STUDIO AGENDA

agenda | programs | photos | acknowledgements

index | proofsheet | agenda | individuals | gallery

 

What

This university project is a fictional study of an actual design opportunity, selected for the richness of context it has provided for project-based learning. This study has not been commissioned by anyone, nor was it undertaken with any particular vested interest in mind, nor is it at all constrained by realities of politics and finance. We do this as if design is not just about solving known problems, but also about discovering them; and as if all brainstorming fails when it becomes reasonable.

Where

We selected Grand Haven, Michigan, for its well-developed  Downtown Vision Plan, which is remarkable for a place of this size (11,000 year-round residents), and for the richness of the issues raised by its need for better connection between its downtown and its riverfront. There, for the corner of Washington Ave. and Harbor Drive, e ach studio participant has proposed a small public building and plaza, including a program of use.

Who

This is the work of graduate students in architecture at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, at the University of Michigan. The studio (and this website) has been organized by Malcolm McCullough, the professor, who has taught architecture and urban design at Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, and Harvard. Background information has been furnished by Johnson Hill Land Ethics Studio, of Ann Arbor, authors of the Downtown Vision Plan. Receptivity to our inquiries has been shown by just about everyone we encountered in Grand Haven, as gathered by our primary contact, Kristin Keery of Planning and Community Development. But again, this was our idea and not theirs, and our projects do not imply any endorsement or actual plan.

When

Work shown here was developed over about 10 weeks of the fall semester 2007. This was preceded by 3 weeks of group efforts on landscape urbanism. Work was shown in Grand Haven about halfway through this period.

How

Project-based education has become much more prominent in universities, and architecture is the field that has been at it longest. Our process involves very time-intensive creative work, with mainly solo projects done in parallel with some team projects. This approach teaches our students how to get up in front of people with a proposal that takes many big-picture patterns into account. Most other fields teach how to hide behjnd the hardest possible numbers, no matter what measurements have been omitted to allow such certainty.

Provocation

“Dewpoint,” a common measure of humidity, and a state where atmosphere becomes visible, serves both as reminder of climate and metaphor for more abstract observations. Can architecture reawaken environmental sensibilities in a general populace by raising sensitivity to ambient experience? May a sharper sensibility toward ambient phenomena become basic preparation in architecture? May design for a media-saturated age increasingly communicate in the background? May design response to climatic alarm might involve delight (and not just duty) in making light, air, and water more its subject matter?