ENG1101_S21_OL79

Reflection

Students are interesting creatures – we tend to put the classes, we are not overly excited of, on the back burner till better times or when it is the last class in the list till graduation. I am a perfect example of that. Being in a junior year of my college, I kept postponing taking the English composition class till it became a forced necessity. But looking back now, after semester is almost over, I could only wish I took it sooner. Surprisingly for myself I totally enjoyed the entire process not only in writing, but also in sharing my opinion and thoughts with classmates and professor. The overall experience was so entertaining and engaging, that I found it really interesting and encouraging for future adventures in the writing field. But let me start from the beginning and analyze what I’ve really learned during this semester.

The first valid lesson I’ve learned was an ability to understand the writer’s intention. I’ve always loved to read and read many books, articles, scientific works or simply social media feed written in different genres and languages. After taking this class I finally became to realize as a reader not only the plot of the read material but author’s technique and tricks used during the writing. It made me ask the questions: Why did author choose this specific genre or brought this specific example? What was author’s intention in doing so? What audience did author try to reach? Was it successful? What could I borrow from an author in my assignment? In general, it made me appreciate even more all the work a writer did and value the written information. The second value lesson I’ve learned is not to be afraid to write. And I think it is the most valuable skill I got from this class. During the semester we had three major assignments which had to be composed in different genres. Each of them made me nervous in the beginning since I’ve never had an experience in them. For the Educational Narrative assignment I thought a personal experience is not an easy part to share with readers. Afterall, we all have a story to share. But after some thoughts and considerations, I enjoyed this process the most. Educational Narrative is a very personal experience, which is unique to the author. My story with some sarcastic self-critique and real examples, in my opinion, didn’t turn up that bad, and, hopefully, its main goal “to inspire young adults not to give up in their educational journey”, was reached by readers. The Bibliography Assignment worried me as well in the beginning. I’ve always thought of it as a boring gathering of facts and putting it on a paper in a such a strict genre, that hardly anyone would ever read it. But while the completing this assignment I found out that it can be very interesting and engaging essay as long as you choose the topic, you’re really passionate about and would perform quite a research. By the time we got to the third assignment, I think, I was pretty much inspired to dive in it and try something new. I’ve never ever wrote a script before, but after my Podcast Episode was finished, I realized how fun it is to create, imagine, and introduce it to the readers. My conclusive words of the assignment couldn’t describe better the experience “I really liked the experience of creating a Podcast episode. It made me want to spend more time to listening to different podcasters and drink in their techniques and tactics. I would really like to try to air a podcast episode as a host or a guest.”

As I said in my assignment “I belong to the Generation Y”, and during our school years we lacked resources and encouragement to be creative like Centennials do. Nevertheless, this class really taught me to think outside the box when writing. I think it’s one of the most valuable lessons I got during the college years. Thank you.

 

 

Education Narrative

 Revision

Educational Narrative Assignment was probably my favorite part of the semester. I stayed pretty satisfied with the work done, and I wouldn’t change it drastically. I really enjoyed the process of outlining my major points and filling them in with the personal examples for a final essay. I appreciate the advice of outlining my essay in the forms of short stories with their own headlines. In general, despite the excessive number of words, I think the assignment turned out easy to read and understand. I pretty proud of the work done.

I belong to the Generation Y, also known as Millennials. According to the statistics my big “coming out” to the world was supposed to happen by 2012. And still 9 years later, I have not finished my educational journey. I’ve always thought that I am the only one unfulfilled individual. But, over the time, talking to my friends and peers, I have realized there are many young adults on the threshold of their third decade, who still haven’t decided what they want to be as professionals. This narrative essay consisting of three main sections will try to understand the reason of this deceleration in Generation Y and my long journey in particular.

According to statistics, the rate of unreturning students, unfortunately, tends to grow. There are many reasons to that – lack of financial funds, poor academic performance, unforeseen family circumstances.  But according to my observations, one of the main reasons is also students’ realization of a wrongly chosen degree. Very often new college applicants’ decision of the future profession highly depends on the expectations of their parents and teachers. Another main aspect, influencing the freshmen’s decision is a race for financial independency. Also, many high school graduates, spending the most of their lives in the walls of educational establishments, just want the college time to go as fast as possible by choosing the “easiest” in their opinion way. Unfortunately, many of them do not realize that the educational journey is about a search of themselves in something, that will really fulfill and satisfy them as professionals.

Do parents know better?…

I was not an exception. If I had a chance to meet myself back in 2006, I would have a long persuasive conversation to myself, trying to convince me to follow my own independent educational path. I doubt it would have been successful, since the authority of my parents was so strong, that even nowadays, in my thirties, I listen to their opinions with a great respect.

