Cover | Indice Anotado, 13 years of Mid-Career research investigations from architecture students of the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico.
Jorge Rigau, FAIA, founding dean of the School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico; Miguel Rodríguez, current dean; and funds from the Historic Preservation Office of Puerto Rico have made it possible to publish the Índice Anotado (Anotated Index). This publication documents the Mid-Career research investigations completed by students at the School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico.
These texts were completed between 1996 and 2009 and executed by students at the end of the 3rd year of study. Their topical range is extensive, and most are complemented by photographs, drawings and inventories that will be useful to others following similar lines of research. While the collection is mainly about Puerto Rico, some projects look at Cuba, Dominican Republic and Panamá.
The index is organized by themes, and while some overlap, researchers will have to asses the focus areas of each of their topics to find relevant investigations. The documents are written in Spanish, but the the index provides a blurb about each of them in English to expand the ideas to a larger audience.
Copies of the full writings will be available for public consult at the library of the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and at the library of the Historic Preservation Office. The Índice Anotado has been designed by Alberto Rigau and published by Editorial Revés.
This past thursday 3M Company of Puerto Rico held a fashion show to promote some of their Post-it products. For the event, I was commissioned by my friend Lorna Ramos to execute the event’s decoration… all of it made out of Post-its.
This video documents, in under 2 mins, the 15 hours spent playing with squares of colored paper. For photos of the setup, see here.
I want to point out that frame after frame you will consistently notice the collaboration of Miguel Ortiz, a young architect with whom I am currently working on a series of projects. I also want to thank Lorna, Juan Carlos Rubayo, Denisse Rodríguez and Sofía Acevedo who came out to help.
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To make the video more interesting, I used the music track Again and Again by The Bird and the Bee. As of October 11, 2009, the official website of the band is offline and the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine was not useful in accessing its contact information. I will keep trying so that I can ask for a formal permit to keep the song in the video. If it is not granted, the song will be removed immediately.
Last semester I taught a seminar course at NC State University’s College of Design where I asked the students to identify, as part of a weekly assignment, two instances: one where design thinking had thrived and another where it had failed. Towards the end of the course, students had collected a series moments that proved that only a simple nudge was required, many times at no extra cost to anyone, to set a series of problems right. Recently, I came across one such example.
Last week, due to the birth of my nephew Gonzalo, I got to spend some time in the maternity wing of the Auxilio Mutuo Hospital. It was indeed a short time, yet most of it was spent waiting for the baby to make its appearance. I had time to look around. A few things came to my attention, but this particular emergency door stood out the most out of anything else that caught my eye.
An Emergency Door in the Maternity Wing of the Auxilio Mutuo Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The subject in question is located on a hallway directly across from the nursery of newborns. As you can imagine, a lot of people congregate in this area. Upon further investigation, four things were of interest to me:
1) The standard, internationally used emergency exit sign; 2) An ink-jet printed sign which informs that this door does not provide access to the ground floor; 3) The familiar red sign that indicates to use this exit in case of an emergency; and 4) A photocopy which explains, in paragraphs, what to do in case of a problem.
Can you imagine what would happen, God forbid, if there was an emergency in this space? Read the rest of this entry »
In the last few weeks I have been moving from meeting to meeting, introducing myself to new clients and re-connecting with some older ones. Face to face conversation has been at the core of most interactions.
During the time, I have become aware of the many identities others bestow on me: artist, graphic artist, digital artist, the creative, the person who makes logos, sign-maker, event planner, the guy who did that exhibit on the train, the kid who makes things pretty, web-site maker, and I have even been introduced as an architect. Not once in three weeks has anyone (other than in the office space from which I now work) used the term graphic designer, or even the idea of design to refer to me or to what I do.
