A Beginners Mind

PROCEEDINGS
21st National Conference
on the Beginning Design Student

Stephen Temple, editor

Conference held at the

College of Architecture
The University of Texas at San Antonio
24-26 February 2005

A Beginners Mind
PROCEEDINGS
21st National Conference
on the Beginning Design Student
Stephen Temple, editor
College of Architecture
The University of Texas at San Antonio
24-26 February 2005

Situating Beginnings
Questioning Representation
Alternative Educations
Abstractions and Conceptions
Developing Beginnings
Pedagogical Constructions
Primary Contexts
Informing Beginnings
Educational Pedagogies
Analog / Digital Beginnings
Curriculum and Continuity
Interdisciplinary Curricula
Beginnings
Design / Build
Cultural Pluralities
Contentions
Revisions
Projections

Offered through the Research Office for Novice Design

Education, LSU, College of Art and Design, School of
Architecture.
Copyright 2006 University of Texas San Antonio
/ individual articles produced and edited by the authors

Printed proceedings produced by Stephen Temple, Associate Professor, University of Texas San Antonio.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without
written permission of the publisher.
Published by:
University of Texas San Antonio
College of Architecture
501 West Durango Blvd.
San Antonio TX 78207
210 458-3010
fax 210 458-3016

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Temple, Stephen, editor
A Beginners Mind: Proceedings of the 21st National Conference on the Beginning Design Student /
edited and compiled by Stephen Temple
1. Architecture - Teaching 2. Architecture - Design 3. Design - Teaching

ISBN 0-615-13123-9

Corners College [Snapshot Library]

MIKE ZEBROWSKI AND BETH TAUKE
State University of New York at Buffalo
What is invisibly at play behind a wall or floor, once exposed, becomes an active
participant in a spatial drawing of the buildings inner lifeAspects of stratification
probably interest me more than the unexpected views which are generated by the
removalsnot the surface, but the thin edge, the severed surface that reveals the
autobiographical process of its making. There is a kind of complexity which comes
from taking an otherwise completely normal, conventional, albeit anonymous
situation and redefining it, retranslating it into overlapping and multiple readings of
conditions past and present. Each building generates its own unique situation.
-Gordon Matta-Clark1
Introduction
Grounding beginning students in material/spatial knowledge, logic, representation,
innovation, and memory are the primary purposes of the first year architecture studio at The
University at Buffalo State University of New York. Each year the pedagogy of the first term is
designed with new projects that take on these primary tasks. The project sequence addresses
issues of processes and their attendant results. The processes in the studio are grounded in the
notion that design is found in the making, and that if work is closely read, it will reveal the next set
of questions to pursue. To that end, we try to: a) understand materials and spaces relative to their
constructed logic or one applied to them, b) explore ways in which space is articulated by the
materials, instruments and methodologies we adopt for looking and experiencing, c) examine the
many factors that influence our experience of space and material, and d) analyze how we affect
space through what we build.
The final project of the sequence, entitled Corners [Snapshot Library], investigates the
materials and construction of common building types, and ways in which these types might be
reassembled and reconfigured. To begin the exploration, eight 5 x 5 x 5 corners from eight
building types (civic, residential, commercial, industrial, educational, public, temporary, and
architecturally significant) are measured, photographed, drawn and modeled. Students study the
materials, construction, and assembly of these specific corners; consider their location and
orientation in relation to one another; and develop connections between them. They use both the
joinery conditions and the unique material characteristics of the various corners to design a space
for the act of storing and viewing the snapshots (already photographed and yet to be
photographed) of their lives.

PROCEEDINGS: 21st National Conference on the Beginning Design Student

San Antonio 2005

357

The combined corners, in this case, embody everyday architectural experiences and
memories. Through their location, orientation, and connection, they suggest specific ideas about
architecturefirst, that architecture is multiple, a condition that depends upon the many ways in
which we engage it. Second, this multiplicity brings, as Henri Lefebvre has termed it, a sort of
instant infinity in regard to the coding and decoding of meanings and contents.2 Third,
juxtapositions of different material conditions establish new systems, methods, contingencies,
and sites for architectural invention. And finally, in the words of Peter Lynch, Architecture design
is a process of accommodation, adjustment, and inflection, which attempts to raise apparently
meaningless circumstancesto the level of intention, significance, and insight.3
Process
The students in the studio are quite diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, class,
economic status, and education; consequently, their backgrounds and experiences differ greatly
as well. Some grew up in Buffalo or Western New York, others spent the bulk of their lives in New
York City, still others are international (from Russia, Turkey, China, Japan, Thailand, Columbia,
Peru, etc.). Using common building types that are somewhat familiar to all of the students,
regardless of their histories, establishes both a common ground and sense of comfort within
them. The memory of these types is already thereit is part of their make up. Particularly for the
international students, this base architectural palate allows them to make connections that bypass
verbal language, that summon feelings similar to Rainer Maria Rilkes description of a wall
encountered while traveling, I recognize all of it here, and thats why it goes right into me: its at
home in me.4