My family carries four generations of engineers. And for my siblings and me, the choice of future career was a foregone conclusion. The first “victim” was my older brother. Being an A-student in high school, he always felt connected to the nature, and dreamed of becoming a forest ranger. But for my parents, very well-known and respected engineers in the city, it was out of question. Back than the rangers hardly made any money, and it also meant to live somewhere in wilderness. My parents made a choice for my brother to apply to Polytechnical University and become a power engineer. Many years later, he graduated successfully, and became one of the best and highly demanded tester of turbine equipment in the country. It seems everything worked out in the best way for him. But his dream of becoming a ranger still haunts him – he bought a land surrounded by forest in the suburbs of the city, built his house there, and in his free time he takes long walks in the forest, dreaming about his retirement.

My parents had the best intentions for my brother when choosing his career. Of course, they had in minds secure life for him, which in their opinion could be achieved only with the engineer’s salary. And, in my opinion, just because my brother has always been responsible, he achieved such career heights, but the satisfaction from his job was never achieved. The same fate waited for me – my parents chose a business administration degree for me, which I successfully achieved, and it has never brought me any self-satisfaction. So being more of a rebellion in the family, I have decided to explore different professional fields, and since then, my educational journey has continued till present day.

My long journey to fulfillment

Back in 1995, when I first entered the walls of primary school, nobody told me that the path to professional development is a path through trials and errors, and sometimes it can take longer than expected. And, in fact, for over quarter of a century my path to professional education has never stopped, but rather been interrupted by several steps-back to reevaluate the whole process. My entire journey was accompanied by several events, seemed meaningful back there, but leading to the right direction.

My first memory of realization of some kind of professional fulfillment probably goes to the second grade, when whole class got an interactive assignment to write about main cultural differences between men and women clothes. Hardly knowing how to spell correctly, but with a huge enthusiasm, I outlined the main differences on the piece of paper and handed it to my first teacher – exceedingly kind and experienced lady. She was so amazed by my work, that she read it at loud for the entire class putting my work as an example. I still remember that feeling of satisfaction and self-pride. It was probably for the first time of my eight-year-old life that somebody, but my parents, was satisfied and proud of my work. I still remember how inspired I was, and school seemed the best what could happen to me.

Over the years in school that feeling began to vanish away with the young kid’s preconception – to be a nerd is not cool. I still managed to have a great academic record in high school and get a degree in BA, but that feeling of eight-year-old me had never visited me again, and I’ve decided to further continue my educational journey.

My second step in pursuing myself happened 10 years later after my degree.

After migrating to the United States, I got admitted to the City College’s Engineering school. I thought I almost succeeded but being a young adult with a decent salary in the greatest city of the world, slightly shifted my priorities not towards education. I still remember how almost failing the exam in linear algebra equations, my professor – an older, very reputable man – approached me and very politely hinted that this degree might not sue me very well. I have never felt more humiliated, ashamed, and angry. And, of course, I was angry of him, and ashamed of myself. For the rest of the semester, I overcame myself and managed to pass that class with B plus. At that point I wanted to prove that professor was wrong about me and I could be a successful engineer. But several semesters later, I realized that the chosen path would not bring my second-degree emotions and satisfaction back.

For several years I was thinking and deciding on what I want to be. I was torturing myself for being useless and failed individual. At that time a spontaneous advice of my-mother-in-law changed everything for me and brought me back to school. Once at family dinner she casually suggested “Why don’t you become an architect?”. To say it shocked me is to say nothing. I have always considered architects as gods of the construction industry. In order to become an architect, I thought, you need to be out of this world, irrational, super creative, and, of course, you need to have drawing skills of da Vinci. Obviously, I do not have a tiny bit of all these.  Nevertheless, I decided to try, and got excepted to the Architectural department of NYCCT. And from the first class I realized that to be an architect is really what I was looking for; I just did not know it before.

Being in Junior year in the architecture program, has really been a blast. Despite the fact, that some professors are a bit younger than me, and my groupmates roll their eyes finding out my age, it is the best time of my educational journey. After every presentation of new projects, I get to experience the same feeling I had in the second grade. The professors’ critique and praise make me feel encouraged, satisfied, and willing to make the next project even better.

With deep pockets but lost…

To be fairly honest, I must say, before applying to the architecture department I did a full research of the profession including its average median pay. And it was quite a surprise for me that architect don’t make that much money, unless, of course, you are Frank L. Wright or Zaha Hadid type of architect. And it made me concerned in the beginning, but as I said, from the first class all my doubts vanished, and I knew I would succeed in the field as long as I really love what I am doing. No wonder Henry Ford once said, “The best job is a high-paid hobby”, I totally agree on that.

