Iteration_06: " Connection Medium(s) "
This strong tie between relationships and studying design can begin to raise questions.....
Does the intensity of architecture as a field ultimately strengthen or diminish relationships? How are connections within the field unique? How should architecture students navigate forming professional links? How do relationships between fellow architects change over time?
Relationships are the grease in the wheels of design. Without personal connections, there would be no collaboration, advancement, innovation, or community. Whether it be the professional link between peers that leads to future opportunities, the fluctuating academic relation between studio professors and students, or the bonds formed over countless late nights in studio; the social dynamics within the field are purely unique and significant to one's daily life.
Editor in Chief: Daniel Girgis
Graphic Designer: Shane Wintermute
Social: Jimenna Alcantar & Stephanie Rojas
Walk with Me or Forward
Zora Mitchell
I stay inside building walls of clay to remark on that world. Breathe in.
Consummating, per calling and answer. My resolve today is my conscious collection- through the felt and meant to curate. Engulfed and magnetizing on all that is found in moments of fulfillment. Oh, hold on and stay here.
They catch like wind, right through me. My breath is not an obstacle anymore. I find myself interwoven. So I wonder things like, if love were sewn into us would we brave a stormy path for it? Plainly, my face is bare and the wind is cold. My blood rushes through my cheeks and glimmers across the earth to mount beauty. I implore you to try again within. Stay there. Through the flame be tickled by it. Go through, I love you’s, thank you’s, whispered into tea. Because I know of the scar of age, the pain written on an odd face. See it through. I hope we find moments to sink into, all winter and spring semesters.
Architectural Matrimony
Arlene Matos
Before creating relationships with other people, it is essential to create a relationship with your architecture. When your design takes shape, and your thoughts unfold, you create a bond to your work. Most take the profession at face value, without fully comprehending what it means to fabricate something that began as an idea, and later became a reality. Treat your profession as if it is your partner. Respect its essence, devote yourself to its progression, and ensure that you remain faithful to its existence. Without considering your attachment to architecture and its attachment to you, you may never know what it means to consolidate your mind to your design.
I myself have made the mistake of mistreating my architecture. As a designer, it’s important to nurture and care for your work, because it is intertwined with your being but exists as a separate part of your identity. If you neglect your practice, you're essentially neglecting a part of yourself that longs to be alive. Architecture lives through you and you live through your architecture. I’ve learned that when one fully understands what this means, the benefit of this relationship is one of the most gratifying experiences of your life.
Studio Bonding
Samantha Pyne
It's 4 am in studio… my eyes have not shifted away from the computer screen in hours. As I feel exhaustion looming, I take a quick glance around to witness the glow of another computer screen, brightly illuminating another tired face, one of whom shares a similar look of drive and stress.
Pulling an all-nighter can seem isolating. The hours blend into a haze, I have been sitting in one spot for god knows how long, and my only form of entertainment is watching the line weights change thickness.
And yet, I don’t feel alone at all. Looking over in a sleepy daze, I can see my fellow classmate, zoned into her work, sinking deeper and deeper into her chair as the night goes on.
For my first semester of architecture school, I was alone. Only being in studio during class, and leaving to work in my room. I wasn’t even aware of what I was missing out on. This all changed during my spring semester. Burdened by a newfound anxiety surrounding studio, I dreaded the work. My lack of socialization the previous semester still haunted me, as I didn't know anyone in my studio. One day everything shifted; a moment that would completely change my view; and it was as simple as a girl coming over to me to ask a question:
“Do you want to use my tape?”
This may have been a minute interaction, but it was the first time I experienced the sacred “studio bonding”.
As I continued through the semester, I began working in studio more, not only for the ease of my desktop PC but also for the continuous feeling of community, which followed after my first interaction with that girl and her tape. Through late nights after late nights, my friendships in studio grew, and my work anxiety melted away. By the end of the semester, you could not pay me enough to leave studio. It was now my space, my working zone, my social center.