In the Puerto Rican corporate and academic spheres that I have been exposed to, the practice of design (even if called by other names) is still seen as, talked about, and referred to as an icing on a cake which provides decoration (and an extra boost of sugar) to an already functional product. Designers are not at the decision table, and I have yet encountered one example of design included in a larger strategic process. The techniques, strategies and tools of design thinking are nowhere to be found. The idea of graphic designers having a process and knowledge of specific strategies that might foster innovation is scarce. Inspiration, creativity and talent are still at the core of the generally accepted understanding of how designers work and come up with ideas. Read the rest of this entry »
I am a designer. The term, today employed across various contexts and business models to signify different things, is actually not as hard to understand as many people make it out to be. It basically means that I like a few essential things: sexy typography (this is like the one ring made to rule them all), apple equipment, black t-shirts, fancy eyeglasses, ergonomic pencils, reading about the implications of structuring information, funky-colored shoes, colors, markers, anything Italian, and the smell of old books. (among others) This list is easy to assemble since most of these are stereotypical images society can associate easily with this professional path I have chosen to investigate. And yet, there is one aspect of being a designer that is not as obvious (and sad since it is the best part): as a designer I am in the constant search of problems.
Sounds interesting right? Well, in reality, it is. Yet, being on a constant search for problems to solve brings about a series of problems of its own. The best way I can describe it is that sometimes I find myself in an alternate reality; others talking about the color red and me asking why red?
Myself in front of my research poster. Photograph by Rebecca Kirkland.
As I have written before before, this past week was the Fourth Annual NC State University Graduate Student Research Symposium. Marty Maxwell Lane, Deb Littlejohn and I were asked to present our current research at the event. In retrospect, it was just like presenting for judges back in one of my high school science fairs… Presentations were made with the aid of posters. We participated in the Humanities and Design category, where I am happy to report that I was recognized with a first prize for the current research I am carrying out with my final project. :) Read the rest of this entry »
The early part of the XXth century witnessed the construction of an extensive web of irrigation channels to distribute water to homes and farmlands in Puerto Rico along more than 35 kms. Still in operation to this day, throughout time different individuals and groups have acknowledged the scenic value of these channels; however, to most they remain unknown.
Conceived by the architectural firm, Jorge Rigau FAIA, Architects, the pilot project was designed to garner support from government officials, institutions, and the general public for the development of Isabela’s irrigation channels as a key ecotourism attraction in Puerto Rico. The “canales” travel across plains, mountains, and forests of varying microclimate, flora, fauna, and views. Maintenance paths that run continuously next to them could today be refashioned as nature trails accessible to the general public, children, senior citizens, and handicapped people alike. This pilot project set out to prove the feasibility of this initiative.
After public access to these facilities had been denied for eighty years, one kilometer of channels was opened up for two days, attracting an audience of over 3,000 registered people, including key decision-makers like the Island’s Interim Governor. Environmental leaders and university professors joined the long lines of visitors from all over the Island.Advocacy is often linked to demonstrations, more than often committed to stop something from happening. In our case, we chose to demonstrate otherwise: How something can, in fact, happen. Letters of support have started to come and decision makers – already engaged – have invited us to sit and dialogue. This is what we planned for.
I am one of those rare graduate students who still makes a bit of time to watch some television. I know… I know… Honestly though, I learn from a good show, story, or plot. Battlestar Galactica, the early Gray’s Anatomy, and the initial seasons of Prison Break, Lost, and 24, are some of the contemporary visual narratives that go beyond the mere entertainment they are meant to provide… and there’s plenty to gain from watching them if you are conscious of this. There are other not so good narratives out there, but it’s harder to admit and share what I see in them in a public manner… ;)
Recently, while watching some of these shows, I noted a change in the commercial advertising landscape: the automotive industry is trying to harness the power of typography and verbal communications to make its pitch to us.
If you would like a set, send me your address and information. I will send out a complete one to the first 50 email requests at alberto[at]estudiointerlinea[dot]com ***UPDATE: All 50 sets have been assigned. Stay tuned to the blog. I will be giving out more design related buttons soon. Thank you to those who wrote.***
Tired?
All nighter?
Falling asleep?
No need to worry… just… CHOOSE YOUR CRIT FACE
and let the feedback roll in!
This is the first button set I’ve designed. The idea for it came from an inside-joke with Cady Bean-Smith, Sidney Fritts, Marty Maxwell Lane, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Lauren Waugh, and Liese Zahabi, graduate classmates of mine at NC State University.
