i am going to talk about the differences in work environment between MIT and TUD. both are architecture programs at well-known technical schools. the programs are distinct, both with advantages and disadvantages. the most interesting part of this to me is how the culture of each school is evident in the work that is produced at the school. the pictures here are all from the TUD campus because i don't have pictures of MIT and i think any person who actually reads this will know the space well enough to not require pictures.
this is BK (BK = bouwkunde; bouw = construction, kunde = knowledge) city. before last year it was an old chemistry building on the north part of the campus (closest to the center of delft) slated for demolition. a building of similar vintage across the street is actually in the process of being torn down, though right now it looks more abandoned than in the process of deconstruction. the old TUD architecture building and tower was further south on campus but it burned down. so, in a rush, they held a quick competition and decided to inhabit an older building while a new building is designed and built in the next 3-5 years. i guess my criticism comes at a weak moment for the faculty, as they struggle in a new, temporary space. but, here we go regardless.
first of all, TUD's school is huge. there are about 3000-3300 students enrolled in architecture, both for bachelor's and master's degrees. at MIT, i think it is a combined figure of around 500-600 with SMarchs and Ph.D. students. MIT's program gets a few parts of a few floors of the main building at MIT, but here the building is about the same size as the main MIT building and has two tall floors. why the ceilings are so tall here i don't know, but it is luxurious.
most students arrive by bike so during the week hundreds of bikes fill the main entrance area and around other entries.
the largest differences to me are the type of workspace available and the hours of operation. in an earlier post i showed the orange mountain where my department is located. here, for example is the workspace they provide:
it is only a table with electrical strips in the middle spine. an optical computer mouse doesn't track on the black finish so you have to put paper under your mouse. you don't have any permanent space to work here, unlike at MIT where you get a fair amount of personal desk space to pile books, papers, models, food remains, whatever. there are tables where you can place material to be "saved" or not removed. there are large models here but they aren't built here (more on this soon). once i tried to leave library books here with a sign on them but most people thought it was too susceptible to theft so i ended up returning the books to the library after a few days. this table is also where we have studio meetings, gathered around in chairs leaning in trying to hear what people are saying over the roar of the room.
other studios meet in this room on these same tables too. studios on the public realm, some 2nd-year masters studios too. desk crits happen rarely but i have seen some where the professor will stand with the student at the "save" tables looking over drawings or a model. sketch models usually are built at these tables. people also work here on drawings, mostly using 12" rolls of trace or autoCAD. i have never seen a parallel rule used or anybody working on a drawing larger than A3 (though they may do this at home or print posters of a larger size). this room is incredibly crowded. at its busiest moments every chair is filled, a studio is having a lecture on the orange mountain, and nomadic classes led by mad max professors prowl for space. during one studio meeting in a why factory room, another professor interrupted us, asking if his (larger) class could use the space. we offered to vacate when we were done and were immediately swarmed by his class of 30 or so bachelors students, all with A3 prints, eager to present by pinning up their drawings with magnets.
while this is initially annoying, it is surreal to be around so many people studying architecture. at MIT it is a tiny community holed up in one corner of the main building. here it is a vast enterprise. i've never had so many potential peers before. most of the friends i've made have been through architecture where at MIT i am friends with people in my major but a lot of my other friends are studying totally different things.
most of the bachelors studios meet in specified places on the 2nd floor, which is largely open studio space like in the picture. it has lots of windows and seems better than my studio's space on the first floor. there is still the division between work space and "save" space, but rails for hanging drawings with magnets are visible in the picture. reviews happen when everybody gathers around an area with suspended drawings.
and the hours of the building: 8am until 10pm on weekdays, 8am until 7pm on friday, and CLOSED on the weekends. this is the ridiculous part. so even the unassigned, cramped quarters they give us are only available during these hours. most of my work is done at home at my best desk, on the computer. compare this to MIT with its intensive 24-hour culture. at 9:30 there is announcement about the building closing and at 9:55 security guards march through the facility to herd people to the door.