“Studio Bonding” is a term I and many others like to use to describe the relationship that forms between students in studio. It can range from shared looks walking past each other in the hall at 3 am, with the acknowledgment of a mutual feeling of exhaustion; to a long-term friendship that is cultivated over many a shared night in studio, working side by side, asking for opinions, and ordering takeout together.
I truly believe that “Studio Bonding” is a key aspect of design school. It's the easiest way to make friends and create memories when so much of your time is consumed by studio. Without the friendships I have formed over these semesters, I do not think I would be where I am today. Whenever I am feeling doubtful of my work, or lost at where to start on a project, I find myself gravitating towards the people I have bonded with. Whether it's an encouraging piece of advice, a spur-of-the-moment crash course in a new program, or a mutual venting session, these people shape my daily life.
If Architecture Were to Swallow Me Whole
Johnny Sasidhar
If I let architecture swallow me whole
I wonder how brutalist I’d be seen
How much aggregate would infect my skin folds
If the gray would drown out the brown
I don’t like to superimpose
Exposure isn’t my strong suit
Wrapped with one way glass
Unable to give access to the core
Yet they reach for the fragments
with their own island and system
Ever changing for the right users
Webbed with twists and turns
Yet they can’t touch the webs formed cold
i don’t need them to
I feel split
The bitter irony of being a deconstructivist
Fragmented but always held together
No matter the acid tears that corrode
If I let architecture swallow me whole
I wonder how’d I’d be founded
I still remember the stairs and ramps I laid
Webbed from grade to sky
Plastered with one way glass for others to see
I heard Pitter patters dancing with the concrete
New builders extending their brush
They wanted to create color
Even if one of them could also see gray
And that’s what we did
My webs expanding feeling the load
Of the memories we endlessly made
Stepping stones became the new stairs
Skip skip skipping far from grade
My core tucked away below grade
Yet programmers still coming
If I let architecture swallow me whole
I wonder how much my skeleton would show
In more ways than one
I remember when programmers climbed these stairs
Pasted their bricks on every inch of my envelope
From foundation to windows
Looking for an opening
Some meant well to know about the code
But they forgot to look for the soil
Others Threatened by the way my envelope wraps around me
My Steel webs became their weapon
Last time I checked, I’m my own inspector
Yet the fragments became split
Am I a space to explore and appreciate
or a building to exploit and deface
If architecture were to swallow me whole
I think it would spit me out
But I wouldn't have it any other way
My fragments grew
But webbed stronger than ever
Shielding the core enough for it to be invisible
But open enough to the daylight
Because When the tick meets the tock
When the sun beams wide enough to let the moon slumber
When SZA said in this world, concrete flowers grow
I can be seen with my core
Even if I get pricked by thorns
I Want to Switch My Major
Ashley Guarquila
I wonder if I’m making the right choice. The blue of the submit button burns on my face and its press will determine my future for the next few years. I got accepted into a design school for an art major but my indecision of my future guides my hands to the keyboard, drafting out a letter to note my desire for change.
I always loved design, I have a natural talent for it as my teachers say. But the thoughts of money, jobs, and the economy flood my brain. Will I even make it in this field, will I be happier with another choice? Is this choice the right one to make?
This is a problem for tomorrow. I save my draft and close my laptop, the battle between sleep or brooding has a clear victor as I succumb to the nightlights of the sky.
Yet these thoughts decide to manifest within my own escape.
I’m asked my name and receive a name tag with a letter and two numbers to determine my group. I’m alone but not, as I’m surrounded by students scattered around watching the same presentation as me, and soon I’m separated into smaller groups.
Everything feels too fast and I’m playing icebreakers and games with people whose names I haven’t asked. A glimpse of their name tags saves me from embarrassment later when we exchange contacts and talk through the end of the event.
The scenes start to jump. I’m sitting in a studio lined with windows, a gray desk in front mounted with papers with stains of markers and my tears. I turn to my right and see others laughing about the amount of work left to do before the final presentation. Yet these faces are not cold with disdain or in the presence of anger that I had been accustomed to. They smile and joke with me, one of them even racing the clock to present alongside me.
