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.
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.
A few weeks ago, in one of those paradoxical afternoons where warmth and clarity are mixed with feelings of confusion, Marty Maxwell Lane, in a sudden look-left ask-question sequence, said: “Where do you stand in the form is content debate?“. (What a way to get my attention right?) For about 10 seconds, my agitated cognitive self shuffled through every single project I ever made…anxiety crept in… I almost found myself questioning my existence… (and from Marty’s reaction, I am sure that my perplexed state was being externalized through my facial configurations.)
I finally was able to respond to her query, even though I’ll admit that I am not quite sure what I said. At the time, I verbally articulated an answer while I simultaneously thought about the question. In retrospect now, where do I stand on this debate?
Three landscapes are important to my work: content, concept, and context. One of my design interests lies in articulating the space between the three, in finding overlays and relational patters among them. It’s like being able to identify and work in that moment when one is between being awake and being asleep, when one still remembers dreams. The point is that I am interested in the relation of these, and it is my belief that an adequate understanding of it leads to, and concludes in formal creations. I see form as the subjective outcome of the interplay of these landscapes.
Answering Marty’s question, since I see form as a subjective outcome of the relationship between content, concept and context, form in itself can only be understood as content. It produces and embodies a particular meaning. If some other person where to receive the same specs and assignment that I got for some of my earlier work, I am sure that the end-product would be different, a different piece, a different outcome, and hence, a different content.
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 »
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 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 »
Now that we can say more of our selves, will others have the chance to know about it?
“The human experience of identity has two elements:
a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate.2”
Our shadows played together as we walked, yet I am not able to tell you about it.
In 1976, two paleoanthropologists in a group led by anthropologist Mary Leakey, found, not far from the village of Laetoli in Tanzania, two pairs of fossils which today question the nature of those that existed before us. The discovery, as any of this nature, fuelled much debate. Some argue that the fossils, in fact footprints, were made by early hominids who resemble contemporary humans in stride and standing posture, while others, rooting their argument on the historical and artifactual record, challenge the idea that Laetoli marks were made by early iterations of us since there is no evidence of human culture or intelligence during that time period.
My father and I many times mused about graphic design and architecture. We conversed about the disciplines’ similitudes and differences. We evaluated how each of us could use our fields to impact the other.
Architecture can aid my understanding of balance (specially when it comes to grid work and the alignment of elements), it can fuel my understanding of the different ways my work will affect others, and it can be a catalyst for three dimensional explorations of a basically two dimensional area of study. Graphic design can influence him by improving his communications, by opening a space to create strategical standpoint for the conceptual exploration of aesthetic representations, and in providing a typographical groundwork on which to develop a new layer of expressive meaning. Read the rest of this entry »
This story, which is the product of a in-class brainstorming session with the rest of my classmates, uses exact quotes given to me by my peers (in red) and I have created a whole fictitious narrative around them to explore the idea or concept of empowerment.
Welcome back to another segment of Who’s pica is it anyway?
] For this segment the rules are simple: a random person of the crowd will yell out a theme for two of our improv graphic designers to execute. Then, remember those little paper pieces that were handed to you at the beginning of the show? Those papers where you could write whatever you wanted on? Well, every 15 seconds, our improvisers will incorporate one of these statements into the overall dialogue. (If you later decide to go online and download the transcript, we will include the nicknames of those who submitted statements.) Let’s begin!
_Master of ceremonies_ Our improvisers for the night are girgen29 & pirindinga. Anyone have a theme in mind?
] not even a second went by and a voice from the side of the room yelled empowerment (crispygonzo) [
The third in a series of articles published in Mangrove magazine in 2004. These are not deep in academic research, but a fun read.
Photo chop
Fast-food restaurants promote indigestion in more than one way. Customarily, visual references used to advertise the menu –that is, photographs– are more than often fake. Most of the products showcased as value meals were never photographed as a group, but instead “stitched” from different sources. Not only clients save in buying a soda, sandwich and fries. Owners also play cheap by resorting to digital compositions that ultimately deceive the public. To add to the debate about the nutritional attributes of fast food, we can certify it can also endanger visual health. Read the rest of this entry »
The second in a series of articles published in Mangrove magazine in 2004. These are not deep in academic research, but a fun read.
Missing pictures
Movie subtitles, intended to facilitate the enjoyment of foreign films, often hinder more than help the purported aesthetic experience. Who decides on the type, placement, and contents of these words on the big screen? Most people have no idea, and those who do it don’t seem to either. Read the rest of this entry »
The first in a series of articles published in Mangrove magazine in 2004. These are not deep in academic research, but a fun read.
Landscape Muggers
What USA publicists call a junior page advertisement is known in Puerto Rico, more informally, as a “robapágina”, or page mugger. Reference to the “illegality” of a fake full-page has less to do with the crime problems currently affecting the island than with the aggressiveness that permeates most advertising endeavors all over the world.
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.
