Many thanks to Eugene Han, our Inter8 tutor, who composed all the boards and written the text.
The 3 long white boards on the left are organised in similar fashion, each divided into three sessions; the elements that composed Intermediate 8 this year, student projects (which will be posted in my next blog post), and an event-by-event calender.
Since these boards offer very detailed insight into the precise workings of the unit, I have decided to extract the information from the boards and break it down into parts for your reading.
InterviewThey looked so young, so full of energy. Little did they know that only a few would end the year with barely enough energy to paint walls for an exhibition. Fortunately we began the year with a selection of applicants with diverse interests and coming from a range of education and experience. In terms of strict demographics, the unprecedented selection of student types we decided upon would serve for a very, very interesting year...
Workshop 01
As a means to assure that our new students possessed a critical set of technical skills with which they would later utilise for their own project proposals, we started the year off with a series of workshops. This would also serve as a 'soft' introduction to the general mechanisms of the infrastructural systems they would later use to develop a coherent architectural proposal for a dam. The ambition for the first workshop was to develop abstract geometric systems from lines, and also helped us to understand the incoming levels of tools-based expertise.
Workshop 02
Continuing their group based studies of logical systems of geometries, the second workshop focused on the construction of surface-based dam models, encouraging students to rationalise compound and complex surface structures.
Workshop 03
The third and final group based workshop phase focused on the construction of similar geometric systems, however now focusing on solids based construction techniques. This final 'geometric medium ' encouraged groups to consider integrated connections that could accumulate to complex infrastructural formations.
Term 01 Pinup
For our final pinup of the term students were, for the first time, asked to present a conceptual proposal for their intended yearlong project of an architectural dam. Filtering out and collecting information they accumulated during the group-based workshops, they now needed to actively incorporate their personal architectural interests with more straightforward geometric systems. This pinup would also act to clarify site attributes of which they were to encounter very shortly in the unit trip.
Unit Trip
At the end of the first term, the unit visited the intended site for the yearlong brief: Hoover Dam situated on the Nevada/Arizona border of the United States. Typically in past years, the unit trip was treated as an opportunity for our students to experience what we consider successful precedents in architecture relative to the interests of the unit brief.
This year however, it was deemed absolutely necessary that our students visit Hoover Dam in order to understand the magnitude of scale at which they were expected to derive their architectural designs... and it gave us an excuse to attend the most interesting tables of the year.
Black Friday
MYJ Prep
The unit's upcoming Mid-Year Jury was argubly the second most important presentation of the year, given that this year we have decided to only hold two juries. As such, we felt that a mock jury was in order to help prepare students for a more formal presentation format as thus far, they had only been in the form of internal pinups. This prepatory jury also served as an earmark to understand each students’ current level of production, as we were able to assess each project proposal with all collected output in one place. New to the unit this year, all juries were recorded on video and uploaded onto the unit’s website, such that students could see themselves the efficacy of their presentation skills in a more objective manner.
Javier Castanon graciously attended and served as out sole juror during the first half of the day.
Mid-Year Jury
As the first of only two juries joined by individuals external to the unit, the Mid-Year Jury took place in 16 Morwell. This was the students' first opportunity to present their projects, albeit at this stage in a relatively schematic level of design development, and receive objective feedback. At this stage, all students were expected to have and be able to coherently present their project’s agenda, conceptual rationale, and to have a minimum amount of work that objectively represented their year long project scheme. This of course was only the ambition and the expectations expressed by the tutors, and accordingly, the ultimate level of finish at this stage was highly variable from student to student.
For our Mid-Year Jury, we were accompanied by Josef Glas, Toni Kotnik, Kristine Mun, and Anne Save de Beaurecueil in the morning, and Alvin Huang, Chikara Inamura, and Marco vanucci for the afternoon session
Open JuryFor this year’s Open Jury during the AA’s Open week in the Spring Term, a select number of project’s were presented by Sarah Huelin to represent Intermediate 8. As the format for the presentation was comprehensive, including many units and programmes from across the entire school, the Open Jury acted more as a forum for general discussion of current interests and directions adopted by the represented courses. Not much was gained in the way critical feedback for the unit’s presented projects, however the jury was an excellent opportunity for our students to test their schematic proposals in front of a panel with uncommon interests. More importantly however, it acted as an opportunity for the unit to partake in the global discussion that should occur at the AA.
Focus Group
Term 02 Crits
Wrapping up the second term during the Spring Break (giving ourselves an additional week), we concluded by having an internal, but formal crit of student projects, focusing particularly on what was accomplished during the preceding three weeks of Focus Group. It was felt that for the very first time in the year, all students had a critical amount work produced and an acceptable amount of logical rationale to warrant their yearlong project proposals. It was at this stage that the majority of students were able to explain their projects through a comprehensive series of drawings, diagrams, physical models, analogue and digital analyses, and the capacity to clearly articulate their contribution towards the reconsideration of the unit brief.
Term 03 Previews
Jump starting the final term of the year, Third Year students presented their projects-in-progress to a panel of Intermediate tutors. Though more production and development was expected over the break from which they had recently returned from, most projects were deemed intelligible enough such that critical feedback was possible. For the majority of presentations given, there was a general conclusion that the level of production was clearly indicative of the conceptual proposal put forth, however only to a resolution in which a mental sketch could be formulated. For those whose projects depended highly on the precise rationalisation of geometry, it was generally felt that too many assumptions were claimed without more rigorous testing of geometric systems, while those whose projects tended to make claims of complex infrastructural dynamics were encouraged to supply more objective data and analyses to found their claims.
In summary, we were pleased that the merit of each project was successfully communicated to others to a high degree of fidelity, however the integrity of each project still remained dubious without further development.
3rd Year Tables
The first major presentation of the term, Third Year students were examined by the Technical Studies panel. Especially this year, we are incredibly grateful to this indispensable department which helps to encourage students pursue their conceptual ambitions within a rigorous methodology while respecting the direction of the studio unit.
Special thanks to Javier Castanon for his consistent contribution and advise t out Third Year students, and to Belinda Flaherty for coordinating the very complicated process.
Final Unit Jury
Something of a misnomer in our opinion, the unit’s Final Jury served as a preview to work that was expected for the upcoming assessment Table Examinations soon to come. Including our regularly invited jurors, the commenting panel was composed entirely of working professionals who were also heavily involved with academics. We believe that this provided a healthy balance and focus for a set of responses to individual projects that could best guide students in completing a coherent yearlong proposal. In general, concluding comments made by the invited jurors remarked on the notable degree of execution and production from both our Second and Third Year students. It was acknowledged that there was a limit to the conceptual ambition of some proposals, yet these comments were balanced by the equal acknowledgement that academics is fundamentally a process of hierarchical learning and the fostering of maturity.
2nd Year Tables
3rd Year Tables
And some extra information
Brief of Inter8
Images above are works by Former Inter8 students
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