First year grad school wrap-up

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
​-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sophomore Studio 

​Last Wednesday marked the last day of Sophomore studio, and that also wrapped up my first year of teaching. Again, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity, and I hope I made all my students fall in love with architecture to certain extent.

​A conversation was brought up by a student that day, and that's something I always wonder about. The conversation was about how much of design input or style control should TAs have towards their students. I personally have heard both sides of story and experienced them both. One would argue the TAs should not try to control or limit students to design in a specific direction since it's Sophomore studio and the students should have the freedom to explore. But the same time, since it's their first ever studio, a lot of students would explore and head to the completely wrong directions so it really is about balancing and communication. That is still an issue in grad school depends on what type of student you are. Some would prefer professors to give a little bit more guidance and feedback, while some would prefer more design freedom. 

I've learned so much from teaching Sophomore studio, again, since I went through a different curriculum in the undergrad, I am basically learning with my students together. I am extremely proud of their final market projects, and impressed by how much they've achieved throughout the year. I want to keep track of my students, and look forward to their Junior design work. 

Sophomore Studio Final Review at the Eagle's Nest in TBH

Empty studio awaits for more Sophomore students next year

University of Illinois Sesquicentennial Design Competition

As part of the goals this semester, I wanted to challenge myself to do as many projects as I can without compromising too much quality. In the end, I was able to do five projects this semester, the university's sesquicentennial design competition was one of them. I was invited by my friend in Junior year, and I thought I should give it a shot since the competition was opened to all majors, there could be some very interesting proposals. In the end we were able to win the first prize along with another team.

For the design, we used Kevin Lynch's urbanism theory to study the campus, and instead of focusing on a certain location, we wanted to include the whole campus across three quadrangles. We wanted to create a focal point at the south quad with the oldest structure on campus, the Mumford House. We avoided adding more focal points on the main quad by scattering them around in the buffer zones. Lastly, for Bardeen quad, we overlapping the installation with the focal point since we wanted to further improve it. 

We used the decontruction of material as the methodology for an uniform design language. 

Instead of creating something brand new, we just wanted to improve upon what's already exists. The Mumford House is 147 year-old so it should definitely be part of the celebration. 

In the end, the volume is stripped down into lines. The last design is a sculptural installation at the Bardeen Quad. 

2017 BFA Exhibition

I got to know about the BFA Exhibition since Junior year because of my ex-roommate who was in industrial design. Total of seven departments have a final exhibition at the Krannert Art Museum, and although they are all parts of the Fine and Applied Art School, it is a completely different scene compare to Architecture. I always get inspired by all the senior thesis projects, and the sad thing is, only a handful of architecture students would attend this event! There is not enough integration of art within Architecture department, and I think everyone is essentially missing out. It would be great to see some sort of collaborations with the BFA Exhibition in the future.