its universal placement. It is commonly more beneficial to explore situations and spaces in their entirety, encompassing surrounding elements and structures that would trigger internal growth. If we limit ourselves to intimacy and do not embark on elements that could assist in our learning and development, as a result we could then become the exterior that is void.

Poetics of Space Review Ch8 Intimate Immensity:

(once upon a time….)_

“Immensity and the intimate domain of intensity, and intensity of being, the intensity of a being evolving in a vast perspective of intimate immensity.” Pg. 193

 “As soon as we become motionless, we are elsewhere. We are dreaming in a world that is immense. Indeed immensity is the movement of motionless man. It is one of the dynamic characteristics of quiet daydreaming.” Pg. 184. In our everyday life we focus on the micro aspects and when we are daydreaming we are putting down the magnifying glass and allowing ourselves to loose control in the larger picture and the vastness of the world. Bachelard speaks to this in reference to the immensity of a forest, which is a limitless world, there are no seeing boundaries and there is the want and the desire to go deeper and deeper within this limitless space. Within the forest you don’t know where you’re going, there is no right or left, but there still that inquisitiveness that keeps pushing you forward in the space. An example of this is when Bachelard uses this quote:  “If we do not know where we are going, we no longer know where we are.” (Pg. 185).

“The word vast is a metaphysical argument of which the vast world and vast thoughts are united.“ pg. 192.  Bachelard explains that this quote would best be used in the realm of intimate space, however, you can create an intimate space within the vast realm you are in. Going back to the forest, there truly are intimate spaces within; when standing between two trees, one is truly experiencing intimate immensity. 

The Courage to Teach by Parker J. PALMER

"Knowing is how we make community with the unavailable other with realities that would allude us without the connective tissue of knowledge. Knowing is a human way to seek relationship and, in the process, to have encounters and exchanges that will inevitably alter us. At its deepest reaches knowing is always communal." (p. 54)

Knowing is synonymous with learning, as we grow as a community, we understand cooperative group interaction. Palmer guides individuals to understand their integrity and identity, and how these elements apply to the aspect of community overall. The Courage to Teach breaks down the successes and failures of procedure and practice, while providing ground notes for physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual spatial requirements.

The literature is successful in its approach because it shows Palmer's ability to be a "...good teacher, not limited to technique..." (p.10) Through his exploration of teaching styles and accommodating various learning abilities, Palmer's search for a "mentor", inspired his thought to become a mentor, inevitably progressing towards the publication of such a learning tool. A learning tool that gives voice to both students and professionals, assisting with the understanding and enactment of positive group interaction. Following the basis for group dynamics, Palmer suggests to maintain boundaries of space, keeping the floor open to all participants, and deal with conflict creatively.

Applying the overall concepts obtained from the text read, helps our studio to practice and initiate beneficial interaction, in return we will flourish into professionals capable of pro-active listening, intimate teaching, and most importantly the ability to combine the two by "...hearing people to speech..." (p.47 ) The most prominent example of these qualities in action would be our meeting with the first year students earlier this semester. The experience overall displayed our ability to teach through action, and express our past experiences through the learning of others. "...As we learn more about who we are, we can learn techniques that reveal rather than conceal the personhood from which good teaching comes." (p. 25)

