Current Sequoia Hall RA, Jeannette Senn, (Architecture class of 2013), tells us about life in the dorms, on the dance floor and on the rope course.  Shout out to room 112!

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Show Notes

Site News

Cal Poly News

• Architecture Alum Joins Bank Board of Directors
  • Henry Ruhnke Jr. (B.AR., Architecture, 1987, M.AR., 1988) has been appointed to the 1st Capital Bank Board of Directors in Monterey. Ruhnke has served on the Monterey Planning Commission, the Monterey Community Contractor Committee and the Monterey Architectural Review Committee. He is a former board member of the American Institute of Architects Monterey Bay.
  • http://calpolynews.calpoly.edu/magazine/Fall-2010/alumni.html
• http://www.arch.calpoly.edu/current/digests/digests-1011/digest-10-19-10.html

General News

• $100 million class action Law-Suit against USGBC
  • http://www.cepro.com/article/100m_lawsuit_filed_against_usgbc_leed/
  • The suit alleges USGBC knowingly used false advertising to mislead consumers and that LEED-accredited individuals are “increasingly people with no experience whatsoever.” It also claims USGBC is attempting to “monopolize the market for energy-efficient building design.”
    • http://www.green-buildings.com/content/78357-henry-gifford
    • http://www.energysavingscience.com/
• Rhode Island first state to adopt the International Green Construction Code (IGCC).
  • http://todaysfacilitymanager.com/facilityblog/2010/10/rhode-island-first-state-to-adopt-green-construction-code.html
  • The Rhode Island Green Buildings Act applies to any public project that is owned, leased, or controlled by the State of Rhode Island
• Architecture Billings growing for the first time since January 2008
  • http://lifeinc.todayshow.com/_news/2010/10/20/5322232-canary-in-the-housing-coal-mine-architecture-billings
  • “This is certainly encouraging news, but we will need to see consistent improvement over the next few months in order to feel comfortable about the state of the design and construction industry,”
  • http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1913810520101020
• New digital edition of ARCHITECT out
  • http://mydigimag.rrd.com/publication/?i=49006
• Public photography OK
  • http://architect-media.com/portal/wts/cemc6Fa87xDba–8-evdrea-gcDz7c

Rapid Fire Questions:

• Cal Poly or Berkeley or Penn State? Cal Poly
• Autocad or Revit? Revit
• Sequoia Hall or Tenaya Hall? SEQUOIA!!
• Facebook or LinkedIn? Facebook
• Arch Record or Architect? Architectural Record
• Drafting dots or tape? Dots
• Yellow trace or white? Yellow
• Ad Markers or Prisma? Prisma
• Pen or Pencil? Pencil
• Mac or PC? PC
• What’s the Meaning of Life? Dance

SCORE: 51,812.4

Interview

• Why Dance?
  • Jeannette is a dancer, she’s been dancing for 5 years and a past gymnast
• Why Architecture?
  • She’s always loved doing things with her hands
  • It’s creative
  • It’s artistic
• Has dance inspired or influenced design work?
  • The awareness of how you move through space and how much space you need to
• Why Cal Poly
  • Growing up in Santa Barbara, SLO was close and she was familiar with the area
  • She loves the outdoors
  • The program speaks for itself
  • It was a no-brainer
• She loves working with her hands
  • Prefers hand drawing, more of a human connection
  • Loves to paint and sketch
  • Building furniture and working in the shop
  • And she loves to rock climb!!
• Why become an R.A.
  • Getting involved, planning events, mentoring
• What advice do you have for students living on campus
  • Get involved, take advantage of your living environment, it will help you meet people and find your niche
• For students wanting to come to Cal Poly for architecture
  • Try to take a drafting program or visit an office to get an idea of it’s something you really want to do
  • Interning can also give you an idea
• How did you know architecture was for you?
  • Watching her house get remodeled and her dad work on her house was eyeopening
• Architecture was a way to incorporate art into a profession that makes money
  • She also did the summer program at Cal Poly while she was in High School and that really solidified it
• Chumash Challenge
  • http://www.asi.calpoly.edu/chumash_challenge_contact

On my Google search last night the first link, as is typical with Google results, was a link to the Wikipedia entry on Architecture.  Next we had the Architectural Record, the AIA, Architecture Magazine, and About.com’s architecture page.   Not until the sixth link on the page did we start to see something that might jump out to a non architectural professional, GreatBuildings.com.  The only news item highlighted on the page was about computer programing architecture.

Architecture - Aug 5th Google Search

As I was watching So You Think You Can Dance, I next searched for the word “Dance”.  What a contrast!  There were ads for dance lessons and then the first links were for Wikipedia, the hit dance television show “So You Think You Can Dance”, Dance.net, image, video, and news results, and then a map to local dance studios.

Dance - Aug 5th Google Search

I then performed similar searches for “fashion”, “art”, and “music”.

Fashion - Google Search

Art - Google Search

Music - Google Search

These three searches returned consumer focused links and varying degrees of multimedia and news results.  Fashion was surprisingly lacking some of the multimedia, but the links were still consumer based and not industry organizations.

Also surprising were the number of results for each search:

• Music: 1.81 billion pages
• Art: 1.28 billion pages
• Fashion: 413 million pages
• Architecture: only 213 million pages!  11% of the pages that music returned.

In contrast to dance, fashion, art, and music, I found the Google results for Architecture so uninspiring because without digging deeper the first results were for stuffy industry organizations and magazines,  there were no news results about the exciting things happening in architecture, and there were NO pictures of amazing buildings.  A Google search for “Buildings” returns more multi-media, but the first link is for the USGBC; while it’s a great organization, their web page is… boring.

So what does this tell us?  To me it’s a perfect reflection of how the public perceives architecture.  While movies often glamorize the Architect as the artist working late into the night building models and drawing pretty pictures, most people think that Architects and architecture are out of reach and are only accessible to the rich and famous.  HGTV has brought interior and landscape design to the masses, but Architects are rarely featured.

So what’s the difference between dance, music and art and architecture?  Well, a lot of things, but these are things that I think we should work on:

• Most people think an Architect can’t help them, they can do it themselves.  Most people also think they can sing and dance, but they appreciate talent when they see it.  It’s much more difficult to identify a talented Architect.
• Architecture is looked at as being a profession for mathematicians and engineers, not artists.  Architecture in reality, is for artists, scientists, mathematicians and engineers.
• Architecture is only recognized when it is extravagant, expensive, or over the top.  Pop culture celebrates bad dancers and singers and amazing dancers and singers… and everyone in between.  Really well designed average cost buildings are rarely recognized.
• Architects are rarely associate with their work.  People have amazing abilities to recognize a song by name and artist but people rarely think about who designed their favorite buildings.  That awesome library downtown, that slick looking pedestrian bridge, who designed them?

So, why do I care what people think about architecture?  Well, that will have to be a topic for another day.