On Point

Newschool of Architecture Convocation

My Studio Building

Symphony Towers Convocation 2010

Gus, Janice, Sarah, and Me. Great Friends!

The past few days have brought a myriad of experiences. My friends have gotten used to prime photo shooting opportunities which has been nice, now they just expect it to be on the blog. Id like to welcome the new readers who are just getting a glimpse at what essentially is my last experience of a formal Architectural educational environment. Studio space is feeling more like home as people have set up their spaces (even though I haven't yet) and the chatter of thesis year has begun. I will set up my space this week as I have been constrained to getting all of my things down to school with having my sister here from NYC and her using our SUV, the only car big enough to fit all of my essential 'junk'.

On Monday I decided to change my thesis project from what I had previously planned on doing. Over the summer I played with the idea of utilizing freeway energy to power buildings, but after realizing that I wasn't passionate about it enough to find an architectural problem from it, I decided to change my subject matter to something that has recently captured my attention on all fronts. The idea of Entropy and the paradigm shift that we all must have to survive the future. Entropy is a loaded word full of vast definitions. The focus I'd like to take is the second law of thermodynamics in that the way we are currently building, inventing, and developing is still in a colonization theory. This essentially is that the more we make, invent, and mechanize we waste more material in a faster, more unsustainable manner. Think of it like this, the human being can exert around one tenth of a horsepower of energy, compared to a machine that can exert thousands of horsepower, over time the amount of energy expelled by speeding up the process of extraction is depleting the current entropy watershed ( currently non renewable energy sources). If through that analogy any of that made sense keep following me to the next point. The hunter gatherer era of mankind took theoretically millions of years to deplete their methodology of obtaining food and energy, and at the point where they used up the sources of their energy they were forced to undertake a new method of energy (food) survival. They moved from a hunter gatherer society to a agricultural society. Which in turn took a few thousand years to deplete, (although we still harvest today it is highly mechanized) From that era of agriculture society out of necessity moved to a industrialized form of life. Within the past 200 years of industrialization we have managed to deplete our current entropy watershed (non renewable energy sources). We are now faced with the inevitable task of moving to a new entropy watershed methodology, which is precisely what my thesis will address. Building a science center that not only teaches about Entropy but is experiencing it through living the law of science. This thesis will propose a building that once built will work with entropy using negative entropy (or natural sunlight and wind etc.). The basis for designing for the future is what I am trying to achieve, beyond the so called 'sustainable' practices that are currently being falsely fed with, the entropic methods of the future go beyond a false sense of sustainability and look toward a new way of living in harmony with nature.

I am currently doing extensive research to understand all that entropy is and where it can take me within this project. Since we are all living in entropy and its laws it has become a very interesting topic to explore and learn how rather than fighting against its effects all the time in everything we do, rather we can work in harmony with its principles and return to a more harmonious life.

Now that you might have a little grasp on my topic my Thesis Sketch (which my wonderful sister Leslie, who has the NYC art creativity helped me develop a concept I had otherwise envisioned in a different medium) The model represents the order of entropy we are currently experiencing. The order to disorder is a representation of our current entropic watershed of energy, where the system starts out with a great deal of order and as time and numbers deplete chaos occurs and inevitable depletion occurs. As you can see the project lends itself to being highly theoretical, however I think that it has a great deal of potential because we must move from a 'colonization society' to a 'climactic society' (google the terms for more info).

To finish off the week me and my friends moved my friends cabinet over to our studio and then buzzed on down to Symphony tower theatre to have our school wide convocation ceremony where people were honored and our new dean spoke. I had to leave early so I didn't get to see the whole thing but it seemed to be a great start for another year for Newschool.

Gus's Cabinet

Janice helping us move it

Wheres your seatbelt Mr? better yet where's your SEAT!?

Thesis Sketch Photos: