MA-PhD programs shift and the connection between Anthropology and Architecture

I finally finished all my work for the University of Chicago master's program and am just waiting to graduate this Saturday. Very exciting indeed. In the meantime I have started looking at PhD programs in architecture. It seems that there are a very small number of programs that have a cultural component to them, including the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne and with a somewhat different program, North Carolina State University. At least those are the programs that I have found so far. Right now I am also working on a possible dissertation topic, of which I'm leaning towards doing a historical look at social factors in architecture from the late 1940s to today. Unlike the University of California at Berkeley's Conference entitled Death and Life of Social Factors, I do not believe that social factors have in any way died in architecture, just morphed. Moreover I am curious as to why social factors seem to have this slow change in architecture as opposed to the growth that other design fields have seen over the same time period.

While looking into these PhD programs I have been reading a really interesting book called the Fountainheadache: The Politics of Architecture-Client Relations by Andy Pressman which I will be writing a critique of once I am finished (this may be a while as my parents are coming into town on Thursday and I'm leaving for New Jersey next week).

Throughout my reading and looking into PhD programs my meetings have started up again. I have a meeting very shortly with Avigail Sachs and have started taking a class at IIT entitled Mapping Neighborhoods with Monica Chadha. After class yesterday Monica and I got together to discuss anthropology's role in architecture. As with everyone I have spoken to thus far, Monica agrees that as an anthropologist I have a lot to contribute to the field of architecture. She was explaining to me that while there are individuals who teach at the college level with no PhD in Architecture it very much makes sense for me to get my PhD as I do not wish to be a practicing architect. Unfortunately there has been some question recently as to whether my program at the University of Chicago will support me in my PhD decisions, as they (like most who aren't architects) do not entirely understand the connection. However, I am hoping to change their mind in yet another meeting discussing my intentions with the program director.

Also in our meeting Monica and I discussed two distinct connections between anthropology and architecture. One is the community development which a section of architects have started pursuing, groups like Public Architecture, Rural Studio, Design Build Bluff, etc. Similarly, Monica's class at IIT gets me involved with how anthropology helps architects look at an area from the neighborhood level, a level that is very familiar to many anthropologists. However there is an entirely different segment of architecture which I also wish to embrace, that is the traditional practice of architecture. This is an area of architecture which architects do not typically understand the connection to anthropology in the beginning. This is the area which I wish to train architects to be better at, and more valued in, the work that they already do. I do not wish to change the traditional practice of architecture at all. In fact I only wish to make it stronger by teaching methods that architects need to use in the practice already, which strangely enough are not taught in MArch or BArch (Masters in Architecture or Bachelors in Architecture) programs, such as interviewing, observation, working with peoples of different cultures and possibly even business techniques. In order to get more involved in this I believe my first step must be to shadow an architect.

Buckner Companies HQ in Graham

A new article in the Chapel Hill Herald regarding the Buckner Companies Headquarters in Graham left me puzzled. The article's title emphasizes the award that the Carrboro-based firm received but it never in fact even mentions the name of the award. The article itself is entirely based on the benefits the building has for Buckner Companies' owners and staff. However, and this may be where journalism differs from anthropology, the entire article is based on one interview done with the owner of the building, Doug Williams. Not one other individual is quoted throughout the entire article. That is astonishing to me! As an anthropologist, the thought of an article that is based on one interview alone being acceptable to my professors is totally unheard of, unless you are explicitly stating that it is, in fact, based on one interview (which this article does not).

With this in mind it is almost impossible for me to agree with Williams or not. If his staff in fact agree with his comments and the comments of the author of this article, that the building is "a haven for employees, a favorite gathering place for community groups, an alluring recruitment tool for prospective employees and a draw for client firms who now want to meet here while staying in Chapel Hill instead of bringing Buckner associates to their states" then this building seems to have, in fact, been designed for the user. However, in actuality there is no telling from the article whether this is truly the case or not, as none of those users have been interviewed or any of the members of the aforementioned groups.

If one is as curious as I am about why the building received the award, which is not discussed in this article, ArchDaily discusses some of the reasons why it might have received the award. From the Herald's article one would think that Buckner Companies received the one and only architecture award (which of course there is many). The award itself is discussed in another article, it is entitled Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association Environmental award and Buckner Companies is the first winner of the award along with another building for a NY company entitled Skanska USA Building, Inc.

Cute Architecture Joke

A nice little architecture joke to brighten your morning. I do wonder where female architects fit into the picture though.

Mansueto Library

The person across from me just excused himself to leave and go sit elsewhere in the new Mansueto library, due to the fact that he was being blindsided by the sun reflecting off the whiteness of his pages. The woman sitting in that same seat before him had her sunglasses on. Yet I have decided to continue squinting at my computer screen as the black of my laptop becomes hotter and hotter. This place was not designed for the user. I am a mere 5 foot 2 inches, on a good day, and yet, in order to type on my keyboard in a way that is comfortable and typical for my hands, I have to sit slouched in the chair. This place may look cool, and indeed it does look very fancy. However, I would personally prefer to sit in the older part of the library where I can see without squinting, or wearing sunglasses and do not ultimately end my time with a massive backache from slouching. This may sound like a complaint, and indeed it is. In order to design a fully functioning space that works for the user these are issues that need to be addressed from the beginning, so one does not end up with these kinds of problems.

It seems from this video that the architects for this particular space did a wonderful job with it as far as technology goes, and even as far as the library's needs are concerned. However, once again the user was left out of the equation. Fortunately there are few users for this space, only the first floor of the dome actually has space for users to study or work.

Why not get your MArch?

Yesterday I met with an architect who works for the Chicago Architecture Foundation. During our meeting she asked me a question that took me by surprise. "Why not just get your MArch?" She continued to explain that by getting my MArch I would have all the practical knowledge of an architect and be able to teach with this knowledge. At the time the only answer I had was with the gut reaction that it was impossible for me to do everything. However, now that I've thought about it more there's more to it than that. It's not just that in order to teach architects I would have to get the MArch, on top of the MA I will already have, followed by a PhD. In fact it has little to do with the length of time. Practically speaking I think it extremely important to work in a firm and/or organization that works with architecture (like the Chicago Architecture Foundation). On the other hand I don't think it necessary to become an architect in order to teach architects. There are architect professors who are highly respected that have just gone out and gotten their PhDs.

