ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 3: 5x5x5: Retrospective sketching as design communication

The architect's napkin sketch is both iconic and romantic. It is not surprising that Rem Koolhaas includes such sketches in his official archives and publications (e.g. SMLXL); and one of the most famous is Alvar Aalto's dinner napkin sketch for the Church of the Holy Spirit in Wolfsburg (Aalto wrote famously, "God made paper to draw architecture on it.") In the context of this course, it is also a mode for rethinking design communication and analysis. Paralleling and emerging from the subject matter of the group presentations, this exercise asks students to delve retrospectively into a recent architectural project - in a sense, to simulate the earliest stages of schematic design and architect-client interaction. The napkin will serve as a fixed, but also serialized, medium to document a process of excavating ideas and concepts associated with a particular project. Ultimately, through a historical lens of precedent, it asks us to review how we draw, why we sketch, where inspiration resides, and what constitutes design communication. This exercise complements the group work of the presentations with an intensive, individual rumination on a contemporary architectural design project. The sketches and writing serve to visualize, make immediate, and even personalize the "historical"understanding of a particular architect's (or architectural firm's) place within contemporary practice and a historical context. Revisiting a project's core ideas interrogates not only an architectural work's foundation but also its possible directions. In a sense, these five diagrams "rewrite" (or more precisely, "redraw") possible historical trajectories, bringing this course's content into contact with a broader field of practice and design process.

ARCHITECTS	STUDENTS
Herzog and de Meuron	Vibha Agarwala	Kyle Altman	Carolina Llano	Naomi Maki	Corey Thomas
MVRDV	Kirsten Akerman	Reid Caudill	Carmine D'Alessandro	Christopher Perrodin	Challie Shafer
Toshiko Mori	Donald Low	Adam Luong	Michael Porter	Kyle Reed	Eduardo Silva
Eduardo Souto de Moura	Ana Chehab	Daniel Harper	Kristy Kimball	Nicole Mayo	Sara Varela
Waro Kishi	Ali Atabey	Omayra Diaz	Harvey Palacios	Zaira Pourier	Monica Rodriguez
Paulo Mendes de Rocha	Steven Aibert	Yadira Kerez	Andresa Maia	Chris Saunders	Madeline Sewall
LTL	Jared Akers	Matthew Cugini	Jeff Glad	Ricardo Mejia	Nick Steshyn
Morphosis	Camila Borges	Ledia Durmishaj	Alice Mac	Ingrid Molliner	Romes Torrico
MAD Office	Alejandra Del Valle	Nicole Paul	Susana Prieto	Lizette Rios	Breanna Rossman
Diller Scofidio + Renfro	Justine Ala	Patrick Little	Sandra Mertin	Stanley Ng	Emma Sparer
David Chipperfield	Hanah Bittner	Sasha Geisler	Jon Munoz	Dylan Rinda	Ian Svilokos
FOA	Laura Badraun	David Boynton	Raquel Kalil	Elaine Khuu	Oliver Johnson
Andrew Maynard	Brad Brogden	Jessica Cruze	Lindsay Evans	Jack Haller	Katie Johnson
Bolles + Wilson	Cybrina Ascanio	Andrew Brown	Arthur Morgan	Dan Tynes	Nate Walker
Joel Sanders	Josh Fisher	Mary Frisbee	Darren Hargrove	Stephanie Salvo	Mike Woodcock
Miralles Tagliabue	Misagh Abdolysisian	Amber Atkinson	Brittany Dexter	Chris Fernandez	Philip Rhea
Soo Chan	Adel Alsaffar	Alyssa Costas	Samantha Nalbach	Matt Tarpley	Randall Yarborough
Wiel Arets	Noella Hyla	Victoria Janok	Duncan Martel	Nicole Semenova	Becky Walker