To begin.
To begin.
Although Joey had done a fairly thorough job outlining the idea behind “speakeasy”, I’d like to step back for a moment and redefine once more what this project truly means, in particular to me. In its’ simplest of forms, we are four friends attempting to dedicate a portion of our time to experiencing “architecture” first-hand, together, potentially pulling at each other’s thoughts, opinions, and queries…
But this onion has many layers and we must indulge. For me, speakeasy is more about a search, the search, for answers to the enormity of unanswerable questions which have formed throughout these past four years. In my case specifically, when discussing built-work my interests currently lie within the transition from concept to form. In particular, what justifies satisfactory design? How is the theoretical transformed into the physical? And when is it “okay” to sacrifice ideas for “reality”(whatever that may be). I will further explore these questions and more in later posts, but I’d like to once again expand to the greater picture of speakeasy.
We are four people with varying design opinions. This is good.
Because of this, I’d like to define our search under one extremely vague question that is truly incapable of answering; but we are forced to respond.
what. is. architecture. (good architecture.)?
Yes, this question might seem cliché, maybe mundane, maybe just naïve or stupid. But I do not think so. In the past four years I have had professors who have attempted to force me to design as he or she deemed fit; through context, through form, through program, through sketching, through grasshopper, through code… regardless of all of this, I still cannot tell you what makes “good architecture”. I can however tell you what I know to be wrong, or improper design…
But I digress once more. Speakeasy is not about our design beliefs or how we set out to create our own means of architecture. It is how we experience, and if our experience is successfully guided by the architect’s hand, or misconstrued by lack of significant design.
A word I think can never be used too much in architecture: experience
A word I think is feared too much in architecture: beauty
For me, (good) architecture should be defined by its’ experiential qualities of those who inhabit; the affect of the space on ones’ emotional state. How this relates to form, if at all, I am not entirely sure, but I know it when I see it.
Speakeasy is about how we see; how we interpret the built world, and if these buildings, these spaces, these cities are places which evoke positive or negative emotions for the users within (if any emotion at all). In the end, we are just four students who’ve been held up in a studio space and feel a desperate urge to explore; to see with our own eyes’ the built world around us and see what the result of these past four years could possibly lead to. One might read these posts and think that we are simple-minded, undereducated students who are in no position to critique great architects, great designers and planners. You would be partially right. We are undereducated, uninformed and unknown. But we are not trying to hide this in any way, and in my opinion that is what makes this interesting. We are simply logging our naivety in order to further it as a group, hopefully culminating enough shreds of knowledge to make up one somewhat decent thought-process. After all, how can a critique properly form if not through discussion?
As we reach the finale of an intensive four year undergraduate architecture career I think all four of us, now more than ever, have questions rather than answers we are in hopes of resolving. Unformulated opinions that we feel the need to explore. For me, speakeasy is a proposal; a proposal to each other that we will continue this search.
Search together, search freely and search without confines.
If not for answers, then at the very least in hopes of a continuation of ones ideas and opinions to new levels of insight. Who knows, maybe we’ll actually make sense by the end of all of this.
Bottoms-up to exploration.
Adam