At the same time, a closer reading of these specific corners puts all of the students into
unfamiliar territory, and undermines preconceptions about the materials, assembly, and
construction of that which they encounter in their everyday lives. Some students, for example,
have general knowledge about wood frame construction, but when they photograph, measure
and carefully examine the corners of their bedrooms, they find particularities not present in the
typical construction diagramsthe way settling has shifted the floor plane; the missing screws in
the curtain rod plate; the addition of insulation; the presence of a reading lamp, headboard, or
smoke detector, etc. The articulation of these specifics (sometimes referred to as third elements)
is what gives the bedroom what Heidegger would call its being-in-the-world5it is what makes
the corners come to life in the world of the studio.
One of the difficulties with the documentation of the corners is that often students cannot
get into the walls, floors, or ceilings to see whats really there. Consequently, they need to
search for clues beyond the 5 x 5 x 5 corners that inform them about their make up. Often this
involves going into basements or attics, finding exposed areas, and using stud finders or other
technologies that help them to detect hidden information. In the process, they tend to uncover the
specific construction logic as well as the anomalies of the buildings on which they are working. Of
course, not all information can be found. And, in those cases, students must resort to imagining

358

PROCEEDINGS: 21st National Conference on the Beginning Design Student

San Antonio 2005

into the walls, floors, or ceilings based on the other logics that they have discovered. At all times,
however, they use the actuality to establish the imagined.

The information established in the initial documentation processes is used to develop

drawings and models of the corners in an effort to gain another understanding of the corners
through their representation. (In the case of this project, and all others in the studio, the drawings
are used to document that which cannot be modeled and vice versa.) Moving into these
representational modes puts distance between the original corners and the analyses at hand.
However, it must be acknowledged that the very act of recording itself is a distancing mechanism,
bringing some aspects of the corners closer and others further away. The drawings and models
might be considered the once removed layer of recording devices in the process; nonetheless,
the drawing and modeling process might provide other kinds of knowledge and understanding of
the corners that the initial recordings could not offer.
At this point in the process, students experiment with ways of locating and reorienting the
eight corners to make a cube. Six of the eight corners must break from their original orientation. For
example, they consider the industrial corner and how its construction, weight, and materials
determine where it could be placed in relation to the other corners. What happens when it is turned
on its side? What joinery opportunities does it offer to the other corners? Can it remain structurally
viable? How does the meaning of this corner change when it is reoriented? Changing reference
conditions poses many complex problems, and obliges students to consider the logic of
construction and materials. Through location and reorientation, they confront the realities posed by
Aris Konstantinidis statement that construction embodies material and its use according to its
properties, that is to say, stone imposes a different method of construction from iron or concrete.6
At the same time, these reconfigurations of common corners alter students perceptions and
engagement of them. The palate is familiar, but the process of combining them is not.

