Web2Learn

I am happy to have the opportunity to direct the UO Portland Architecture Program. Here are my notes from Thursday’s welcome for new students….

1. Starting a new degree program is a major life decision: it can be really exciting … and really terrifying. I used to be a terrible decision maker, always fretting over whether I would choose the right path, so coming to Oregon was a hard decision. My sister-in-law explained that every decision is made with limited information and instead of only having one right answer, often many of the paths could be good ones.

You can MAKE your decision to be here into a great choice. Like a design concept, the initial choice is just a seed. Many seeds have great potential to be successful. A seed only grow into a fluorishing plant if you nurture it every day. So, take advantage of the resources here, make our deficiencies into your opportunities.

2. The faculty at Oregon have a created a student-centered structure. We have non-graded vertical studios to support peer learning and recognize that students learn things at different rates and contribute different abilities. We mix jury reviews with round-robin reviews to create a more humane situation. Our students help shape the school through student organizations such as *Portland Student Activity Council, HOPES Ecological Design Conference and by contibuting to lectures and exhibitions.

So when I say the Portland Architecture Program is a great place, I am counting on you to help make this place great. Your entering Option II class makes up 30% of all the AAA students in Portland. We need your energy, your enthusiasm and your ideas to make a vibrant learning community. We want you to help make the studio environment a wonderful place to be: supportive, clean and beautiful. So display your best work and ask the most provocative questions.

3. We want to empower each of you to address our world’s most pressing problems: We want you
- to identify, research and analyze crucial issues,
- to find partners who can easily do what you can’t do and
- to develop creative solutions where others have seen only problems.

We want these two years to be a portal to your professional architectural career. We want you to discover questions that will intrigue you for a lifetime. We want you to find friends, mentors and interdisciplinary colleagues who will become your lifelong and lifewide network. As faculty, our success depends on your success.

Welcome to the University of Oregon!

I’m puzzled how to allow people to download my information without making a big spam invitation.  Yikes.  At the moment my online vcard is a bit disfunctional because it gives my email as “nywc at uoregon dot edu” Since most of the  robo-spammers can get past that one, I don’t know if it makes any sense to make the real people frustrated.

So as usual – caught between the convenience of the ugly card and spending endless hours figuring out the customization.  With just a little bit more time, I’m sure I can figure out how to make the corners of the boxes rounded…

I learned a lot at the USC Building Information Modeling + Construction and Fabrication symposium organized by Prof. Karen Kensek and Prof. Burcin Becerik Gerber.   Software representatives and AEC professionals illustrated how they used the tools in building case studies.  Some highlights…

STRUCTURING INFORMATION FOR USE
A BIM model’s level of detail should be carefully tuned to its use.  Detailing only makes sense if the specialized knowledge is available – otherwise leave it open so subcontractors have flexibility.  Including builders early in the planning process allows identification and resolution of constructability issues.

No matter how complete a BIM model file is, interoperability remains crucial since no single format fits all purposes.  Some team members can do better work more efficiently using older familiar methods.  All should be able to translate into an underlying core format, like a network bus.

As long as the legal documents remain 2D drawings, inefficiencies from the mix of information will remain. An interactive touchscreen table could alleviate the need to manage large volumes of paper as the construction documents evolve.  Permitting currently requires a fixed snapshot of the evolving design.

Scale matters:  what works for a single family house doesn’t work well for an airport or hospital.  A single integrated building model file can quickly become unwieldy in size.  Strategies for efficient work include :
- separating graphic representation from building content information
- accessing information according to currently relevant scale – dropping out non-essential mega and micro data that give buildings a global to nano location context.
- storing building information in separate files that can be accessed as needed.  Information slicing needs to be in sync with the team organization:  by design specialty or construction trade, by building location, etc.

HUMAN ASPECTS
Social processes are a much more crucial than technology.   Contractual models need to reward successful teamwork.  Getting people into the room together to understand critical problems and solve them early can save lots of money.  Sufficient preparation time must be planned so that the crucial face-to-face time is well utilized.

Visualization enables design participation by making the project accessible to a broader array of stakeholders.  Tools such as 3D clash detection, energy & structural analysis and interactive 4D scheduling models make problems visible so they can be resolved.

Computer processes can be well complemented by on-site handcraft.  Complex digital designs can be enriched by knowledgeable craftsmen on-site

DOWNSTREAM BENEFITS
Many cited efficiency and accuracy gains with BIM and 4D animations – they facilitate a higher level of complexity and quality.  Building exactly according to the virtual model is crucial to realizing the benefits of BIM.

The model must consider actual construction practices so that realistic tolerances are included.  Field verification tools such as on-site displays, Tablet PC’s and AR headsets can ensure that the vision is being realized.

Vendors are enabling real-time online building monitoring systems. Sensors can broadcast live building performance data for equipment maintenance alerts, remote or local control, and automated energy optimization.

You can discover which words are most frequent in a paper or Web page by pouring the text into a Wordle.  Here is one I created for my Fall’09 studio course description.  You can choose the font, colors and layout to have some graphic fun.

I’m very spoiled – I’m in the heart of Denver’s lively 16th Street pedestrian mall with a great view of the illuminated D&F tower and I am kind of disappointed.  In many ways, the zone has been carefully tuned to attract people.  Cars are banned in favor of a free bus that stops every block and cute horse carriages and bicycle taxis.  Trees provide shade and night lighting provides scale for benches and fun artwork.  Restaurants spill onto a broad sidewalk and the food is reasonably priced due to all the competition.  Within the mix of buildings, there are some fine historic structures and attractive retail shops. Even on a Sunday evening, there are enough people strolling that it feels safe to be a woman walking on my own.

