Time Schedule:
Iain M Robertson
L ARCH 300
Seattle Campus
Introduction to history and environmental influences in field while developing design and graphic skills. Site analyses and drawing to convey design concepts. Relationship of visual perception to drawing, role of values in design, verbal communication, and behavioral analysis of design process. Required for admission to Bachelor of Landscape Architecture program.
Class description
THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY or THE EDUCATIONAL, EXPERIENTIAL & ECOLOGICAL STUDIO RECOVERY ACT of 2009 (being a summer course exploring designers' contributions to The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act 2009)
LANDSCAPE: RELEAF, STIMULUS, ACT In LARC 300 you will explore the world through the eyes of landscape design and keep a whistleblower's record of what you uncover. You will reinvest in the act of observation. You will develop skills for recording what you experience and draw--literally draw!--design conclusions from these experiences. You will be stimulated to see the world through designers eyes: experiencing, synthesizing, communicating. This is how we learn to design. There will be no funds allowing you to hedge your bets, no derivatives in which you put other thinkers in the driver's seat. No exporting the act of thinking and experiencing to others. The way in is the easy way out.
ALL STREETS IS WALL STREETS Our studio recovery act includes in-class and longer design projects, discussions, readings, and field trips to selected sites, some mundane some exalted, all revelatory if we look at them rightly. The Act is Attention, not just to the 'special' but to the ordinary, everyday world we inhabit--its forms and materials, its users and uses, its physical and symbolic expressions.
You will compose your own Personal Relief and Recovery of Direct Experience Act, (which will include educational,. Experiential and ecological components) and in so doing you will come to see the world through designer's eyes. Your recovery shall mature from explorations at different scales, in contexts ranging from natural to built, from functional to aesthetic to symbolic understandings. We shall take stock in different places and bond with experiences in the flesh, on paper.
REINVESTMENT: EXPERIENCING--SYNTHESIZING--COMMUNICATING Journal 'synthesizing' will take the form of notes, drawings, diagrams, collages, etc, etc. a living and compelling record of your discoveries. We shall be surprised to learn how little we have hitherto invested in knowing where we are--deficit spending indeed! We learn to design by learning to experience--to see with all the senses, so to speak. Your journal is your guidebook you will compose experiencing, exploring and explicating here. Hear here! Listen up! everything is trying to tell you something.
In the case of studio design exercises 'synthesizing' will take the form of applying your growing knowledge of the landscape in its many forms to creating place-appropriate design solutions followed by reflecting on your, and others', products in your journals.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
ECONOMIC RECOVERY CZARS Iain M Robertson iainmr@u.washington.edu 543 9246 Ken Yocom kyocom@u.washington.edu BALANCE BUDGETS NOT DEFICIT SPENDING Being A Word About Methods and Studio Instruction Studios are direct action workshops for individual explorations of, and group collaborations on, design. You should have your Shovel Ready at ALL times. Studios are places to practice design in many way: take risks & make mistakes; draw, build, explore ideas; experiment with possibilities; present solutions; and learn from ourselves and others.
RECOVERY, LIKE THE DESIGN PROCESS, IS ITERATIVE (derivatives, hedge funds and TARPs need not apply) Round and round and round we go until all awkward edges and angles are knocked off and rounded into a design product that has a smooth, pleasing, efficient, effective and elegant form. Sounds easy? Product should look like it came about 'naturally' BUT design is sweet and sweat. Linear depictions of the process are helpfully meaningless. Act now reflect later.
Recommended preparation
Essential traits for successful studio explorations: be open, responsive, reflective. studio learning and field trips are not passive education--they require active engagement and participation
Class assignments and grading
ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY Being a List of Successful Recovery Requirements in class exercises & participation 20% project 1 20% project 2 30% journal 30% To prevent 'fraud, waste & abuse' we reserve the right to change category stimulus fund percentages