Aside from this I think it extremely important for architects to be able to work with people with ideas from other fields in order to embrace their ultimate interdisciplinary goal. As the profession stands right now, architects are taught just this exact point, if you don't have an MArch then you don't understand enough to contribute to the overall goal. I think this is extremely problematic, to say the least. I think, in fact, that having some people at the table who aren't architects forces those who are architects to put things in simpler non-design terms which the client and user understands. However in addition to this after getting my PhD in architecture I will not be just an academic anthropologist with no understanding of architecture. Finally I think it important to note that this idea that non-architects have nothing to teach or contribute to architects may be one of the reasons for some of the complications the field is currently facing.

Maybe this is also a reaction coming from the gut but being an architect already requires one to work with many who known very little about architecture (interior designers, engineers, industrial designers, etc.). What's the addition of one more, who hopes to gain much of that knowledge about architecture?

I think in the end there's one last key to why I shouldn't get my MArch, that is that I want to teach other architects. I don't just want to work for one firm and make that one firm more user-friendly in the way they do architecture. I want to help architects in general and the only way to do that is to teach. The only way to teach architects is to get a PhD, anything that stops short of that will not allow me to teach or will further prolong the time it will take for me to teach.

Housing as Habitus

Known throughout the world as the largest and most luxurious of hotel suites, the Royal Penthouse Suite covers a grand 1680 m2 surface area of the hotel's highest floor. It is unique in terms of luxury and comfort and guarantees a maximum security level. The suite is complete with 12 rooms, 12 bathrooms, Billiards, Steinway grand piano, Fitness center, private elevator and private terrace. Moreover it is one of the first suites in Europe to feature a Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 4-103 flat screen and audio installation. (Royal Penthouse)

Entrance through the kitchen from the back porch of the building, the latter room equipped with an old-fashioned and battered coal range, a bare kitchen table, dirty sink, soiled shades, and dingy curtains . . . floor bare of any covering at all. Off the kitchen an equally dirty bedroom with little in it but a bed swathed in dirty sheets and quilts. The room small and crowded, even with its single pieces of furniture. Second bedroom also crowded . . . combined living-room and dining-room barely affords space for standing when the day-bed is opened, since the rest of the space is taken by a dilapidated duofold, a small table, and two chairs. These four rooms house two parents and five children. (Drake, 580)

These two descriptions are so sharply distinct that it is almost difficult to understand that they are both describing living situations. The first for someone who can afford to pay for this kind of room while on vacation and the second of a family that can barely afford a house at all. In the following paper I wish to first lay out descriptions of what Pierre Bourdieu refers to as the pure and popular aesthetic, respectively. I then will explain how, through experience, memory, time and reinforcement, habitus is learned with regard to housing. Finally I will take a brief detour to show ways in which the family and the economic class itself reinforces habitus through Goffman’s terms of front and face.

As we saw with Drake’s description above, for lower class housing fulfills a dire necessity, it is a part of the popular aesthetic. Despite the fact that lower class individuals living in Bronzeville during the Depression through to the Second World War were only renting tiny kitchenettes for $8 a week or even as cheap as $8 a week for three rooms, they often lived with a large number of people for “the larger the household the greater the chance that somebody might find a job” (Drake, 581). This obvious lack of finances allows us to see the functional role these kitchenettes fulfilled. There was no understanding of these kitchenettes as art. In fact, quite the opposite, individuals were often living in “squalid, crowded housing conditions” (Drake, 560). As we can see from these circumstances, “it is as if the ‘popular aesthetic’ were based on the affirmation of the continuity between art and life, which implies the subordination of form to function” (Bourdieu, 4). This subordination comes with an equal desire for quantity over quality. One particular lower class resident comments on the desire for increased quantity when commenting, “their flats are better than ours, but they pay three and four times as much as we do” (Drake, 579). Those of the popular aesthetic desire more space and privacy, but they simply do not have enough money to pay for the larger spaces.

On the other extreme, those of the pure aesthetic are clearly far from concerned about money. Instead of quantity these individuals are looking to housing as art, form and quality. Even though upper class Bronzeville church buildings in this same time period tended to be small, they were still “very well cared for and artistically decorated” (Drake, 538). By embracing art in structures, indeed embracing architecture, the elite root themselves in “an ethos of elective distance from the necessities of the natural and social world” (Bourdieu, 5). An elective distance away from quantity and towards quality, away from the reality of housing as a necessity, to design as a surreal and more abstract understanding of structures.

This distinction between popular and pure aesthetics is so clear that it forces one to ask the question of how such a difference was formed. As I discussed in the beginning, there are four distinct ways of, in the words of Bourdieu, internalizing habitus. The first way in which we internalize habitus is through experience. Learning habitus through experience of housing is different than learning habitus for a particular kind of art. As Bourdieu explains, taste for artwork is “acquired simply by contact with works of art” (Bourdieu, 4). However, the idea of “contact” with a house is one that is much more complicated than “contact” with a painting, or any other form of art. To come into contact with a house, one must either live or visit the house, as opposed to the viewing of a painting that is much less experiential. Either way one is experiencing the house “in its reality” (Bachelard, 5) more than anything else. The experience of building as art is one which is reserved solely for the elite. This is due to the fact that in order to live or visit an artistically decorated home or structure one has to belong to the elite circles. Thus habitus is inscribed in an individual once they are born, into a family who already owns such a home or has friends who do, often both. Specifically, as Gaston Bachelard explains, it is the experience of our first house which teaches us the most. All other houses we inhabit are simply “variations on a fundamental theme” (Bachelard, 15).

The reason that this first house teaches us the most about the aesthetic of housing for Bachelard, is that it is the first space which we experience, in reality and in memory. It is this memory which is key to habitus in two distinct ways. First of all, memory is how we learn, “by means of thought and dreams” (Bachelard, 5). Secondly, memory allows the aesthetic which we have learned to remain with us. In the words of Bourdieu,

“The schemes of the habitus, the primary forms of classification, owe their specific efficacy to the fact that they function below the level of consciousness and language, beyond the reach of introspective scrutiny or control by the will” (466).

Bachelard explains this in a slightly different way, by showing how our dwelling places themselves stick with us. As Bachelard explains, “it is because our memories of former dwelling-places are relived as daydreams that these dwelling-places of the past remain in us for all time" (Bachelard, 6).