Home From Nowhere by James Kunstler

Home From Nowhere, Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century, explores the growing movement across America to restore the physical dwelling place of our civilization.
Kunstler advocates a return to traditional modes of city and town planning that has been labeled the "New Urbanism." And he casts his eye about America, critiquing cities' attempts to remake themselves.
“Charm is a quality of place that helps people to see relationships among things and invites participation.” (Chapter 4) Kunstler writes about the idea of a close knit utopian city where everything can be reached within 5 miles. He believed this unity which was forming became abandoned after World War II when many soldiers came home and began to live in urban settings. This quote establishes his reasoning that public space is important and communities should connect their businesses and residential homes together to form a closer bond. Zoning laws have created this anti-social community in which the freedom and mind-set of individuals have become isolated through an unconscious segregation.
This isolation has altered our appreciation for nature and its spontaneity. Suburban lifestyle is defined in the reading as unreality because of its uniformity and restrictions. “Now, why would a casual observer viewing this tranquil scene want to jump out of his skin and shriek?” This reminds me of another book, The Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, in which three children transported to an alternate world in which suburban life was the only form of community. It showed the extreme living conditions where every house, yard, street, and family looked and acted exactly the same. For example, at a certain time during the day, a child from each house would walk out and bounce a basketball with exactly the same rhythm. Then the mother from each house would call to the child for him to come inside. Can you imagine watching this scene? This is how Kunstler views the future of suburban lifestyle. It is an eerie and shocking unreality that in a way, Kunstler is describing.
“Americans love Disney World back home [as opposed to Disney World in France] because the everyday places where they live and go about their business are so dismal that Disney World seems splendid in comparison.” (pg. 35) Disney World possesses this public realm which is open to everyone. It contains homes, businesses, small scaled cities, attractions, theatre and a lifestyle that anyone can freely roam through. “Public realm is the connective tissue to our everyday world.” (pg. 36) “The true public realm then, for the sake of this argument, is that portion of our everyday world which belongs to everybody and to which is therefore a set of real places possessing physical form.” (pg. 36) Why then do we build homes and streets that isolate us from the rest of society?
In the later part of the book, he speaks of personal interactions with communities and the problems that exist within them. He describes the lack of civil artistry and the unknowledgeable people that lead and design these communities.
In conclusion, Kunstler gives seven major suggestions on how to solve the crisis of collapsing communities. He offered to make a radius of five miles out from the center of communities which would contain residences, public buildings and business. This radius would help communities connect, interact, grow stronger, and care for one another through their public realms.

Poetics of Space Review Ch7 Miniature:

Chapter 7 Miniature:

“To use a magnifying glass is to pay attention, but isn’t paying attention already having a magnifying glass?” Pg 158 This is the idea of focusing on the micro instead of the macro. “The tiny-ness paves the way for everything to happen” Pg 164 This quote makes senses because all of the micro aspects of design build up to create the macro world. Thinking in miniature is not so much thinking in smaller scale but it’s imagining a world within a world. “This apple is a little universe within itself.” Pg151 The chapter is focusing on the idea that smaller objects always make a bigger entity. For example when Bachelard speaks of the botanist who explains the flower in a physical manner but then is able to psychologically examine how the flower relates to the world. “All small things must evolve slowly, and certainly along period of leisure, in a quite room, was needed to miniaturize the world.” Pg159 “Distance, too, creates miniatures at all points on the horizon, and the dreamer, faced with these spectacles of distant nature, picks out these miniatures, as so many nests, of solitude in which he dreams of living.“ Pg 172 This quote helps the reader see the smaller picture on the horizon but as you approach the picture becomes bigger. Having something miniature is where we would want to spend our time by daydreaming of the world and the smaller aspects our imagination is creating a bigger picture. “Miniatures are the refuge of greatness” Pg 155 

HOT-LANTA..how bout COLD-LANTA

Note: please read the following in an English accent.

It all started off with the southern snow storm of 2009, causing build up on the high ways, panic in the drivers and well..some simply left in the snow. The fourth year’s trip to “HOT-Lanta” (cough) rather, COLD-Lanta, minus three, spent three days gallivanting around the city visiting design firms and furniture showrooms and tasting the cuisine hot – lanta had to offer.  

Day 1: Our morning started off bright and early at 9 am – SHARP.  Herman Miller was the first of the day, we enjoyed juices, coffee, pastries and fruit while engaging in casual business conversations with our colleagues. Betteye Russell, the women of the hour(s) started off by giving us a brief tour of the Herman Miller Showroom and had a wonderful speaker who gave us helpful tips, hints and suggestions on life after i.arc – yes, there really is a life after i.arc. 

We then braved the cold, and traveled to our next destination point, while some made it there quickly, others opted to take the scenic route (1201 E. Peachtree St.)  Lord Aeck + Sargent greeted us with warm coffee, tea and a quick tour of their studio space and a brief insight on their historical preservation projects. With tummies growling and faces numb, the fourth years headed off to HOK. Hungry, everyone indulged in yummy cookies and canned soda and had an opportunity to get off their feet and chat for a while. HOK gave us a tour of their space and showed us the multitude of projects in which they had been embarking on. A question session closed the tour, and again, many helpful hints were shared.