but hardly anybody is left at this hour. the dutch have a very strict sense of work. the building is packed from around 9 until about 6 when it empties as students go on to sporting activities or home to cook or on to other social events. they drink tons of coffee throughout the day too, an act i cannot compete with as one cup will wire me for 4-5 hours and leave me with a headache. we even have a bouwpub that is open on campus tuesdays and thursdays to provide cheap drinks from 1600 until 1730. a big part of the culture is to work but also to have time to enjoy yourself.
ok, other facilities. there are two places to eat in the building. there is an espresso bar with baked goods and paninis. it is OK. it has a nice place to sit. the main eating area is the ketelhuis and serves lunch. the food is lightweight and not vegetarian friendly. they serve meat sandwiches, soups, and assortment of benign water salads. vegetarian options are tomato soup and bread, a smoothie, salad, or some tired vegetable sandwich. can you please just make some hearty chili or curry or something? if my brain is going to work i need some more material in my stomach. people eat so light here. some people get a cup of soup and a piece of bread for lunch. others just buy bread, a slice of meat, and a slice of cheese and have a sandwich. how is that enough food? recently i went to a cafeteria on the main campus for lunch. their vegetarian options were terrible too. i could only eat a vegetable sandwich. even the egg rolls had seafood in it. the main course was potatoes, green beans, and some steak-thing. real dutch food.
the main glassed-in area in the center of the building is the model-making room. here there are tables, paper cutters, a large wood shop, and rooms for more advanced machines like lasercutters and maybe one 3D printer. the wood shop has things like bandsaws, etc, but is only open from 9 until 5 (9 until 4 on fridays). and the building is closed on the weekend.
most of the models made here are massing models at an urban scale. only a few times have i seen models at a significantly smaller scale. i bet those emerge at the end of the semester, though. i think there is also a greater pedagogical emphasis on urban conception and massing too. one of my friends is in another studio that is more traditional and they're spending half of the semester on site research, context, and establishing some kind of massing idea. modeling materials are mostly wood, foam, foamcore, paper, and some basswood. all of these materials are available at a shop that is in the building. so this business has a monopoly on supplies. it is convenient instead of having to go to pearl, artist supply, or utrecht (the shop), but the prices are super high. i've been told there are other modeling shops around but i haven't found them. i've also been told there is a FABLAB nearby, inspired by MIT. interesting.
here is the lasercutter room. there are 4 small lasercutters for over 3000 students. and they aren't open 24 hours a day. and you don't even cut your own files. you send them to some email address and they get cut for you (so you can't mess up or negotiate any lasercutter funny business). the average time for lasercut parts, i've heard, is a week, which is an eternity when you're trying to build a model. as a result, almost none of the models involve lasercut pieces. most designs i've seen are, to be blunt, rectangular, orthogonal masses. i haven't seen any blobs or curves or polygonal nightmares. there is an area called hyperbody led by
kas oosterhuis which is totally blobitecture and more in the jurisdiction of the media lab. maybe the pedagogy here is not really about weird forms and is more about program organization, urban ideas, and detailing (a topic not even touched at MIT). but maybe it is also because they lack access to tools that allow for easy physical modeling of these shapes. it is another interesting reminder of how the tools we have shape our ability to make things.
at first i complained about the library because of its narrow collection compared to MIT. then i realized that MIT has a world-class library and TUD lost most of its collection in the fire. beyond that, they have some important things i had never found at MIT and a lot of older ancient things that would be in the limited access collection at MIT. the library has short hours too and you can only check out 10 books at a time! i guess that makes sense if you have nowhere to store them and you're not going to bike back and forth with 10 books in your backpack. but i checked out 10 at the beginning of the year and the librarian looked at me like i was crazy. so the book-hoarding technique i had at MIT isn't going to fly here.