Nowadays, unfortunately, many college students pursue financial aspect in the pursue of future career. And there is no doubt, that the money is very important aspect in life, but it should not be a key point in choosing your future career, self-satisfaction and significance of your work would earn all the money.

I used to prioritize the money the same way. For over seven years I worked in one of the world’s famous and luxury hotel as a bartender. I have met people from all over the world of different occupations and backgrounds. And as usual I had some small talks with the patrons at the bar. The typical questions were: Where I was from and What I do besides this job. At the time when I was in engineering school, I would tell my guests that I was a student. And their reaction was priceless. The words of encouragement, approval, and satisfaction would flow in my name. People, who had businesses all over the world, would tell me their stories, how they started as waiters and grew further tirelessly in order to finish college and to become who they are now. But at the time I was off the college (so called re-evaluating time), I caught a sense of my guests’ disapproval and disappointment. At that time, I was a little bit annoyed by their reaction, because in my opinion, I achieved a lot as an immigrant. I had a secured job in the union house, a six-digit salary, insurance, and benefits. But at the same time, I felt like something was left off – a dream of self-fulfillment. And I knew the only way to fill that gap to go back to school, but to study what was another question.

It took me some time to realize that money is not the only important thing to consider. I did make a decent amount of money, even more than some my friends with Business degree made. But the way they talked, felt, and perceived themselves as professionals, was something that I lacked and was jealous about.

Conclusion

In my essay I mostly intended to inspire young adults not to give up in their educational journey. The importance of education – is not only in pursuing a degree just because you are expected to, but it really lays down in the decision of what field and career will bring you the satisfaction of the process and the result.

Sometimes the best advice or hint for your future career path hides where you don’t expect it. You should appreciate all the advice and suggestions your parents and teachers give you in high school, but the main choice is yours. You shouldn’t be scared of a long educational journey, if you do what you really like the time will fly by. You should not be in a race for money as a priority, if what you do really gives you fulfillment, the money will come along.

It is totally fine if in the middle of your educational journey, you realize that it is not what you want to do in the future. It is totally fine to take step back from education and re-evaluate your path. It is never late to come back to school and start a path to your dream job even if you have doubts. The result of self-satisfaction and fulfillment will be worth it. And for my part, I would like to add that my parents are immensely proud of me and my choice of a future profession. Once my mom admitted that she kindly envies me, since I really do what I fancy, and it is her biggest achievement to realize that her child’s dream is coming true.

 

Bibliography

Revision

Not to sound too self-confident, but I left my Bibliography Assignment without a change as well. I spent most of the time on this assignment and it was not an easy genre for me to write. Being afraid of dried, bold facts and tables of statistic numbers, I tried to avoid it as much as possible in this assignment. I stayed satisfied with the resources I’ve chose to use since they provide information from different countries and from people of different backgrounds. I liked the examples used in the research and opinions of different professionals. Overall, I would improve the vocabulary content of the essay as for me being not a native English speaker, it is sometimes quite difficult to match right words and terminology.

 

The beginning of the year 2020 has brought to the world a new awareness about existence during pandemic. In the burst of this awareness many fields of our everyday life had to adapt, including the field of architecture. Well-established principles of architecture had to be reevaluated shifting the main priority towards the relationship between an architecture and a human health.

Being an architecture student, I first faced these adjustments during one of my assignments, when we had to design a community center considering a safe, Covid-19 free environment. In the beginning it was hard for me to develop new safety concepts and follow the health regulations. But over the time, it made me think about this new reality the architecture is moving toward. And as a future architect, I understand now, that with the burst of Covid-19 and possible future pandemics, the architectural planning and designing of new residential buildings, public spaces, work offices, and entire cities, would have to meet new considerations and tendencies.

In this research I expect to find some previous experiences of architects facing similar obstacles. I will also investigate some new technologies and green architecture tendencies which will fulfill the new requirements of safe environment. This research will help to understand consumers’ new expectations of different occupancy buildings.

Amado De Jesus is a Principal Architect and Green Architecture Consultant of A.P. de Jesus and Associates Firm in Philippines. In his article “Impact of COVID-19 on architecture” to Philippines Daily Inquirer he stays that in the past architects had already faced the consequences of various diseases and responded to them quite successfully. He brings some classical examples of adjusted architecture like Hausmann’s renovation of Paris in the 1800s, London’s infrastructure renovation in the wake of the city’s 1954 cholera outbreak, and the reaction of New York City to the miserable conditions of tenement housing. The author affirms that global pandemics has forced the architecture and urban planning to evolve in the past, and that Covid-19 pandemic would definitely bring changes in future building environment.