The walls shift, now lined with concrete and high windows shining light into a cold box of a studio. I don’t act like myself, or rather, I don’t act like the cold person I went to sleep as. My words are now heard, I smile more, and instead of looks that harbor judgment meeting my gaze, I get to hear the laughter that enjoys my presence.
The rooms keep shifting, a new room after the other, with the only familiar items I can fall back on are the drawings that litter my desk. I find myself sitting between beings, some working out the floor plans of their buildings and the other writing sticky notes of the future assignments to conquer. They push, shove, and shout around me and look away from my screen, but I do not feel the loneliness that would come with these sentiments, as I had asked them to look away as I write the memories of them that I hold dear to my heart.
The beams of sunlight meet my eyes as I am met again with the email draft that may lead me to the future I have drafted in my slumber. Could these memories that are yet to foster become reality?
Open the laptop
Gmail.com
“I hope this email finds you well. I’m an incoming student and I want to switch my major to architecture.”
Submit
Stranger Comes to Studio
Lasya
I have 3 big fears. The first fear is bugs because I’m most likely to face them on a daily basis. The second is being a lonely adult, because I grew up thinking that adulthood is solitary, and I can’t see a life with only your thoughts as anything but hell. The third is being forgotten, and with the way my life is going and the amount of time I spend with people who don’t even know what my name is or how it’s pronounced, it gets closer to beating bugs every day.
Everyone who knows about architecture school knows about studio culture—it’s what excited me most for college. The picture I’d paint in my mind of me and the students that would become my architectural allies was perfect. What conversations would we have in the pitch-dark night? What jokes would we bounce between bulletin boards and over intricate models? What secrets would be sewn between our drawings? I got to see all of it and none of it. Which is to say, I’ve seen all of these happen in the many studios I’ve now been in, but I only see it. I can’t tell if I’m at the zoo, hands pressed to the glass as I stare at these natural interactions, or if I’m the one on display and everyone looks at me for a minute and walks away after finding nothing of use.
Let me quickly tell you what I think my own personality is. You’ll understand why later. I think I’m a bubbly girl that likes to laugh with others and be the center of attention. I think I’m loud and adventurous and full of motion. I like talking late at night and being in places I shouldn’t, I like children’s shows and comic books, I like cakes and cookies, but nobody I’ve met here would figure that out. To be fair, I don’t think more than 50 people know the name of the girl with the pink coat. Those who do probably know her to be a quiet, somewhat moody and somewhat statue-like person who mutters and mumbles and hurries away to hide once she’s not needed anymore. We only see her in class and studio, so she must be a studious person, and since she hardly talks to us, she probably doesn’t like talking in general, so we ought to leave her be. This is all we see, and this is where the definition of Lasya ends.
The caricature sitting in my seat is drawn wrong, but I can’t yell at the artist to fix it because I’m the one who drew it. Like every other young adult, I want to be liked, and to make sure I’m liked, I ended up making rules for myself. I can’t speak first with people I don’t know well, or they’ll know that I’m desperate for connection. I can’t talk too personally, because nobody really wants to hear that from me. It’s best to stick to telling jokes, because having jokes to laugh at is better than having nothing about me to like. When my role in the conversation is over, it’s best to leave instead of overstaying.
You might remember that 4 paragraphs ago, I told you my 2nd biggest fear is being alone. Then why would I isolate myself, stifle my own personality, and force myself to do acrobatic tricks around every interaction? I don’t know. I can’t tell you how it started, and I can’t tell you how it’ll end. I dream of being an adult surrounded by the friends I made in college, going to ribbon cuttings and fancy conferences, but how do I get there when I can’t even get outside of my room? How will people remember me if they never even knew me? At least remember this, reader: The buildings we remember best are both those that scream their presence and those we make memories with. The way for an architect to be remembered is to be like her buildings.
So, Thank you… IG
Brianna Kailas
Two years ago my life was different. I had the basic high school experience including the cliche big friend group that would hangout in basements every weekend. But then one summer what used to be “my whole world” vanished. I didn’t have time to come to terms with how those friendships ended but in hindsight I think the timing was perfect. I guess deep down I knew I was a misfit in Middletown, but it's easier lying to yourself than coming to terms with the fact that you and your “friends” might as well live on different planets.
