Because I'm All About Combining History and Design
When I went to Minnesota I visited with a third year LA masters student, a student about to graduate with his masters in design, and had a nice discussion about his project (one he had worked all year on). The project was redesigning an existing walkway across the Mississippi river that connecting the east and west banks of the university's campus. As it is, pedestrians have the top deck and traffic takes up four or six lanes on the bottom deck. His design concept had defined one bank of the river as being "natural" and one side as being "constructed" thus his walkway went from "organic" (twisty) to "modern"(right angles). A classic third-year undergrad architecture student at UNL's concept and really not that advanced.
To me, the most interesting thing he had was cut-outs in the walkway so pedestrians could look down at traffic. My thoughts about his design was: So it's more about transportation; you could reflect the history of the Mississippi river as a transportation corridor and it's importance in the economic and physical development of this city and even the entire united states. And then contrast that with our current mode of transportation, the car and highway systems, and how they affect the landscape of the campus now...The traffic below the pedestrians...It's really a palimpsest of transportation. You could even propose that the pedestrians on the top equates a trend toward more walkable cities in the future...To which, he gave me a blank look and tried again to explain the importance of the "natural" side of the river with the "constructed" side and how his design reflected the two conditions.
Come on buddy, you're a third year masters student, TRY. TO. THINK.
To me, the most interesting thing he had was cut-outs in the walkway so pedestrians could look down at traffic. My thoughts about his design was: So it's more about transportation; you could reflect the history of the Mississippi river as a transportation corridor and it's importance in the economic and physical development of this city and even the entire united states. And then contrast that with our current mode of transportation, the car and highway systems, and how they affect the landscape of the campus now...The traffic below the pedestrians...It's really a palimpsest of transportation. You could even propose that the pedestrians on the top equates a trend toward more walkable cities in the future...To which, he gave me a blank look and tried again to explain the importance of the "natural" side of the river with the "constructed" side and how his design reflected the two conditions.
Come on buddy, you're a third year masters student, TRY. TO. THINK.
posted by Ellen at 10:08 AM
7 Comments:
"Palimpsest" Nice.
Yeah, I was just about to say: wow, palimpsest.
And I'm not sure I understand your critique of this guy's work, but I do think that his twisty/angular idea is dumb.
my critique of the guy's work was he was using arbitrary criteria to establish his design...and if he had involved the history of the site, in my opinion, could have given a stronger argument for what he was doing.
and the whole thing made me feel good about myself, my concept trumped his and i had looked at his project for 10 minutes.
See, you ARE grad material!
aw. thanks nancy.
In one of my interdisciplinary classes, all of the English students wowed the professor with our amazing grasp of critical theories. None of us are theory specialists, but historians just don't learn theory. However, it's becoming more popular for them. In other words, the baseline knowledge for an English major in this area is considered the new avant garde in their field. It might be the same way in your interdisciplinary field. People who approach it from another contributing discipline might think what you learned three years ago is state of the art.
On a side note though, there are also people who learn something really trite and she can't be convinced that they are just regurgitating stale food. Did I say "she?" Oops.
This may be a warning signal from this school, Nelle. Different schools emphasize different angles on studies. For example, my grad department is very heavy on social theory. We take a whole seminar on social theory, and all of our classes have a theoretical aspect. But other ethno departments don't have this emphasis at all. They more heavily emphasize performance and survey-type courses. It just depends on what you want to do with your degree.
I imagine that it's the same in your field.
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