Notes for New Students

11
on design
13
on design
look to non-archi sources
Ideas come from all sorts of places, not
just from design magazines and Archdaily.
Expand your field of inquiry into other
disciplines: physics, music, history, theatre,
engineering, the weather, interviews with the
public, technology, philosophy, gastronomy,
anatomy, traditional crafts, informal
practices... Visit exhibitions, interview
people, try new ways of representing
information, etc.
12
copying is boring
By all means learn from successful projects
and reference them as design precedents,
but try to be original in the formulation
of your own project. Draw your own
conclusions, and unless your proposal is
truly novel, try to steer away from typical
student project ‘trends’. Examples include:
- shipping container housing
- a mobius-strip building
- anything that people would immediately
associate with a starchitect ‘style’
- BIG-diagram replicas
- all-white, material-less buildings
projects are not skin deep
Don’t design purely for the sake of having
beautiful images in your final presentation
and portfolio. Make sure your project has
real substance and intent, research that can
stand up to scrutiny, personal passion (ie.
really love your project) and logical integrity
(ie. know exactly why you made the decisions
you did to arrive at the final outcome). Out of
a thoughtful, cohesive project that you care
about, beautiful images will naturally emerge.
Note:
Add depth and complexity that supports
the core idea of your design. Also note that
‘sustainability’ alone is not a concept.
14
tell a story
The best projects, in my view, not only display
architectural competence, but also paints
a convincing picture of the context they’re
situated in and the problem they’re responding
to. Try to see yourself as an author of a new
novel that no one yet knows the storyline to.
Help them understand the characters in your
story, make all the same discoveries you did,
and recognise all the literary elements and
clever twists in the plot you created.