Thesis Abstract V2

“Keep up with modern facilities if you want to remain in Buffalo”. – Roger Goodell NFL Commissioner. With the lease of the current Buffalo Bills stadium coming to an end after the 2023 season, there is little doubt that a new stadium is envisioned for the Bills in the near future. The current stadium, New Era Field, opened in 1972 and is one of the oldest stadiums in the NFL still in use. While only used 8 games a season, there is a large financial gain for the local business at each game. Outside of those 8 games, it is an empty structure. This stadium represents the history of the Bills and the NFL. There has been triumph and tragic loss experienced in those seats and there would be more than one Bills fan wanting to hold onto that history as this team means so much to the community and its identity. There is a special bond that the fans of Buffalo have with their team and it would be a benefit to the community to both maintain that history as well as expand on it.
With the future stadium of the Bills likely being moved from the current complex in Orchard Park, the town has a conundrum of what to do with the old stadium once the main tenant moves out. Do they knock it down or can it be repurposed? With so much history for the town, it would be a great loss to the community to lose. My thesis aims to not only save this history of Orchard Park, but also serve as a “Blueprint” for other communities that have stadiums that are empty, or going to be, to have a guideline as to the steps and process at which to repurpose the structure for the benefit of the community.

John Mellas_Week 3

Fraser

1:  There are plenty of instances where the assumed correct method of design was implemented but investigation years later reveal that it was almost the worst possible design. Fraser uses the example of Tafuri’s 1920’s social improvement and economic redistribution by architectural means, to highlight this dilemma.  How then, can we be certain of the right thing to design? Is there a “correct” method of design?

2:  Can the architect’s role extend beyond the realm of design? The Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) that Fraser founded with Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari raises a question as to how impactful architects can be in conflict stricken areas. The conflict between Palestine and Israel is one of the oldest in history. Can architects take this conflict and enable a new generation of Palestinians and Israelis to carve out their own cultural identity with design? Is this something that architects should take the forefront on in other areas of conflict or destress?

3:  “How one might design a whole city which would take decades to realize, and thinking of how one might possibly be able to do that.” In those decades, things will undoubtedly change. How can we plan for a future that might never materialize, or one that we never saw coming? How can we design for a future (especially in this day and age) where our cultural, social, political, and economic realities change so fast?

Rendell

1:  If interdisciplinary, and even multidisciplinary, are such a key element in today’s design process, why are we only taught architecture in school? It seems that to have a greater understanding of the world around us and not just design, theory, and history architecture classes. Why isn’t a broader curriculum taught to architecture students to give them a better understanding of the world around that they design in?

2:  Jennifer Bloomer’s work “demonstrates that the feminine, and perhaps theory, can be a radical element in architectural practice.” Has there been a separation between theory and architectural practice? If so, what would the benefit of bringing theory into design work?

3:  Rendell mentions “active writing, which aims to perform the spatial qualities of an artwork or piece of architecture through textual approaches, reconfiguring the sites between critic and work, essay and reader, as an ‘architecture’ of criticism. Here site-writing operates as a form of architectural design research exploring how architectural processes of structuring and detailing spaces through can work through textual media, offering new insights into what architecture is and what it might be.” Is the written word of architecture (theory, history, critique, etc..) just as important as built, and even unbuilt, designs? Can Rendell’s site-writing be a form of architecture in and of its self?

V2 Thesis Abstract
“Keep up with modern facilities if you want to remain in Buffalo”. – Roger Goodell NFL Commissioner. With the lease of the current Buffalo Bills stadium coming to an end after the 2023 season, there is little doubt that a new stadium is envisioned for the Bills in the near future. The current stadium, New Era Field, opened in 1972 and is one of the oldest stadiums in the NFL still in use. While only used 8 games a season, there is a large financial gain for the local business at each game. Outside of those 8 games, it is an empty structure. This stadium represents the history of the Bills and the NFL. There has been triumph and tragic loss experienced in those seats and there would be more than one Bills fan wanting to hold onto that history as this team means so much to the community and its identity. There is a special bond that the fans of Buffalo have with their team and it would be a benefit to the community to both maintain that history as well as expand on it.