Like memory, time also plays a particular role in learning habitus. Only with time can one make enough money to pay for or inherit a home. Inheritance has a special way of teaching habitus, in the act of inheriting a home one inherits habitus along with it, like an heirloom. With the pure aesthetic comes yet another envisioning of time, as leisure time since time itself is a luxury. The more leisure time, the more time one is able to spend daydreaming within the home as well as playing “the games of culture with the playful seriousness” and maintaining “a child’s relation to the world” (Bourdieu, 54). Similarly the less time one has the less one is able to understand this child’s relation to the world through material objects like large homes and the wonders they house.

With time comes the final way of learning habitus, through reinforcement in the family. The family itself works ultimately to evaluate a child’s performance by “reinforcing what is acceptable, [and] discouraging what is not” (Bourdieu 85), in this way the family reinstates the value of a large family home. To take a fictional example, if fifth grade Billy wanted to go to his friend’s house for a playdate, but his friend lived in Bronzeville, Billy’s mother might suggest that Billy not befriend that kind of person. This might happen if, similarly, Billy’s mother went to pick Billy up from his friend’s house after school and saw that his friend lived in a shack. Billy’s mother’s response to a specific house or neighborhood would teach Billy where it was and wasn’t safe to go and socialize. In this way, by the time Billy grew up he would understand through his learned memory of habitus what kind of family he was supposed to marry into and what kind of house he should own.

Once this habitus is inscribed in us through experience and dreams, it is then expected of us by our economic class. Having a nice home allows one to do that which is expected of us by an upper class and in this way “keep up ‘front’” (Drake 668). Goffman describes front as “part of individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance” (1959, 22). Those who observe the performance of a well mannered woman in a fashionable expensive dress out at a fancy restaurant expect that person to have an equally nice artistically decorated home. If they, on the other hand, have a poor dilapidated home then they have not succeeded in keeping up their front. This idea of front is understood by Drake in Bronzeville since one way to determine one’s class is through the involvement and membership one has in particular clubs. These clubs often meet in members’ homes. If one were to lose one’s home one may ultimately lose one’s membership to a particular club and thereby lose face. Face is another term from Erving Goffman which can be understood as an instance when an individual is not keeping up front or when “information is brought forth in some way about his social worth which cannot be integrated, even with effort, into the line that is being sustained for him” (1967 Goffman, 8).

In conclusion, housing is just one of the areas of practice which Bourdieu describes when he states that, “There is no area of practice in which the aim of purifying, refining and sublimating primary needs and impulses cannot assert itself” (6). As we have seen throughout this paper, ultimately experience, memory and time create the habitus, which is reinforced by language of Goffman in the family as well as the economic class to which one belongs. This reinforced habitus orients itself in the form of two aesthetics, the pure and the popular. This can be seen one final time in the photos below.

Bibliography

Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1958. 

Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.

Drake, St Clair, and Horace R Clayton. Black Metropolis : a Study of Negro life in a Northern City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Goffman, Erving. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1967.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1959.

"Royal Penthouse." Hotel President Wilson. Accessed April 25, 2011. http://www.hotelpwilson.com/en/rooms-and-suites/royal-penthouse-suite/.

Architecture Film Festival

Tonight was the first night for me at the Architecture and Design Film Festival and I have to say by the end I was feeling kind of let down. I think this is ultimately due to my expecting too much from the field of architecture. There were two things that contributed to my coming to these conclusions.

First, we watched a really great film called The Art and Science of Renzo Piano. Unlike several of the other films of the night this film itself was very well done. However it did not live up to my expectations of including the user. Renzo Piano did an amazing job creating a green building that wouldn't surprise me if it went way past LEED standards, or was completely unable to compete on LEED level. This is in reference to his California Academy of Sciences building. He also did a fairly good job of including the clients and their ideas on how to sell the museum to its new audience. Unfortunately as I was getting more and more entrenched in his environmental design I was realizing that, in the end, he did not speak to the user themselves.

On a similar note coming back to Bjarke Ingels, I, along with the majority of the audience, was amazed by his film My Playground. This film was extremely insightful regarding a new type of extreme sport called parkour. I had never heard of this sport before a few months ago and now there are a number of people interested in it! I was also happy to hear that he is thinking of incorporating this idea of using the exterior of his building as a social space into his next building. For his next building he will be creating a power plant with a sort of ski valley down one side. This inclusion of the exterior is far beyond the ideas of many architects. Once again my expectations were only let down in that I wished for him to bring this idea of creating social spaces and including the user into the interior as well as the exterior for I felt that the user of the interior space was left out of the equation.

As a friend of mine commented to me, these individuals are, after all, designers. We as social scientists can only expect so much of them. This is where I think I differ from her for I do expect more, this is why I want to teach. So that I can help make my expectations come true!

Up to Speed

I seem to be spending a lot of time catching you up to speed on what's been going on architecturally in my life. This will probably be the case throughout the month of May (quite a crazy month both architecturally and school-wise).

Here's the next month's schedule
Tomorrow I'm off to Berkeley, CA for a conference entitled The Death and Life of Social Factors. May 3rd is the talk for perspective Archeworks students, which will possibly include yours truly for next year, and their final presentation and review. In addition the weekend of my birthday is the Chicago Architecture Film Festival which will be accompanied by birthday festivities of some sort. Finally, at the end of the month in the same week are the EDRA Conference and Wright Plus, the later of which I will be a volunteer for. In the meantime the final draft of my thesis is due next Friday! What a month!

Also just to let you know I have been using my blog entry entitled Architecture = Art + Building + People for class assignments so it has gone through a number of revisions since I first posted it. I will be posting a final version of that.

