(no, I'm not late, these were the deadlines). I turned in my papers on Monday, but haven't really stopped thinking about them. Apparantly the AA is under review this year by the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects), so they'll be reviewing our papers as well. Actually, I'm unclear on whether this review of student work happens every year, or if it's part of the RIBA review. I should say that the AA is not an accredited institution in itself, but is accredited by this group called the Open University. That almost makes it sound like I attend some crazy "school" set up by someone in their backyard to make money. If that's the case with the AA, they've got quite a scam, and have thousands of people convinced of its wonderous merit. This just reminds me of an episode of Mr. Show which follows the events of several separatists who declare independent nations within the U.S., and then hold an Olympic Games. Such nations include:
- "Freemania",
- "The New Republic of Gary",
- "Hank Dobson's Mini-Mart and Country"
Certainly such comparisons indicate that I obviously don't understand how accreditation works.
Well, I must say, I do work awfully hard for an institution I'm not sure is "for real". My design workshop group really worked hard on a booklet of our term 1 work, and I think it shows, thankfully.
In my individual work, I'm starting to focus on urban housing forms. To save myself a few moments, I'll just cite my individual work essay-thingy:
"Though my interest in urbanism and the study of cities has grown, so has my interest in how people live in the city. To my mind, this is not simply a question of housing, but of making a space, in the larger sense of the entire city, in which people want to live. In Public Spaces Public Life, Jan Gehl discusses the importance of quality and location of public spaces surrounding housing forms for the success of the housing.
I think that looking at the issue of housing is another way in which I can use my background in and understanding of sociology and cultural studies in order to determine and further design. Through this programme, I want to begin to move away from a strictly cultural, socio-political approach to these problems, as I have stated previously, and attempt to address such issues from a design perspective. Panerai et al call this the "relative" autonomy of urban design: though we might consider it to be the most important aspect, social, political, and economic factors play smaller yet still integral roles in the workings of the city, its growth and production. Yet, no factor is sovereign in the production of the city, and neither can any of these factors be disregarded. I trust the actuality of this reasoning, but I want to continue to test and develop in my own research. "
Well pardner, I'd best mosey on over to that "school" I'm throwing all my money at.
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