63. What is important in STARchitecture school (part 1)

Star⋅chi⋅tec⋅ture School stär'kĭ-těk'chər skool

noun

1. Architecture schools that build their attractiveness, competitiveness or status on the accomplishments & reputation of their starcitecture faculty.


2. architecture schools that grooms students to become "starchitects"


3. architecture schools that mimics the teaching practices of starchitecture schools.

When I found myself subtracting or adding columns because it made my rendering look better, then I knew I was in a starchitecture school.

Below are samplings of diploma projects selected from two different schools. As you look at them consider the following questions:

Which ones would you rather live or work in?
Which ones would you choose as the location for an exciting movie or video game?

SAMPLE SET A

SAMPLE SET B

SAMPLE SET A is from Diploma Unit 20 run by Professors Shaun Murray and Marjan Colletti at The Bartlett School in London. One can safely describe this studio if not the entire Bartlett as an architecture school that mimics the teaching practices of starchitecture schools.

SAMPLE SET B is from a Thesis Course run by Professor Lance J. Brown at The City College of New York. Opposed to The Bartlett, The City Collage does not seem to fit the profile of a starchitecture school.

The projects in both sets lack to varying degrees some credibility as a project that is possible to realize. Obviously one much more than the other.

The is because most architecture schools are not set up to teach you how to design a building.
In fact, The point of architecture school is NOT to teach you how to design a building.
Let me say that again.

The point of architecture school is NOT to teach you how to design a building.

Take a moment and meditate on that.

If you want to learn how to design a building you should go and apprentice for an architect or a builder under no false pretense.

Then what's the point of architecture school you ask?

The short answer is that it has many points depending on the school that you go to.

For example most schools share some of these objectives:

• How to challenge the boundaries of conventional practice


• How to communicate ideas through drawing, model making, writing and speaking


• To be socially and ethically engaged in society (a few will do this)
  


• To expose students to the creative and technical aspects of architecture


• To equip you with the knowledge required for making architecture


• How to be critical of current practice


• To bring you abreast with the prevailing issues in current practice


• To give you the scholarship to define architecture on your own terms


• To give you a rough understanding of building construction and design

and if you are lucky, you might also learn

• How to understand & appreciate good craftsmanship in building


• or something about building construction methods
  

You will find some of these same objectives in starchitecture schools but what makes them stand apart from other architecture schools is that they prioritize one objective over all others:

• How to create projects that have high entertainment value.

That is, projects that are entertaining to look at (as the images from Bartlett studio above) or entertaining to discuss (because of the ideas that they investigate), or a mixture of the two. These projects aim to stimulate us in a certain way, to make us curious, or interested, because it is new or we have never seen something like that before.

VALUE CLOUD

Because of this emphasis, there is little time left to actually learn about designing a building. Creating entertaining images takes enormous amounts of time and energy, time taken away from seriously engaging in an investigation of your building's craftsmanship, construction methods, or its social or economic viability. God forbid any talk about end-user satisfaction, even plain old common sense is sent to the side lines. These are not so important in the big picture as far as starchitecture schools are concerned. Projects in such schools only need to demonstrate the remote possibility of being credible in the real world that you and I live in. The possibility that just maybe it can withstand the force of gravity, that maybe there is some kind of material on this planet that can do the things you show it doing in your project or perhaps it might be able to keep us relatively dry and warm in tumultuous weather. The term "suspension of disbelief" comes to mind.

I have seen many students walk through the doors of starchitecture school with earnest minds wanting to learn how to design a building. Their attempts at rigor by questioning the viability of their high entertainment value projects in the real world are met with explanations that are lacking in reason, smoothly buttered in archispeak and delicately glazed in the finest snake oil possible.

The ones who quickly realizes that it is not about learning to design buildings and that it is about creating an entertaining project wins the cake. And when I say they win the cake, I mean they win the cake with a capital C. You will get extended one-on-one desk crits with the starchitect or star-minded professor(s) who will design your project with or for you. They will have you make your project based on their own pre-formulated theory and convince you that it really came from you. They will tell you which projects to "reference" and which magazines to find them in. They will help you pick out a sky for your rendering and show you how to tweak the elements in the foreground and background to create depth in your image. They will even advise you on which font to use on your poster. When your project is done, you will get the VIP spot on the wall to hang their/your work and a hearty pat on the back for a job well done. The ones who don't get it are sent packing like a fired Donald Trump apprentice.