Reaction to Architecture = Art + Building + People

Yesterday I received my first fairly strong reaction to Architecture = Art + Building + People on Facebook. A totally unexpected reaction in fact but one that I feel it's important for me to address directly so others don't have the same misunderstanding. As such I have decided to quote the reaction here:

"Nearly every seriously-trained anthropologist looks at "architecture" beyond being merely functional and pretty. Nearly everything I write about of heritage preservation in Cartagena and Luang Prabang involves attending to and working with a particular type of architect. It was actually kinda hurtful to me to read that passage ... It's really hard to find a serious anthropologist who doesn't understand that architecture is more than just ... function and appeal. There's two edited volumes entitled Architectural Anthropology. My best friend from high school is in an MA Program (trained in Architecture) is looking into MA programs that involve social scientific approaches to architecture. If you are going to distinguish yourself an architectural anthropologist people will expect you to have some grounding in the fundamental literature of the field. If you want to call yourself an anthropologist (and after five years of studying and six months of fieldwork, I'm not willing to) people are going to expect you to have a grounding in some of the fundamental texts of both field (anthropology and architecture). If you are not ... then you have to come up with some sort of justification. Until you can actually demonstrate how your work fits in with ... the vast array of architectural anthropology already produced ... your going to have trouble verifying your legitimacy. I'm just trying to help. But of course I'm only coming from one side of the perspective. I would highly suggest you at least read some of those authors ... they all present various anthropological perspectives on architecture, and none of them are exceptionally difficult to grasp. Bachelard's prose, actually, is quite beautiful and I think the most pertinent to your interest. It's like reading theory written in a delightful poem. I returned his book to the library this morning so it's there. (The Poetics of Space). It will be preeminently helpful to your MA Thesis, if not your career goals. At least the ability to drop his name will be."

There are a couple of things that I would like to say to address this reaction. To start at the beginning I in no way wished to criticize anthropologists. I think many of these critiques come from the poorly-written Introduction. Therefore I would like to look at my intro with a more critical eye. As I said in the paper itself "Spatial anthropology has become increasingly popular, but overall anthropologists are not accustomed to dealing with architecture." This particular reaction suggests that I may be incorrect in saying this last part of the sentence. Indeed this individual may be correct, though historically anthropologists have been much more interested in studying kinship patterns and a wide variety of things that don't include architecture. I do not wish to suggest this to be problematic, anthropologists can and should study everything. As just one example, my MA Thesis has turned to embracing business anthropology, a field which I think is extremely helpful and necessary. This is also true for marketing which has embraced anthropology in relation to product development and advertisements along with a wide variety of other types of anthropology which I do not wish to dwell on.

Continuing on with the paper itself this reaction draws on my next sentence which may have been poorly worded: "This disconnect between anthropology and architecture may be primarily due to the fact that up until now architecture only fulfills two roles for the anthropologist, function and art." I think it would be more correct to read: "This disconnect between anthropology and architecture may be primarily due to the fact that up until now architecture only fulfills two roles, function and art." For in reality these are the two roles that architects and architectural theorists have reserved for architecture. This has little if anything to do with anthropologists.

Also I believe this question to be problematic: "Would architecture then become something important to study?" This is not what I really want to say here at all. For I really am not interested in trying to get more people to study architecture. Ultimately that would be great but it is not my specific aim. My specific aim is to get people to help architects in their role of creating architecture. I also wish for architects to understand other fields (including anthropology but also psychology and sociology) and how these other fields affect the day to day work of architects.

Finally I also wish to address a key point brought up in this article. That being the amount of knowledge that I lack. Despite the fact that this may be disputed I do indeed embrace the fact that I am a practicing anthropologist. This is not based on the number of courses I have taken in the department of anthropology. What it is based on is the fact that I embrace anthropology in what I do and how I live my life. I have been using anthropological methods daily for the last 10 years of my life. I have lived in other cultures and "gone native" ending up marrying one of these locals and trying my hardest to change myself to embrace his culture. I have experienced culture shock to the nth degree. I have spent a large amount of time studying cultures and languages. I have written both a BA and an MA that rely on anthropological methods and theories. This does not allow me to say that I am the best anthropologist out there or the ideal model of an anthropologist. I am far from either of these. However I can and do look at the world with an anthropological eye.

As far as being an architect goes, I am anything but. I have taken a few classes in architecture and read a few books but never practiced it nor do I understand much about the process at all. I fully understand this as being problematic and wish to spend as long as it takes now to remedy this. I wish to get my PhD in architectural theory. In order to further this I wish to spend the coming year volunteering and working with architects, as well as taking classes at Archeworks so I can better understand the architectural process. Moreover I wish to go to conferences that embrace architecture in relation to other fields.

Finally it is important for me to note that I have not read very much and will also be spending as much time as possible fixing this issue starting as soon as I graduate from the University of Chicago. Any suggestions that anyone has with this regard are extremely helpful and necessary.

Lead up And Spin Off of Bjarke Ingels' TED Talk

Recently I had the wonderful idea to spend my spring break doing as many activities related to architecture as possible. Fortunately this included one of Chicago Architecture Foundation's Wednesday lunch lectures on the Wheeler Kearns Architecture Firm and some of the amazing projects they have been doing recently. At the end of this lecture I had the opportunity to meet a student visiting from somewhere on the west coast. She invited me to the SFI 10+1 Conference which she was planning on going to that same weekend. At first I thought it impossible for me to attend a Conference that was so soon but I contacted Design Corps anyways to ask them if it would be possible. Fortunately I was able to attend the conference. Since then my motivation to be an architectural anthropologist has sky rocketed. During the Conference there was one speech in particular done by Tom Fisher which gave a call specifically to anthropologists to help in the field of architecture.

Since this time I have met a large number of people who work with changing the field of architecture and other fields of design. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I am entering the last month of my masters program at the University of Chicago, I will not have much time to post on this site. Therefore the majority of my posts (like my last post Architecture = Building + Art + People) will be posts of papers I am doing for my class entitled Academic / Professional Writing. I will do my best to post on other topics prior to the first week in June (when I will be graduating). However most of my posts will come after that date.

I would like to spend the rest of this particular post adding to a TED Talk given by Bjarke Ingels which you can find at this site: http://www.ted.com/talks/bjarke_ingels_3_warp_speed_architecture_tales.html . Aside from Ingels' beautiful accent and the fact that his name was brought up at a meeting I had today with an anthropologist working for an architecture firm here in Chicago, there is no particular reason for me to start out discussing this particular TED talk. I will start by describing what I am not interested in doing. I am not interested in critiquing his talk or even discussing the entirety of his talk, only very specific points which he brings up. This is also not a critique of Bjarke Ingels himself. This is the only talk that I have heard him give, so it is very unfair for me to criticize his theories in general. Instead what I am interested in doing is adding to what he has in this particular talk to give another idea altogether.

