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Tag: what do we want from architecture education?


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Infinite Monkey Architecture

Infinite Monkey Architecture
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The version of the Infinite Monkey Theorem I first heard went “If you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters then, sooner or later, one of them will type Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” The correct version is “If you give a monkey a typewriter and an infinite amount of time then, sooner or […]

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The Demise of the Idea

The Demise of the Idea
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How many ways are there to generate a design proposal for a building? Some universities cut to the chase, and tell their students to walk down a certain street or around a part of town and “find an architectural project”. For what it’s worth, this is Identification, Analysis and Synthesis all in one. The rest […]

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Architecture Myths #30: Analysis

Architecture Myths #30: Analysis
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Identifying and defining the problem in the first stage of this thing called the design process is already loaded with assumptions such as, for one, the need being one an architectural response can satisfy. Already I’m not so keen to use terms such as problem and solution, let alone assume a causal relationship between them. […]

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Architecture Myths #29: The Problem

Architecture Myths #29: The Problem
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Last year I wrote a foreword for a book on the design process. I won’t be spilling any beans by saying that, however you look at it, it breaks down to the three sub-processes of 1) Identify/define the problem, 2) Decide what buildings, concepts, ideas, tools or techniques you think will be of use in […]

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That First Idea

That First Idea
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Architectural ideas aren’t myths like The Architectural Imagination. Architects have architectural ideas in exactly the same way cooks and chefs have food ideas about ingredients, their combinations and processes and document them in things called recipes, and in exactly the same way composers have musical ideas about melodies and instrumentations and document them in things […]

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Media Studies

Media Studies
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The architectural media likes an anniversary and 2019 is the year we’re meant to be grateful for The Bauhaus and all it did for us. Last week I suggested the real legacy of The Bauhaus lay in legitimizing the idea of design as a standalone activity isolated from manufacture because once design could be valued […]

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Bauhaus Fatigue

Bauhaus Fatigue
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I can’t say Ludwig Kurz was representative of all craftsmen any more than I can claim Anton Hofer represents The Bauhaus but this post is not about individuals – it is about two different approaches to education, design and production that coexisted once. Ludwig’s Kurz’s formal education took place over the three winters of 1922-23, […]

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The Notebooks of Ludwig Kurz

The Notebooks of Ludwig Kurz
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Born on the 5th of May 1898, Ludwig Kurz was thirteen when he became carpenter’s apprentice to his brother-in-law. In this photograph, that’s him holding the front end of the timber. At the time and in the Tyrol region with its traditions of building in timber, a carpenter was a craftsman who could construct out […]