Month: September 2015

Learning through exploring in Barcelona

Posted on by Claire Aubin

Screen Shot 2015-09-15 at 1.43.16 PMThe program that I attended during my time last summer in Barcelona, Spain was an immersive 7 credit urban design and media course. It was an intense 6 week experience that combined architectural drawing and media with history of urban design, and culminated in a 2 week research project that used the city streets as our laboratory. Drawing and diagramming by hand was the first skill set we practiced. Every day was a physical journey through the city’s history, beginning with medieval old walled city’s winding stone streets and cavernous passageways. We learned to quickly draw the essence of a public space by watching the movement of people, the placement of street furniture such as benches and the layout of streets. For a group of architecture students, mostly used to drawing the ornamentation of buildings and shapes of spaces, this was a whole new way of understanding a place. Some of us experimented with photo collage, and watercolor, while others preferred new media such as 3D modeling programs. By working in teams, we were able to learn from each other across disciplines, and experience levels.

The next phase of the course took us to the expansion of the city beyond the medieval walls, with and organized, rigorous grid of streets and chamfered corner blocks. Spacious open streets and tree lined shopping ‘ramblas,’ or pedestrian avenues, felt grand and regal. Finally, we studied the expansion of the city in preparation for the 1992 olympics, and the subsequent redevelopment of a formerly industrial zone into a high-tech reinvestment area known as the 22@ district. Many of these buildings and public spaces were architectural showpieces for the city, and featured experimental façade systems and program elements.

Screen Shot 2015-09-15 at 1.43.31 PMBy experiencing each of these periods of history firsthand, and recording them via urban design diagrams, we were able to feel the layers of history that make up the many vibrant neighborhoods of Barcelona. When it was time to create an urban design intervention of our own, during the final phase of the program, we had a more thorough understanding of the place, and the values of its people. When we presented our final work to professors of the local architecture school, city officials, and local professional designers, they noted how in tune we were with the needs and aesthetic styles of the place, despite how recently we had arrived.

In conclusion, this immersive program was a great kickstart to my current interest in urban design, and gave me a whole new lens with which I see cities, and a totally unique learning experience that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else!

– Annie Ledbury, Life/City/Adaptation in Barcelona

“Health is Important: I’m not Kidneying”

Posted on by Claire Aubin

 

You can’t plan for everything. It was the final week of classes and I was working on my final papers for my political and arts journalism courses. I hadn’t been feeling too well, but I didn’t think much of it. I convinced myself that I wasn’t feeling well because I had eaten some gluten earlier. But the pain didn’t get better; it got worse.

I couldn’t get to sleep the night before the last day of classes. I was uncomfortable and the pains were stabbing my left side and migrating to my back. It became so unbearable that I couldn’t think straight. It was midnight when the pain grew to a crescendo. I decided that I had to do something about it. I made my way downstairs to the security desk at the dorms and informed them that I was in extreme pain and asked them to call the hospital for me. The dorm staff called the hospital, I described my symptoms, and the hospital said they would send someone to get me.

I waited in the lobby for an ambulance. Intense pain rushed in waves over me and I felt nauseous. After an hour we called back and the hospital decided to send a taxi because no ambulances were available. I had emailed my mother back to let her know what was going on. I told a classmate to let one of the program leaders know in the morning. I realize now that I should have called one of the program leaders immediately, but it didn’t cross my mind in my delirious state.

I sat alone for several hours in the waiting room at the hospital. I was terrified that it was going to cost me money that I didn’t have, but I did my best to remain calm throughout the situation. Eventually I was taken in to the emergency room. They did some tests and found out pretty quickly that I had a kidney infection. They sent me back to the dorms in another taxi at four in the morning, but this time I had medication.

I went to class in the morning and talked with the program leaders. They assured me that they were there to help me and would have been fine with me calling them in the middle of the night. The director told me he would have personally driven me to the hospital at midnight. I should have had it in the front of my mind that the directors are there to help me at all times. I should have communicated with them to the best of my ability. I only stayed in class for half the day, but everyone understood. Before I left, I communicated directly with my teachers and was given extra time to turn in my work.

Nobody wants to have health problems while abroad, but it’s a possibility that it can happen. While you’re abroad, it’s critical to understand that your health is important. You need to take care of yourself, mind and body. You need to understand the systems of health care in the country you’re traveling to and how to communicate with them. In my case, since I was in London, everyone spoke English, and the emergency room visit and medication turned out to be free. This isn’t the case in every country. It takes some insight to make good decisions in adverse situations, but it’s possible. At the first sign that something might be wrong, the best idea is to talk to somebody about it rather than suffer alone.

