Introductory Design Studio

First there is outside, so then there is exteriority. Outside comes first because we come first to architecture from outside: outside of buildings and outside of their disciplinarity. Coming to architecture school is to move from an initially commonplace understanding of buildings to a more complex body of knowledge (and practice) defined as a discipline. With this move comes a sense of passing from outside to inside. But before this happens too quickly we should pause on the outside, problematized as exteriority and studied for its potential role in a larger field of architectural problems.

It is important in a discipline to establish key terms and at first it is helpful just to name them, some of them, to get a sense of the basic sound of things before rushing to definitions (especially fixed definitions.) In a sense, the series of studios taught in an architecture school are a series of conversations about problems in architecture, where both the conversations and the problems increase in complexity over time. Our shared language is the basis for these conversations. This could be diagrammed as a branching system that begins in one place but soon ramifies toward many, as problems beget problems and conversations develop accordingly. How we begin together here to define our key terms is important, if only so that by the end, wherever your interests have led you’re still connected through shared language to our larger community and discipline.