Many of the projects Ingels presents still hark back to this Miesian idea of being able to create the same building anywhere. Design wise, similarities can be drawn from the library in Coppenhagen that Ingels' designed and DC6 by ICE architects + Trinity and Associates in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam which was featured in today's DesignBoom. Ultimately the idea is similar to taking a tower and twisting it like one would a slinky. Similarities can also be drawn from the balconies of Jeanne Gang's Aqua Tower in Chicago to the "Leonardo di Caprio balconies" which Ingels' discusses. Ingels himself refers to the fact that the outside is a "Scandinavian version of the Spanish steps in Rome." There is a complete lack of localization, as I mentioned in the beginning the same building could be built anywhere.

Ingels goes on to talk about the fact that this is an idea embraced at the core of the architectural process itself. In creating the design for one client one ends up coming up with the idea that fits for a totally different client in a totally different culture. In my personal opinion this should not be the case at all. The design process should be so localized that moving it from 57th Street in Hyde Park to 43rd Street in Bronzeville (two neighborhoods in the confines of Chicago) should make a vast difference as the building is speaking to extremely different audiences. In this way a thought brought up for the design in Hyde Park would seem absurd for a design in Bronzeville and vice versa. This is, however, not what happens in the architectural process.

Throughout the rest of Ingels' talk he discusses some truly amazing architectural feats the firm has created with regard to sustainable design. Which could literally change the landscape of future buildings and cities. He also discusses the People's Building which they created for the Shanghai Expo. This building succeeds in bringing in culture on some very literal levels, with the Chinese character for people and the ideas of the building fitting the cultural ideas of one Chinese man in particular. Unfortunately Ingels' does not discuss how these buildings have impacted the people that live inside them. The closest he gets to these ideas is when he talks about how one particular building has affected the view from his window. Nor has he discussed how the People's Building has affected the Chinese people of Shanghai, whether the building has been accepted and whether the ideas embraced in the building itself are of one individual or many.

Ingels' discusses the fact that Shanghai has developed from a city of bicycles to a city of cars. However he compares this to Coppenhagen which is "expanding the bicycle lanes." There are a couple cultural problems with comparing these two cities like this. First of all I fear this gives people the idea that China itself has moved away from bicycles which, as one can see from Beijing, is far from true. What Ingels' neglected to mention is as Shanghai and other Chinese cities have embraced the car they have done so to the extent that in many places there are too many cars for the roads creating spaces where bicycles are more efficient than cars.

On two totally separate notes, first it is interesting to compare the architectural process as described here by Ingels, with regard to Darwin, to the design process discussed by Liz Sanders in her speech entitled "Exploring Co-creation on a Large Scale: Designing for New Healthcare Environments and Experiences ."

Secondly, although I have yet had time to read it, what Ingles describes with regard to the office being an archive sounds very similar to what Jeanne Gang discusses in her new book Reveal: Studio Gang Architects.

Architecture = Building + Art + People

Anthropologists deal with people all the time, along with their culture including languages and even spaces in which people interact. Spatial anthropology has become increasingly popular, but overall anthropologists are not accustomed to dealing with architecture. This disconnect between anthropology and architecture may be primarily due to the fact that up until now architecture only fulfills two roles for the anthropologist, function and art. Architecture fulfills a functional role of providing individuals with shelter and providing spaces for anthropologists to study. Other than this architecture is simply another form of art, it looks pretty. But what if architecture could do more than just look pretty? What if architecture could have a positive or negative impact on the day-to-day lives of common people? Would architecture then become something important to study? Ultimately there have been two major strides away from the human focus in architecture which we can understand better by taking a closer look at the past.

Historically, just like learning to walk, architecture has been something learned by all people. Everyone built their own home, so everyone knew how to build and there was no need for individuals to be paid for this specific task. During the industrial revolution tasks became much more specific and people stopped building their own homes, electing instead to have someone else build these structures for them. These individuals were called architects, or were they? For is this not really just a builder? Builders differ from architects in the fact that architects include art in their construction. This move towards art is one step in the process of architecture moving away from people and thereby anthropology.

The second step away from people comes much more recently, as people have become aware that we are destroying the Earth, and need to do everything possible to save this planet. One major preservation effort is building structures that are better for the environment, and provide healthier work and living conditions. In order to improve these conditions the US Green Building Council has created a relatively new form of building certification called LEED or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Due to the fact that LEED is a nation-wide certification it is impossible to focus on incorporating the needs of localized individuals. Therefore LEED is ultimately not only a step toward the environment but also away from people.

In the end, despite their historical unity, these two steps away from locals have made it impossible for architects and anthropologists to communicate. Unfortunately, the two fields do not communicate and therefore do not exchange ideas. Since anthropologists and architects began their separation anthropologists have learned a lot of methodological techniques that are extremely important for architects. What architects need now is for anthropologists to come back and teach them these techniques, heal the bonds between the two fields.

Architecture Update

Recently I have spent a large amount of time writing, reading and touring architecture. Last Monday I finally finished writing my term papers for this past quarter. My first was entitled Space as a Character in the Life Story of the Seminary Coop Bookstore. This was kinda fun to write. The whole quarter my professor had been talking about life stories, how to interview people regarding their life stories. Even when I went to meet with him a week before my presentation on the topic he mentioned life stories again. Well we all know how much I like the relationship between people and architecture. So I decided to make the paper for this professor told from 3rd person perspective about Space itself as if it were a character with a life story involving the relationships that it had with all the people I interviewed. Some of my main points involved how Space was just like any other person, if you never connected with it it was as if you didn't even know someone's name. But if you worked with Space every day then it was as if you knew it like you know your sibling. Due to the fact that I also had to incorporate some theory into the paper I decided that Space would refer to the space of the Seminary Coop bookstore whereas space would refer to the general.

On March 9th, the day after my sister's birthday, I presented this paper to my class. They really enjoyed my presentation, as did I learning more about theirs. One of my classmates and I are both drawn to the relationship between architecture and people and both writing about the subject so we decided to swap papers and read each others'. Hers was regarding the NY High Line and some interviews she did with friends of hers regarding the project and their reactions to it. I've never actually gotten a chance to go to the High Line but it sounds like an amazing project and I really enjoyed hearing about it. We realized that we took two fairly similar classes our first quarter here, I took Urban Landscapes and she took one entitled Social Theory of the City. I asked her to send me a copy of the syllabus so I could possibly read some of the books that were required for it.

