I began this process with absolutely no idea what I wanted to spend the next year pursuing – and I am still very unsure - but I think I have a start: my hometown.

Living in Miami is a missed opportunity. I lived in Miami my entire life - until college - and I have no desire to move back. Why? Because people don’t appreciate living in Miami – the sun, the warmth, the ocean – people rarely go outside on a day to day basis, they jump from their air conditioned houses to their air conditioned cars to their air conditioned offices. And it is impossible not to – that is the way the entire city has been designed. Before we graduate and get on with our lives, I think Miami might deserve a second chance – a chance to understand why I dislike it and what can be done about it.

I think that life in Miami is a missed opportunity that can be explored through the built environment. Before the advent of air conditioning, people used to look at other means of making living in a sub tropical climate bearable. I would like to look back at what these strategies were, and how to apply them to new construction in order to make buildings more sustainable, more appropriate, and more livable. As of yet I don’t know what building type I would like to look at, I am considering things ranging from affordable housing to hotels to public buildings, like schools and libraries.

Reading Response: How to Draw Up a Project

I found this article to be interesting because it read like a list of Do’s and Don’ts that would have been so helpful first year, but that I would never have understood without the experience of a few years of studio behind me. It was clearly written and obviously based on the author’s experience, which is what made it helpful. As I read through the article, I recognized so many of the mistakes that I often make in the design process. However interesting this article was, though, it did not help me define my thesis project. I feel as though I don’t even have the phantom-like mass. I think this article is a great list of guidelines once a project is defined, and will help me as a list of things to keep in mind in studio, and later on with my thesis, but it doesn’t help with the search for an appropriate project, only how to follow through..

One of the points that struck me as being most true is the difficulty in the “attempt to define with precision the basic issues to be developed, without becoming entrapped by them.” To be able to do this successfully, though, requires a lot of self-control and awareness that can only be attained through experience and practice. Another warning that I thought was important is the statement that “the project is never a description of something.” Especially in the early stages of design, it is so easy to get caught up in making things a representation of ideas that it only makes sense when the designer gives an accompanying verbal explanation. I think projects are most successful when the presentation given with them is succinct yet clear enough that the audience can follow the train of thought from the initial ideas to the final product without needing it to be spelled out.