099 - Education, Resiliency, and the Profession!

Kurt: 0:20

Hey Jamie, how's it going?

Jamie: 0:22

Good. How are you doing Kurt? amped,

Kurt: 0:25

if you

Jamie: 0:25

can't tell. Yeah. It's all the shaking. Yeah.

Kurt: 0:34

I've never owned, never owned a bobblehead. I've always wanted one, like,

Jamie: 0:39

sports like a 3d version of yourself, like bobblehead.

Kurt: 0:45

That would be cool. Actually. That'd be cool. I dunno if we're famous enough for that sort of thing yet. I think I'm a more ant because of the, numerous cups of coffee.

Jamie: 0:58

Exactly what is in the cup, which just get straight to

Kurt: 1:03

it. Let's go

Jamie: 1:06

to the chase.

Kurt: 1:08

I'm racking. My, my Joel Joel mug, which we got to have that guy back, he's been producing some very nice sketches in color. Where does he find the time? Well, anyway, we'll find out because we'll have to have him back and ask him that question. No words actually have been, on sort of inspired by Jamie as far as his, what's it, what's the word, a sweet tooth for Starbucks roasts. And so I've, I've. So mixed it up a little bit. So I went and got the Yukon roast. I don't know what they call it. It's called Yukon bear on the, on the outside Pacific Northwest flavors. It's so that's what I'm drinking. It's not bad. I like it. It's it's probably strong.

Jamie: 2:11

It seems like. Well, how

Kurt: 2:14

it was very difficult, this last purchase, because it was sitting right next to the Guatemalan being and it had the big kid cell on the front and I was like, oh, I got to buy my Guatemalan beeps

Jamie: 2:27

when mom's coming to visit.

Kurt: 2:28

Yeah. Well, that's a good point. I should go back.

Jamie: 2:35

Jamie. Jamie helps with the

Kurt: 2:37

that's. All right. I'm running low. Anyway. So

Jamie: 2:42

vacation travelers.

Kurt: 2:43

Yeah. So fam fam was coming into town. my brother, his wife, two kids, and my mom all at once in Michigan, although they started out their trip, Charlie and the wife and kids are when. To see mom, then they went to Charlie's 20 year college reunion in Pennsylvania, which they're leaving today to go back east and then they will be flying here to Michigan and then back to California. So yeah, it's a two-week or a wind with a five and a three. And, in a mom, I won't disclose my mother's age.

Jamie: 3:32

Grandma,

Kurt: 3:33

grandma,

Jamie: 3:35

grandma.

Kurt: 3:37

Okay. Well, yeah, abuela.

Jamie: 3:41

I didn't know like what, what she prefers to be called, so, oh,

Kurt: 3:45

probably, probably I will lead to okay. in Espanol port for, for. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we'll have to,

Jamie: 3:56

my mom is a nanny, so namely, she goes by nanny. So that's a

Kurt: 4:01

nice one. Yeah. it is actually, it's kind of fun to, to know different. There, there are a lot of, grandma nicknames, like Danielle's grandmas green or grin. Sometimes they color green, which is kind of. Endearing. I dunno. It's like you have to be there kind of thing. You have to know the person, I suppose. So anyway, I'm sure our listeners, hopefully they can all, what, we should engage with them and ask our listeners what they call their grandmother.

Jamie: 4:35

Especially since we do have some listeners who are like in different parts of the world, too. It's always, I mean like mine, I mean, mine is definitely it's. My mom's mom was nanny, so, and it's I learned that it's sort of a very Irish kind of thing. So, that's, that's where that comes from. But,

Kurt: 4:59

and then, so I'll put this out there since we don't do a whole lot of this, like, Hey, reach back out to us. Fans, listen to. Oh, I'll call them listeners. I don't know if I want to call them fans. I don't want to presume

5:13

that

Jamie: 5:14

no presumption, we're not, we're not presumptive or,

Kurt: 5:18

but I probably the best way to react to it.

