Web2Learn

Studio at Univ of Oregon Portland Architecture program.

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!

Clean and simple but not the information I wanted to display!New role, new photo

New photo for a new role

I’m playing with how I present myself on email.  My Thunderbird email program automatically created a vcard (virtual business card) for me, but I didn’t really like the appearance.  I edited it in a text editor, saved it as .VCF format.  For now, I’ve created a simple garish webpage with an Hcard that has a little icon so you can download my information. 

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…

Agenda:

1. Discuss Wesch’s YouTube.  Should we all vlog about something?

2. Check-in about WPMU, Diigo

Later we will have Business & Arts Admin folks join our Diigo and comment directly on each other’s blog pages.

Assignment 5: over the next two weeks :

I.  Discuss on Diigo forum : How can we take advantage of the Internet without wasting too much time?

II.  Write a reflection on your design project that summarizes your progress to date (~400 words). Include an image of your presentation and scanned sketches that explore how to move forward or respond to criticism.

1. Concept & Development: In terms of the building design, what is working well, and what is not? What is basically sound but needs further development?
2. Visual Communication: In terms of presentation graphics, what effectively communicated your ideas? What was missing? What aspects of the presentation were unsuccessful (failed to communicate ideas, were problematic graphically, were poorly organized, etc.?)
   
3. Verbal Communication: How well did you introduce your major ideas?  What evidence did you explain to support your scheme?  What techniques were helpful for developing a useful dialogue?
   
4. Process: What activities helped you develop your design ideas? Where do you go from here? Are there some aspects of your studio themes that you still need to address? What do you need to do differently in the future?

Due date:  the reflective posting is due the Wed after your mid review.  Both assignments are due Wed May 13.

The best way to bring out latent Obsessive-Compulsive disorder?   I thought it was design school, but now I know that it’s garden weeds.  When I was pulling hundreds of crazy jumping weeds from the gravel, from the garden, from the lawn, I thought, “okay, biomickry, what can I learn from this?”

I’m amazed by how fast weeds reproduce and the way that  seed pods launch themselves.   We talk about viral marketing, but weeds do even better  :  they distribute through spreading roots as well as the exploding seeds.

Weeds give me faith in the life force.   Their will to live is impossibly strong.  They adapt easily to many environments and manage to survive through frost and scalding heat when other plants expire.  I’m sure that after a nuclear holocaust or the complete pollution of the planet, the things left thriving will be weeds.  And cockroaches.  So we better not screw it up.

Enough blather, how can people twitter?