beyond that, the library is one of the most enjoyable spaces in the building. it is quiet with nice furniture. the ceilings are high and with some gnarly exposed brick that has been ripped up and painted red. there are some good nooks to sit and read. the magazine collection isn't bad. i like it here. there is also a bookstore on campus that sells texts for classes and lots of other architecture books, some that you'd never find in the US. lots of books published by Actar and piles of El Croquis just laying around (whereas they are a rare item in the US). good monographs and things about landscape architecture. i'd never buy anything though because books are so expensive here. even buying something online at amazon in the US and shipping it at a medium priority level is cheaper than just buying the book here. another good library is the NAI library in rotterdam. that place has everything.
this place has awesome furniture, all of it from vitra. the school has a deal with the company where they get free furniture but in turn act as a showroom for the collection. there are cozy places to sit throughout the building, all with contemporary furniture. oh yes.
beyond that, most studios only meet twice a week here, even at the graduate level. my studio meets once a week for maybe three hours. at MIT you're "in studio" for a minimum of 12 hours per week usually. you get a lot less face-time with professors in addition to fewer assembly and space resources.
but, consider the costs here. one year of tuition at MIT is about 36,000 USD. i've mentioned this before, but according to dutch students, a year of education is about 1600 euro at TUD. lets say it is a bad time for the dollar and so that works out to about 3000 dollars. here, a bachelor's degree takes 3 years of full-time study and a master's degree takes 2. so you could potentially complete your entire formal architecture education in 6 years (allowing some slack and time off) for the same amount as attending one year at MIT. that is crazy. and, in addition to that, once you get a master's degree here, you are able to practice professionally in europe. whereas in america you have to get some stupid AIA credits and take the exam in a certain state. but, to add more levels, i've heard that the grading is tougher here, so that passing your final thesis might take two or three tries. but in america it seems there is some grade inflation or a sense that if you make it this far and you've paid this much money, you're going to get your degree and move on with your life. it is complicated.
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on thursday there was a big event at the orange mountain. winy maas was officially recognized as a professor, the why factory was "opened", and the first book ("visionary cities") was released. tons of people were there including government officials. winy gave a speech about the goals of the why factory, citing the need for research about the future of cities and the need for new visions. he cited the fact that while the 20th century has been the most productive era for visions, there haven't really been any since the 1970s (a fact recently lamented on lebbeus woods's blog too). beyond the speech there was a forum where lots of people presented ideas about his or her future city. this part was really boring because it was all talk about "how i want there to be equality or diversity." the most interesting talk was one by the two other partners of MVRDV with some good accompanying images.
at first i thought that the dolly was left under the podium as a symbol of the department's ability to change or reconfigure at any moment. it seems like a sly way of emphasizing that trait once again. then, after the lecture, i examined the podium and the dolly chassis is bolted to the lectern so you can't separate the two! i thought that was weird but still sort of interesting.
there is also an exhibit of the recent work by the why factory, all shown in a paneled A4 fashion. i spent about 10 hours on wednesday helping put up all of the A4 pages in 4 rooms. it took a lot of effort. but the big mosaic tiles look OK, i think.
afterwards there was a party with cheese and food. and lights. the food was pretty bad. DJs spun some type of electro/disco music while the big screen alternated renderings of projects with movie clips from films like "metropolis" and "blade runner." the gargoyle lion faces on the walls cast long shadows on the walls. they used to be outside but now they are face in, watching students as they work.
i still think it is fascinating that a program that labels itself as researchers of the future is squatting in the courtyard of an early 20th century building that was supposed to be torn down. next to the space frame and orange volume with an inside that looks like "solaris" are these mouthed moldings from one hundred years ago. it really visualizes the layers of our built surroundings and how they just keep piling up. none of them go away. cities now are exercises in not allowing new layers (preservation) or letting them build up (development). part of the appeal of films like "brazil" or "blade runner" is that there is still so much of the present in the future that it is almost believable. most people forget that the future is right now and this is what it looks like.
now, back to fighting off being sick.
