Not Built in a Day

My last week at TIP was probably the most enjoyable, since I didn't have nearly as much prep work to do while the class worked on their studio projects.  Clearly, having the class do lots of studio work is best for everyone - the students prefer it, and it's less work for me - but I stand by my decision to start them off with some background information in the form of lectures, exercises, and sketching practice.  I hope that their final projects came out better for it, although without a control group for comparison, it's hard to know. During this week I got to go on more side trips, including to the  NASA Johnson Space Center , about 45 minutes outside of Houston, and to the Natural Science Museum and the Miller Theater in Hermann Park.  Four of us went to NASA and had a great time.  Johnson Space Center has a large visitor's center with exhibits, a replica Space Shuttle that you can go into, and tram tours of the working facilities.  We chose the tour that ta

My course was split into three weeks of different topics.  Week one was primarily background information, covering architecture & urban history, with lessons on different types of architectural visualization (drawing, sketching, modeling).  Week two was "special topics," including historic preservation, green infrastructure, density, transportation, public interest design, and imaginary cities - all the things I think are interesting.  Week three was studio-intensive, with two briefs in five days, each culminating in a juried review.  Every week had one or two site visits to relevant places, including the nearby museums, a downtown walking tour, public parks, a non-profit preservation project in a low-income neighborhood, and the sites chosen by the students for their final projects.  I was able to have Rice professors lead two of the site visits, which I think added a lot to the experience.  My TA kept a blog with photos of our work,  accessible here .  Scroll down to t