Starchitecture teaching methodology focuses on having students create projects based on said professors latest theories that he/she is very excited about. If it seam rolls your education in the process, well so be it. If you demonstrate independent thinking or fail to fall in line behind such theories, prepare to be ignored, disowned or snubbed. Remember your job is to provide fantastic images in the form of a project that celebrates your professors latest theories. How well your project flies is directly connected to starchitect-professor's ego and self worth. It can be extremely stressful, not to mention embarrassing for him/her to invite his colleagues over for a jury to show off his latest ideas....ahem... I mean your project, and have you make a mockery of it.

A major point of STARchitecture school is

to make your professor look good when he/she

brings their coleagues over to see their/your work.

If you are a very successful starchitecture student, not only will you have learned to fall in line, you will have learned to research all your professors projects before-hand. You will not only know what kind of rendering style he likes, you will know how to mimic them as well. When your starchitecture professor brings over his black cloaked star-minded friends for a crit, he will proudly point to your project on the wall and say "Isn't it amazing?" and they will say "yeaaas that's very interesteeeeng" and then another will say "its rear to see a work with such originality and passion". They also love to say stuff like "oh, you have captured the essence of ....bla, bla, bla." At this point try to remain humble. Your clueless classmates are probably scratching their heads and foaming at the mouth at how they managed to look past the gaping holes in your projects plausibility (especially when they were grilled on every undotted "i" and uncrossed "t" in their crits). Don't get me wrong, these guys are capable of criticizing the project of the starchitect's prodigy. They might say "Oh just one minor thing though, I would have liked to see some more orange from the sunset peaking out from behind the building in that image." "yeaaas, yeaaas, that would have nailed it" the others might confirm.

By the time you finish starchitecture school, you should have a portfolio of very interesting and entertaining looking projects thats kind of credible. Don't worry about credibility, a good starchitecture firm will overlook this "hey this is a school project you don't have to worry so much about reality, it is about communicating your vision"

When you bring this to a starchitectre firm, it will remind him of himself as a young man. He will say "wow this kid has passion, he has got imagination, he can render, he has a good eye, he works with photoshop well, he knows about graphic design, he can put a compelling image together. You are hired!"

So why did he hire you when he knows very well that you don't know how to design a building?

Because you are not hired to design buildings stupid! you are hired to provide fantastic images that celebrates your employer's projects, to make good images for the media. You are the office's latest graphics plug-in.

Inside the starchitecture firm you will meet some architects who think about issues like rain, and light, and circulation, and fire safety, and how the components of the building fit together, and such. No it gets even crazier... are you ready for this? They love this stuff. They find it very exciting. They can talk for hours on end about building joints and details. They don't care about poster fonts, or archispeak or what kind of sky, or foreground or background is used in an image. They understand architecture through the notations of plans, sections & elevations. They can imagine how a building looks without the aid of a rendering. Thats right! no renderings. Imagine that. They have no other agenda but to design a functioning building that is well made and pleasant to be in. You will find a few of them in Starchitecture firms.

Say hello to these dullards, they are the people who will teach you how to design a building and make an architect out of you. If they are like any other architects I know in this position (resigned to teaching architecture 101 while trying to deliver a project), they are grumpy as all hell. They will snap at you for not knowing what V.I.F. means on a construction document or for not knowing something that they deem "basic-shit-that-every-dumb-ass-should-know" (what ever that is for them that morning). But never mind, just suck it up, what does he know? He is just an architect. He is no star. He respects plumbing diagrams and toilet bowl specifications, not magazine covers. He will never be famous for anything. Who ever gets famous for designing a building that is just good to live or work in. Ever heard of a reporter asking to publish your building because it performed well under fire. He will never even raise his head from the murky depth of obscurity, not even for 15 minutes. You've got your priorities straight and you are on your way to becoming a Star.


Conrad Newel

NOTES ON BECOMING A FAMOUS ARCHITECT
Liberating Minds Since August 2007

64. What is important in STARchitecture school (part 2)

62. Have a little humanity, but not too much...(part 1)

Last week Foster + Partners launched the design of a school in Sierra Leone at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in London.

