The First Review is a Doozy

Today’s review. How can I express my disappointment about today’s review?

 

This afternoon, we had our first “pin up,” which is a time that all of the professors come and every student “pins up” their work on the wall and presents their ideas to the class + professors. In a traditional sense, these are designed to make sure that we are progressing like we should – checkpoints along the way of the project, if you will. I went into today’s pin up with mixed emotions – I had all of my work done, as my partner and I had decided upon, and most of my ideas were engrained within my memory well enough for me to explain them to people who didn’t understand as well as I did. My partner had stayed up late the night before, with the majority of the class who were putting together last minute things, but I went to bed early. #1 because I’d been working virtually all day on my part of the project while my partner worked on other things. #2 because I didn’t see the point in staying up half the night for a simple pin up. In the morning, however, I felt bad – like I’d left her out to dry. But, it was over and done, so nothing I could do about that one. That morning, I also realized that we hadn’t collaborated about how the presentation was going to be formatted – at all. It is a fair assessment to say that my partner and I don’t communicate as well as we should. So I was stressed about this for the morning – I knew my part, but as far as her part, I didn’t know what she wanted to say or even what her general ideas toward our project were. O crap. Going into a presentation without a clear idea of what the heck is going on. Setting myself up for a loss already…

So we sit through a couple presentations and decide that it’s our turn to go. I start out with our diagrams – why we did what we did. Basically, our project is inspired from a pine cone – the shape and characteristics of the object. We looked at how the lobes terrace and overlap each other and used the circular shape of the cone to organize the park space of our design. That’s the basic outlay that I nailed during the pin up – it’s the details that I botched. I just couldn’t seem to explain why how the overlapping of the terraces was going to be a good thing. I tried to explain it by referencing the “human scale” (which seemed right at the time, but I now know that I used the term horribly backwards!). I felt like I had the words, but they just wouldn’t come out right. Sensing this situation, I just imploded. Crap. In the middle of a review, and I can’t explain my ideas. Crap. The rest of the review matched suit. And to boot, at the end, after the professors are done offering suggestions and the floor is opened up to the class, both my partner and I stare awkwardly at our project board, not at the class – aka, we imploded. Crap. Now we look like we are hiding from explaining our project. Now our lack of communication as a group is pretty dang obvious. Crap…

The one thing that I do like about reviews, though, is that it gives you a chance to literally sit back and look at the work of your classmates and what the professors have to say about them. It’s a good way to get feedback about your project without the pressure of standing up in front of everybody; albeit an indirect way that involves more work on your part in sifting through to the relevant information. I learned a lot about architecture in general and made a lot of mental changes to our project just from listening to what the professors had to say about other people’s project – and what they would inevitably bring up in the final review if I didn’t address them in my project now.

Interesting day, interesting day indeed.

 

A presto,

 

Tyler