PROFESSOR: The first project for the semester
was designing a outside place in a quarry north of Boston,
in Rockport.
We have gone to the quarry, and they
were asked-- the students were asked
to find a place in the quarry that they liked,
photograph it, sketch it, understand it, bring it back
to the studio, and then design a classroom for themselves
and me that was sheltered, not enclosed.
But the idea was making a place in the quarry that
was neither natural or was it to appear to be built.
It was to fit into the context of the quarry.
They were welcome to use any materials that they thought
would relate to the quarry.
When they came back from the quarry,
I then asked them to do their first design
and their first ideas of the quarry.
So what you're about to see is the very first pin
up of the semester, of this very first project.
AUDIENCE: So when I saw that--
because the best thing about it was how nature is really--
it's got a logic to it.
And every gap and everything that's there
is filled in in some ways.
There's something lost.
There's nothing wasted.
Everything belongs in that net of things.
And so when I--
I decided that my site would be right here,
where all the seagulls were.
I figured that the seagulls would know better than me
what the best place was.
Nature has that logic, so the animals did too.
And also, I realized that it was daylight outside.
But if you notice, it's got a lot of--
it basically is a cliff cutout.
And what I'm trying to do is fill that space,
as nature does, to have that space filled in.
And this is what the site looks like now.
There are the seagulls.
And then this is what I'm hoping to do, is to fill that,
to just make it look like how it used to be--
how I imagined it to have been before, when nature was already
present in the [INAUDIBLE].
And I like the idea of just [INAUDIBLE]..
Here, it shows just how even the grass and the ground
and the soil evens out on the rocks,
even though they're jagged.
So evening things out--
here's the site-- hoping that I'll just even that out
in a way.
Also, when I was sitting there, I
was listening to the seagulls.
And they were a little bit annoying
at times, but just the sound in the water splashing,
the sound of them just flying around,
the wind rustling of all the plants
and things-- that was also part of the experience.
And I'm hoping to coexist with the seagulls.
This is the site.
[INAUDIBLE]
Seagulls live in here.
I saw this small space here as a private area also, and here
as a private area, and then this bigger space as a common place.
I'm looking at the studio as more of a dynamic place
rather than all of us having our desks.
This is my idea, is adding a stone wall to the side
so that it blends.
And I just-- I'm very literal about--
I just imagine these trees just growing out
of those gaps in the rocks and them making a canopy
and intertwining at the top.
And sort of like how will we enter the space?
It became this, like, tunnel of canopy of plants.
That's sort of what I want to do that with of plants.
And people sitting around with the drawing
boards on their laps, moving around, going down
here to look out.
That's the idea.
Here's my model.
I was thinking of stairways on the side
and then going all the way down.
And the steps from one space to the other.
PROFESSOR: What did you just take away?
AUDIENCE: These were the steps.
PROFESSOR: Oh, OK.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Well, I could take out all the pieces
and have you see the original.
But basically, I added the stone walls.
And I'm thinking of using--
I don't feel like I want to disturb the environment.
I feel like I want to use what's already there.
The space is telling me, this is useful.
Use me as such.
This was a sitting area.
That is a drawing board.
This is a drawing board.
I don't want-- I feel like I can just work with what I have,
fill that space in, and not disturb anyone--
none of the animals nor the plant life.
PROFESSOR: Can you just talk a little bit about that?
Because it's quite different.
It looks quite different in your sketch.
AUDIENCE: OK.
Well, this is the abstract version of the sketch.
Since the spot that I picked is going to be very sunny,
I wanted to take advantage of that.
So I want something that would be clear,
but I also created some shadow, some movement, too.
And in some ways, I'm trying to use this
as a tunnel on this side and maybe up here--
so the curvature of the roof-- so that it traps light in
and it brings it into the space, and it
might bounce off from the top and go down to the studio.
But I just imagine it just growing out of the ground.
I'm just covering it up again.
PROFESSOR: It's a very, very good start.
And then that gives me a license to negligence,
now that I've done that [INAUDIBLE]..
I'm really impressed, also, how quickly
we have understood the quarries and the subtleties
of the observations that you've made.
I think the idea of coexisting with the seagulls is wonderful.
I don't know how to do that and if you can do that.
But I have to tell you a story.
I have a little summer house where I was,
in which two young deer have decided is their house.
AUDIENCE: Oh, boy.
PROFESSOR: And they--
I was there, and they were there.
And they were wondering why I was there because they're
there more than I'm there.
And we became friends over a couple of days, the two fawns.
They're about that size-- dogs.
And you said the word, and I said it, coexist.
I think we could live together.
So the sensitivity towards the seagulls,
which might have more problems than the deer--
I don't know-- in certain ways, is wonderful.
And how you do that, I don't know.
One is very interesting to me, again,
from the observation of the seagull place.
I think you're right.
I think the seagulls know something,
that they know more than you do.
They've been around a while.
I don't know, again, how happy they're
going to be about you moving [INAUDIBLE]..
They'll let you know if they do or not.
But I think it's a very good observation, that this
is a natural kind of place.
[INAUDIBLE]
The translation of that into what you say,
which is the case with all of us in the beginning as architects
and what we do, is different.
And that's our job.
That's what this is all about, to try to get the head down
to the body, out to the hands, and into this,
what it is we need.
And we're not going to get frightened.
And I've been at it for a few years longer than you have.
When you see, when I show you my own work,
that I don't care about it either.
None of us do.
I would like to challenge and question whether, in this case,
the notion of this cover need to be
as organic as what you're suggesting here
because when I see--
when I saw this, there is something already very elegant
about the abstraction of this cover and support.
Do people see that?
It's quite beautiful.
I was sitting over there, looking at it.
And the curved forms in the way that you
have started to address the solvent is quite wonderful--
more wonderful in my mind than what's in your mind,
which is this.
And this is a takeoff.
I mean, this is the beginning.
But where would you correctly translate
the architectural form from this great [INAUDIBLE]??
It's not clear to me.
There could be another form.
As an example, these could be even more sails that
might move around and flutter--
canvas, different materials.
But it's very, very powerful, the form
of this, related to the quality of underneath.
I also think, in this one, it's very exciting
that she has made some changes on it--
added to it.
But we've reinforced the place.
So you are, what I would say, very contextual.
You've taken what's there, followed
the clue of the seagulls, and tried to improve it.
Good start, but you're only halfway there
in terms of the architectural form.
But you're a good halfway there in the sense
that you're relating this to the nature,
to the quarry, and this to the sky.
I think this is horrible.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, I agree.
PROFESSOR: You got a better one.
This looks like a fire escape coming down
the second means of egress, which is not
what our [INAUDIBLE].
This is a little bit better but still could
be a little bit more subtle.
I don't know where I'm talking.
You had me the other day here.
I don't want to be there.
Thank you.
I'd rather be someplace else.
So be careful about suggesting where the classroom is
in terms of the direction of it because professors may not
want to be where you want them to be.
But good start.