Course Introduction 4.196 Architecture Design, Level II Cuba Studio, Spring 2004

PROF. WAMPLER: Well, the Cuba Studio last spring, which was a level two studio, the overview follows my philosophy about architecture. And that is that I don't believe students should just be at MIT inside these walls designing for people around the world. I think the issue is maintaining identities of people, of cultures, being sensitive to climate conditions, architecture, where we are, where they, in this case, may be working. So the theory behind it is to take my students to a place that they don't know, immerse them into that culture as quickly as possible, let them talk to the people, let them move around the city, let them absorb what there is about that place so that when they design, it was a design project, they are coming from the point of sensitivity to the people and to the culture. Not from some Western notion about what architecture should be or not from some intellectual position, although that is important, but they are coming from understanding the site, understanding the buildings, the people, the culture, the history. So that is central to all my work as an overview. And the Cuba Studio is an example of that. I think the goals of this studio, and also working with Cuba are somewhat similar. I go places where I am invited and where the studio can help, because MIT has incredible researches. And let's share them with the rest of the world if we can. So, actually, the project in Cuba was one that they wanted because they want prototype about how to develop areas. In terms of what I want students to get out of this, I want them to make the most beautiful buildings in the world, but I want those buildings to relate to the people. And so I am not just teaching how to design buildings which, of course, is part of the studio, nor am I teaching just that we should be making beautiful building, but we should be making the best architecture we can make and respond to the people's needs. Now, I am critical of our profession because I think often architects are what I call technocrats. They just kind of follow what somebody tells them to do and they are technicians. My goal for the students is to come away, of course, with open doors into a new way of looking at architecture. There may never be a typical week, but I will tell you the ingredients that go into teaching are a combination. Today I am going to show some of my own work, so it is a combination of lecturing and about work that I have done. And, more importantly, how I have gotten to that work not only to work. It is a combination about lectures of particular subjects. Maybe materials or sunlight, issues that I'm concerned about. It is an intense experience, what we call desk-side crits where you sit down with the student and you look at their work. And it is kind of an interesting process. I have done it for years. You quickly see what they are doing. They have sketched something or they made a model and you have to very quickly say what you think about that. We have what we call pinups which are reviews. In my case, they are quite often, once a week where the students put their work up and we, as a class, talk about it. I encourage my studio class to actually engage in the discussion about the work. And, in fact, just last week I asked them to trade models, exchange models and talk about each other's work to get them out of their own way of thinking. And then there are periods of just working in the studio. And then full scale reviews where I invite people in from other faculty of the school or other professions to give them feedback. I think in the studio teaching it is important to get out of the studio and go into what I call the library of architecture forum, everything that is around us. In all my studios, the site is very important to understand. I tell them when I was in school I used to go sleep on the site for a weekend, and I will cookout and so on, so that I could get to know the site as well as my own backyard. And then I would come back and announce to my professor that the site was too beautiful to build on. And I am glad I am not one of my students. But anyway the point is to absorb the site as much as you can, absorb the outside. So I think part of the studio, or a big part of the studio is getting out of here, getting out of MIT. Now, the other side of that is that I bring people in who know about, in this case, Havana, Cuba to talk, to give overviews. I want my students to know as many different views as they can. And then from that they make a decision. I think the teaching of a studio and the teaching of architects is the most important thing we can do because I think the architects are the only ones that are going to be looking out for the physical world. And the physical world is in bad shape. And, in this generation, it may disappear as we know it. I think of architects as caretakers of the physical world. I think we have to be sensitive, much more sensitive than we have been to cultures, to the land, to the forest, to the water, to everything, materials. We are more than technicians. We are what I call creative leaders. And I think that is a new role for us, and I think it is a very important one that we take very seriously.