As a vice chairman of the Philippines Green Building Initiative, Amado de Jesus believes that Green architecture concepts will decrease the rate of sickness and improve mental functions of its occupants. He also says that the redesign of cities would have to undergo two major considerations – the accommodation of the sudden growth of sick people by providing medical supplies, spaces, and cemeteries in large scale, and by resuming the city life as normal as possible by accommodating residential buildings with functional and healthy spaces.  He insists on the concepts of green architecture in order to bring natural light and proper ventilation in homes.

Amado De Jesus also relies on new technologies to improve safety features of the buildings in the future. He brings out touchless technologies as automatic doors, voice-activated elevators, facial recognition, app-controlled rooms, and automatically washed and disinfected surfaces. The reduction of people gathering in airports he proposes to redesign security lanes with the improving of passenger’s flow, he also suggests embedding advanced automatic check-in systems. To increase the capacity of sick people in hospitals he suggests designing a hospital room in a way that it can be easily transformed into ICU. He offers to eliminate waiting area, substituting it to a compact nook with RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology to track and alert patients.

I strongly agree with author’s statement that eventually architecture will surpass all the circumstances of the pandemic and adapt to the new reality. I also believe that urban development would have to be reevaluated by reserving large areas of the cities not for commercial construction, but for green recreational areas, which in the case of new burst of pandemic could be quickly transformed to large mobile hospitals. As 2020 showed it is achievable in practice, when the whole world witnessed the erection of two hospitals for Covid patients in Wuhan, China in just over a week.

The author also brings up new technological innovations, which need to be incorporated with the building design in order to fight viruses and maintain the healthy environment inside the structure. I believe that technology is the future of not only commercial or industrial architecture, but also residential. The new digital technologies of air quality in the enclosed spaced should be introduced in every residential unit as well as new air-filtration systems. Every apartment of multi-unit building should be introduced to an open-air space like balcony or patio. The fresh air circulation should be introduced to the high-rise glass skyscrapers where typically windows are not operable.

Amado De Jesus opens his article with a quote of the pioneer of Modern architecture – Le Corbusier – saying “A house is only habitable when it is full of light and air.” Over 150 years later this statement gained its most relevance during present time. In fact, with the shifting towards online performance of our everyday tasks, people spend more time at home. And healthy productive environment of the people’s houses can be achieved with the close attention to the proper air circulation of the houses.

Phillip Kennicott – the Pulitzer Prize-winning art and architecture critic of the Washington Post – has conducted many famous architects and architecture-related professionals. In his article “The pandemic has shown us what the future of architecture could be” he analyzes and compares different responds and views on the future architecture. He opens his article with the introduction of relatively new building in Switzerland – the Blur Building – finished in 2002 by famous architects Diller+Scofidio Group. The uniqueness of that building lies in the artificial fog effect which blurs away and dissolve the entire structure. The building was described by its designer as “The public can drink the building.” Phillip Lennicott questions the relevance of the structure at the present time of pandemic – time of filtered air and sanitizers. He stays that architecture has faced its failure and assures that “people will spontaneously repurpose buildings if those buildings aren’t serving them well.” In his article he also brings up an example of an architecture graduate student of the University of California Jacob Sertich. For his final project, the student researched the topic of integration the senior living facilities into busy, dynamic urban life. The presentation of student’s work was scheduled right after Covid-19 outbreak, and by that time it was obvious that the entire proposal was destined to failure, as the elderly people should be isolated from the free transmittance of virus. Though the project received the top award for the concept, the young architect rethinks his idea in general. The author Kennicott interviews one of the designers of the Blur Building – Elizabeth Diller, world famous architect. She considers that future architecture should involve a new principle in its development – the fourth dimension – time. She strongly believes that the perfect model of the future city is the Highline Park, located in Manhattan. The elevated park helps to control the flow of its visitors by the means of forked pathways, and also visitor’s density introducing distanced seating areas. The park above the city also makes busy streets and subways less crowded as people gain a choice to travel along beautiful landscape.

Phillip Kennicott makes it very clear in his article that former unique buildings wouldn’t work in post-Covid era. And, unfortunately, I must agree with him. Despite uniqueness and characters of some world’s famous pieces of architecture, they lack the ability of coexistence with the modern reality. In my opinion, in the future architects would have to consider their buildings as an integral part of human life, rather than an independent living organism.