Jamie: 5:21

especially after our discussion, like totally caffeinated before we even started this

Kurt: 5:26

that's right. That's right, right, right, right. That's exactly how humility is the name of the game. So, but the best way to probably respond would be on. I'm going to say my social media game is, is somewhat subpar and then Jamie's is better, best, better, way better than mine. And so if you shoot that message to, to coffee sketch on Twitter, Jamie will respond quickly. Kurt will maybe respond

Jamie: 6:00

slowly picking up. yeah, there are moments where like, there's a flurry. I know. Right. You hit a couple of topics and Kurt is right there, like right

Kurt: 6:16

on point. Yeah. So what, what about you? What are you, what are you drinking? Well, what's amp and Jamie,

Jamie: 6:25

I don't know. I mean, it's like. I, it was funny. You, you, you definitely know me. so I, I saw this sort of limited edition Starbucks thing while I was getting some groceries and

Kurt: 6:39

could not resist

Jamie: 6:41

this. Cause it was like, I was like, ah, that one's new. and it sounded different. and I knew I needed to get some coffee. but it's, it's. It's like a Madagascar vanilla and honey Starbucks never seen it before. and it's, it is, I mean, when you said sweet tooth, it's like, it's so funny. I mean, cause it really is, it, it has a, it's a medium roast, but it has a real sort of sweet flavor to it. so, but not like in a. now, like I like a milk chocolate. He kind of, sweetness it's you can still take, you can still get the coffee roast through, it's, it's, it's, it's more of the honey, I think that's sort of coming through. but I, the vanilla is real subtle. so I like it. Right. Definitely has got the caffeine.

Kurt: 7:26

Sorry. Let's just see if I can find some of that gets the caffeine, not, not to, not to, forget about our local friends at rootless here in Flint. they, the, the roaster, the install of the roaster is now done. It should be done by now. We had had a little,

Jamie: 7:44

do you get to like, Like,

Kurt: 7:47

I don't know if they have buttons, but I, you mean as far as like the first fire up, like,

Jamie: 7:54

Hey, I mean, like, dude, you haven't cast, you help them get the roaster.

8:00

I

Kurt: 8:00

thought, I, yeah, the lengthy permit, it was actually kind of a,

Jamie: 8:07

the non pretentious part of design. Can I push the button.

Kurt: 8:13

I'm just happy that it's complete and give a shout out to Sean Murray from rootless who just got married a week or two ago, I think. Yeah, I think he's on his honeymoon now. Celebrating, not roasting coffee. So yeah, hopefully he lists. And I'll have to remind him, Hey, once you listen to 99. Absolutely. If you only listen to one, so yeah, that was a, it's nice to, to see something small, small task it's. So the, the, the, the excitement was there. I bumped into him before his wedding, and he said that, the thing that the machine, the new machine is Wayfair. So they can, so what we're expecting is more rootless coffee to people

Jamie: 9:10

who wants it.

Kurt: 9:12

That's the big, that's the big reason there. And, yeah, it was very cool. So any who how's the, so we are, this is 99 episode 19. We are almost there.

Jamie: 9:31

We will make no homages to Kurtz fanboy podcasting.

Kurt: 9:39

It didn't even cross my mind.

Jamie: 9:41

Holy cross,

Kurt: 9:45

99% invisible. They have way more than 99 episodes, but you got to start somewhere. Headstone calls. Is that how you use Hester? Yeah, so, well, anyway, so for today, though, we were going to talk about, which is going to be fun, I think is, is, is a little bit of a recap is, Jamie graciously joined my studios, final review and also got to join a friend of ours. Actually, we should. For those that are listening, but we'll talk about it more, but Ilia, as they're off F AIA is a teacher, also a faculty at city college, New York, right. And, and also running for director at large at AIA national. So we should, endorse a friend, a colleague, and a. And, so yeah, so that's my, that's my bringing endorsement, a talented man, smart man, passionate about resiliency, which I think you're going to talk about as far as the

Jamie: 10:56

studio and somebody who is almost on like an early version of the podcast.

Kurt: 11:03

we had some technical difficulty.

