Cyber Classes, Good or Bad?

Are classes being held on over the internet better or worse then those that take place in a physical classroom? Are they more convenient? Are they a better learning environment? Are the the future?

I feel that its hard to argue the fact that they are more convenient. People can take these classes wherever they choose, there is no travel or no hassle to it. You simply sit in your favorite chair sit back login and go. But is this a better way of learning. If we are sitting in our houses or apartments with distractions all around us how focused can we be. Now i know that we are a generation of multitaskers and that we can handle many operations and activities at once, but is that suitable for a learning environment. I feel that the more uncomfortable we are in an environment the more we asses and analysis that place and the information given to use there; just so we can focus our attention off the actual dullness of the place. To me typical personal meeting with a professor or professors in the optimum way of learning, second only to being at a place and experiencing it first hand. 

All this being said is this the future? People are growing more and more computer based and more antisocial as a result. This is a ever so evident with second life. People are "to shy" to go out and meet people in the real world. So instead of doing something about it and trying to alter their future, they sit back and accept that they are not social people and the lock themselves up and sit by their lonesome infront of a computer screen. I have a feeling that online class are going to be the wave of the future, but not because of their ease of use but because people are losing their personable skills. As we grow farther and farther apart from human interaction forms of communications are all going to be using this medium.

With my feelings out of this new wave of technology and the "future" to which we will be entrapped i am glad that i am towards the forefront of this revolution. Not to say that i have anything against technology, i fully endorse the pursuit of further knowledge all be it through the computer or whatever; but i am more then fine with falling behind on this fad or cultural phenomenon. 

Emergent Architecture

For those of you who remember i mentioned how last fall i volunteered for the LA Forum, well one of the best lectures of the series was by a man named Tom Wiscombe and his firm Emergent. I would there work to be simple amazing and the methods of deriving the form to be even more amazing. enjoy

Founded in 1999 by Tom Wiscombe, EMERGENT is dedicated to researching issues of structure, tectonics, and materiality through built work. EMERGENT is a platform for experimentation, leveraging techniques and logics from fields outside architecture including biology, complexity science, aerospace engineering, and computation. EMERGENT’s directive is to move beyond categorical thinking in architecture and the stratification of building systems. This involves a re-examination of heirarchies and discreetness of systems toward coherent but differentiated constructions. Ultimately, the results are understood both in terms of performance and spatial and atmospheric effects.

EMERGENT’s approach is informed by contemporary models of biology and systems theory rather than by the arts, toward an architecture based on structural pattern formation and emergent behavior. The work is part of a larger contemporary movement in architecture referred to by Detlef Mertins in 2004 as ‘Bioconstructivism’, where a bias toward material intelligence begins to produce an architecture characterized by its variability and responsiveness to local forces.

The work questions the dialectic of excess and efficiency in architecture, in favor of a more complex understanding of both through biological thinking. The recursive process of random mutation and natural selection in nature provides a model for how a dynamic feedback between excesses and efficiencies can create innovation and elegance. This feedback logic is executed in the office using both generative and analytical algorithms as well as hands-on design techniques.

Key to the work is the phenomenon of emergence which offers insight into the way apparently isolated bodies, particles, or systems exhibit group behavior in coherent, but unexpected, patterns. The animated beauty of emergent organizations, such as in swarms or hives, points to a range of real architectural potentials where components are always linked and always exchanging information, and above all, where architectural wholes exceed the sum of their parts.

Biological thinking has led EMERGENT toward the exploration of new methods of systems integration, construction documentation, and fabrication. Recent co-ventures with international engineering companies, including Buro Happold and DeSimone Consulting Engineers, have begun to reveal new working methods which establish active feedback loops between engineering and design disciplines, ultimately pointing to a redefinition of AEC territories.

www.emergentarchitecture.com

The contagious blog

So I was in the library this afternoon blogging about the topics covered in class today and a couple of my friends were sitting near by watching me express my thoughts. The were intrigued  with the concept of keeping a blog for class; so much so that they decided to create their own blogs so they can document their daily events and happenings.

The Combination Rule

Today the topic was brought up of whether there is such a thing as new at anymore, or is everything just taken in some form or another from past works? Well after hearing this it made me think if a saying that i had heard in relation to the same subject only to the design world.

The Combination Rule

Designing is basically the practice of combining stuff; ideally in ways that haven't been seen before. So the more stuff you know (about everything), the greater the chance you'll find a relevant and distinctive, and therefore effective (and original) combination.

The Plastic Surgery Debate

I don’t support or condone plastic surgery; people can do with their bodies what they please. My take on the whole matter is that its becoming an epidemic in this country; being spurred on by the publicity given to people on reality tv shows and on internet websites. This very clear when you look at the numbers, in 1948 there were 300 board cert. plastic surgeons, today there are over 4000 in the US; and in 2004 there were 12 millions cosmetic surgery operations.

Again I have no real sway to either side, I don’t think that its something that people should have I think that doctors could better use their time helping the sick or victims of accidents crimes or fires but then again people work to make money so they can spend it as the please, and if that’s what makes them happen who am I to say that they should not partake.

A childs mindset

Also at the MFA while in the impressionist room there were tons of kids sitting and sketching their views of the paintings. I walked around and looked at the paintings and then looked at the interpretation that the kids had drawn, and I couldnt help but to wish I were a kid again. I loved the way the kids didnt think to hard about what they were drawing they just did it, the scale didnt have to make sense and the forms were more expressionistic then representational. I often wish that I to could just get into the mindset of a kid.

I once heard a story of a lady sitting on a bench with her dog lying on the ground infront of her. A kid walked by, stopped and asked her if it was dead.

Kids don’t have anything in their brains that stop them from saying or doing anything that want. 

Dormition of the virgin

I chose to write about the Dormition of the virgin, by an unknown Bohemian artist because it clearly demonstrates the evolution of perspective. It was painted around 1350-1360, which puts it towards the beginnings of the renaissance. If you examine the painting you can still the two dimensionality of the medieval painters in the people; while seeing the new advancements of perspective and the figure ground.

Being on the cutting edge of anything you take from what you have and you push the boundaries. The artist tries this with his representation of people. They are still as a whole two dimensionally drawn, but they all have hints of shape to the face. Also a major advancement is that people are become expressionistic.

The perspective/axonometric is the part that draws me in the most. If you look at the ceiling you can clearly tell that the artist is trying to give depth and a three dimensionality to the space. Looking closely at the painting it seems almost axonometric rather than perspective, which to me shows the evolution of the though. They knew that object were moving away from the viewer but they didn’t know how to show that in a diminishing fashion, so what they did was they took the forward measurement and then replicated that at the rear of the painting.

I personally like this painting a lot due to the fact that this is a freeze frame in time. Commonly people look at either medieval or high renaissance paintings and they do not take the time and look at the missing links between the two; which are the ones that I like the most. The in between paintings show the artists who are pushing the limits if what is possible at the time, and this process and evolution is what I like. 

Lets play a game

I was online earlier and i came across a little game and i thought that it would be interesting and could tie into discussion of what Mary was reading while writing Frankenstein. The game goes like this:

1. Pick up a book that you are reading (not Frankenstein)

2. Open the book to page 123

3. Find the fifth sentence

4. Post the next three sentences