Transferred from: UA Design School
01
Background
I first studied architecture at Washington Saint Louis University. Immediately after finishing my undergraduate studies, I went on to go on to graduate school at GSD. Nearly seven years have passed since this came and went. As my non-stop college career is coming to an end, I would like to tell you about my experience in graduate school.
When I was in St. Louis, I studied a Bachelor's degree in Science in Architecture, which was only four years, because I would definitely go to graduate school, and the undergraduate comprehensive education was very good. When I was an undergraduate, I always regarded the graduate school entrance examination as my ultimate goal. From the beginning of my freshman year, I had a yearning for GSD. One of the main reasons is definitely Harvard's fame, which is undoubtedly not exempt from vulgarity. Secondly, I remember when I was a freshman, my then TA got a GSD offer. I was inspired by the success of my seniors at that time. At that time, I really felt that GSD was also happening around me, and gradually it felt more real and palpable, and this idea began to be born.
Option Studio: The shape of things to come 课业
02
Why GSD?
At that time, it was mainly a choice between MIT and GSD. After asking many seniors, I felt some essential differences between the two. MIT is very abundant in terms of teaching resources, with fewer students and more teachers. Students' holiday internships will be subsidized by the college's scholarship sponsorship. Resources are evenly distributed. GSD is relatively more demanding, because there are many students and teaching resources are limited, so it may be a little poorer in terms of the location of desks and chairs and living resources. Many of the classes are fun but hard to get into. In terms of teaching style, MIT pays more attention to horizontal exploration. This is easy to see in the students' grades. The works are very malleable, although it may not be very concentrated in the depth of exploration.
Compared to a traditional architecture school, GSD is more vertically studied. When you come here, you can intuitively feel a kind of ultimate atmosphere, which may be very uncomfortable for many people. Having said so much, it may feel like I'm praising MIT a little more. I ended up choosing GSD because I felt that there were more people here, and it was more like a chaotic little society. I love this kind of Chaos because it's so full of energy. There must be a chance to meet a lot of people, from like-minded friends to unpleasant enemies. Both drive my mind and motivate me. What may appeal to me about GSD is the faculty. If you seize the opportunity yourself, you can really experience the design concepts of many of the top architects in the industry. After all, countless stars from the history of architecture have shone here. Studying here is like visiting the cave of your ancestors. Although the master has already driven the crane to the west, observing the carvings on the stone wall, it seems that he can also comprehend the sword intent that has lasted for a long time.
Option Studio: Architecture of the Statehood 课业
03
Attendance experience
The first year of GSD was online. I took online classes at home and didn't have many vivid memories of school. A large part of it is because people are physically not in school, and they are not really immersed in that atmosphere of death. My project at GSD is MArch 1 AP, which is equivalent to starting from the second year of research and going straight to the third one. During my first time as a dead student, I really experienced that GSD was different from my undergraduate Washu teaching system. Or how the East Coast system differs from the colleges in the Midwest.
GSD's death in the core stage is biased towards refining the idea of a work. How a concept takes shape and evolves from the initial stage to the final presentation of the design work. Die Diudiu pays attention to the clarity of the work, the unity of thought, and the self-consistency of logic. It's a bit hard for me to get used to. Because at the undergraduate level, Washu's teachings are how to gradually translate the inspiration outside of an architecture into an architecture. It's a bit like the Bauhaus method of death and loss. First, students will design something that is not architectural, such as a lamp, a piece of furniture, or a kayak, etc., and then students will translate what they have learned from designing this small project into a concept that can be implemented in architectural design. Through this process of indirect transfer, students can jump out of the preconceived architectural dogma and design a relatively new architectural concept. This concept is necessarily abstract, such as an axis in which a line can be transformed into a pedestrian flow line, or some color collocation can be translated into the distribution of functional partitions on a plane, and so on.
At GSD, the idea of a work is born much earlier. It is usually confirmed in the first month of the semester. The rest of the time will be spent in the process of advancing the concept, scaling the concept at different scales and manifesting it in different aspects of the building. Functional zoning, streamline, appearance, material, space, structural construction, etc., these are all different aspects of the building. Just like a blind man touching an elephant, each blind person touches the embodiment of the different positions of the elephant, which adds up to a complete elephant. This ensures that different representations tell different things when commenting on the image, and do not repeat them, but add up to form a complete story. If done successfully, a powerful concept can permeate every side of the building from top to bottom, like a spring seeping into a stone. Many times this design idea is much like the design steps written in Olgiati's Non Referential Architecture. Simple and straightforward steps one, two, three. The advantage of this is that you can make it very clear what the work does in a series of words, because it is completely linear design thinking. Architecture is the initial point, the primordial, and then all the detailed parts such as function, flow, shape, material, space, and construction have to make concessions to the original concept as much as possible. This helps the architectural concept to expand infinitely, like a balloon, until it envelops the entire view.