Jamie: 11:06

Yeah. He was sort of on the cutting room floor of that episode. but. Yeah. If you go back to when Kurt and I did our first foray into

Kurt: 11:16

a coffee, coffee's catching the wild,

Jamie: 11:18

at the Manila drawing Institute in Houston. Ilia was actually with us for that, that sort of tour. And that was sort of a fun, fun day. a barbecue and a man and architect architecture and in Houston, and coffee sketch podcasting in the wild. Yes,

Kurt: 11:35

it was good. And, maybe I'll have to go back to the archives and see if I can resurrect some bits and pieces. And, and an outtake, something we can, something we can cobbled in using technology. Right,

Jamie: 11:52

right, right. Yeah. And in Kurt spare time.

Kurt: 11:56

Yeah. Well, yeah. Working and teaching have so, so anyway, so that's why it was, maybe we're a little, a little past the, the day of presentations, but, but it was fun. We got Jamie. So we all start with. My class. Right. So real quick we could talk about, the class that I worked on, which is called comprehensive design at Lawrence tech and the, the format was, for, well, so Jamie joined the graduate section. So we run this class for undergraduates and graduates in two different tracks. but the format is basically the same. As far as the project and the deliverables that we're trying to get them to pursue, sort of, so it's comprehensive. So we're trying to ask them not only for the architectural, but mechanical and systems and understanding how to integrate these things together. A little bit of energy modeling and, hopefully that doesn't mean that it was, was a poorly done. Right. A little hiccup,

Jamie: 13:06

but can we please take up scrapping the student's work? Yeah.

Kurt: 13:12

So, so I'm here though. Let's see. Let me share a screen. And, let me hope I have the right window open. I do,

Jamie: 13:20

as you're pulling that up. I was just going to say, thank you again for the opportunity to do it. it's, I haven't taught in a little while, but have taught in the past and, and then have, have been, had the opportunity to sit in on reviews. At university of Texas here in Austin, several times for several years. but haven't done it in a little while. And so this was, a welcome opportunity to do that.

Kurt: 13:41

Oop, Oop, Oop, I, just put an arrow next to Jamie. It's tiny. I'll put another arrow next to Kirk. And then I will, sorry if you're watching this on YouTube. Then you'll see our little arrows of people to, to not forget the shout out, but yeah, you're welcome. And thanks for joining. and so w being so at Lawrence tech, actually, just so everyone knows that the graduate architecture program is, is it can be, taken completely online. So I think it's, I think it's easily the first of its kind. And still one of the few that actually exists for an architecture program. And so being online. We have students kind of from all over the place, sometimes internationally as well. And so coordinating calendars and schedules can be a little challenging, but, so, so we took advantage of this online nature and had, the presentations, be a zoom in, and now that everybody is a hundred percent zoom experts, I, I invited you. to come join the Crips. And, also Kevin down here in the corner from the ARCA marathon, YouTube channel and RQ marathon website and discord, and, Named Archy marathon is Kevin and he's from, Australia. And so that was a lot of fun. It was morning. It was actually the future for him. So it was the morning after the evening for us, over here, stateside. So anyway, so this, yeah, this is the little screen of, of sort of the group. we kind of broke it out. Let me, let me get out to, Actually we'll jump into Jamie's sketch because it was more I think it's right here. Oh, no, I'm having a technical difficulty down, down, down, down here.