In addition I wrote a second term paper entitled The Voices in the New Space of the Seminary Coop Bookstore. In this one I finally discovered a diplomatic way of writing about the issues that the Seminary Coop has faced in the creation of the new bookstore. Namely I decided to write about the topic from a leadership standpoint in some common pitfalls of leadership. All of this was to expose elements of the current bookstore that are being incorporated in the new bookstore or elements that are not being incorporated and some of the reasoning behind this.

I decided a couple weeks ago that since I'm here during spring break I would do my best to take advantage of the situation and do as many CAF (Chicago Architecture Foundation) tours as I can while I have the time. Yesterday I went on my first tour in a while, the modern skyscraper tour. It was a walking tour and unfortunately it decided to start raining half way through the tour, which didn't make it especially fun. However I fortunately was fairly well prepared for the cold and had my umbrella for the rain. It was really an eye opener, I learned about modern, postmodern and what the docent decided to refer to as neo-modern, despite the fact that it hasn't been officially named yet. One of the cool things that I learned about was the reason for the height and expanse of the Pritzker Pavillion in Millennium Park. There is a web-like grid hanging above this pavillion which has speakers dangling from it at several places, the reason for this is that at this pavillion, unlike many auditoriums and other concert areas, when the speaker speaks (or sings or does whatever they're doing auditorily) the sound that you hear at any place from this pavillion is heard at the exact same time. The speakers help this acoustic effect so you don't get people at the back of the pavillion hearing the sound the latest and people at the front hearing it on time. I was pretty amazed by this concept.

Today I have scheduled myself to go for a CAF lecture at noon and a tour at 3pm. Looking forward to both of them! And will be going on one CAF bus tour with a friend on Friday (amongst several other things).

In the meantime I have also been reading about architecture. In addition to the space theory that I read for my term papers that includes books like Tim Cresswell's Place: A short introduction and Anne Buttimer's The Human Experience of Space and Place I have been working my way through (when I get time) Sykes' The Architecture Reader: Essential Writings from Vitruvius to the Present which I am very much enjoying (and only wish I had more time to read as I am still having to do a lot of work for my masters thesis).

Spacing size

"Old buildings can carry a certain comfort that new buildings frequently don’t, I don’t know what makes them feel more comfortable but there’s not enough glass, not enough metal, more brick, more wood" says an interviewee I met with in discussing the move of the Seminary Co-op and the Chicago Theological Seminary. I really do think it has to do more with the space in between walls, doors and aisles as well as the ceiling height in the building than the material used to create the space. Currently I'm in what could be the cafeteria in the Harry Potter films, but is actually the Harper Library at the University of Chicago. This space to me doesn't feel comfortable, the ceilings are too high to really make that comfort feeling. Plus there is that constant nagging of ... maybe the electricity in the room? or the air? I'm not sure what it is but it is very annoying and causes people like myself to keep our headphones on all the time so as not to get a headache. Yet I still study in here. Anyways, going back to the quote. I really am curious how much changing the width between spaces to make them larger so they fit ADA compliance makes one feel less "comfortable" while at the same time allowing it to physically be less cramped at times.

Design Decisions

It's funny, it seems I've some how fallen on the outs with the bookstore. I'm no longer invited to the meetings they have with the architects. In fact this past week the University architect invited me to the meeting and I was kind enough to ask the manager of the bookstore if that were okay with him, to which he promptly said no, it wasn't okay with him.

It's funny to me how architects work, or more how it seems they are forced to work. First they are hired by a business to create a space, say a bookstore. Then they have several meetings with a group of people that work for that store to determine the conditions for the design of the new space. Who determines which people they will work with? Will they be working with the president of the company who has several meetings with the rest of the employees (or the rest of the managers) to determine what they really need? Will they not meet with anyone at all and be asked to create the entire design themselves? Or will they meet with a panel of people who are in no way representative of the entire functionality of the company? If either of these later is the case who ends up getting blamed for parts that the architects (not knowing the kind of business well enough) overlook? In actuality it is unfair to blame the architects themselves, they are simply doing their job with the tools which they are given, but I feel sometimes they are the ones to be blamed, strangely enough.

I suppose this holds true for any kind of project, not just an architectural project. When one goes into anything not asking a true panel of representatives it makes it difficult to get enough information to do the job right.

Architect's Eye & Marketing

It's really interesting, in getting back into architecture (for the third time now?), how one's eye changes. I was on the bus yesterday looking out to see a beautiful extension someone had done on their house. What a wonderful back room! The rest of the house seemed to almost pale in comparison as it blended into the neighborhood, but this modern back room extension was wonderfully bright with glass all around it, amazing. Extensions, details, ornamentation, those are the small things that one starts to see with the architect's eye. What really opens the eye is the ability to see things in 3-D. I know that sounds strange, after all we already see in 3-D. But it's a totally different ball game once one has the ability to draw in 3-D, then it's like the colors all became brighter. What an amazing world to see when one's eye changes like that! I only wish I was better at drawing so I could see more of that!

Lately I've been getting more of a feel for the marketing world. Talking to customers about the Seminary Co-op has really allowed me to get some insight into the wonderful ideas they have for the store, from little things like having something with the store name branded on it so people could take away a little of this place to advertising more to certain communities. It makes me think of how important it really is to communicate with your customers. Some stores aren't very good about it, or don't have a very strong customer base, like Borders or Barnes & Noble, both of which are going out of business, which says it all.

Class & National Geographic

As I believe I spoke about last time I recently started as a volunteer at Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House in Hyde Park (just a block away from the Seminary Co-op where I work). The first step as a volunteer is to receive training regarding both Frank Lloyd Wright and the Robie House. It is truly amazing the number of works he produced in his lifetime, with some architectural features that are absolutely astounding to me. For example the windows in the Robie House are separated from each other by wooden panels at the corners of the buildings, Frank Lloyd Wright later grew to have horizontal panels at the corners of several of his buildings or no wooden paneling at all, leaving the corners almost completely invisible and practically nothing separating the nature outside from inside. In some of his buildings you can even dismantle the glass at these corners leaving literally nothing separating the inside from out. How grand to have a house like that! I can only hope maybe some day. Another interesting feature is the fact that Rafael Viñoly, the architect of the Booth School of Business that is right across the street from the Robie House, took several elements of the house into account when designing his building. From the cantilever to the main floor being the second floor, to the planters that surround the floor and even the ribbon windows they both now share these qualities like brothers standing across from each other.

