Monday’s class visit to the 4th year architecture studio was insightful and impactful It was a great to have the two classes come together to share different projects within a similar topic. I would love to have more opportunities for co-learning environments like this.

A couple interesting pointers:

Professor Duddy pointed out a brilliant idea for additional future collaborations between the two sets of students. What if all the research the students from the ‘Learning places’ course collected of the history to the demographic to the real estate factors of the Farragut Housing from this semester with is shared with next semester’s architecture students who will work on creating a master plan for the area around Farragut Housing, wouldn’t the exchange of information there be extremely helpful in adding to the architecture students’ designs.

Another interesting finding were the solar sun path diagrams one group included in their master plan. They included the Sun’s path it travels from East to West throughout the day and how that factors into where specific buildings are positioned and the type of design to the type of material used for the design. This ties back to what we learned about in our site-visit: sun patterns was one of the reasons behind the architects’ intent when designing the Farragut Housing complex’s star-like shape.

What is most rewarding about interactive learning is regardless of what disciplinary study anyone may be in- how similar or different, we can all take away something new each time when information and ideas are shared. I have definitely gained new perspectives since day one and now I am starting to “see” what seems as everyday objects in an more analytical manner.