26 October 2011

Common Lecture: Stephen Sears

Stephen Sears, University of Illinois
Points of Departure: The Potential of Vertical Workshops

Really a matter of applied problem and critique - that is our baseline

We begin with tools, but it is not the sophistication of the tool but the sophistication of the process
We bring natural impulses, intuition and balance between abstract and concrete foci
The student's design process can have an infinite number of permutations
The faculty member helps direct it through critques

Urban Transect of the Rio Atoyac, Pueblo, Mexico
Students discovered different aspects of the city embodied in different sites along the the river
How do we make this legible?
Clues included the purposeful habitation of public space

Digital media and the hypernarrative landscape
Imaging - Imagining
Looking at multiple moments at once gives us a distorted image of reality
When we create our images of the planned design, we can capture process in a static image
Like a Muybridge photo


The Round Barns | SITE
Built in 1907, at the same time as Ebeneezer Howard's Garden Cities of To-Morrow
On the Illinois campus
The barns were a reflection of the university's role as a forward thinking institution - an advanced technology helping farmers grow more cows without more help
In a land-rich setting where it is hard to manufacture program for a project



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That place by the The Thing
like the Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor
A time-based media studio
Students were all given a video camera and supplemented with phones, software, etc.
Investigated a site in Chicago

The course concluded with a 90 minute screening.

 Great takeaway:
 Even core studios are vertical, since everyone comes with a different level of experience and different sets of skills

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