4.17.2010

Naming the project

This has been a really odd semester for me.
A very thoughtless semeseter, I should say.
I am faced now, as I lay out my final boards, with naming my project. Typically, this is a completely organic, unforced process. A name would have revealed itself at some point in the semester through my writing on the project.
But I have not been writing. I have not been thinking, reflecting, or sketching. My sketchbook is hardly half full [I normally go through at least a full book, sometimes two].
And I have the creeping feeling that this semester was an utter waste of lost potential. What could have been so meaningful, so good has just died. It is a wreckage of undefined formal decisions, careless decisions, un-researched assumptions.

I may not have learned anything about architecture, but I have learned about myself: that this process does not work for me. I do not like this kind of architecture. I must trust myself and what I know to be good, what I find interesting, and push forward into the things that interest me.
It feels a little late to have learned this lesson... one that I have been aware of but never had to truly struggle through.

I do not despise my project any more, but I do not love it. I wish I had another 6 weeks to develop it, now that I know what I should have known at midterm.
I don't want to blame anyone else, but it did take a long time to figure out how to deal with my professors. Conflicting personalities trying to be productive. I understand the nuances better now. I understand what to take and what to leave of their criticism (mostly leave).

So anyways... I have to write about my project for Monday, name my project, and put my boards together in a way that tells the story of what I hoped to achieve. If I were fully honest, I would say it was not a success. I would say the project is weak, but that I understand myself much better. I would point out the good parts and say I would like to develop these ideas. I would like to confess failure.
But, as anyone in architecture knows, this is not acceptable. You must always stand up for yourself, spin the weaknesses into disregard-able pieces, to pump up and emphasize the good parts.
It is the business of selling yourself, of selling garbage, of white lies. It is absolutely necessary in a culture that judges worth and responsibility on the success of every endeavor.

If I were to suggest I wasn't satisfied with the project, there is a chance I would have to keep working on it over summer until it was "done." Krueck has been known to give incompletes until the work met some illusive standard.

Well anyways... I need to write about my project.

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