nothing escapes thesis prep

I just posted this blog entry in archinect: 'last class'.

"Both classes I took this semester have helped me a lot with thesis. With Kwinter I really got into the political aspects of 'relational aesthetics' and Rirkrit Tiravanija's work. My last paper is going to be on Rirkrit's projects and a proposed connection to Teddy Cruz's projects as evidence of the 'New Synthesis' between art and architecture (the theme of the course).

Waldheim's 'Ecology as Urbanism' class was perhaps even more helpful. Through it I was forced to unpack issues I am familiar with (indexical design, parametrics, etc..) from another disciplinary perspective. I come away from it with a renewed respect for the other design fields and what I view as their more inclusive discourse. I am not sure yet what my paper for this class will be on, but it will probably be something directly tied to my thesis research. One thought was to continue a tangent that I began earlier in the semester looking at Koolhaas' La Villette park as a proposal for a new ecology in the context of a pluralistic society (specially when viewed in contrast to Ian McHarg's), and extending it to OMA's more recent urban work."

So to recap, and specifically to do with my thesis, I am looking at the Koolhaas/OMA/Corner/Allen side of things to argue that their design work is a way to deal with ever-changing demographics, broken agencies, low budgets, and generally unforeseen and unexpected conditions. I am then using Rirkrit, Teddy, utt, Aravena, Marjetica, etc... as a way to look at how within those changing conditions the design strategies developed to control change can be infused with political, social, and economic agency to try to fill the gaps that formal infrastructures are not.

Dom-Ino by Rirkrit Tiravanija
photo from: galerie chantal crousel