Jackie Haworth, London, Italy

Reimagining Rome

Posted on by Claire Aubin

Early spring I was not going to be able to have the chance to study abroad because of financial reasons. I ended up being encouraged by my intern supervisor to enjoy the chances of studying abroad before graduating and starting a family. I ended up talking to my parents; they unquestionably loved the idea because they know how much I love architecture and exploring. They allowed me to start applying for the opportunity and I eventually was accepted into the program. I immediately began to apply for international study abroad scholarships and with hard work and perseverance I was able to receive two University of Oregon scholarships from the UO Mills Center and UO International Study Abroad Committee, and I am so thankful for their consideration and for the support to pursue this life-changing experience.

After the blessing of receiving these scholarships I began to think about how my life, attitude, and perspective on culture and architecture was going to transform with being in Rome, Italy for two months. We as a group of 16 students came together, learned a bit about the Italian culture, packed our things, and off we went. I’ve never been outside the United States so I knew flying into international airports was going to be interesting and somewhat a little bit confusing when trying to find the right gates. Nonetheless, I made it out alive and 21 hours later, I made it to the Fiumicino Airport in Rome.

Finally on the ground again, I met up with another student within the program to take a taxi into the city. We first had to exchange some dollars into euros then find an official taxi. I say this because there are many Italians who try to hoax you into paying more because they think you don’t know any better. Our taxi driver spoke little English, but I was able to communicate with him through some Spanish. Once we arrived at the street of our temporary place, the moist and sweaty feel of the air was not too bad. My classmate and I were lost for about three hours because we did not have our ‘student phones’ yet to call other classmates that were already at the apartment we were staying at for the first week. We eventually found the place and gathered up with all the other guys staying at the place.

Settled in and relaxing, we didn’t have class the first week so we were able to walk around and experience the Italian day and night. We were able to obtain Wi-Fi at the apartment and chat with our families back in the states. Classes started up and the studying was something kind of new to me because I’ve never taken summer classes before. I expected that the program was going to be a slow two months, but it went by too fast and I would have loved more time to learn and explore. I took two architectural history classes, one media watercolor course, and a design studio. It was a pretty packed schedule, but we had the weekends to travel and relax. We were able to travel to Northern Italy (Florence & Venice) and Southern Italy (Pompeii and Paestum). All I could think of was beauty and paradise! The Italian cities have changed my views on all aspects of life. Their food is so fresh, the way of transportation, how friendly they are, and how they obtain natural fresh water is amazing. I had to buy groceries every three to four days, walk or take a taxi to class, and being able to just have a water bottle and fill it up at every street corner or piazza was awesome.

The things I was concerned and shocked about the Italian culture and lifestyle was their ability to keep streets clean. It is quite wonderful that many citizens walk but the city of Rome itself has a poor means of transportation. The immense amount of parking lots and cars everywhere has made the air feel unclean and muggy; Rome currently deals with a major urban infrastructure problem and as architects we try to repair these problems through design, communication, and user inputs.

My main highlights during these weekend trips were being able to see, touch, and feel the colossal scale of awe-inspiring architectural structures, such as churches and cathedrals. It is still amazing to me today as to how much labor based work a whole city or region had to commit to finishing these huge buildings. The techniques they had to do to collect materials from other parts of the world and bring them back to Italy is astounding.

More importantly I discovered who I was as an individual and who I could become. I’ve never been abroad so I felt like I broke out of a shell of being a follower and transformed into a self-leader. Italy gave me the opportunity to eliminate the anxiety of being lost alone and knowing that I could do things separate from the group. The first couple of weeks were difficult because I felt like I wasn’t comfortable with my surroundings and was not able to see or reach new places. After the trip got deeper into the program I went to scenic places by myself, met some new people, and learned that sometimes our future back in the states could be like this after graduation from school.

 

Dylan Garza, Architecture in Rome

Designing in Denmark

Posted on by Claire Aubin

Screen Shot 2015-09-15 at 1.04.26 PMThe greatest highlight of my time in Copenhagen, Denmark was designing and building a veneer chair with the most skilled craftsmen and teachers in Scandinavia. Part of this course with the Danish Institute for Study Abroad involved a study tour to Sweden and Finland to study furniture of Scandinavia. I got to study the works of the greats: Wegner, Juhl, and Aalto. I learned the cultural significances and principles of Danish design which involves making good design accessible to the masses, staying honest with materials, and being well-crafted.With these principles in mind, we designed (for about 4 weeks) and built (in a period of 2 weeks) our own chairs. The first four weeks were made up of mostly guest lectures from design professionals and academics. We visited many museums, showrooms, and manufacturing facilities. We also sat in, examined, measured, and sketched out many chairs. We learned how to create visual journals out of our sketchbooks, which meant drawing things that are not obviously seen. My instructor Erling Christoffersen is a Danish furniture designer who was an amazing, supportive, and helpful figure in the entire process. The instructional assistants Gudmundur and Clinton were also exceptional teachers who made sure our questions were always answered. All the faculty at DIS were extremely supportive and helpful through our design and building processes. Screen Shot 2015-09-15 at 1.04.42 PM

