thank you for taking a moment to watch
our video about the pictorial we
submitted to creativity and cognition
titled organic abstractions and
exploration of space through multiple
mediums
the environmental design program at
Auburn is a program that asks students
to consider multiple disciplines of
design and formulating solutions related
to the build environment
our program begins with an intensive
five-week introductory Workshop that
asks students to reconsider the world
around them through the use of
abstraction
last summer of this studio was stopped
by Kelly Hohman a landscape architect
David Smith a graphic designer and
myself Robert sprole and architect
we used multiple tools and techniques to
investigate various scales of design
ideas were conceptualized through
prototyping graphite pattern
Explorations and computer graphic
representations the origins of organic
abstraction are best understood adjacent
to the underpinnings of thought
priorities emergence as a conceptual
driver for design during the early 20th
century design was defined by deliberate
formalism generated through reason and
precision eventually philosophical
thought emerged that would that would
situate abstraction over representation
process over product intuition over
logic
this helped inform organic design that
embraced creativity and iterative
processes that result in unforeseeable
and novel outcomes
the methods we talked about here are
what Frank Lloyd Wright called an
Earnest search for reality
they asked students to abandon their
biases and look at the world in a new
way
so for the beginning of the studio we
had the students do a series of drawings
so as Robert mentioned the idea is that
we're going to go between mediums
drawing making models and 3D modeling in
the computer but first to get them
started what we did was have students do
a series of drawings which is what
you're seeing now on the screen that
explored the figure ground and we kind
of took we did a play on the figure
ground the figure ground comes from a
20th century idea read it in Psychology
it's about how our brain sees figures
and forms so the students started by
taking five different iterative sketches
of figures and grounds different forms
with different backgrounds we then took
those drawings and began to make
prototype models so what you're seeing
now are the students taking those forms
and manifesting them in a physical model
we did a series of prototypes so they
started with five drawings they created
Five models and from there they started
to refine each of those so what you're
seeing now on the screen are these
refined drawings that students spent
probably four weeks creating
when we talk about this it kind of seems
like a linear process but it really
wasn't so they would go from drawing to
model making back to drawing back to
model making what we ended up with in
the first part of the semester was a
series of iterative sketches graphite
sketches and a series of
prototype models they started with five
that they're then going to narrow down
to one
so as part of the process students were
asked to reconsider their
two-dimensional
graphic drawings as three-dimensional
constructions working through form space
order and in some instances materiality
students reinterpreted their
two-dimensional drawings as
three-dimensional physical models
Detention of these objects was an
exploration in form and space alone
Notions of scale were set aside
to separate the build object from its
initial single scale conception students
were required to execute a series of
complex operations using 3D modeling
software
with the drawing and object studies
continuing students were asked to
investigate their three-dimensional
models for spatial opportunities
eventually
each student was required to assign a
scale
to the 3D digital model.
As students continue to explore
extractive forms through making and
drawing they started to imagine these
artifacts of spaces for people.
Wood edges in their models became walls
and graphic arcs and drawings like
groundwork to imagine environment people
experience in the space
the Imagine space is varied in purpose
and scale from a corner wall of a Cafe to
a rooftop Terrace even to a large-scale
farm
to symbolize the space abstract shapes
and lines within artifacts became the
patterns and icons of the graphic
identity for instance the graphic
identity might have been derived from
direction of sticks used in the model
making process or from the shape of
pencil marks in the drawing
to tell the story of their work students
were tasked with creating a poster that
linked all the projects together
the poster served as a way of settling
their ideas into something tangible
revealing on a single surface the
threads of similarity between the
various projects drawing a Model A
Digital model
for each student the intertwined marks
making and space imagining found its own
path as can be seen in these poster
examples
so as the studio progressed and towards
the end of the studio we really started
to see the students um
become much more fluid at Crossing
mediums right so between the drawings
and the models and the 3D models in the
computer and also the posters the graph
graphic design posters that I created
and it became this um much more embedded
iterative process this was one thing we
were going for in the studio one of the
students is quoted as saying uh the MBD
2100 Studio course is one of the most
eye-opening classes I've taken at Auburn
the Hands-On modeling and analog
drawings helped me feel much more
confident in my design abilities as our
iterations were continuously improved
and built upon a true language was
developed for each project we learned
how to tell a story with design and see
a project through All Phases
um so at the end we had a gallery so the
images you're seeing now on the screen
are a gallery that we set up in the
architecture building at Auburn and it
students for the most part we felt kind
of grasp the idea of abstracting forms
through for mediums
the students that struggled a bit more
with the process had a hard time just
with the concept of abstraction so you
know we'd like to say that all the
students understood what we were trying
to do but I think that would be unfair
but the ones that struggled you know the
idea of abstraction was to kind of get
out of your head
the things that we come to with design
especially for early design students
um so some some of the students did
struggle with getting back kind of out
of their head and the ability to
abstract forms
um three kind of big takeaways from the
studio were that abstraction is a very
powerful concept it's something a
designer can use to explore form and
space Crossing mediums can facilitate
Divergent thinking or a really engaging
iterative process and that continuity
across artifacts helps tell a stronger
story so
um the strongest students at the end
when we put their work up in the exhibit
we could really see how the form
manifested itself through every artifact
that we were making sure to Frank Lloyd
Wright you know abstraction has a really
powerful concept and this studio really
explored that concept for early design
education students thank you