The project was developed in cooperation with Save the Children among others, and integrates passive ventilation systems and natural lighting.
Foster argues that it is based on a modular system that can be quickly assembled with conventional stock wood, local brush-sticks, and sheet metal. This gives the project some environmental advantages. Whats more, the modules can also be easily reconfigured to adjust to the specific needs of varying districts in Sierra Leone.
So the project is not only smart, it saves the children and the earth too.
Where I come from we say "thats a lot of bang for your buck right there!"

Starchitects worldwide should take note and follow the lead of Mr Foster. Why? Because this one is a token that comes straight from his heart.

One only has to look around at the current economic and social climate. We are in a financial crisis caused by unregulated greed and excess. Starchitects are seen as part of this piggish, extravagant and irresponsible finical sector or at least a willing accomplice. It has even come to jokes like this one:

Question: What do you call a bunch of CEOs, starchitects and bankers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?
Answer: not enough, lawyers are saints compared to you wretches...

The image is of unrestrained self indulgence... bling bling that is...



To remain respectable and relevant one must change the image from the one above to the one below

In order to understand the utter sophistication in this move I may have to do something completely radical. I will take you on my magic carpet and sweep you off to TV land.

lets go!

The first stop on our journey is the magical cloudy zone called TV phenomenology. We come upon the hip and funky kingdom of the token black guy.

The urban dictionary defines it as:

Any fictional character of African-American descent that has been inconsequentially inserted into the plot a movie or TV show for the express purposes of creating an image of commercially safe, politically correct, and insipid racial harmony. In eras gone by the token black guys would be the first characters to be killed off. This phenomena of commercial cinema and television that would sacrifice the quality of their storytelling for the sake of attempting the impossible act of offending absolutely nobody, is succinctly satirized by the aptly named south park character, Token.

Token from south park, Charley in the TV show Friends.

Any black character in any movie that is neither the protagonist nor antagonist, is unimportant to the plot and does not significantly contribute to it, preferably dies before the end, usually does not end up with the girl. sometimes is the sidekick if the role is unimportant enough, and is very often comic relief (often in stereotype-enforcing manner).

Here the character squarely defines his token role




if the balance gets out of hand then it is swiftly dealt with.



The point of a token project functions amazingly similar to the role of token black guy: it is done more or less for the express purposes of creating an image of a commercially safe, and politically correct starchitecture firm whose radical days are gone (if it ever had one).

If we look at the architect's body of work as a set of characters. We can see the token project is unimportant to the firms portfolio and does not significantly contribute to it; a sidekick really.

A proper starchitect never let the ratio of such projects get out of control. Just a small token is needed. With this project, Norm firmly places a hand over your shoulder and says "hey! I am one of the good guys".

The chart below exhibits a healthy ratio for a thriving starchitect: The irrelevant is limited to a strict minimum. Like the culture necessary to produce a fine cheese, you need just enough to get the job done.




Now lets look at exhibit B. This shows the portfolio of architect Cameron Sinclair.
There is a problem here. Can anyone identify it?



Of course! He got it all backwards; this guy is totally off his rockers.
With a portfolio like this the Pritzker is nowhere in sight for miles and miles.
We will take a closer look at this eccentric next week and learn what NOT to do, in part 2 of this series.

61. Is architecture in your soul?

We found this curious recording from our friends over at Sheppard Robson and we just could not pass it up. For the sake of clarity we have also posted the definition of ARCHITECTURE + SOUL as defined by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.





ar·chi·tec·ture (är'kĭ-těk'chər) n.

1. The art and science of designing and erecting buildings.
2. Buildings and other large structures: the low, brick-and-adobe architecture of the Southwest.
3. A style and method of design and construction: Byzantine architecture.
4. Orderly arrangement of parts; structure: the architecture of the federal bureaucracy; the architecture of a novel.

Soul(sōl) n.

1. The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
2. The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
3. The disembodied spirit of a dead human.
4. A human: "the homes of some nine hundred souls" (Garrison Keillor).
5. The central or integral part; the vital core: "It saddens me that this network ... may lose its soul, which is after all the quest for news" (Marvin Kalb).
6. A person considered as the perfect embodiment of an intangible quality; a personification: I am the very soul of discretion.
7. A person's emotional or moral nature: "An actor is ... often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not" (Alec Guinness).
8. A sense of ethnic pride among Black people and especially African Americans, expressed in areas such as language, social customs, religion, and music.
9. A strong, deeply felt emotion conveyed by a speaker, a performer, or an artist.
10. Soul music.

[Middle English, from Old English sāwol.]