CONVIVIUM 04.02.10

CONVIVIUM
FRIDAY APRIL 2 // 730 - 930 PM
MILLER HELLER HOUSE
122 EDDY ST, COLLEGETOWN

CONVIVIUM is a salon-style gathering intended to
promote lively discourse regarding problems and
topics central to the discipline of architecture.

Our activities stem from a central investigation: “What
is an act of design?” We will examine the divergent
design philosophies of COLIN ROWE and O.M. UNGERS
in order to interpolate their pedagogical implications. What
do techniques of bricolage and typlological iteration stand
to offer? Can we trace the lineage from these modes of
architectural analysis and production to contemporary
methods? We will debate these and other issues in an
attempt to understand the ways in which these techniques
have transformed architectural education.

CONVIVIUM 03.05.10

CONVIVIUM
FRIDAY MARCH 5 // 730 - 930 PM
MILLER HELLER HOUSE
122 EDDY ST, COLLEGETOWN

CONVIVIUM is a salon-style gathering intended to
promote lively discourse regarding problems and
topics central to the discipline of architecture.

Our activities will stem from a central investigation:
“What is an act of design?” Unequivocally, design lay
at the core of our training and practice as architects,
though its aims, methodologies, and outcomes vary
widely. As we have done previously, we will triangulate
this question from epistemological, pedagogical, and
practical perspectives. By establishing this
interrogative framework, we will examine the scalar
conditions of design practice, from a gesture at the
drafting table to the social implications of
its realization.

Convivium 11.13.09 (topic)

CONVIVIUM is a salon-style gathering intended to promote lively discourse regarding problems and topics central to the discipline of architecture. SESSION 2 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 7:30 – 9:30 pm Miller Heller House 122 Eddy Street, Collegetown This semester, CONVIVIUM examines the question HOW IS ARCHITECTURE LOCATED? In so doing, we will explore the ways in which external conditions circumscribe the discipline, and come to bear on its epistemological, pedagogical, and practical modalities. SESSION 2 will reconsider architecture’s pedagogical intentions in light of recent economic turmoil, shifts internal to the discipline, and outmoded institutional structures. We will begin by screening a TED talk by Liz Coleman, president of Bennington College in VT, who radically restructured the curriculum there and makes the case for a socially engaged and activist liberal arts education. Following this, Dagmar Richter, chair of the architecture department, will discuss some of her research and thinking on pedagogical models and methodologies. Our conversation will unfold into a careful and critical evaluation of learning today. SUGGESTED READINGS 01 Studio Culture Policy (2009) 02 Redesign of Studio Culture: A Report of the AIAS Studio Culture Task Force (2002) 03 Prosthetic Theory: The Disciplining of Architecture (Mark Wigley, Assemblage, 1991) http://www.cornell-convivium.blogspot.com/

Convivium 11.13.09

"The Knowledge"

http://c-lab.columbia.edu/0127.html

CONVIVIUM 10.09.09

music prep

MUSIC Many have taken note of the relationship between music and architecture. Goethe made the claim that “architecture is frozen music”, and certainly the two disciplines share a common parlance at times. For decades, artists, architects, and musicians have tested the ways in which sound can be spatialized, music visualized, and place translated into composition. Through presentations and performances, we will look at some examples of this work in order to examine the various ways in which these two disciplines overlap. SUGGESTED LISTENING 01 Musical Language, Radiolab. (Season 2, episode 1) http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21 02 Poeme Electronique, Edgard Verese. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/refmovie.php?mov=7&play=audio 03 Metastasis, Iannis Xenakis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2O8bMlEijg&feature=related 04 Prometheus: Poem of Fire, Alexander Scriabin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG1x_c9CrWA&feature=related 05 Excerpt from Villa Medici Walk, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. (Featured in the compilation “Headphones: Sound Without Space” on AAIR.FM) http://www.aair.fm/2009/04/18/13-cardiff-janet-with-george-bures-miller-villa-medici-walk-2001-%E2%80%93-excerpt/