But on a Sunday, the cross streets have little traffic and when I walked away from the carefully designed mall, there is little life, little going on outside.  The blocks are huge and anonymous, some looming 20 stories with 70’s scaleless modernism and meeting the street with barely an acknowledgement of the pedestrian.  Like many cities in the heartland, Denver was designed for automobiles Its mix of lovely historic and banal modern buildings remind me of St. Louis. Despite the liveliness of the tourist zone, it feels like an artificial implant in a sick patient.  The cross streets are superwide, with four lanes of traffic taking the width for six.  These vast streets seem like an empty movie set.

The shops are dominated by chains that bring an ersatz Main Street aesthetic.  So there is a plastic feeling that dilutes the grandeur of the authentic historic buildings.  The individual mall buildings are clean in the way that police states can be: nothing can get in the way of extracting money from your wallet.

It was great to see street musicians playing and folks hanging out chatting, playing chess, enjoying a mild evening after the day’s heat has departed.  The designers have a achieved a lot in bringing life to the downtown.  But we have a LONG way to go.  Instead of the chain shops and restaurants, I was eager to see a little more of the Mom & Pop shops.  I want to see that the vitality of this district could touch the lives of Denver residents instead of being a display piece for visitors.  I’m hoping that tomorrow on a weekday, I’ll see another story…

Read the rest of this entry »

I reviewed my progress in using electronic portfolios to enrich student learning, outreach and assessment this year. I developed performance criteria, assignments and help sheets to guide the students. The graduate computer graphics students did a good job presenting their work and reviewing each other, the design students neglected the online systems. The faculty team built up trust and reached out to useful partners. Read more here:
eportfolio_summary_jun09-cheng2

I had a nice time seeing old friends in Boston, but it really feels like vacation now that I am in Montreal. As soon as I got into the terminal, the change wasn’t only the French language. I could sense a more sophisticated design sensibility even in the grand daylit arrival hall. Nice detailing, careful restrained use of materials, interesting forms – everything said – “You are not in the U.S.!”

When I got out of the airport limousine at the central subway station, I decided to check my luggage and walk around the downtown neighborhood rather than zoom out to my university area hostel. I happened to see a big bold modernist building next store – Le Grand Bibliotheque : the Grand Library and National Archive of Quebec. Since the weather was nice, I walked past it and I was delighted to find an urbane street with little cafes, old renovated townhouses and beautiful street trees. Heading back to this modernist building, I was delighted to find a cool cafe in it. As I rounded the corner, my mouth fell open because I saw one of the most dramatic urban spaces ever: A three story corridor with a beautiful glass facade on one side and a well proportioned wooden screen climbing up with a bold long ramped form. Yikes, I chanced on a real architectural monument.

After prowling around and marveling at huge lightwell with playful stairs and glass elevators, finding wondering listening stations and dvd-watching stations, I found my way back to the information desk. Turns out that the building is designed by one of my favorite architects, Patricia Patkau, who I got to speak to at our Portland ACSA conference. She had emphasized experimental residential projects at her Portland lecture, and only gave a short glimpse of this project.

Whoa – it’s really great to be here, enjoying the subtlely different spaces, all unified with an incrediblely restrained palette of materials. Everywhere is a golden birch, typical for Quebec, used in heroic proportions with lovely quiet patterns. In soem areas, the spacing is larger to let in more light, other places, it is slanted like a venetian blind, but all on a strict module to give it unity and hold a rhythm. Echoes of Kahn’s Center for British Art but with richer, more complex spaces. NICE!!!!

I got spoiled staying at my friend Emily’s renovated Boston North End townhouse that reveals a similar quiet beauty. It is stunning to jump scale and find a building of such complexity that also holds together so well. And it’s great that it comes from the Pacific Northwest Patkau firm.

I am very excited about helping the Honors College incorporate Wordpress or other tools to support incoming freshmen discussing Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains. Like my nephew and nieces, Alex Goodell was greatly inspired by Paul Farmer’s work. He has initiated an the summer reading program & dialogue via his blog post. As an avid Wordpress blogger and Twitterati member, he has found contacts so he will travel to Ghana this summer. Louise Bishop, acting dean of the Honors College is envisioning that the students could use blogs to support development towards the Senior Thesis. I would be really psyched if we could get these students to model reflective learning for the rest of the campus.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed describes using Blogs for education, including a video from University of Mary Washington.
Article: Colleges Consider Using Blogs Instead of Blackboard
Video: Can Web Tools Replace Blackboard?

For the conclusion of this course, we want to use the small community we have built to support the activities you are doing anyway. As we discussed,
- 1. POSTING By Saturday May 23
A. Each person will post about a question/issue about their design project . This post could include concise visual information (i.e. that supplements the midterm review reflection material).
B. Each person starts a Diigo forum topic that summarizes the question and links to the post.

- II. FEEDBACK (by Wednesday, May 27)
Each student responds to at least two other students on the Diigo Forum.

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Items for discussion Thurs 5pm:

1. Which Web 2.0 tool(s) do you see as most promising for higher ed?
2. What would be the best ways to learn with specific tools? Think of a scenario.  Consider how you think differently in writing an essay, journal, blog, or tweet.
3. What concerns should we think about in expanding our implementation of ePortfolios?

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For later
- the nature of Solitude in the Internet age (caitlin’s suggestion)
- the 21st Century Global Action Hero & Prezi
- Survey questions to explore the utility of these tools.

The AAA Voices project intends to engage our Architecture and Allied Arts community to reveal their thoughts. While I originally conceived of a participatory art piece and wrote the questions, the actual installation was completely created by my students Erik Hegre and Matt Linn as an extension of work on light, screens & and shadows.

Learn more at the AAA Blog