what to expect

the past 2 days at school, Phase II DRL thesis candidacy reviews have taken place. This is basically, the final presentation of Design Research Lab students in expectation of their graduation from the M.Arch program.

This will be me, in one year's time.

As Phase I students, we have been helping the outgoing students prepare for their reviews for the past two weeks, and this has allowed me to learn a lot about what is ahead of me in terms of the expectations and possibilities of the DRL program. It is both exciting and scary at the same time, and while i saw a lot of amazing things these past two days during review, i also became a bit nervous as also seen were some, well, 'bad' projects. I think, however, i am eager in anticipation to make progress such as these teams did, but at the same time a bit apprehensive of all the work and capabilities it takes to carry out a successful project. Eeek.

But, game on, i'm a bit refreshed with a stronger drive to plunge forward, as the most impressive projects truly heralded incredible responses, from both students and professionals all around. To achieve such a response and create such an incredible catalogue of work will be valuable beyond just his next year, it is obvious. (People were actually offered jobs from world-renowned architects on the spot. Whoa.) You can really see the growth everyone has made in just 16months if you assume them as "same" to my classmates and myself when we entered this fall. I just hope i can become as sophisticated as some of them - the work was, well, impressive. Of course it is, in the typical "DRL" way, a bit overly rendered, formal, and not-so-responsive to contextual or realistic constraints, BUT the projects are so complex in other ways that you have to view them a bit differently than most work.

In other words, oh hell, i'm going to be exhausted. Once the teams were finished today, you could sort of see a blank, just wiped, expression on their faces overall. While clearly happy and proud, i don't think it has hit them yet. All they spoke of was just getting some sleep. :)

These are just a few pictures of the 11 total projects shown and critiqued over the past two days, as well as a few shots from the studio in the days prior to presentation. What was also exciting was to realize the interest generated by these reviews to the rest of the AA. THere were people knocking down doors to get in and peek - and it is not like that for all the program reviews at the school. The crazyness of the work is intriguing at the least.