Do u remember your thesis project?

[tectonic]

hi,
Not sure if you still remember what is your thesis project? ( I bet no architecture student will forget the thesis project be it a failure or a success)
I am currently working on a direction or probably what can be termed as an issue of my thesis project. There are so much things wondering in my mind . I first started of with the notion of transitional space and memory. After much thought, I realise transitional space is a matter of process which eventually drives me to think about the notion of growing up hence arriving at a first thought of orphanage. As far as how it could be further developed , I am still at a search.
I am really wondering what exactly does thesis means to others?Care to share the process and thoughts? How did U started off and how do you see the process?
I hope this will set an interesting topic to reminisce those moments and for some like me to learn and hear more opinions. Thank you :)

[Hemma]

The good old Airport. It was not bad either.... but then again, that was just less than a year ago. I tried to use some of the chinese garden design techniques in it to bring out qualities associated with airports. Its an emotional place, you know.

Dunno why, but I just seem like i've worked on the project forever, but just there wasn't enough that came out of it. Silly me, did the sections at 1:200 detail and shrunk it to 1:500, at the end of the day, nobody knew that I even drew the services, the tourists were all individually drawn, tour guides, customs officers, even had sniffer dogs in the sections. Its just one of those lessons you learn - show what you have done. Kevin was one my my critiques.

[SWANK-E]

hi dave

[James D. Smith]

I have found my best "inspirations" from "intuition" - don't THINK to hard you can sometimes talk youself out of your best ideas, in design and all things in life.

I pondered for some time over my thesis topic and was trying too hard to be very clever and very leading edge. I was too up tight about it and couldn't settle on anything. It was during our fourth year (of five) that we were to come up with the theme and outline for our fifth year problem. Our class spent that fourth year studying in France and traveling in Italy (I am a University of Illinois graduate). The travel, exposure to European architects, architecture, the great people, actually experiencing Notre Dame cathedral in Paris contrasted with the work of Corbu, the great works in Italy - the new in Torino/Milan and the incredible historic building of Firenze, Venice and Rome was an overwhelming experience for this bunch of midwesterners. Needless to say, or class was quite pumped up from the experience. Anyway, the bottom line was we had a taste of the real world and our minds were opened up to what is really important in life and gave us some tools for clear and objective thinking.

Sorry to go off on such a tangent - just reminiscing. Bottom line was that I realised I was totally in charge of this project, could do anything I wanted to do and decided to do something I enjoy. That came first. All the rest would come (or not) but I would be doing a "labor of love" not just labor.

I was (and am) an amateur astronomer and settled on this as a direction. The University of Illinois was exploring sites for a new observatory in the country south of Urbana so I expanded on their quest and came up with an idea to design an observatory cluster of three domes with classrooms, planetarium for the public and a museum. Never had so much fun. No one had ever done this sort of project before and it was also suprising to the astronomy departments at my school and at Norhtwestern University. The astronomers got a kick out of the project, and were pleasently suprised at my background and interest in the field and gave me more material and help than I could have hoped for. Anyway, I had a great time doing the astronomy complex, got an A on the project and it was ranked second best out of the class. I'm still upset that I was beat out by one of my buddies who did a dolphin research and interpretive center, but, he was pretty inspired too so I have forgiven him! I wish we had sketchUp back then. In my "spare time" I have thought about drawing it up just for the fun of it. Would just love to build the thing sometime in my life.

So - follow you heart and do what really means something to you. A project involving orphans could be very rewarding to you and might inspire some real work in an area that is unfortunately much needed in our very beaten up world.

Good luck and keep in touch!