The Inevitable

"You really have no idea what you're doing" my professor iterated 4 times in the ten minute crit I had this morning.

"This drawing here shows me that you don't understand your project at all"
"You have a poor grasp of topography and how to manipulate it"
"I really don't think you're completely aware of what you did here"

These were a few of the comments I received after presenting an underdeveloped path project.  It may have been because I had three days to do it or the fact that my 2 am drawing skills are subpar, but honestly I don't understand topography, nor what was expected of me.  At my professor's urging on Friday night I changed my idea to a bike path with extreme mounds and sloping and such, and of course, in typical architecture fashion, he didn't like the idea today and would have preferred if the path was for people walking and had the structure of my old design.  Sound familiar?  It's what has happened for every single one of my crits.  I design something.  My professor wants me to change it last minute.  In the final review he prefers my old design and chastises me for pursuing an idea that is incomplete.  Part of me thinks this style of teaching is ridiculous.  I'm learning how to technically produce things, but conceptually I do not understand what is interesting or what a good design is.  If architects are so absent minded and unable to like something for more than 12 hours I might be in the wrong field.

The crit was rough.  They were tough and made sure to let me know my project was bad and that I had no clue what I was doing.  This is true, but it still stings when you've changed a design 3 times in 3 weeks and have always heard that the first idea was better.  Luckily I hated this project from the beginning, so the sting isn't so bad.  I just wish I knew what was going on.

Other people had some really cool work, and it's always nice to see other ideas, although one person showed up with one of the five required drawings and no model, but they liked her idea and I thought it was weird that they didn't care that she hadn't done the work.

 Crits finished and we had class after that, but considering only four of us got more than 2 hours of sleep, they cancelled it, which was nice.  I got lunch with people, then fell asleep when I got back to my apartment.  Of course we have homework, but I took the day off.  I'll just do it tomorrow.

The last week is coming up and I'm sure it will be the hardest week by far.  We'll be revising our previous projects, remaking most of them, and creating a book of the work over the past month.  Then we'll be getting reading for an exhibition of our work, open to the public.  Sorry I don't have pictures today, but if you're interested in something in particular let me know.  Thanks for reading.