Pause- “okay see you @ 11 am tomorrow.”  “ 11..no, try 9…” (everyone growls at Patrick and Betteye) The rest of the evening was up to students to explore the city, relax and enjoy good food and company.

 DAY 2: 9 am came wayyy too fast. Bearing the cold, the heels and a slight “headache” we once again embarked on a long, exciting day of firms and showrooms – this time however, included a lunch break! Knoll was the first stop on the agenda and this gave us an opportunity to finally sit in the chairs we had been drawing on index cards for a full semester, thanks to “P”.

 We left with our brains filled with knowledge on the designers and textiles and headed off to TVS- Designs. TVS- Designs gave us the opportunity to learn about research in design and how crucial it is; from there we were given a brief tour of their space which left us speechless and worked from exploring their four floors of studio space. LUNCH TIME. Excited we had an opportunity to eat this day we all ventured to different locations for lunch and enjoyed a couple hours to get off our feet and relax and ponder everything we have experienced thus far. Last and final trip was to Perkins + Will where like TVS-Design we were greeted with an alum from i.arc…how exciting! Her and her colleague gave us insight on their institutional and healthcare projects and answered our last questions.

 We then ended the trip with one final group shot – and embarked on the long journey home. 

OH- AND THANKS TO P.DIDDY + T.DAWG  FOR PUTTING UP WITH ALL OUR SHANINIGANS!

Chapter 6 Corners

In chapter, Bachelard speaks about how corners are a consciousness of peace a refuge and allow a sense of safety. It is a haven for children and the dreamer in each of us. Although we are left questioning when discussing corners, “why is it worse for us to say that an angle is cold and a curve warm? That the angle is masculine and the curve feminine? [A] curved corner inhabits geometry. p. 146” We find comfort in corners as hid away from the outside world. The corner in this way becomes as soft and cozy as any curve could offer to us. We are able to daydream in this niche and lose ourselves with “little sensation of time, great void of eternity! All infinity can be contained in this stone corner… p. 142” The world around us seems to become intently larger and minute in the same moment. “The dreamer would appear to enjoy the repose that divides being and non-being p.145” Where they can feel safe snuggled in their corner but allowed to explore the great abyss of space and images of existence.

Composted: Sara Gray

Jackie Mascarella's Reflections on Poetics of Space: Chapter Five

Taken as a whole, with both its hard covering and its sentient organism, the shell, for the Ancients, was the symbol of the human being in its entirety, body and soul.  (Bachelard, page 116)  To paraphrase, the shell is symbolic of the human body, which is a protective envelope for the soul (the mollusk).  A shell grows from within.  Some shells form chambers as they grow and produce walls that conceal through the imitation of surfaces. (Bachelard, page 130)  The shell, which comes in so many shapes and sizes, can be a house, a cave, a fortress city, and a place of withdrawal or concealment.  Therefore, the imagination can produce all sorts of fantastical imagery about these mysterious forms because we are curious about what the interior looks like and what creature lives inside.

Bachelard says, on page 120, nests and shells are refuges in which life is concentrated, prepared, and transformed.  Like shells, homes can take a variety of forms and purposes.  In an ideal first home, a child is nurtured, loved, educated and protected with the purpose of forming a well-rounded individual.  Therefore, a shell, for a person with an ideal childhood, will evoke warm and happy memories – a place they want to go back to.  On the contrary, someone who did not have an ideal childhood will not wish to evoke those memories.

A shell is formed from within.  To me, this means that we define our own interior spaces based on our personal history and experiences, our personalities, needs and idea of comfort and safety.  Over the stages of our lives, these can be different things.  For example, a child might mold the living room into an imaginary fortress by tying sheets between two chairs and enjoy dramatic play beneath it for days.  They are shaping home to their scale.  On the other hand, a teenager or young couple will form their interior spaces in completely different ways than an “empty nester.”Home means different things to different people depending on their early experiences.  Were they loved and nurtured?  Was their home comfortable, safe and warm?  What does home need to be to them?

