My pants is tight!

Thanks to Yoshi for the photos!

The Seattle Field Study was a lot of fun this time around! There were lots of laughs, stress, thinking, collaborating and walking (all signs of a successful field study).

As many of you know (and for those who don’t), each year the IAT 233 class takes a field study trip to Seattle in order to observe the things that are great and not-so-great about the city, and then apply these observations to a project. This year, the second-year students were given a lot of tools and contextual buildup in order to better understand the study they were about to conduct– they looked into things like cities that are “successful” in their development for human interactions (Rome, Freiburg, etc) and books like A Pattern Language, which allows them to make sense of what they’re observing. They also had the help of 50+ mentors who have not only suffered through the Seattle project before, but many who have done further architectural and human interaction-based research in Italy (such as myself).

During the first two days, we walked around the downtown area, checking out the new developments in Belltown, the cultural soup of Pike Place Market, the incredibly diverse and cool Capitol Hill, and the site of their project, the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Their project was to observe the Viaduct, its surrounding environment, and the people and businesses that make up the area, and then provide possible “solutions” on how to make the Viaduct space “work” with the needs of the people and area (keeping in mind the lessons that they’ve learned through their research on successful cities, and all the pretty books and such).

As someone who’s done this project in the past, when it was even more ill-defined than it was this year (it was actually pretty defined with lots of constraints, which is always a good thing), I have to say that the Seattle project just keeps getting more and more interesting. I kind of wish I had taken this course again, just to do this project.

As mentors, we were responsible for taking the groups of students around the city, explaining what areas/buildings work well (Seattle Public Library, Olympic Sculpture Park) and what areas didn’t (EMP), and then directing our groups to produce a well-communicated set of solutions for the Viaduct site. In the past, we’d only have to stay with our groups for a few hours a day, telling them if they’re doing the work correctly or incorrectly, and then going off on our own for shopping/hanging out; this year, though, we spent much more time with our groups, and even better, we were briefed on their project beforehand so we could have a better idea of what to teach the students (or, as Jay Pozo would put it, “dropping science on the kids”).

While the students worked at night, the mentors got to hang out and relax– really a way for the future Italia Design students to get to know the past Italia students and Russell. From this trip, I got to know the majority of them really well, and I’m confident with next year’s group– they seem like a strong, well-read, fun bunch.

While we were hanging out in the “Emerald” suite of the Sixth Avenue Inn, I observed the “new bunch” interacting with one another and Russ, and it felt weird watching them from the distance, which is probably what last-last year’s Italia people felt watching me and the other Italia ‘08 students doing the same thing a year ago on the same trip. It’s pretty awesome being able to observe “the passing of the torch” so to speak, and even more crazy knowing that some of the students we were mentoring are going to be in that exact spot next year, with the Italia ‘09 students observing from the back as I did.

On the third day, the students presented their work and received feedback from us mentors. Most did well, in my opinion– they all have pretty similar observations and offered similar ideas, with one group standing out with an idea about hanging buildings (you had to be there). My group, the Lissitzky’s Losers, did well, and the other mentors (Jay, Jackie, and Luyi) and I were terribly proud of all the work they put in; after the presentations ended, our group bought us four cheesecakes from the Cheesecake Factory, which was an incredibly nice (and unexpected) gesture. I wish we could have given them something in return! (Jay and I talked about free coffees, but never got around to them).

The Seattle 2008 field study proved to be yet another successful venture into the advanced design process, taking into account architecture, ethnography, history, and design. Most of the students managed to understand the meaning or “point” of the three-day project, which was to introduce them to the importance of the design process (specifically developing a strong context from which to build ideas). While on the bus on the way home, one student (Drew) told me how much this project and this course opened his entire perspective on design, having gone through so much meaningless work in the past, which I could relate to as I’d felt the exact same way after taking the course. Some of the students were a bit downtrodden, though, due to getting strong critiques given during their presentations, which is understandable. These students will hopefully realize that making mistakes early on will actually do them more good in the future, as they can take those comments and feedback and apply them to their work later on.

It’s incredible to see what can come out of a three day trip.