In the beginning of the 20^th century the Modern architecture brought many new points and principles of buildings. The concepts of open floor plan, glazed curtain walls, uninterrupted circulation were implemented and preferred in many designs. Nowadays, all these concepts would have to be reevaluated. As many families quarantine at home, the concept of open floor plan isn’t ideal any more since detached rooms need to be introduced to the household to prevent the spread of virus. Glazed curtain wall façade definitely brings to building some prestige, modernism and value, but inoperable windows don’t let the fresh air access inside, which have to be substituted by more flexible units. The circular uninterrupted circulation of Guggenheim Museum by F.L. Wright made this structure a world’s masterpiece for many decades. Unfortunately, nowadays such a feature can expose more people to virus.

In her interview Elizabeth Diller from Diller+Scofidio Group says, “The Pandemic is a problem that is going to be saved by medicine and not cured by architecture.” At some point I have to disagree with her opinion, as I think architecture plays a vital part of world’s fight against Covid-19. Though architects don’t have qualifications to treat people or develop vaccinations, they are responsible for the designing of the buildings where those procedures take place. Even if there is an efficient Covid-19 vaccine, it wouldn’t cure the planet unless the environment is designed to support its effect.

“How Covid-19 can transform the building where we live and work” is the video series by Washington Post, in which the journalist visits the homes and offices of famous architects during Covid isolation.

The journalist visits a young agriculture architect Cathleen Taylor who lives in her organic farm in Connecticut. In her 12 years career she was researching the influence of buildings on people’s health. She was one of the architects who designed a hospital for treatment of air-borne viruses in Butare, Rwanda. The implemented a new approach of the spatial arrangement in the hospital, by shifting all the means of circulation outside, and dedicating the interior space to the patients and medical stuff only. They also introduced a window access with the beautiful views to every patient what also helped to achieve cross-ventilation. She admits that the design of such facilities should be considered with the close attention to local climate and ecosystem, and that design strategy can differ a lot depending on the area where it is built. Another host of the video is world’s famous architect Steven Holl. He discusses his current project for Medical School College in Bogota. The building is only two stories and it is all outside. The main feature of the campus is the central courtyard which embraces the nature and brings it to the campus. The spatial arrangement of the auditoriums allows students to be involved in education from outside. Steven Holl considers that this building is a perfect example of campus architecture of post-Covid time. At the same time, he admits that such a concept highly depends on the climate and environment where ii is going to be built. The author of the video also visits the architectural giant firm Gensler which specialty is office buildings arrangement. The main concept of the firm is to treat the work environment as a creative collaboration space rather than the space for everyday tasks performance.

The video had not only a lot of useful information to consider but also provided a visual example of future architecture. I strongly agree with all the guests of the video and also think that the future if architecture should highly depend on the environment and climate possibilities of the specific region.

I think Steven Holl’s design of campus should be implemented for every university since the student’s collaboration is vital aspect of their educational experiences. For the areas with four-seasons climate Holl’s concept can still be introduced by shirting school year to warmers months of the year. Additional portable heating devices could be introduced for outdoor auditoriums as an option.

I also think we should not put a cross on the office buildings, but rather treat them with a new perspective. Unfortunately, not everyone has an opportunity to work from home on daily basis. To make an office building as an optional workplace would be an ideal solution for many working parents. In order to make workplaces more safe environment new regulations maybe introduced like bring your own device policy or application-operated digital facilities of the office.

In his interview Steven Holl mentioned that the current situation “sends us all to the first grade. And that’s something that he thinks is a positive since we’ve spent the last few decades basically wrecking the Earth.” I think his words have a very deep meaning. In fact, the humanity has been taking advantage of the planet, unless the planet strikes back at us. Only with the pandemic and being isolated from the entire world, we realized its value. In the future, I believe, the architects should carefully consider the nature and the possible impact new structures can bring to it. Architects of the future should be more respectful to the environment trying to preserve natural habitat as much as it is possible.

 

After performing my research and gathering opinions and views on post-pandemic architecture, as a future architect I marked down the path I should focus on. One of the main things which became clear is that the architecture would have to change. It was a relief to find out that architects of the past dealt with the circumstances of pandemic and did it quite successfully. Their experience brought new movements and trends in Modern architecture, and I think Covid-19 will bring new tendencies to the architecture of 21^st century as well. The architects of the future would have to consider the interaction of their structures with the nature, what is going to bring a new wave of Green sustainable architecture. Covid-19 brought our everyday tasks to a distanced performance, people work and study from homes, shop, and delivery food from online platforms, isolate themselves at homes. All these changes may shift the architecture towards development of rural areas rather than cities. The focus can be dedicated to the development of the residential buildings with outdoor spaces and efficient floorplans. This deurbanization may change the look of large cities by introducing large green areas which could be converted into mobile hospitals in case of another pandemic outbreak. The colleges and schools would have to meet rearrangement as well. The circulation of students on campuses should not be concentrated in one area, more naturally ventilated spaces would have to be introduced in the design. New technologies would have to be integrated in various occupancy buildings. The motion sensors, temperature detectors, touchless surfaces, air filtration devices would have to be essential part of every building. In general, we live during remarkably interesting time, when the old established normal would have to change to accept a new reality.

