Prompt for Post Essay

INSTRUCTIONS
After P2 and Before P3 spend some time thinking and writing. 

THERE will be two posts. These posts are not to be research papers. They should be intelligent speculations with a propositional nature. They may include musings, rhetorical questions and puzzlements. You must engage/interview a classmate (or more than one) about your inquiry, this encourages lively thought and collegiality. To do this, formulate a short list of questions (secondary prompts!). Quote your fellow student in your post.
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ARTICLE

Points+Lines_Diagrams_and_Projects_for_the_CityUsing this article from the Dropbox Library of Excerpts, "Allen_S_Points+Lines_Diagrams_and_Projects_for_the_City_excerpts.pdf", as a frame, think about architecture's role in the city. The excerpt is about the work of Stan Allen but the essays that introduce and accompany the sets of projects (written by K. Michael Hays) are more broad and engage you in thinking about what affect if any, and at what scales, architecture can have in today's city.
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The intro concerns the genesis of Allen's work and includes discussion of speculative work done using the maps of Rome we have studied and seen (pages 5, 6, 7; Nolli, Piranesi, etc). I must say that I did not understand these drawings fully until visiting Rome and experiencing the layers and the section. When we visited the Parca de Musica and the guide referred to the uncovering of ruins as a nuisance of sorts, I understood them in another way. The palimpsest of urban conditions is a
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The individual projects that I have excerpted are valuable to survey because they deal with cities that we have visited or issues that we contend with in the projects, generally; CONTEXT, AFFECT, USE and PROGRAM, FORM, DETAIL, SCALE, PERFORMANCE, MATERIAL, TIME and PROCESS, and importantly LIMITATION.
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It is not my intention to cause you to react exclusively to this material in the project ahead of you, but instead to provoke an underlying consciousness in the class as a basis for common discussion. This discussion bridges Studio, Sketching and Methods and Materials classes.

PROMPT

Architecture; the value of the physical and the virtualThe article introducing Points+Lines is at times dated. It worries about how architects will respond to information and media in the urban landscape. Ho-hum. You are well past worrying about this. It has been part of your condition for as long as you have memories. The invisible flows of information are just a fact of existence. However, being in Italy, specifically, and Europe generally, may have provided you with a context for thinking differently about architecture's position in the formation of cities. Choose one of the projects we visited in Rome, Barcelona, or on your individual travels as a site to speculate/reflect on the position(s) the architecture puts forth in relationship to those offered by K Michael Hayes in the essay quote below. He is so kind as to list a few! Identify the "tangible presence" and "virtual field" present in the project you choose.

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"The capacity to actualize the virtual is a fundamental and even traditional aspect of architecture. From the manipulation of light and space in the work of Francesco Borromini or Guarino Guarini, to the fugitive tectonic effects of Mies van der Rohe, to the extensive spatial elaborations of Hans Scharoun, architecture's tangible presence is always informed by a corresponding virtual field. Shifting relations of program, information, and use further extend architecture's engagement with the invisible flows of the city. Architecture is already marked by complex relations of real to virtual. Only by creatively examining the role of the architect in these changing urban economies can architecture evolve the means to reengage the world. 

      - KM Hayes. Intro to Stan Allen Points and Lines. Pages 15 and 16

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In your post begin with an introductory paragraph that includes denotative information about the project you have chosen (descriptive, straight up, but poetic) and finishes with a thesis sentence. Follow this with a paragraph each about your choice three of the following topics to focus and particularize your post: CONTEXT, AFFECT, USE and PROGRAM, FORM, DETAIL, SCALE, PERFORMANCE, MATERIAL, TIME and PROCESS, and LIMITATION. Include images/sketches as appropriate (with captions). Remember to interview.

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FINALLY, please do not be intimidated or frozen. Be wild in thought and write freely. This is more of a journal entry than a theory paper! This is due Monday. Pax to you.

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