Research Methods week 2 readings

John Mellas

Reading 1: “Cross Design”

1:  “We are exploring the ways and the implications of design being a part of everyone’s education in the same ways that the sciences and humanities are parts of everyone’s education.” In some ways it already is with schooling teaching art classes and introducing how we would approach a design problem. I believe that breaking from the strict layout of the US school system would be beneficial to each individual. We know how math and science works, but with design, you are finding out how you work. How would this help the design professions? To what extent would the design field be taught?

2:  “There are things to know, ways of knowing them, and ways of finding out about them that are specific to the design area.” Is the design way of thinking the only way to solve a design problem? Can the thought process of another profession be a better way of thinking and solving a design question? Is interdisciplinary design better than singular disciplinary design?

3:  When you fail to exercise, your muscles break down, becoming weaker and weaker. “In educational terms, the development of constructive thinking must be seen as a neglected aspect of cognitive development in the individual.”  If design were part of required general education, would there be an increase of knowledge in all fields due to the underutilized portion of our brain? Would we see an increase in interdisciplinary design by people engaged in design as well as other general education fields?

Reading 2: Verbeke “This is Research by Design”

1:  “Human learning and (social) constructivist thinking are strongly based on experience, perceptions, and interactions between people.” With this in mind, would having a directed research that is essentially a one on one studio with a professor a good idea? If we are isolated to interactions with just a few people in our design efforts, would the design process begin to get stale? Wouldn’t being in a larger group doing such research be more beneficial than just a one on one discussion all the time

2:  “Architecture and the arts were strongly linked in the past.” Design process feels too mechanical. We need to find the balance between art and architecture. The two things that come to mind here are Zaha Hadid, and the city in the movie Tomorrowland. Both seem to blur the lines between art and architecture, while still being architecturally and programmatically significant. Can the architecture profession survive as an artistic form of designing rather than more practical?

3:  Having too much information could pull us in too many directions when we are designing.  As we continue to design our projects, is there a moment where research no longer is necessary or needed? If you have a design method and purpose, and are set in stone with those, should we stop researching and then (using the research that we have done) begin to formulate our own results?

Reading 1

1: “Research to the painter equals visual intention”.  In architecture, we often look up existing buildings to gain an understanding of existing solutions to problems our design might be facing. Is research in architecture to find forms a bad thing then? Should architecture be a purely internal design process with the lead architect being the engine driving design? This could be a lead into the topic of plagiarism in architecture as well.

2: Is the type of research (r vs R) something that we need to definitively state in school today? Maybe not just in school but in general as well. Or is it accepted that depending on your profession that you are already doing one r verses the other due to your work? Is it wrong to be doing one or the other? I believe that it is dependent on the type of research thesis that you are doing. It would be a situational selection of doing one or the other.

3: Is Research better than research? Or vice versa? “If the stereotype of the scientist as researcher needs some adjusting – to make it seem closer to art and design (though by no means identical with it) – the popular image of the fine artist needs a lot of work as well.” Why would we want to merge the two forms of research? It seems to me that both forms have their advantages. Why do we need to make them more alike?

Reading 2

1: Is it possible that the state of the architecture profession has been a driving factor in how we treat our design studios and thesis work? In reading this paper the thought just jumped out to me. Since a large portion of professors of architecture (and Deans of the school) studied and practiced architecture, could it be their experience in the field that has led them to bring about this change from thesis to research studio?

2: The Boyer Report makes a comment about the “conventional curriculum” and that got me thinking about these two research paths from the school side of things. With the evolving forms of technologies, “conventional curriculum” would be educational suicide for a school to continue doing. Does the research studio allow for a wider inclusion of design in regards to the ever expanding technologies field? Something that perhaps the thesis methodology might not be formatted to accommodate?

3: “In short, this model of a research studio as a substitute for the individual design thesis presents a definitive move away from independent explorations and toward the collective production of disciplinary knowledge”.  Does a research studio allow for a collective production of disciplinary knowledge more than a thesis? Is this because a thesis is more of an independent design project?