 

Podcast Script

Host: “Hello my future architects, established professionals, and dear listeners who are interested in architecture and its development. Today’s episode is going to be special as I’ve invited many outstanding professionals of the field all over the world. It is not a secret the 2020^th has started as Hollywood catastrophe-movie. But over the time we calmed down and learned to deal with the circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic. In today’s episode I would really like to talk to my guests about architecture after pandemic period. What really interests me and hopefully you, my listeners, is would architecture have to change to adapt to the new reality. If yes, what new tendencies should we expect and how would they be implemented? To sort out all these questions and concerns, I’ve invited a Principal Architect and Green Architecture Consultant of A.P. de Jesus and Associates Firm in Philippines – Amado de Jesus, Senior Associate of the Gensler Architecture Firm – Lisa Adkins, the world’s acknowledge architect – Steven Holl, an amazing partner of architectural giant Diller+Scofidio Group – Elizabeth Diller, and a young and well-established architect – Cathleen Taylor. Good afternoon everyone and thank you so much for being here with us today.”

The guests greet the host and audience.

Host: “So my first question to all of you would be “Was architecture industry in general ready to face such conditions as a Pandemic?”

Amado de Jesus: “Well, from the experience and history, we can definitely say that it wasn’t for the first time when world got caught by a surprise of the burst of the pandemic. Probably, we just all hoped that it wouldn’t happen to us in the 21^st century – the century of high technologies and advanced Health Care System. But as I said, the architects of the past had dealt with the spread of diseases and coped quite successfully with their tasks. The most vivid examples would be Hausmann’s renovation of Paris in the 1800s, when in the response to the large development of the city a new system of fresh water supply and sewers was introduces in a large scale. Another great examples are London’s infrastructure renovation in the wake of the city’s 1954 cholera outbreak, and the reaction of New York City to the miserable conditions of tenement housing. These past examples show us that global pandemics have forced the architecture and urban planning to evolve in the past, and that Covid-19 pandemic would definitely bring changes in future building environment.”

Cathleen Taylor: “I agree with my colleague and would like to add that my firm and me personally have already dealt with the fight of viruses and designed a new hospital for treatment of air-borne viruses in Butare, Rwanda. We implemented a new approach of the spatial arrangement in the hospital, by moving all the means of circulation outside, and devoting the interior space to the patients and medical stuff only. We also introduced a window access with the beautiful views to every patient what also helped to achieve cross-ventilation. I admit that the design of such facility hardly be possible in the climate zone of New York State, for example. But I am sure that in the future architects would overcome such considerations by closely focusing on the local climate and ecosystem of the site.”

Host: “As we started to talk about Medical field of architecture what other innovations and improvements should be introduced to the design of hospitals?”

Amado de Jesus: “I think to increase the capacity of sick people in hospitals we should design a hospital room in a way that it can be easily transformed into ICU. I offer to eliminate waiting area, substituting it to a compact nook with RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology to track and alert patients.”

Host: “Should all the attention of architects be focused on designing and innovating hospitals? What about other areas like people’s houses, schools, offices? Would they have to face any rearrangements in the future?”

Steven Holl: “The current situation sends us all to the first grade. And that’s something that I think is a positive since we’ve spent the last few decades basically wrecking the Earth. In my opinion the residential architecture would see its rise in the rural areas, where green, self-sufficient houses would introduce a new hype of architecture putting the relation between human and nature in balance.”

Host: “What about the cities? Would they have to disappear? Sounds like an apocalyptical science-fiction scenario.”

Amado de Jesus: “Definitely cities are not going anywhere. But we as architects would have to redesign them with two major considerations – the accommodation of the sudden growth of sick people by providing medical supplies, spaces, and cemeteries in large scale, and by resuming the city life as normal as possible by accommodating residential buildings with functional and healthy spaces.  I agree with Steven Holl and firmly believe that the concepts of green architecture would play an essential role in bringing natural light and proper ventilation in homes.”

Elizabeth Diller: “I think that future architecture should involve a new principle in its development – the fourth dimension – time. I strongly believe that the perfect model of the future city is the Highline Park, located in Manhattan. The elevated park helps to control the flow of its visitors by the means of forked pathways, and visitor’s density introducing distanced seating areas. The park above the city also makes busy streets and subways less crowded as people gain a choice to travel along beautiful landscape.”