 

Chapter Four "Nests"

"...Men can do everything except build a bird's nest." Bachelard is referencing the proverb Ambroise Pare's work: "The enterprise and skill with which animals make their nest is so efficient that it is not possible to do better, so entirely do they surpass all masons, carpenters, and builders; for their is not a man who would be able to make a house better suited to himself and to his children than these little animals build for themselves." In this chapter Bachelard talks about the sophistication of the way birds create and make their nests. Men, with all their wisdom, tools, and power are incapable of building a nest. ("According to Michelet, a bird is a worker without tools." p. 100) Bachelard mentions Thoreau's theory of the tree becoming a nest for daydreamers to hide away and be able to dream and make memories. ("A tree becomes a nest the moment a great dreamer hides in it." p.97) Confidence is introduced as a means to build a shelter. Bachelard poses the question," Would a bird build its nest if it did not have its instinct for confidence in the world", p.103. The act of daydreaming builds confidence because in a daydream you can be whoever you want to be. In dreams we are able to be fearless, as the birds are. People who have low self confidence might live out a life of confidence through their dreams. ("A rhythm that reaches back across the years and, through the dream, combats all absence", p.99) He is talking about the function of inhabitant a space through dreams. ("For not only do we come back to it, but we dream of coming back to it," p.99). We always bring old experiences with us, which form our present state of mind.

"Mankind's nest, like his world, is never finished. And imagination helps us to continue," p.104).

Composted by: Jovana Nikolic, Sara Gray, Emily Davis
Imafe courtesy of: www.iappraise.com/

Poetics of Space Chapter 5 "Shells"

Shells:

 "Snails build a little house which they carry about with them,"so" they are always at home in whatever country they travel." (pg 121) This quote helps describe the thoughts of Bachelard in dealing with natural dwellings, shelters and the charm that they take on as individual units. The mystery of these homes is in their creation not the actual form of the structure.

 Bachelard speaks of J.B Robinets opinion that states that the creation of life is the creation of form, life brings about living form. He also believes that much like fossils, shells become the natural endeavor to create human form. The shell is a important representation of the human body which in turn protects the soul. Without a creature the shell is empty and void of life, the same goes for human life, when the soul leaves the body it becomes an empty vessel. 

"I have simply wanted to show that whenever life seeks to shelter, protect, cover or hide itself, the imagination sympathizes with the being that inhabits the protected space." (pg 132) To conclude Bachelard speaks of the fact that a shell has a direct correlation between the user and the actual space in which they dwell. Every detail of a shell is related to its overall design and this follows suite with human characteristics and the spaces that they inhabit. 

the tentative schedule for the beta project.

What I Have Learned So Far This Semester . . .

So far this semester I have already learned so much. I have researched and learned many different styles of learning, and in studying them I have tried to understand what style of learning I use. I try to apply these lessons into my everyday style of work. I've tried to step back and think more, and be more creative in my design approach. Something else I have learned is that because there are so many different styles of learning that everyone learns in a different way. Working with so many people in studio you get to expereience all these different styles, and see who you work best with. I want to try and apply different ideas and styles towards my work in studio. I feel like I need to shake things up and try new things. Sometimes in school we all get into a routine, and things can become dull or static, I feel the best way to succeed is to stay dynamic and keep things interesting. I want to try more sketching and conceptual work this semester, and hopefully this change will affect my work in a positive way.

Jessica Shupe

This Semester

This semester, thus far, I have learned quite a bit. Starting with the ways of learning, I knew what they were and how they work. But to actually putting them into action is something different. This semester is also different from the others because we are reading the Poetics of Space, which is a hard book to read but has a great meaning and quite a few lessons in the book for us, dealing with design and the different ways of looking at the world as a whole. When we had the chance to critique the 1st years, we were supposed to be helping them but it also helped me as well. It made me realize how much I have learned so far and forced me to realize the different ways of designing and learning the skills from others by their teaching.

What I have learned so far....

This semester has been much different from last semester already. I am learning that things don't always have to be refined and finished right away. Sketching is good and the more you do it (which i wasn't doing there for a while) the more ideas you start getting. It's always good to take a step back in time and try to go back to a sort of innocence when trying to think creatively. Children are uninhibited by all of the stresses and insecurities that people have the older they get. I want to continue to try to let my imagination run wild and think the way I did when I was young. The older I get the more I feel like I'm losing my creativity. I use to love to draw all the time and sketch just anything but the more that I look at it as something I "have" to do the less I actually do it. I want to get back to that feeling I use to have of loving to draw so much. I think the way to do that is to try to think like a child does (to a certain extent).