Harvey Mudd College: IE 171, Fall 2008.First-Day Project |
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In a shameless bid to win the good will of our students,
we've assigned a project that needs to be completed before our first class meeting on Friday,
September 5. (Why, you're most welcome!). For those of you wincing at this very moment, let us assure you that
undertaking this assignment will be fun, you'll do it with
others, and it will provide some exercise and fresh air (in Los Angeles? in September?) as you settle into the semester.
The point of this assignment is simple: we want you to begin thinking about the built environment around you in a
critical way, and in order to do that, you need to develop a basic formal vocabulary for describing what you're looking
at. This project will help to initiate that development. Here are your instructions: Below you'll find a list of groups and buildings. You've been arbitrarily assigned to a group, and a set of buildings has been arbitrarily assigned to you. Having done the assigned reading for the first week, which consists largely of looking at photos and associated captions, and with copies of Identifying American Architecture and Los Angeles Attractions in hand, gather as a group and walk to your destinations. (Yes, we'd like you to walk--you'll be doing a lot of that this semester, so you might as well get used to it. More importantly, you'll notice things when you're afoot that you wouldn't have seen at the faster pace of a bike or a car--your critical thinking need not be restricted to your assigned buildings.) You'll need about two hours to complete this part of the exercise. When you find your building, spend some time getting to know it. If one of you has a digital camera, you might want to take a few shots. If the building is public, such as a business or an academic building, feel free to poke around inside. If the building is a residence, however, please stay on the city sidewalk. After you've had a look at the building, use your handbooks to identify its key features. Can you classify it stylistically? What design elements do you notice that are worth recording (the glossary in Identifying American Architecture would be useful here, and yes, you should have a pen and paper, a tape recorder, or a computer with you)? Are there features of the building's physical construction that are of interest? How is the building sited on its lot? Does it interact with other surrounding buildings or with landscaping? Remember, the base functions of a building--to protect you and your portable property from the elements and other animals--can be achieved with nothing more than a few walls, a roof, and a door. None of the buildings you will visit exhibit anything like that kind of simplicity. In a sense, then, we're asking you to think about those aspects of the building that go beyond the merely functional, or perhaps more precisely to reflect on the typically complex relationship of function to form. After completing your walking tour, you'll need to find one more hour with which to prepare two four-minute presentations, one for each of your buildings. If you have questions that you can't answer, consult with one of us--as you might guess, we have ideas about all of these buildings, and our consultancy fees are surprisingly affordable. During the class session on Friday, we will project images of eleven buildings one at a time (these images will be shot from in front of the buildings at street level). When one of your buildings pops up, a member of your group will need to stand and deliver your observations and analysis. If there was any disagreement in the group about how to describe your buildings, you may certainly discuss that disagreement with the class. Your presentation should be primarily descriptive, but if toward the end of the four minutes you want deliver a judgment about the aesthetic quality of the building, feel free to do so. Your professors and classmates will then have two minutes to pepper you with questions. Now, the remaining five buildings will be dealt with on site, which means that the whole class will uproot itself, wander down to the Claremont Village, and hear those reports. The list below indicates whether one of your presentations will be delivered on site. We should add that we will be timing your presentations, and we will cut you off after four minutes. That's not much time, so be sure that you rehearse your presentation multiple times. We will take well-rehears-ed-ness into account as we determine your grade for the presentation. In groups of three members and only two buildings to cover, we would suggest that each building have its own presenter, and that the third member of the group function as timekeeper/director to make sure that the presentation works to schedule. You don't need to do any outside research for this assignment--it's your attempt to think about the buildings at hand that we want to witness, not your ability to dig up the opinions of others. (That's for later in the semester!) You should, however, tackle the class readings before you make your journey into the wilds of Claremont; we don't know for sure, but we have a hunch that the readings might be helpful to you. Group 1 (Lauren Allen, Benjamin Goldenberg, Paul Ort [Pomona])
If you'd like to print out a map on which your buildings are located by your group number, just follow this link.
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