***Update: Thanks to Armin Vit for having Quipped the buttons in Quipsologies, Vol. 23, November 2008.
***Update: Thanks to Michael Bierut for Observing the buttons on Design Observer.
***Update: Thanks to Matt Aubie for picking up the buttons on the TGS blog.
***Update: Thanks to N Silas Monroe for commenting about the buttons on the Walker Art Center’s Blogs.
***Update: Thanks to Jamie Rose for blogging about the buttons.
These are some images of the installation that was part of our first semester studio project where the class attempted to define design thinking in terms of a series of thinking strategies and cognitive frameworks. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently there has been much talk of corporate cultures —and other disciplines— engaging in the practice of “design thinking“. Such announcements are usually paralleled with ideas of creativity, innovation, and user-centeredness; associations that sound cool and hip but many times result in superficial, inaccurate, and vague information. Wether we like it or not, the buzzword of design thinking is everywhere.
On a recent article in the New York Times, Unboxed: Design Is More Than Packaging, the author, Janet Rae-Dupree, makes an effort to unbox “design” by concentrating on this thing designers do called design thinking. She says: “…design thinking usually involves a period of field research —usually close observation of people— to generate inspiration and a better understanding of what is needed, followed by open, nonjudgmental generation of ideas. After a brief analysis, a number of the more promising ideas are combined and expanded to go into “rapid prototyping,” which can vary from a simple drawing or text description to a three-dimensional mock-up. Feedback on the prototypes helps hone the ideas so that a select few can be used. The results can be startling.”
On another article in the Fast Company website, Design Thinking… What is that?, its author, Mark Dziersk, defines design thinking as consisting of four steps: defining the problem, creating many options, refining selected directions, and picking a winner for execution. He says: “At this point enough road has been traveled to insure success. It’s the time to commit resources to achieve the early objectives. The byproduct of the process is often other unique ideas and strategies that are tangential to the initial objective as defined. Prototypes of solutions are created in earnest, and testing becomes more critical and intense. At the end of stage 4 the problem is solved or the opportunity is fully uncovered.” He concludes the article with: “Design thinking describes a repeatable process employing unique and creative techniques which yield guaranteed results — usually results that exceed initial expectations. Extraordinary results that leapfrog the expected. This is why it is such an attractive, dynamic and important methodology for businesses to embrace today.”
While these two examples, noble in their intentions and approach, describe a bit of what design thinking can be in terms of a traditional object-oriented approach where processes conclude in tangible objects, they do not elaborate on how design thinking operates in this contemporary landscape of information and ever-changing job descriptions. Read the rest of this entry »
After spending some time with the community and the information derived from the concept map, it was the moment to understand how to define an exchange of information between some of the members. This insight lead to a crucial part of the semester’s design work.
A small break from the semester work. At the end of February we played guests to the candidates of next year’s incoming graduate class. I was asked by the department to do a recap of last semester’s symposium. Read the rest of this entry »
My concept map of undergraduate students engaged in software learning.
As each of us began to research into our chosen communities, Meredith and Amber introduced us to concept mapping. We read Joseph Novak, D. Bob Gowin and Hugh Dubberly, all proponents of using this strategy as a mean to create understanding between members engaged in performing a common task.
This semester is about learning communities. It’s about using interaction to bring together a group of people performing a common task.
To kick start the creative insights and interactive explorations, Meredith invited the design anthropologist Elizabeth —Dori— Tunstall to make a presentation on her work on communitas. As part of her visit, we had to select an online community that we thought could be analyzed thru the lens of the various aspects of what makes up a communitas: historical consciousness, life goals, organizational structure, agency and relationships. I chose facebook, and what follows is my study of some of the key features which bring the community together.
Betwixt being and non-being An ontologically altered perception through the personal blog platform
In developing an individual identity and its consequential representations, a human being, as a cultural, social, and psychological entity, interprets, uses, and garners information from its surrounding environments. In the process, contexts are synthesized and associations are established. The management of these intuitive processes leads to the creation of personal thoughts, views and perspectives which are later shared through various forms of exchange.
The emergence of social networking sites, instant messaging platforms, discussion forums, email, collaborative online games, digital worlds, and particularly blogs, have transmuted the nature of these exchanges. Introspection has now become projection. Private realities have now expanded into contemporary shared conditions of public life. These outlets of personality provide versatile ways of sharing internal, and beforehand private anecdotal information with others.