Designing a chair is a very challenging task. Unlike other pieces of furniture, the chair is the most intimate object to the human body. It is so much about scale, structure, and ergonomics. When designing a chair, I was constantly trying to create something of beauty, function, and comfort. Knowing that I was working with veneer, I wanted my chair to embody the different properties veneer can take: the rigid and the organic. My chair was a combination of that as well as a study of the kinds of techniques one can use to create a veneer chair. A lot of designing was continued through the building process. Changes were made every day when I stepped into the woodshop and worked on making the design into reality. Making objects out of veneer is really different than working with most other materials in that you make the negative space, the molds, to create the positive. So changes are always made to make sure the molds will produce the positive object you intended. I learned so much about furniture design and Danish design during my time in Scandinavia, but I also learned a lot about the people I spent my time with there and about the the city itself.

Screen Shot 2015-09-15 at 1.04.17 PMThrough DIS I also met many different students from other design schools like Pratt and Rhode Island School of Design. Some also have backgrounds in Architecture, some in Industrial Design. Getting to work closely with other students from other schools and studies was also a great learning experience.

Being immersed in the city of Copenhagen was such a valuable experience. Getting to understand the city through its public transportation, its unique architecture, and the culture was an experience I value greatly.

Not only do I get to take with me the unforgettable memories, new friendships, and newfound knowledge I’ve gained through this experience in Denmark, I also bring back with me a beautiful chair I am extremely proud of making and designing. It not only embodies all the great things about the study abroad experience I have mentioned above in this essay, it is also something I will have with me and use for the rest of my life.

Annie Chiang, Product Design at DIS

Building a future in Vancouver

Posted on by Claire Aubin

Before attending graduate school, I worked as a fabricator at a custom kinetic architecture design/build shop. One spring morning, a group of University of Oregon architecture students visited the shop as a part of the Vancouver Program led by Stephen Duff. The reason for their visit was to introduce them to their kinetic architecture class in Vancouver, BC. At the time, I was thinking of returning to graduate school and had been accepted into a few different graduate schools. Meeting those students, learning of the kinetic architecture course offered in Vancouver, and hearing all about Stephen Duff from my colleagues and other students was what eventually inspired me to attend the University of Oregon. This past spring, through the help of the Vancouver Program Scholarship, I Processed with VSCOcam with g3 presetwas not only able to participate in the program that brought me to the University of Oregon, but it has been the highlight of my graduate school career thus far.

My biggest highlight during the Vancouver Program was the course that started it all for me: Kinetic Architecture. Prior to attending the University of Oregon, I was primarily a fabricator of kinetic architecture. In the Vancouver Program, I learned what went into designing the kinetic architecture I helped build. This included learning about different machines, mechanisms, and their advantages and limitations. Structures, materials, and connection details were other major learning points in the course that I greatly enjoyed. Another aspect of the course I enjoyed was the group work. Throughout the term, we worked in self-selected groups based around our interests. Not only did I get to learn from the knowledge of my classmates, but I got to further practice designing and producing as a team. This RB_10_Architecture Design Studio final modelis a skill set I think a lot of architecture students should experience in school, as the profession depends heavily on team work, not only amongst your teammates, but amongst your clients and consultants as well. You can learn a lot from each other.

Related to the kinetic architecture class was the digital modeling course taught alongside it. In this class, we learned two different digital modeling programs to help us produce digital animations of our kinetic architecture projects. One of my biggest weaknesses as an architecture student has been in digital modeling. This has been primarily because I have been so intimidated by the rendering process of digital modeling. From textures, texture mapping, to lighting, camera angles, and camera settings, it gets very overwhelming. Learning digital modeling, animation, and rendering under the direction of one of the original developers of the modeling program was amazing. Not only did he break down my fears and apprehension towards digital modeling, but his enthusiasm towards digital modeling was contagious. I can’t wait to apply what I have learned to my other architecture design studios.

Amidst the kinetic architecture course, getting to study abroad in Vancouver also taught me a lot about the successes and failures of Vancouver as a large cosmopolitan city. Unfortunately, one of its biggest failures is its high cost of living. Not only is food expensive, but housing prices are through the roof. This I noticed prohibited diversity in the ages and backgrounds of its residents. One of its greatest successes I saw in Vancouver however was its waterfront. Nearly all of its waterfront property in down Vancouver has been turned into bike and pedestrian trails, with parks intermittently placed along the way. By giving the waterfront to the public, it provides its residents a positive resource for recreation and sustainable transportation. It is one of the biggest reasons why I think so many people find Vancouver to be such a beautiful city. I am looking forward towards using these experience in future urban planning courses.RB_1_panorama of Vancouver

Upon my return to the United States, people ask me what my favorite thing about Vancouver was. Without a doubt, I will always mention the kinetic architecture course and the urban environment of Vancouver.

– Rachelle Byarlay, Architecture in Vancouver