Jamie: 15:40

So yeah, so,

Kurt: 15:42

so the, the project, there was two projects. Although in my section we only focused on one, which was a urban vertical. Project which so the students had to take a site in Detroit and, the Eastern market area of Detroit, which is. A very rich and vibrant neighborhood and sort of home to the Eastern market, which is kind of a, that's a farmer's market. It's a bizarre, it's kind of, it's got a lot of roots in the city, as far as being a sort of open air, public space to sell things primarily, like a farmer's market style. And so the vertical vertical farm program was kind of built to. support the Eastern market adjacent to the site. And then, think in a more sort of forward-thinking sustainability, maybe net zero fashion to try. Create a little more onsite, energy production, also, food and sort of closed loop regenerative food production too. So that was kind of the, the, the big ask, right. There was definitely a big program of a complex program with systems. Parking, community benefits thing, social aspects. And so the students had some like, sort of ups and downs throughout the semester being online as well, trying to like, wrestle with the program and meet, each other and with the faculty online. and so, so anyway, that was, that's kind of the background. And so Jamie got to, well sit in for six students. For the, the session and, an x-ray, which, which was. Serendipity. I think this was not a planned thing at all, but, it just so happened. And this is why we're talking about it. Is that Jamie, was it, being on zoom, Jamie was able to make some sketches and use them in critique with not more than one? Or was it just one, one or two of the students as we were trying to like draw out the, The concept from the S to maybe help the student push it, maybe just a bit farther. So what about, so how, what are your thoughts then? Jamie, on the, for me,

Jamie: 18:05

no, I, I, I think it, it was, I liked the idea of the program and thinking about, a place like Detroit and, which has a rich built history. But then also, has some really interesting sustainability. Efforts and then challenges. and I think that the, the program, as you, as you like aptly described it, it was, it's a challenging one that probably had multiple points for the students to engage it. both from a, a pure design and program and architecture, historical precedent site context, But at the same time sort of systems, systems of the building, and trying to understand those in relationship to their own work. but then also trying to make a foray into sort of closing the loop and thinking about how we're designing buildings, for the future where. There is some regenerative process. And then I think the part that sort of, I loved about the project was this sort of idea of bringing the social aspect of food and people and community and place, into the project. And, and I think that that's, that ended up being really the, the spot where you could see, the students who really rose to the occasion. and really challenged themselves. because I think the other parts are a little bit nuts and bolts, and, and you can. certainly, and I say nuts and bolts as if it's something that's easy. And I don't mean that at all. but nuts and bolts words, it's things that are familiar. I think that, there's those aspects of design through a studio education are things that you've encountered before. it's a new project, which is always new challenges, but I think layering on top of it, this idea of resilience related to community and. Like to the actual potential occupants, I think is something that we need to be, all of us as designers and people just in general need to be thinking about. and I, and so I liked that aspect and really enjoyed the conversations with the students, where they were posing questions about what this building. Which I feel like to the community and how it would work and how one would kind of occupy it. and, and how their designs and the architecture influenced that and where their challenges were. I think the, again, the students who were, taking it to a whole nother level for themselves really looked at those aspects of community and. Really tried to figure out how do I engage it and, and, and how, and the questions that they sort of posed in that I think were the, were the spots that, seemed to be most exciting. I mean, and, and, and the ones who were, th the, the images that we have on the screen, one of the sketches, the S the, it was clear, the student was really. Interested in this sort of community aspect of things. And they were really trying to understand how their building fit into the context of place. And I think there, they were struggling, honestly, with how do you put a building on this particular site connected to the community and the context and the precedent. there's other markets sort of in market type buildings in the area. And, and then make it at the same time at closed loop building. And I think that that sort of, that process of turning it into a closed loop, it was almost like a short circuit for them. and, and, and, and there were, so there were aspects of the architecture that, they started to explore. And, and so we were having this very interesting discussion about, the building as an object, as a closed loop system. And, and then the, in their particular design, the disconnect to the community and, and that, that was a missed opportunity. and so there was, there were some aspects of that that were, were particularly interesting, and, and they weren't, upset about it. It was like, you could see that that was where they were. they were really struggling with those kinds of competing ideas or perceived competing ideas for themselves as a designer, which, that's part of the process. So, as much as it's a critique, it's also a conversation. And I think that that was, that was, a lot of fun. And then the fact that, that Kevin was there as well. I think that, his. was, was fantastic. And it, it helped me, really kind of think through a lot of, the precedents that he was trying to allude to for the students. there was a, an interesting, good discussion of sort of Richard Rogers and, and, the S the Pompidou center and, not on one of the projects. And, and there were some other kind of aspects of that, that I, were, were, wonderfully challenging, for me to kind of think, okay, historically, this is, these are good precedent studies, what are some other ones that have happened? And, and his perspective as a practitioner in, in author and educator, and, and, and whatnot in, in Australia, I think was, was.