National Geographic always astonishes me. The photographs are always beautiful and there is always some tidbit of information that I've never known. I am only on page 26 of 142 of this month's edition and I have already learned two things. First of all helium apparently is a rapidly deteriorating resource. According to the article at this rate we should be charged $100 for one helium balloon instead of 75 cents. I never thought about helium as a deteriorating resource and with this article's help I'm sure I'm not the only one that will think twice when buying my next helium balloon. Secondly I learned about the fascinating step wells of India with their Escher-esque look to them. Yet another thing the Brits messed up on when colonizing this country as they took the wells to be unsanitary and let them fall into disuse. Now that I think of it I remember sitting towards the bottom of one of these wells in Banaras once. It did not have the Escher-esque look to the stairs going down to it as only one flight of stairs went down each of its sides (I'm finding it difficult to remember if the stairs went down every side or only a few sides). It was truly something to me to sit down there and stare at the water. They were performing some kind of ceremony at the water's edge ... maybe trying to clense someone of their sins? I'm again not remembering everything about the situation but I do remember feeling so peaceful there as a little escape from the world outside. How wonderful it would be to have that be included in the city's water system. What an architectural delight and how ingenious! Here is one with Escher-like steps: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGB0_F5BdkYVXcyykVmr7Iujpbhrff-wj-uuem57_q5bySW5B1s7umhzhxVm2JQr0QJA6G_pF-Tiyg_me-nyLIRTMY-Wqz2n3XTgiZLtpGuiiAJAFi-wSVgIwL1VmSA2wVWqQslWIv2s0/s1600/Deepest-Step-Well-15.jpg

Frank Lloyd Wright and Proposal

I am very excited, on Friday I was finally able to speak with someone over at the Robie House who gave me the name of the volunteer coordinator for the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. I called them fairly immediately and, after playing phone tag for a little bit, was finally able to sign up for volunteering. I will have to take classes where we learn about the Robie House and Frank Lloyd Wright but then I will be a docent there! This is an exciting opportunity for me, especially considering the fact that, as the volunteer coordinator explained, people go to the Robie House to learn about its architecture. His home in Oak Park seems to be more frequented by people who are interested in his life. After learning this wonderful news I went yesterday to get some books on the house out of the library.

Friday I finally had the first draft of my proposal critiqued. I was nervous at first but there really wasn't much for me to say, they all agreed that the work I have done so far (primarily interviewing) is great but that they need to see more literature review in the thesis (and in the proposal). They had a lot of helpful suggestions on whose work I should include. I ended up buying two books from the Co-op, Yi-Fu Tuan's book entitled Space and Place and Paul Goldberger's Why Architecture Matters and while I was at the library I picked up several books by Zukin and Harvey. One of my good friends here is, not surprisingly, fairly well read and was able to loan me a book by Urry that he said may have some things I would be interested in. I still have a long way to go and a lot of reading to do today though as I have a meeting with my preceptor tomorrow.

Secret Love

So I'm partially ashamed to admit this but one of the TV shows I love watching is Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Part of this love comes from an idea that I read in Seidman's book entitled Interviewing as Qualitative Research where he states "I interview because I am interested in other people’s stories". Well I like this show because I love hearing people's stories. I especially love the idea of being able to give to others. A home, what a beautiful thing to be able to give someone! Unfortunately every time I watch this show I'm fighting a battle inside myself.

Part of this battle makes me feel like stopping the show and sending them a letter telling them how awful the show is and the idea behind it. This part of me understands that building a new home for someone else is probably emotionally a really awful idea. Unlike going to an architecture firm and having them build a house for you, or even going around the neighborhood / town and choosing your own home, the people on this show do little to cater to the individual families. They spend just a few minutes before picking one thing to blow completely out of proportion in that person's room. For example if a little girl wants to be a princess she gets an entire princess room complete with a castle inside. To start this is hardly practical. Little girls only want to be princesses for a small portion of their lives before they outgrow this (or get tired of the idea). Secondly moving is an extremely stressful situation and to put these families that are already under so much pressure in, to some degrees, a more stressful situation is not an idea that I particularly like. There have been several episodes where they build these huge homes for the families and don't pay off their mortgage. No matter what else is given to the family I am sure that there is almost no way possible for them to pay off the mortgage of these even larger homes. Even the families where they are able to pay off the mortgage I am sure are burdened by much larger utility bills than they were used to before and even having to pay for electronics that have been left in the house and any sort of fixing-up that the house may need since it wasn't originally built customized for them.

The other part of me wants to congratulate them for helping others and giving them such wonderful gifts. And loves watching a show that does such a good job of making me emotional. Which part do you agree with?

The Event & Hyde Park

It fascinates me how much one event can truly change a place, no matter how small, for such a long time. Of course this idea takes shape in many forms, with the most obvious examples being large devastating events like the Holocaust or September 11th. Kenneth Foote has discussed these places and the many ways we chose to deal with these types of events in his book Shadowed Ground. However I do not wish to speak of places of tragedy but instead places that may fall into the ninth chapter of this book, entitled "Invisible and Shadowed Pasts". One such example of the type of site I am thinking of here is that of my current neighborhood, Hyde Park. For a brief moment in history this neighborhood was home to the World's Columbian Exposition, a historic event that was to become the center of books like Erik Larson's Devil in a White City.

Now over a hundred years have past since this amazing event yet so much of the event can be felt here in the neighborhood. The throngs of upper class international people that were here for the event are still here for the University. The railroad stop that was built just before the World's Fair and brought thousands of people to the event is still one of the main transportation hubs for the neighborhood. In fact there is no other railroad or subway stop in the neighborhood, only buses and shuttles to make up for this lack. Many of Hyde Park's residents have now grown to complain about this, saying that Hyde Park's transportation is stuck in the past and wishing for better transportation. The entertainment that the Ferris Wheel brought to the event is seen every now and again when people like President Obama give speeches in the same location, on the Midway. The neighborhood seems never to have recovered from the event. There used to be large hotels to accommodate all the Fair's guests but even these have slowly gone out of business or are extremely out-dated. In addition, unlike the other neighborhoods, especially ones on the North side of the city, Hyde Park is completely lacking when it comes to shops, restaurants, entertainment spots, and bars among several things. I have heard rumor that this is due to the fact that the University owns much of the land of this neighborhood, or has a strong controlling arm. They are the ones that get to decide what kind of businesses can open up in the neighborhood and they have decided, for better or worse, to keep it a strictly residential neighborhood. Thus it is not surprising that the majority of the people tied to the neighborhood belong in some way to the University, whether they are the students who have a strong tendency to move away when they have graduated, faculty or staff.