Host: “Very interesting observations. Thank you. Another question I can’t help to ask is the future of educational establishments. As an architecture student myself, we’ve been on a distance learning for over the year, and many students and their parents can’t wait to be back on campus. When the time comes will we come back to the same buildings as we left?”

Steven Holl: “No, most likely the colleges, schools and campuses would have to undergo changes as well. My firm’s current project is for Medical School College in Bogota. The building is only two stories, and it is all outside. The main feature of the campus is the central courtyard which embraces the nature and brings it to the campus. The spatial arrangement of the auditoriums allows students to be involved in education from outside. I really think that this building is a perfect example of campus architecture of post-Covid time. But at the same time, I must agree with Cathleen that such concept highly depends on the climate and environment where it is going to be built. For the areas with four-seasons climate, in my opinion, the concept can still be introduced by shifting school year to warmers months of the year. Additional portable heating devices could be introduced for outdoor auditoriums as an option.”

Host: “What about the office buildings?”

Lisa Adkins: “My firm has been specializing on office buildings arrangements for many years. We’ve worked with giant corporations and publishers from all over the world. The Covid-19 has influenced our industry since many employees were made to work from home. We still think that office space is vital for companies and its employees since not everyone has an opportunity to work from home on daily basis. Our main concept is to treat the work environment as a creative collaboration space rather than the space for everyday tasks performance. The goal of our firm is to make an office building an optional workplace which would be an ideal solution for many working parents. In order to make workplaces safer environment we intend to introduce new regulations like bring your own device policy, application-operated digital facilities, self-cleaned and disinfected surfaces, touchless doors and elevators.”

Host: “Thank you so much for such a productive conversation. Unfortunately, time of our episode is running out. I would like to shortly conclude our guests’ opinions and agree that the architecture would have to change in the future. Honestly, it was a relief to find out that architects of the past dealt with the circumstances of pandemic and did it quite successfully. As a result, their experience brought not only safer environment but a new movements and trends in Modern architecture. All these make me hope that Covid-19 will bring new tendencies to the architecture of 21^st century as well. To conclude, I would like to add that we all live during difficult and unpredictable time. But I tend to look at things from positive side, and I believe that we live during remarkably interesting time as well, the time, when the old established normal would have to change to accept a new reality. Thank you so much for listening to our Podcast and see you next episode.”

 

An Artist’s Statement

Revision

In my Artist’s Statement Assignment, I would spend more time trying to mark down my target audience more clearly. I would also go in deeper details of the process of creating my Podcast Script. I would definitely spend more time investigating the genre – do more research of the most trendy podcasters and the techniques they use in their streams. After some consideration, I would also increase and diversify the amount of questions for the guests, at the same time making their answers a bit shorter. But, overall, I was left satisfied with the completed work.

The burst of Covid-19 pandemic has brought the World to the acceptance of a new reality in many aspects of our lives. Everyday routine has shifted from public performance to the distance isolation. The pandemic has brought changes to many fields like country’s economies, local businesses, hospitality and tourism industry, and healthcare. In the Unit 2 I researched the impact of Covid-19 on architecture field, how architects reacted to a new environment and their possible respond to the pandemic in the form of future buildings. I have decided to share my research and concerns with the public. Of course, it would be a more productive discussion with the fellow architecture students, but I wanted to bring out my views and discussions to a larger audience not related to an architectural field specifically. I wanted to make sure that risen questions about possible future changes in architecture would concern and be interesting not only for field professionals, but their parents, spouses, and friends.

The Unit 3 assignment made me a bit nervous in the beginning as we have to describe a researched topic in a new informal genre we have never experienced. In high school I had an experience to work with Literature genres as a reader and never dared to write something by myself as writing was never my strongest skills. So after some research of different genres, I marked out the main ones, which would interest my specific audience, and I would like to test them. The first choice was a science-fiction article for a magazine or newspaper, but after some consideration on how many people actually read articles nowadays, I’ve decided to let this idea go. The second choice of writing was more, in my opinion, academic oriented. The curatorial statement good be very technical and somewhat boring, and hardly would interest my target audience. I started thinking how I can cover a larger scale of people in their 20s to 50s, what genre can actually interest audience with such an age gap. And new social media movement gave me an idea. I’ve decided to introduce my researched topic as an episode of a Podcast series, hosted by an architecture student. The Podcast streaming is a fairly new movement which covers different age categories of listeners with various background.  Instead of long-form reporting or solo-cast, I’ve chosen to perform it a conversational genre. It is hard to have a conversation with yourself, so my next step was to think of guest I could invite for the series. My research in Unit 2 covers opinions and views of many professionals of the architectural field, so I’ve decided to invite the brightest representatives of the industry. I didn’t want my Podcast to be lecture-oriented conversation. So, the entire episode is arranged in the way that the host presents the topic for a discussion and asks leading question to make Podcast more fluent and interactive. In order to avoid boredom in the answers the host asks some provoking and kind of trigging questions (f.e. “What about the cities? Would they have to disappear?” ) The guests answer those questions from their own rich experience and possible visions of the situation resolution. An especially important concern for my episode was the timing. We all live in a busy environment, and hardly my audience would have an extra hour to listen to the episode, when, on the other hand, everyone would find 15 minutes while snacking or driving to listen to the full episode.