Kurt: 23:25

Yeah, it was, sort of giddy in getting both of you into the same room at the same time or the same zoom room, because it was interesting to see do the two of you kind of riff a little bit off of each other. we even got Kevin sketching and shared screen sharing, to, to sort of, both of you were both kind of right on the same page in the. The conversation with some of the students in trying to like, and, and I I'd like to commend both of you and thank you for being able to sort of with very, very brief introduction to the project, like get into the idea and, and also like less, maybe less for Kevin, but, I think you've been to, you've been to Detroit, briefly and, So, trying to quickly sort of wrap your heads around, like the locality, the familiarity of place in interconnection, but yeah, so it was very helpful and, and I think, yeah, the conversations, I hope. we'll, we'll help develop the students to think it's, it's tough, right. To trying to, in this, this particular course to trying to do all of it in 16 weeks, as far as architectural. Site analysis, energy, some concepts on energy modeling and calculations, then structures and enclosure and envelope, and then at the end of the semester, they get 10 minutes to present it all and then have, 10 or 10 or 15 minutes of, feedback. And that's then that's like the, the capstone of, of the semester. But, Yeah, there was one. yeah, the, the, you, you pointed out the one aspect, which is interesting, is that being a, because of the program is that the building was very much like a machine, it was this production center of sort of keeping, growing food, composting food, extracting energy from the food through a biodigester. capturing rainwater, capturing solar, also having a restaurant onsite, community, community educational spaces and sort of walk. So turning the building into sort of some of, sometimes a machine, sometimes, an educational facility for. talk about the functions that are going on inside the building. And, and then, so, and then having to sort of address that ground plane, cause it was multistory high, high, high density sort of, square footage I think was like a hundred. Yeah.

Jamie: 26:11

And I think that that was, that was some of the more interesting discussions we had on, on more than one project. Some of which a sketch tier two is this idea of that engagement at the street. And, like I said, with the one student who was, sort of. Challenge with the idea of this building as an object and a machine that was sort of, a self-referential sort of closed loop system, with energy and technology and whatnot. it, it, it almost became fortresslike and, and I don't think that that was their intention and they, and they were sort of struggling with that. and then others were, really had some opportunities to really engage with. Really interestingly and we're conscious of how. Certain corners and certain facades of their building were sort of natural axes to other aspects of the community and, and creating, design opportunities at the ground plane where you're playing with scale and you're playing with cover, and you're allowing some transparency to see sort of that activity, even if you're not engaging with the bill. All those things were, were really kind of rich discussions. and what was, what was interesting to me. And I think, Kevin pointed it out initially. and then, as you said, I'm sort of piggybacking off of it a little bit, but this idea of, you, you come up with one or two really strong design moves, sort of, one or two really strong approaches to your project. and. In doing that, you sort of set up a grid and set up a system for your building, both structurally, but also sort of systematically, how the building's going, gonna work. both with people in it, but also sort of systems in it. And the projects that were most successful were the ones that. Found that opportunity to kind of set up an order as an organizing system, both structurally as well as systematically and, and then developed their concept, from that. But didn't, didn't try and reinvent it all the way through. they sort of settled on and I settled on, the grid, for instance, like on the, on, I think that was how Kevin initially brought it up. Was this idea. it, it was someone was working through, kind of a heavy timber building. And Kevin kind of pointed out this kind of concept of well, heavy timber it's the structure is, and there's an expression of that structure that you want to see. And from the exterior, there were some expressions of that structure, but then when you got to the interior, there was a lot of. In sort of the iterative process of that person's design, where they were covering up that structure and not really realizing that the opportunity when you got to the inside to design and section was exploring and expressing that structure. And what does that structure kind of give you to influence the design moves, moving through? And, and so that was, it was sort of, I made the comment at one rendered hallway that you have right there, where you have these observation rooms to, different processes of the building. It's great that you're thinking about the processes of the building, but you're missing the opportunity in that hallway to have the right scale, to express that. And, and that, that structure is really evident in that space and that it's in, there's a uniformity of the structure that, that repetition of elements is actually kind of a nice design move. and so that, that was, it was, it was great to have a, a code juror who was thinking along. Similar lines or was having a similar impression, which I think speaks to the strength of some of the projects, when jurors sort of respond to things in a way where we're, we're really kind of on the same page and we're talking about the same things it's because the project's strong. so I think overall, I mean, most of the projects Kurt were really strong. I think it was, it was a really good, a really great discussion, really great conversation. What did he sketched, with me. and I was a lot of