Going into my first year of college I had zero expectations. No idea how this school would change my life. No idea what I was getting myself into. 003 will always have a special place in my heart. I’m slightly ashamed admitting how much time I spent in the fishbowl with the girl to my right.I don’t know how many iced matcha latte runs we would go on but now that we’re not right next to each other I appreciate all the unnecessary adventures we would go on. I never would have thought that the girl I met at NSO would become the person who listened to my aggravation and adoration for studio.
It's funny how we can walk by someone numerous times, squeeze past them on the stairs, sit in front of them in Weston 1, or be in the same major but we never will interact until a specific moment. It’s as if we’re all living parallel lives, orbiting in the same sphere, but never quite colliding. A random spark, a single conversation, or maybe just the right set of circumstances, and suddenly, collision. What was once an unnoticed passerby can become someone you’re bound to. Someone you’ll laugh with, share late night conversations with, or even disagree with on almost everything. It’s almost as though the universe has a way of deciding when you’re truly ready to meet someone; whether you feel like your’re prepared for it or not.
It took one car ride to the Appalachian Trail to see life through a different lens. She was reserved, nonchalant, that intimidated me. But one day she asked to use my laptop for Pepakura and I realized I had misjudged her. Weeks passed by and we had to go to the Appalachian Trail for a site visit. No one in studio wanted to go but for some reason I asked her to go with me. That Saturday morning we made the journey to the trail. Maybe this is a flaw in me but I berated her with questions, interrogating her about her life, interests, opinions, basically anything under the sun. What should have been an hour car ride took over two hours. I love the Appalachian Trail, and honestly, I’m sorry to all future students who will never get the chance to meet their best friend and say hi to Steve or get eaten by a four feet snake.
When I heard the issue statement, I was hesitant to write for it. What do you mean by “connections”? The word connections to me has too many negative connotations attached to it. A connection implies that the interaction is transactional, that the conversation we are having right now isn’t to enjoy the company but we're all just networking to climb some imaginary ladder. Understanding that every person on this pale blue dot isn’t just another “LinkedIn connection” waiting to boost your profile. Instead, they’re an opportunity to learn, to grow, to understand a perspective you might never have encountered before. It’s a reminder that every encounter, no matter how brief, is meaningful if you let it be.
Winnie the Pooh says it perfectly: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”. Sure, architecture makes me pull all-nighters to weave a bench, iterate on a million door handles, and nearly lose my mind over a hand-drawn section perspective, but it also gave me a family I never would have met otherwise.
So, thank you… ig.
Andorinha
Emma Fernandes-Santinho
you'll never find love, the psychic told me,
if you keep eating it instead of sharing it.
i'm not a good man.
my mother says i have a sailor's mouth,
she doesn't know i have one's heart too.
i am eternally at sea; there is a reason
i tattooed my family tree as leaves and not roots –
the wind will always be my undoing.
my old roommate asked me why
i came home at three in the morning,
and i said it's the only time i've ever
fallen in love. it's the only time love
has ever fallen in with me. no person
could hold me the way practice does.
when i was applying to college,
my dad told me about louis kahn,
about how he died – of a heart attack,
alone in a bathroom stall in penn station.
even then i thought it was worth it; to
leave the world estranged from it, to
die in love. that doesn't make him a good man.
they warned me about making
the drafting table an altar, about
trying to find the god in the graphite,
but i know he is not a good man.
i know he stands at the head
of the conference table and only lets me redline.
i let the ink pool inside me, i’m
forever biting my tongue, forever praying.
my first crit told me she met her husband
at work and i almost retched in that exit interview.
i couldn't ask her if he was a good man.
keep an open mind, she implored.
i am boundless the way a ship is.
i told a boy i liked him that same year,
and when he said no, i decided
he was not a good man, and i never
let him come back from that. the vindication
doesn't feel as good anymore;
his heart is not also a swallow.
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