Sound of Bookstores

In light of my thesis on the Co-op one of the major elements I will be incorporating is architecture and how it plays into the reasoning behind members valuing the store. As previously mentioned this is especially important in the fact that the Co-op will soon be moving.

With this in mind I have spent some time getting to know the bookstores here in Chicago. I spent one day last quarter going to see several different ones, namely the following: Powell's, and Ogara and Wilson (both on 57th Street), Printer's Row, Sandmeyers, and After-Words. I have also been to Women & Children First, McClurg Bookstore as well as worked at 57th Street Books and the Seminary Co-op. These stores are along with several I went to see in New York over the holidays.

In my pursuit of bookstores I have discovered that like Blesser discusses in his book Spaces Speak, Are you Listening? "we experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening". This is especially prevalent in bookstores. Today I was in Myopic Books scanning the Fiction section as my ears were bombarded by all the sounds of the architecture around me. The classical music slightly muffled by the books and the loft surrounding me, the creaking of the thin wooden panels of the flooring above me as I heard each and every step as someone walked by above, muffled sounds of the L rolling into the red line stop just outside the brick back wall of the store and even more distant the sound of the intercom at the stop announcing the name of the stop and that the doors were, indeed, closing. This was along with the "Excuse me" of the woman passing me as the extreme narrowness of the aisles made it so I almost had to press myself into the bookshelves as she passed me. All this despite the fact that we had checked our bags at the door and neither one of us was very large. Every single one of these sounds was affected, or even created, by the architecture of the store. Had the aisles been wider the woman would have not had to excuse herself. Had the floor been made of concrete I would not have heard the steps of someone above me. Had I not been in a nook with a loft above me the open-ness of the space may have made the music echo more. Every single one of these elements contributed to the ambiance of the store, making for a relaxed space that resembled a library in its muffled sounds and surrounding books.

These are the kind of worries I have with the new Co-op after all not only the wonderful space will be completely different and much more contemporary than the current, but the sounds will also change completely.

The beginnings of my Architectural Pursuit of Chicago

It's been quite a while since I've written anything so let me catch you up to speed first. Since coming back to the US in 2008 I spent some time trying to figure out what I wanted to get my masters / higher education in. Ever since undergraduate I have really enjoyed playing around with architecture. Cutting pictures out of magazines and putting them together in rooms in my head mostly. Architecture magazines are probably my favorite kind of magazine ever. I love looking at all the pictures and the articles are very interesting. My aunt caught on to this fact about a year ago and got me a subscription to Dwell, which I already had a subscription to so I think the next 3 years are free now. In undergrad I decided to do my thesis on space between individuals, specifically male Indians in Banaras. This thesis included a lot of different aspects of space including how space between individuals is designated in residential architecture, my favorite kind of architecture.

Due to all of these reasons I decided I should finally take some classes in architecture starting in 2008. For the next two years I took a variety of courses including history of architecture and two architectural theory courses. Unfortunately I got stuck in a class called architectural drawing. To be fair it was the first time I had ever taken such a course and I was in the class with people who were architectural geniuses. Considering those circumstances I did very well in the course, my professor was surprised how well I caught onto the idea of seeing space despite the fact that I will never be good at free hand drawing. While I was enrolled in this class I was also taking my first ever class in anthropology, which I realized was what I had spent the last 5 years of my life doing. With this in mind I decided to apply for PhD programs in anthropology. Fortunately I did not get into any of these programs but did get in a masters program at the University of Chicago.

As soon as I got to Chicago I knew what I wanted to study, Chinese real estate and architecture, and its constant change during the time that I lived in Dalian. The locals used to say if a building was 5 years old it was too old and there was no reason to buy an apartment there. This was the case throughout the city to such an extent that buildings were tore down after 10 years in order to put up new ones. I was fascinated by this idea. After all I come from a country (the US) where the first thing I would look at buying in terms of residential architecture are old buildings, not new ones that tend to be prefab and fairly poorly built.

Unfortunately my preceptor (a PhD advisor for myself and about 20 other masters students) advised me against this project. He explained to me that I only had one year to do the thesis and needed something that had some well grounded methodological approach. Therefore I should look into something closer to home, specifically in Chicago. This was my first quarter at the University of Chicago and I was enrolled in a course called Urban Landscapes in which we needed to write a paper with good visuals to back up the thesis, floor plans, maps or photos. I decided I would try to replant my idea of Dalian in Chicago and focus on Chinatown. I spent several days in the library looking at maps of Chinatown and different aspects from the census before I came on something that seemed rather stark to me. The lines drawn between Chinatown and neighboring Bronzeville were very distinct and have not changed for several censuses. I decided to pursue this more, why were these lines there? Did this say anything about the relationship between blacks and Chinese? Unfortunately the results brought me to a standstill in my work. The lines between these two neighborhoods were drawn by highways and low income housing. There was no way for me to visually continue on with this train of thought. I decided to go south and study the distinction between the Irish community in Bridgeport and Chinatown as Chinatown was steadily growing into Bridgeport and there was a lot of tension in the news regarding this subject.

At the same time that I had finally come to this conclusion, a couple weeks into the quarter, I was sitting at work minding my own business when I overheard two of the managers discussing the architectural plan for the new bookstore. A light went off in my head. I already spent about 20 hours a week working in the bookstore which was literally across the street from my classes and I was interested in architecture, why not study the Co-op? I immediately shot off an e-mail to my professor of the Urban Landscape class telling him my idea of studying the store and asked my boss if he was okay with the idea. Both were elated that I would be interested in this particular topic and agreed to it on the condition that I start working on it intensely very soon (as there were only a few more weeks in the quarter and I had to write a 15-20 page paper on it). In the next couple of weeks I interviewed a large number of people, from the architects themselves to the store manager to the University architects as well as attended all of the meetings held between the University, bookstore employees, architects and the Co-op board.