Kurt: 30:27

fun. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a benefit it's as far as, people may think, oh, having to run a whole curriculum online, but being, if you can turn the camera so to speak or the lens, right. And use the zoom to your advantage and being able to, screen-share sketches or, throw a sketch on your camera or, use the screen, but you have no things for, for that compliment. I mean, we still, on the faculty side, we're kind of constantly tinkering with the comp design class and take, taking all this stuff to try and continue to improve it. And, always with the back of our mind intention, Do the NAB accreditation, which is the national association of architecture board. I, I I'm probably butchering the acronym, but it's basically accrediting boards, right? Yes. it's it's our. What gives architecture schools, the accreditation to produce future architects approval, so to speak. So, comp design is definitely one that this under that microscope. And actually it might be good tend to segue to, to the billionaire class because. I, I had a thought and it'll come back to me. I know when we share,

Jamie: 31:54

let me share

Kurt: 31:57

a screenshot from, from that session and I'll have more questions cause I was not able to attend. let's see, which one do I want to use? Let me start with, I'll start with this. And I'm going to switch to a. Different view because it's a little less grainy, but hold on a sec here,

Jamie: 32:21

C start with this.

Kurt: 32:24

Okay. So for you and for our YouTube viewers, hopefully could see this and we'll switch away from this being a little grainy, but so this the for Ilias class. It sounds like it based on your, your hashtags and, sort of, what I saw online is that, Billy is a big proponent for resilient, resiliency, resilient design strategies. I mean, he does it in practice for people around the world. And so he's pushing this agenda in the studio. It sounds like. And, it looks like they. Focused on, a site area in the Bronx. And so let me, actually, since this is a little grainy, I'll switch to this one, which was a view that Ilya posted. and it looks like it was one of his students. Hopefully I don't know if he sat in on this one. so yeah, once you give, give us the recap and then we'll, To kind of see if there was I'll come back to the thought I had before.

Jamie: 33:24

Yeah, no, it's I think that, yeah, so after, after Kurt's review, I, I ended up, a couple of days later, had the opportunity to, to sit in on, an evening review, In, in New York city. so, of course also via zoom, but yeah, Ilya invited me and it was great. wonderful opportunity. Again, there were several other jurors, from, from different different spots, mostly kind of in the New York, kind of east coast area. But I think that the, the intriguing part, aside from just the opportunity to hang out with Leo and, and, meet some of his students, was, I was very interested, because. Having just done yours where sort of resilience and this sort of closed loop sort of systems, approach, was really evident in your students' work. I was kind of curious to see how another studio across the country was kind of tackling, similar. and so the projects there were Saturday in, the students were broken into, smaller teams, smaller groups, where they were analyzing. So there was a lot of site analysis. and then trying to analyze those particular sites with resiliency goals in mind. I think the difference between, the way that your studio was organized was. Eylea kind of, front-loaded a lot of, resilience and systems education, related to sort of design moves and case studies and precedents and sort of more cutting edge sort of analysis tools, where the. Probably one of the primary objectives was sort of looking at site responses and, challenging sites within sort of the, the New York Manhattan, Bronx, the boroughs kind of area. So there was a couple of different challenging sites. The students were broken up into where each of these groups was analyzing those particular sites. and. At program developed out of that for each of the sites. so there wasn't necessarily, programming that was across the board, where, your project had a really, really rich program. This one, the programs were a little bit less rich, but the site analysis was, and the efforts in network were kind of a little bit differently. So do different, different project