Core III 死丢丢课业
04
College rambling
The architectural shackles of GSD are a big part of a graduate career. However, the college also offers many other courses, compulsory or elective, to expand students' knowledge horizons. There are two types of courses: lecture and seminar. The former is generally crammed with cramming, while most of the latter's classes are attended by students sharing ideas. There is also a type of seminar that requires a project, which will be a little more workload. There are many options, and how to allocate the time reasonably together with the dead and lost time is a problem that every student has to consider. Here I can introduce you to my favorite lessons.
Interior Design Thinking 课业
Ron Witte teaches a resident class called The Fifth Plan, which focuses on the plane of architecture and stands on its own. I don't talk about other aspects of architecture, only the composition of the plane. It's an anatomical exploration. In each lesson, Ron will start with a small lecture, and then each student will share their understanding of the study of flat planes. In this class, Ron also teaches another class on façade, also by completely isolating a feature of the building for research and analysis.
Interior Design Thinking 课业
Last year I also took an interior design class led by Knoll's former design director. The lecturer has no architectural education background, but has worked with architects for many years. In this class I learned a lot about the traditions and processes of classic furniture design, which are largely overlooked by the students in the school. Because it is always at the end of the dead season, students spend half a day throwing a bunch of furniture to decorate the interior space in the renderings. These die-hard electives are a source of inspiration. There are options for different directions, so that students are inspired by a lot of the world of flowers. Many of the lessons are not directly related to architecture.
05
I learned a few things about architecture at GSD
So far, I have been very satisfied with my graduate school experience. Graduate school doesn't just feel like an extension of your undergraduate degree, but it would be a waste of time. Postgraduate study is a kind of cultivation of architectural understanding. Or, gradually, they begin to form their own opinions about architecture. The first thing I learned at GSD is that hard work is not worth it. At the undergraduate level, working harder than others may mean that the work is more in-depth, the drawings are more, and the design is more detailed. But at the graduate level, everyone will work hard, which makes it impossible to work harder than others. Volume, is not brilliant volume.
GSD can't escape political correctness and overall stylistic preferences. I heard that ten years ago, everyone in the school was imitating Koolhaas, but in recent years, the school has become more popular under the guidance of Mark Lee, and the clean structure of Zurich has become more popular. If you want to be recognized, it may be a safe route to go in the general direction and get closer to the topic. After all, this is a way to spend energy and time on how to move the work forward, and it is also a way to gain the power of the design of the work.
Model Commission work for Jon Lott
However, I feel that every student can find their own path with the chaotic energy of GSD. I realized early on that being a student in GSD is to break my existing framework, to touch the framework logic of different lecturers, and to be influenced and infected. Some lecturers' theoretical frameworks are more suitable for them, and some of them are completely opposed, and these reflections and attitudes can only be experienced by constantly touching their thoughts. After constantly contacting the theoretical output of others, you can gradually feel which direction your heart is biased. The confirmation of one's own direction is the accumulation of small "I like", "I agree", "I don't like", and "I refuse". Ultimately, our goal is to confirm our understanding of architecture.
Core III 死丢丢课业
This may be the framework of a designer's worldview. You can enjoy a lot of different views, but you can't like everything. Be sure to find an opinion that you don't like. It's a slow process, but we'll gradually be firm in the path we've chosen, our own design. This choice, this kind of conception, is likely to stay with us for many years. This is probably my most pressing wish in the near future. I know some students in GSD, their works are very personal style, and I can feel the obsession on my face. People are like works, works are like people, how to make yourself into works is to spend effort to understand yourself.
Undergrad Studio 课业
Back to the beginning of the article. I chose GSD because the chaos here appealed to me. Chaos is like a whirlpool, or a tornado. This phenomenon has a traceable source, and it also represents the spread of power here. I can hide myself in the chaos and show my personality. I can make a lot of choices. Moreover, this chaos also brings a lot of pressure on different sides. It is because of pressure that I have the motivation to explore my own heart and calm down my impetuousness.
Undergrad Studio 112 课业
Speaker: TAILI
GSD march 1ap
Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Washington University in St. Louis is the full winner of the Master of Architecture Award. He studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis and has won several awards at the highest honors in his field.