Group Name: ARCHITECTURE AT TRCS

Adult Leader/s:

Amy Beecher: Lead educator from the Noguchi Museum. Teaches lessons on a daily basis.
Harumi Ori: Assistant to Amy. Helps with prep time and also offers encouragement and guidance during class activities.
Ramil Buenaventura: Math teacher at Renaissance Charter School. Will lead at least one lesson that incorporates skills that students at all levels will have encountered in their mathematics education. During group discussions can offer perspective from an engineer/mathematician’s point of view. Will also offer encouragement and guidance during group activities.
The Weinmans: Funders and guest experts. The Weinmans will be observing the program everyday, but they will also have an active role in the classroom as experienced architects who can, during group activities, chie in with related anecdotes and insights. Students will be able to learn from the Weinmans how concepts they will encounter in the classroom have played out in larger projects that the Weinmans have completed.

Student Members:

Goals and Objectives:

1) Students will be able to articulate a working definition of architecture (one that is precise and accurate, in their own words, and evolves based on their experiences).
2) Students will understand how Noguchi incorporated architectural design into his larger artistic practice.
3) Students will be able to articulate a critical reaction to spaces that they visit.
4) Students will be empowered to transform their burgeoning interests in architecture into a career path.

Activities:

Day

Highlights / Activities

Blogs/Comments/Notes/Links

Oct 21

Organizing our Workspace in Rm 316

Knowing our Priorities

Homework: Draw your Bedroom Floor Plan

An architect is a person trained and licensed to plan, design, and oversee the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design and construction of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings, that have as their principal purpose human occupancy or use.[1] Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, which derives from the Greek arkhitekton (arkhi-, chief + tekton, builder), i.e., chief builder.[2]
Professionally, an architect’s decisions affect public safety, and thus an architect must undergo specialized training consisting of advanced education and apracticum (or internship) for practical experience to earn a license to practice architecture. Practical, technical, and academic requirements for becoming an architect vary by jurisdiction (see below).
The terms architect and architecture are also used in the disciplines of landscape architecture, naval architecture and often information technology (for example a network architect or software architect). In most jurisdictions, the professional and commercial uses of the terms “architect[3]” and “landscape architect” are legally protected.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architect

WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE?

Architecture is the fun of innovating, and creating new space without limits to the imagination. I personally had a great time learning new concepts and ideas about architecture, but some information seemed redundant due to basic fundamentals. Being creative is a huge part of architecture, and getting points across to others to get the job done is just as imperative.

Oct 22

Group Discussion at the Noguchi Museum

Drawing Top View and a Cross Section of a Pepper

Principles of Architecture

Picture taking of the HS Media Center

The Noguchi Museum

was founded and designed by internationally renowned, Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) for the display of what he considered to be representative examples of his life’s work. Opened in 1985, the Museum is housed in a converted industrial building, connected to a building and interior garden of Noguchi’s design. Located in the vibrant neighborhood of Long Island City, Queens, the Museum is considered in itself to be one of the artist’s greatest works. In building a museum, Noguchi was an early pioneer who led the metamorphosis of the Long Island City area into the arts district it is today, home to cultural institutions such as Socrates Sculpture Park, SculptureCenter, MoMA PS1, and Museum of the Moving Image, among others.

Noguchi designed the Museum complex as an open-air sculpture garden ensconced within a building that houses ten galleries. As a whole, the Museum provides an intimate, reflective space in which to experience Noguchi’s sculpture and design, fulfilling a vision that the artist deemed essential to his life’s work. Visitors enter the two-story, approximately 27,000-square-foot Museum through the celebrated sculpture garden. While the ground-floor galleries and garden contain a permanent presentation of work by the artist, selected from his own collection, since 2004, the Museum regularly presents temporary exhibitions that offer a rich, contextualized view of Noguchi’s work in the upper galleries.

http://www.noguchi.org/

INSIGHTS ABOUT THE NOGUCHI MUSEUM:
The Noguchi Museum had really extra ordinary sculptures and paintings and drawings. I really liked the sculptures that were in the ballet show. I would really like to dance in that tree looking costume.
This project was really fun I learned a lot of new words i never heard of before. The safety project that I was in was really fun I liked taking the pictures and doing the power point. The snacks i liked i wasen’t hungry all the time like during school (daily). Anyway the project was really fun and i got to do something that I have never done before. xD

<3,
Melanie Arias

Noguchi was fun but sometimes the rocks outside was boring. I wish it could be better. Next time I would love it to be more fun, and I wish there would be more trips!

from Batman,khalil

Oct 23

Meaning of Partis

Drawing from a Partis

Drawing a Structure using our Partis

Drawing a 3D model from our 2D drawing

PARTI

A Parti or Parti pris/ from the French Prendre parti meaning ” to make a decision “, often referred to as the big idea , is the chief organizing thought or decision behind an architect’s design presented in the form of a basic diagram and / or a simple statement.

http://www.wespeakarchitecture.com/parti.html

INSPIRATION FROM A PARTI

when drawing my Parti, i had a little trouble at first. It was hard to think of a building that could resemble my object. But in the end i got a pretty good idea, and it all worked out ok.
-Kilala Vincent, 8th Grade

Oct 24

3 WORKING GROUPS

Group 1: SCHOOL SAFETY AND CONCERNS
Jonathan, Khalil, Melanie, Abdl, Ram

Safety and School Concerns Group

Group 2: CONSTRUCTING FROM 2D TO 3D
Kilala, Tara, Steve, Robert, Sajjad, Alice, Amy

2D to 3D Model Group

Group 3: HS MEDIA CENTER MODEL/PROPOSAL
Quashawn, Ella, Jared, Juan, Harumi

HS Media Center Group

CONSTRUCTING FROM 2D TO 3D

This project was really fun and not really that hard. in my 3D model, I made building that was black and had a lot of windows. Also I had to do a lot of coloring.
– Steve C, 7th Grade

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT ON SCHOOL SAFETY
This process was easy for me considering the fact that I was hear for about 4 years now and I’ve literally been everywhere a student can go in this building. Everything we found that is unsafe has been unsafe for a while now and has not been fixed in a long time.
– Jonathan Jones, 10th Grade

DESIGNING THE HS MEDIA CENTER PROJECT

At first I thought redesigning the high school media center was going to be easy, I was wrong. Designing the media center was fun, we redesigned the floors, the ceiling, and the walls and we went crazy. If we were renovating the media center in real life we would probably spend thousands of dollars. Making the model was harder. Everything had to be to scale, we made some paper computers and found out they were bigger than the doors. Making the objects to go in the model was fun, it wasn’t so fun when we started measuring and figured out everything we made was to big. We remade everything, I made a presentation speech at home. As I type Juan is ripping apart my overly large tables…I say this project over all was a wonderful experience and was really fun. I got to know some of my classmates and people in other grades better. This project was very fun and I think I learned a lot.
-Ella Shea, 7th Grade

I made a model of the HS Media Center. We were thinking of making changes like changing locker colors, painting the floors, and making them our school color. The difficult part was moving things around…like Laurie’s desk. We tried to give her an office but there are not much options for this.
The high school students were working well with us. They know the area better than us. It was fun that 7th through 11th graders worked together to finish a project.

-Jared Albines, 7th Grade