Kurt: 35:45

model, sorry to w what year or what year or grade class, whatever you want to call,

Jamie: 35:54

same, same level. so yeah, so, senior, senior level. Oh,

Kurt: 35:59

cool. And, and, I liked the idea of the emergent. Program like the program emerging from the result of the site analysis. I think that that's speaks to a lot of resilient strategists, right? Cause like, I mean, there's the global or the big picture, right. Is like, do you plunk, plunk down a building anywhere that zoning allows because you can, or, or do you, does the, does this, from an environmental or energy. Standpoint, does the site dictate, not dictate? What's the word inform, what, what should be there, right? It's not, it's not, I want to put this there, but like, no, this is what needs to happen

Jamie: 36:45

here. Yeah. And I think that ended up being a little bit of a challenge for some of the students, because it was, there was no constraint. There wasn't as much of a constraint in terms of, sort of who's developing. he really didn't have a client who was, written into the program. and so they're sort of developing their own clients in a sense. And, and though some of them were really adept at it, and took the analysis of, okay, how much, what can the floor area ratio be in this, this area? And, for this particular site and whatever the adjacencies and, and how, what's the, the resilient response to, there were a lot of these sites also had a, a water component. you're, you're working in New York city, you're on, you're in a coastal environment. the, sea level rise is a real thing. and so there was some aspects of that. Influenced the designs and part of that sort of future programming where you're sort of thinking through, how would this building evolve over time? so some students were much more adept at that and kind of, took a moment to really kind of think through, how the influence of some of those kind of client decisions, affected their own design. So they kind of. Could it be instilled some rules upon themselves, which I think which was a good move. but the, the, the sea level rise aspect of it for the projects was I think, there was two different sites that I looked at. and one was, one that was really on the water. And then the other one had, the one in the, in the Bronx was, Also, a waterfront site, but it was a little bit more of a, a linear site or you could set the building back and, and have it, not necessarily as effected. and so there was, there was, between the two different groups that, that I ended up reviewing. kind of different, different thing, different challenges, students who are dealing with, the, the Bronx site, there was a, an excellent discussion about sort of context of the street. And, interestingly, a lot of the students, were, in, in that particular one, we're trying to understand the neighborhood that they were working in and, and. I guess unlike your, your students, really went to that neighborhood, and really spent a lot of time there. and, and that I think really informed their projects in, in, in terms of how they developed their program. so that w that was really, I thought really. and, really rich discussions that kind of came out of that, but then each student developed their own project. So they worked as a team to do the, the, the analysis part, but then each one, took a project from start to finish and then presented it, that way for the, for the, for the reviewers.

Kurt: 39:37

Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, the, the art comp design similar in that, the beginning of the semester, they do some group work for site and precedents and, they kind of break it up, some do code analysis program, kind of all that stuff, and then move on into their individual. So that sounds, that sounds like a similarity. and then, The, the one, the one thing that is a difference is that, like you said, it's being in our, in our case, the online program, they can't, unless they're in Michigan taking this, this course can't necessarily visit the site or maybe not everybody. Right. Some, some may, some may not. So they have to rely on, the information we give them and whatever they can gather from other sources. So, yeah, and I think. Understanding site by being there is definitely one aspect of any design project in school or in, in the real world that really helps to inform the result. And so it's, but there's, it's it can't, it can't always provide. In, in, in the school setting for us at least. But, when they get out, into practice, they can, they can engage in that component of it.