PROCEEDINGS: 21st National Conference on the Beginning Design Student

San Antonio 2005

359

Connecting the corners requires students to consider two scales, the scale of the model
(1 :1) and the full-scale conditions of each corner. Through the study of joinery, the properties
of materials are revealed and their structural capabilities are exposed. At first, the material and
construction restraints pose a seemingly impossible set of conditions, but upon closer
examination, they actually become resources to kindle innovations. Students take on the task put
forward by Charles Eames, When you get into connections, you begin to get into architecture.7
They ponder ways to connect masonry to wood, steel I-beams to glass, concrete to stone. They
develop connections either by adding, subtracting, or displacing various linear, planar, and
volumetric elements. Invention is at the forefront as students play with the materials out of which
their surroundings are constructed in an effort to find new possibilities within that which they
thought they knew.
The project then expands to include the forces of site and program. In this case, the site
is abstracted; it is one sheet of birch plywood cut 2-6 x 2-6. The site orientation is either 90
degrees (vertical) or 0 degrees (horizontal). It must be penetrated by the corners cube, and
should have a direct relationship with the entry and exit of the cube. The corners cubes embody
the clues that determine the occupation of the site and stipulate how it ought to be developed.
The result is a hierarchical organization of space, which typically is a set of moves outwards from
the corners.
Simultaneously, a simple program is introduced. Students are asked to design a
snapshot librarya space for the act of storing and viewing the snapshots of their livesusing
the eight corner cube. This library requires a separate entrance and exit, a storage system that
holds up to 10,000 4 x 6 snapshots, and a place to view and reflect upon the stored snapshots.
Natural light is the only light source for the interior. The corner joinery and the third element or
particularities of the corners serve as the departure point for the development of the library.
Introducing site and program late in the process requires yet another set of shifts. The
object yields to a set of outside forces that can dramatically alter its makeup. Students grapple
with the idea that architecture is more than the building itself; it arises from a studied relationship
of buildings, sites, and programs. They consider Bernard Tschumis statement that any
architectural sequence includes or implies at least three relations. First, an internal relation which
deals with the method of work; then two external relations, one dealing with the juxtaposition of
actual spaces, the other with the program (occurrences or events). The first relation, or
transformational sequence, can also be described as a device, a procedure. The second, spatial
sequence is constant throughout history; its typological precedents abound and its morphological
variations are endless. Social and utilitarian considerations characterize the third relation: we
shall call it for now the programmatic sequence.8 All three relations are present in any
architectural work, whether implicitly or explicitly. Ultimately, it is the unique combination of these
fundamental conditions that constitutes the architecture in this project.

360

PROCEEDINGS: 21st National Conference on the Beginning Design Student

San Antonio 2005

Considerations
At times we think we know ourselves in time, when all we know is a sequence of
fixations in the spaces of the beings stabilitya being who does not want to melt
away, and who, even in the past, when he sets out in search of things past, wants
time to suspend its flight. In its countless alveoli space contains compressed time.
That is what space is for.
-Gaston Bachelard9
Memory is used as a point of departure, as a way of questioning/critiquing how the world
is experienced, and as the subject of the project. One of the primary intentions of the project is to
allow students to discover the roles that architecture plays in their memories and experience.
Each student enters the first studio, not as a tabula rasa, but as a person with a rich history of
space, buildings, materials, and the events related to them. Student Kelly Zona describes her
interpretation of the project:
The original idea for the cube was based on dreams that I used
to have when I was little. For example, I would be in my grandmother's
house and open the door and I would suddenly be in school. The house
is often a symbol of the self in dreams, and I extended the metaphor to
mean the spaces of our lives. The eight corners come together like
different pieces of an individual's life come together to create a
whole.
According to Buddhist philosophy, however, the self does not
actually existit is only an illusion. The eight corners are held
together as a seeming whole but are never completely joined. The site,
a frozen matrix of spacetime, both defines the cube and holds it
together. "Frozen time," like a photograph becomes a false representation of
reality. Although you can say that the cube does not exist, it
represents our perception of reality.10

The snapshot library, in a sense, becomes a kind of architectural scrapbook that houses the
photographic recording of the students life and sense of beingit is a compilation on two
different scales. As the students awareness of the relationship between the recording of their
lives and the specific circumstances of material practice comes to the fore, their attention moves
towards the issue of making and interpreting architecture. They begin with material detail, with a
conception of the specific ways that lines, planes, and volumes make up our material world; but,
hopefully, through this process, they come to ponder how architecture can reflect and activate
human complexity--the idiosyncrasies of their everyday lives.

NOTES
1

Excerpted from An Interview with Gordon Matta-Clark by Don Wall, in the International Cultureel Centrum
Catalogue entitled Gordon Matta-Clark, Antwerp, November 1977.
2

Henri LeFebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell,
Inc., 1991) p. 85.

PROCEEDINGS: 21st National Conference on the Beginning Design Student

San Antonio 2005

361

Peter Lynch, The Cranbrook Monographs: Peter Lynch (Bloomfield Hills, MI: Cranbrook Academy of Art
and Telos Art Publishing, 2003) p. 12.
4

Ranier Maria Rilke The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, trans. M.D. Herder (W.W. Norton & Company,
1949) in Pratt Journal of Architecture: Form, Being, Absence, Vol. 2, Spring 1988, p. 13.
5

Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phemonology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1982) pp. 172-3.
6

Aris Konstantinidis as quoted in Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture, (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1995) p. 335.
7

Charles Eames as quoted in Ralph Caplan, Notes and Connection, (Zeeland, Michigan: Herman Miller,
Inc., 1978) p. 6.
8

Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996) pp. 153-154.

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964) p. 8.

10

Kelly Zona, From her final presentation of the project in December 2004.

362

PROCEEDINGS: 21st National Conference on the Beginning Design Student

San Antonio 2005