Meeting Point 1

After our little party, next Monday we have our first meeting session. A brief reminder of what we'll be doing and what we expect from each one of the groups:

- By the time class starts (12.00, for those who are still a bit distracted) each one of the 10 gropus must have all the documentation they've developed loaded up on our Dropbox Folder. Please try to be tidy, organize and name your files clearly so everybody can understand and find its' content easily. Each group has its' own folder with an specific content assigned. Of course delete, those old files which are not useful anymore, or remove them to some other folder.

- Each group must upload two types of documents to the appropiate folder (nothing else but these files inside those 10 folders please; other preliminary documentation or sketches should be deleted o removed to the Toma de Datos Folder): a) documents the group provides the rest of the Unit, so they can freely use them for next steps (remember formats and all other conditions we agreed on), and b) .pdf archives presenting groups' documentation (remember DIN A-3)

- We shall start the session with the 10 group presentations, explaining the work they've developed and where to find it (file contents, difficulties, preliminars, etc...). Stick to relevant information. We expect each group to be clear, brief and effective in their presentation. The main goal of this session is to COMMUNICATE the rest of the project team of all the INFORMATION available.

- After these presentation I think we can all make a global assessment of all the information we've managed to gather. Each group will have the opportunity to assess the others' work. You must also learn to make a serious critic of what other team member present you.

- Finally we'll expose next step of the exercise and we'll make new groups for it's development. It's going to be very quick: 1 week.

ARCHITECTURE!!!!

I'd like to thank all of you for the Jury we had yesterday. I saw most of you around there and I think we had a really good time. You're pretty young so I must tell you it is not that usual that a bunch of people gather around a strange and obsesive discipline like ours, and simply celebrate it's existance. We are all trying to handle many difficulties around arquitecture, and events as yesterdays', make me feel accompanied and hopeful.

Long Life for Architecture!

PD1. Special thanks for all those who brought material for the exhibition, for those who helped us with our Unit Stand and, of course, for David and his excellent presentation (in my opinion, the best of the eight presented... je, je... teachers' proud).

PD2. Alberto Durero, La melancolía, a very important picture for all architects. Have a calm look at it. I understand it as the best portrait of the architect (It's really all black and white. Green is mine. I love that magic square!)

Jury 1ºSemester, next Thursday...

Here you have the details for next Thurdays' Jury. Conference and Jury sessions will take place during afternoon and evening (15.00h-20.00h) but we are all expected to set up the exhibition during the morning. And, of course, to tidy up everything after the last Jury session. We are planning to  construct a very simple stand for our Unit so I think it will be enough with a couple of ours before lunch and another one at the end.

We remind all students that assistance is absolutelely compulsary for all Unit members (1º and 2º semester). Joaquín will organise our whole presentation and he'll contact some of you, so you have enough time to prepare certain documentation, models, panels and presentation. But everyone will be required to help during the set up and clearance processes.

I'm sure will have a good time like last year at the HUB, and we'll have the opportunity to hear some interesting opinions about the work we've developped.

Talking about Architecture: Eurovegas?

This semester I'm going to open another little section in this blog. I'll ask you about certain issues around our great world of Architecture and I'd like to hear/read you personal opinions. Don't be afraid. I feel you must get used to talk about Architecture, learn how to construct a brief architectural o general critic, and slowly define your way to understand this complex discipline we adore...

I'm not looking for tough and long essays. But it would be interesting that you tried to adress your particular point of view in a brief comment to the entry. Or perhaps you'd prefer to post an independent one in the blog. Perfect in any case. The idea is that we hear/read each other, speaking about Architecture. I'll also post my opinions, sometimes before and sometimes after the question I make (by the way, if anybody wants to propose any other issue, do so. The only condition is that the person who makes the question MUST express his/her opinion)

Some weeks ago I posted the entry "LSP, una opinión nada más". It could certainly be understood as Chapter 0 of this new section. Please do feel free to comment it.

In this entry I'd like to discuss the huge Eurovegas operation that's just been approved for Alcorcón. What do you think about it?

[feel confortable, write either in Spanish or English]

Step 2: Presenting Data...

Groups of Students assigned to each of the ten analytical study areas are the following:

1) Site Physical Context: Sergio + Carlos 

2) Buiding Plans: David + MªJosé

3) Buiding Sections: Alberto + Arian

4) Building Elevations: Mª José + Cristina

5) Structure System: Jesús + J.Antonio

6) Constructive System: Laura + Bárbara

7) Catalog of Materials: Andrés + Rafael + Daniela

8) Urbanistic Situation: Luis + Enrique

9) Historical Evolution _ Not Assigned

10) Photographic Documentation: Dimitra

The Unit has commissioned [MªJosé + J.Antonio + Luis] to start to develop and define our general Style Book.

Schedule for this step 2:

- Thursday 14, (first sketches 10 areas / style book definitions)

- Monday 18, (presentation correction)

- Thursday 21 (1ª semester jury)

- Monday 25 (step 2 deadline)

Reminder:

Apart from all the aspects established in the assessment criteria, we'd like to remind all groups that there are two main different aspects to consider in your final presentations:

1) Accuracy, rigor and density of all the information presented.

2) Creative, efective and persuasive strategies to communicate those data.

Assessment Step 1

This semester after each of the quick short steps of our exercise, we shall try to give you a brief assessment of how the task has been developped. It may give you an idea about your progress during the semester. You must be aware that your final result will be a consequence of these plenty/short assessments in which we'll consider all the criteria we detailed at the beggining of the semester.

For this Step 1 we divided students into 4 groups.

The four of them have done basicly a correct job.

But we'd like to hightlight teams dedicated to site approach and constructive documents.

Obviously we've also taken note of students who haven´t participated in this Gathering Data Phase.

Step 1: Gathering Data...

The first step of any design process is to gather as much correct and complete documentation as possible about the problem we are about to try to solve. This phase is usually called analysis.  If we work alone, this stage can take an enormous amount of time and results are usually uncomplete due to this simple reason. Team work allows to gather a much more important amount of information that might be useful for our future design, concentrating each team members' attention on a particular aspect of the problem to be solved.

In this sense we have established 10 different areas of characteristics of the site we want to analyse in order to be able to gather as much precise information as possible about these different aspects. On Thursday and on site, after doing a general visit to the building an its' surroundings altogether to have a general impression of the site, we will distribute students of the Unit into 10 groups. Each group will focus this, their first task of the semester, on gathering and presenting their specific area of analysis to the rest of the team.

The ten areas are the following:

1) Site Physical Context (Plans/Sections)

2) Buiding Plans

3) Buiding Sections

4) Building Elevations

5) Structure System

6) Constructive System

7) Catalog of Materials (Quantity and Characterístics)

8) Urbanistic Situation

9) Historical Evolution

10) Photographic Documentation

Each of the ten areas need to a) gather information and b) present and complete this information so as it's most useful for future steps. Each of them can be simply be completed a simple nearly administrative task, or, otherwise, you may try to complete a rich, creative and atractive document that has it's own values, apart from the accurate information it may contain.

We are looking for this second type of document. Each group should try to make a complete and correct informational document as a part of a global process; but it should also be presented as if it were a final entry in itself, including all the persuasive design and communicational strategies the group considers appropiate.