Jamie: 41:01

Yeah. The other thing too, that was in that was a little different, yours, you had, You did have an engineer, kind of, in a review that with, with, with Kevin and I, and, and she was, she was great. in terms of talking through some, some systems processes, but for Ilias, I got the, the opportunity to review with a landscape architect. and she was fantastic because she was very familiar with the site. and not necessarily where, she had been reviewing the student's work before, but she, she was very familiar with those areas of, of, of New York and, and, and the coastal response and the coastal challenges of, of dealing and on some of those sites. and so she had some really fantastic, Probing questions for the students. and then, told them, where they were, being really particularly inventive, or, or if they were just, flat out, just, not making the right consideration. and, and it was, and I think that, that was the thing, there, each of the sites were. effectively like brownfield sites. So they were, locations that, would probably have a lot of cleanup and things like that. kind of underutilized, parcels, but were ones that, across the board, all the students who are really trying to challenge themselves to, find a site response that, Linked it to the programs that they came up with so that there was sort of a living building kind of component. And that's like the have there on the screen. but, but also that there was an opportunity for the community to engage the site, even if they weren't necessarily engaging with the program of the building so that the site became a bit of an amenity for the community. and I think that. They're the students who really thought through their program development, and, and had a, a strong kind of ethic to, how that got developed. those were certainly more successful. and, and those. Struggled, with, kind of how, how do I understand this community that's gonna, that's adjacent to my site or that would use this building. you could see that their site response was a little bit more formulaic,

Kurt: 43:18

which is interesting actually as a sort of a segue back to our class. Some of the conversation that came up between you and Kevin in, in that sort of, there was more than once the idea of like, how the building engages that street scape. But I think the, the angle here, like from a resiliency standpoint, yeah. most, most coastal flood prone areas. This response is going to have to be a sort of sacrificial ground floor, which then lifts, lifts the building up above that. Existing sidewalk level or a C the bulk of the inhabitable space, interior space of the building. So in vacating the ground floor a little bit to being the more public open space, that, that could also flood. But then in, in our case, I suppose if the students said that they were attempting to resist. future proposal, they might've gotten away, but then it creates an interesting void almost of a public presence to the building because it's not necessarily touching the ground. So that's what happened in, in our review, in, in, in the Detroit project was certain students like didn't know how to, connect it then. And again,

Jamie: 44:48

architect's comments, we're, we're really poignant. because there was these sort of opportunities, where there was one in particular where she was, asking the student like, okay, you have this site plan. so I'm in a taxi and, and I, I get out of the taxi. Or my Uber and I'm at the, I'm at the edge of your site. where do I go next? And sort of this, like, walk me literally like walk me through your site. And so, like, it was, that, that sort of really kind of trying to occupy this space and like you say, this in some cases, sacrificial, ground plane, or. were there opportunities for, berms and, retention features that, really dealt with this concept of, water and flooding and sea level rise. And, and then, and how do you design that into an overall site response? It was, it was really interesting. So I learned, I learned a lot as well.

Kurt: 45:53

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. It was also like you've mentioned. Thanks for reminding me there. We had an engineer and I, and the fun, the, and it was a late, she was a late addition to our group. And luckily we got her, she, her, the, there was one big precedent, vertical farm project that we looked at that it was an actual did. It did actually get built and she was the engineer or one of the team. That did the engineering work on that vertical farm, which I, I can't remember where it was, but so it was nice to have her perspective from the technical standpoint. And, yeah. So I think, cause I could keep going. There's a whole lot. We might have, we might have to do this, do something again. Talk about the studio aspects. Hopefully I, in the fall, I will, I've been assigned to a studio that is, is going to go start to finish as group project, which will be a first for me, So they start, they break into groups and then they will develop an entire project. and this is, this fall studio will be, is the precursor to the comp design spring. So these students will be the fall and then they move into comp in the spring. so I will most likely have, engagement with them for the whole school year. so hopefully we can do something virtually where we can get you in again. And maybe we can get Ilya if he's not too busy.

Jamie: 47:32

Yeah, no, that's a, now that, I think that would be great. I'd love to love to come back and thanks for bringing this one up as, as this episode, I think this was a great, a great way to tie both of those experiences for me. But I think for, for both of us to talk a little bit about sort of process and discussion, I think it's, it's definitely something that's, akin to the podcast.