After my Podcast was scripted and finished, I can say I quite satisfied with the completed project. I was a bit worried about the special terminology my guest would use in their answers, which could be confusing for the listeners without architectural background. I wish I could bring more humor in the episode, but after some thinking, the conversation was based on Covid-19 circumstances, which took lives of many people, and humor might not be appropriate. I am also glad that conversation turned out to be coherent and respectful. With many people at the table, it is quite hard to maintain a disciplined conversation without interruptions and yelling. I think the main goal of my Podcast to engage a larger audience succeeded. Such episode could interest not only the students of architecture and architects, but also people surrounding them. It gives a vivid example of how the housing industry, for example, could change, providing a valued information for real estate investors for example, or how a family can finally make that choice to move to suburbs.

In general, I really liked the experience of creating a Podcast episode. It made me want to spend more time to listening to different podcasters and drink in their techniques and tactics. I would really like to try to air a podcast episode as a host or a guest. And I really enjoyed the experience of bringing the stars of world architecture in an imaginary conversation.

As I revised my essays from Units 1-3, I immediately thought to myself I need to be more detailed and provide more information or examples in my essays. For Unit 1, we wrote an Education Narrative essay. At first, I didn’t know how I should go about with this assignment. Do I write about my education in Bangladesh since I grew up there and I’ve completed my entire education up until University? Do I write about my current education journey since I am continuing my education here? Or do I write about both because they go hand in hand? I decided to talk about both, and write about the difference. However, there was so much to mention and it was difficult to narrow it down to what main points I should focus on. How do I write my whole education on a piece of paper? I wrote about my experience in education, how the transition in my education journey was like from my country to the USA, and I gave an example to readers of how the teaching methods are different. It is obvious education is different in other countries. In my first draft, I didn’t explain the difference enough. I should have provided more examples or situations in my essay. I didn’t have a great thesis statement. From my final essay, I learned how to write a better thesis statement and provided more examples to have a better understanding of how my education journey is. I also specified how the education was different than it is in America.

For Unit 2, I chose obesity as my research topic. I was genuinely curious about obesity from before. I thought I should use this assignment as an opportunity to learn why obesity rates are so high in the US and what is in our food that is making us gain weight. As I revised my essay about obesity, I can see how I made it personal. I should have focused on keeping my essay as a research paper. After all, it is a research paper. I thought maybe by sharing my thoughts in my research paper, it would show the reader the reason I chose obesity and the thoughts I had. I should have provided more facts and statistics of obesity. My essay was also a little all over the place. For example, in my third paragraph, I wanted to explain how the ingredients in food products in America are very different in other countries. I couldn’t find an article to support that enough. Then in my fourth paragraph, I explain how certain foods and/or ingredients are banned in other countries. I also provided the reasons as to why certain foods and/or ingredients are banned.Another thought I had while revising my essay on obesity is that it is similar to writing an article. It did not really feel like I was reading a research paper. However, I did define what obesity was, what the rates were, I provided the percentage of obesity in adults and children, and I answered my research questions. I should have written a stronger thesis statement and connected it with a supporting statement.

For Unit 3, I chose to do a brochure. I initially thought of a short video clip. Nowadays, people watch videos on their social media platforms. There are videos that range from education videos to funny videos. They are very short, simple, and straight to the point. So I thought a short clip would be great to make for this project. But many people tend to skip videos that do not interest them. A brochure was a better idea in my opinion. It would be handed out directly to my audience. I decided to target customers from companies that promote weight loss and sell weight loss products as my audience. People usually read through brochures and ads when they receive packages. So this was a great marketing strategy to get to your audience.

A couple things I learned over this semester are the different kinds of writing, genres, and how to improve my writing. I still have more to learn when it comes to my writing skills. Going forward, I will work on having a strong thesis statement, providing examples, and have supporting statements.