The introduction of online blogging platforms during the late 1990’s made it easier than ever to share, communicate and contrast one’s individuality with the ideas of others in similar techno-social realities. As of March 2008, Technorati1 calculated an estimated 112.8 million online blogs worldwide, a datum that needs to be pruned carefully since online does not equal active. There maybe that many blogs, but that does not mean there are exactly that same amount of active content generators behind them. There is no precise quantitative data on how many abandoned blogs exist, yet the available data does suggest a parallel growth between that of new blogs being published and those being simultaneously abandoned. Due to the free-of-charge nature of the majority of blog hosting domains, most of the blogs, even after being abandoned, remain online indefinitely.
I will try to make that case that through this ever-lasting online presence, contemporary communication platforms, such as the blog, can extend our sense of being, even after we become non-being. Read the rest of this entry »
The current undergraduate graphic design curriculum at the College of Design, like others in the country, introduces its students to the field through a fundamental year of art, form, rules, exploration, and little or basic software use. As the pedagogical experience progresses into sophomore year, students move, within the timeframe of 2 months, from custom methodological ways of working within a handmade environment into an automatized, software dependent sterile digital scenario.
Design concepts are still explored through the making of artifacts, yet this very process now relies on the manipulation of software tools for their very execution. Previous experience on creative software platforms shapes many of the student’s individual experiences, some having an easier time than others. No matter the case, the commonality between all levels of expertise becomes them having to learn it.
Learning software moves to the forefront of the student’s interests. Pressure is exerted on the professors to teach the various platforms required for successful execution. Teaching strategies, ranging from in-class demos, to online tutorials, and even reference books, become a hindrance to the students, while one-to-one gesture based exchanges between them seem to provide a more stable source of growth and understanding. How can online digital tools help with this learning process? Could such tools offer a possible platform for pedagogical reinterpretation? Would a grassroots approach to software instruction lead to a flourishing of its understanding?
The last few months I’ve working around these issues. All of my projects have concentrated around the struggles of sophomore graphic design students at the College of Design as they experience the initial steps of learning software. Community, values, needs and outcomes have been studied, tested… and hopefully address. As final review gets near, now its time to polish the projects into presentable shape. More to come…
“The human experience of identity has two elements:
a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate.1”
Now that we say more of our selves, are we saying less?
In 2006, for the first time in history, the Canadian National Census questionnaire made its way to the country’s 32.5 million residents. It included a new confidentiality question that asked Canadians to approve or disapprove of their personal information being included in the census. Historians feared that survey participants did not realize the importance of the option and initiated a publicity campaign to educate the country on the implications of such question, and on why people should care about it even though this census is released to the public in 2098. It was an education on how the information will be useful then, specially in regards to identity and the social way of living.
Contemporary digital environments have allowed a re-thinking of our selves and of how we relate, connect and present to/with others. The popularity of digital social networking sites, instant messaging platforms, discussion forums, email, the emergence of the blog as a publishing tool, collaborative online games, and live digital worlds like Second Life have transmuted the way personal identity is thought of and handled.
Online environments allow the users to digitally curate their own lives. The creation of these selves is managed through text, images and as of recently, video. Users can write/post/upload any information they want. Further depth can be achieved by having the digital content annotated, commented and further developed by others. This process is reciprocal in nature, for users can simultaneously act as others, commenting and annotating content. Someone’s digital public image is the product of the sum of individual interventions and social contributions. Personal and external texts are illustrating the image of who we become in a digital realm2. Therefore, we exist by implication. Read the rest of this entry »
What if motivation was me translating between others to improve their communication?
Option Shift Control is almost here, and in one of this weekend’s sessions we will be exploring the idea of motivation, and the role it plays in design planning, projects and execution.
Most of my friends think my profession is cool. They don’t really see me as cool, they just think what I do is cool, but guys (and gals alike), let me use this opportunity to share with you a little secret: Photoshop is just a small part of what I do.
Don’t look at me that way. It is a sad truth that you have to accept: Photoshop is just one tool among many others that I use. Since we are in the topic, I will confess one thing: I would not be a graphic designer if it were not for this image editing software.
Armando Rigau currently pursues a Master in Architecture I at Cornell University. He received his bachelor's degree in Philosophy with History and Spanish minors from Georgetown University.
