B PLUS VS. A MINUS

June 23, 2017

A secret society judges (photo from encyclopediasatanica.wordpress.com)

Inside the catacombs, we professors graded our architecture students. The Ancient Order, Secret Society, Illuminati, covert handshakes and all—I was there. Inside.

Community and convention center for San Francisco, my graduate school thesis project (photo by Anthony Poon)

Grading the student’s work is no easy task. I can track attendance, for example, but how do I assign a letter grade to a design for a hypothetical city hall? Is the project attractive? Is it supposed to be attractive? Is it functional? How do I rate function? What is good architecture? Yes, I can see that there are enough restrooms, but is the overall design a great one?

Al Pacino as an evil lawyer in The Devil’s Advocate, 1997

If I were to give a student a B plus, can I justify my decision against the student’s family lawyer questioning why the project was not an A minus? An accusatory attorney might seek damages for how I ruined the student’s chances of a getting into a good graduate school.

Scary stories aside, this one grading session in mind was innovative and for the most part, effective. We graded as a group, not as a solo teacher handing out evaluations while in pajamas at his home office.

At this thoughtful school, five teachers arrived with the work of their dozen students. Roughly sixty grades were to be given out in a period of eight hours.

Here is the catch. Each teacher proposed the grade for his or her own student, and the other four teachers would have to agree. If grading something creative and subjective was difficult enough, we now had to agree as a group of authority figures. When ego and territory come into play, battles ensued

Gearing up for a turf battle in Warriors, 1979

“You call that an A?” questions teacher one to teacher two. Teacher one declaring, “Look at my student’s work. This is a true A.”

Teacher three, “That certainly is no A. That is barely a B plus, damn it!”

“Are you insinuating that I only have B and C students?” defensively and insecurely teacher four screams.

Teacher five, “My students are better than yours!” Meaning: I am a better teacher.

Do you deserve this? (photo by Anthony Poon)

This continues for a whole day. In the end, if we can all agree, the assumption is that the grade is fair. Or is it?

At times, the most aggressive teachers had the most A students, simply because the other teachers were worn out from the onslaught and debate. Perhaps, the meek teachers ended up with C students only because they were out-negotiated and intimidated?

High school for Boston, my second year graduate school project (photo by Anthony Poon)

Each educator wanted to walk out with a proud collection of A and B students. But the sad reality is that there are also C and D students, as well as complete failures, an F. This was a different kind of deliberation. A tragic one, actually. For our group to all agree that a student should fail a class, is disheartening.

Student Activities Center, University of California, Los Angeles, by Anthony Poon (w/ HHPA, photo by Anthony Poon)

At the end of the day, not a bad idea at all: to evaluate a student’s creative work as a group. Coming from various backgrounds—some of us solo entrepreneurs, mom-and-pop architects, corporate directors, or theorists—we teachers of architecture participated in a forum of examination and understanding. In the typical world of arbitrarily evaluating talent, I applaud our roundtable and believe that we have served with passion, conviction, and fair-mindedness.

ARCHITECTURE FROM A TO Z

April 29, 2016

Campus Library, American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt, by Anthony Poon (w/ HHPA, photo by Pfeiffer Partners)

ALLOWANCE
Allow creative ideas to resonate in your head. Like wine aging in a bottle, the clamor of an idea seasoning in your cranium is called imagination.

BE
Be original. Be remembered. If you do the same thing over and over again, you will always get the same results, of which, most have already been done, or might be boring and forgettable.

CREATE
The medium of our art is not just pens and paper, paint and canvas, or software and megabytes. The medium of our art is life itself. Design your world.

Arcadia Residence, Palm Springs, by Poon Design (photo by Lance Gerber) — Arcadia Residence, Palm Springs, by Poon Design (staging by Interior Illusions, photo by Lance Gerber)

DIVISION
There should be no divisions between architecture, graphics, landscape, fashion, poetry, music, photography, theater, and all artistic endeavors. In the act of creation, design industries must overlap and blur, operating as a comprehensive force of artistry. Our contribution to progress and civilization.

Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, by Giorgio de Chirico, 1914

EXISTING
Promote society’s advancements, and acknowledge the legacy of traditions. Beware: nostalgia can be a yearning for a false past that either does not apply today, or never truly existed. “Nostalgia” is made up of two Greek roots: nostos “returning home,” and algos “pain.”

FOCUS
Focus. Listen. Don’t forget what you have heard.

GATHER
Design communicates more than aesthetics. Design communicates ideas: everything from our culture and community, to the solutions for each client. We call this content.

HIGH TO LOW
Our work explores everything, from high art to pop art, from Schubert to So You Think You Can Dance.

Jeanine Mason on So You Think You Can Dance

IS
Form is function, and function is form. Style is not superficial. Though a purist, don’t assume that style is only artificial. That trap is known as pretentious unpretentiousness. Understand style as the expression of character.

JUICE
Design is about thinking strategically. As in chess, plan all your moves. Start by seeing a few moves ahead, then grasp for more. This is called experience.

KIN
All works of art are in progress. A good idea advances, evolves, and changes.

LEVERS
Good design balances imagination and reality. Architecture must balance greatness and fantasy, with things like schedule and budget.

Harrington Learning Commons, Sorbarto Technology Center and Orradre Library, Santa Clara University, California, by Anthony Poon (w/ HHPA, photo by Poon)

MUST
Process and product: both fascinate. The end of the journey is as exciting as the journey itself. We design both the outcome and the process that leads to the outcome.

NOT
Do not subscribe to the cliché, “Work hard, play hard.” Work can also be play. We do not divide our lives into boring work and fun play.

OUT LOUD
Enjoy your life. Laugh out loud. Arthur Rubenstein suggested that one should not practice piano too much: Limit your practice time, enjoy your life, and you will have much to express when playing piano.

Hands of Arthur Rubenstein (photo by Yousuf Karsh)

PRACTICE
Don’t take yourself seriously, but take your work seriously.

QUIRKY
As in jazz, when a mistake is made, exploit it as a delightful thing. In classical music, when a wrong note is played, it gets buried under a flurry of other notes. In jazz, when an unintentional note is hit, the musician bangs on that note a few more times to make sure the audience hears it.

READY
Embrace improvisation and creating impromptu. Be prepared to make up things off the top of your head, from the tips of your fingers.

SLEEP
A fresh mind has the most creative potential. Don’t subscribe to the romanticized and fatalistic belief that sleepless nights bring about incredible imagination. And don’t believe that an artist needs to struggle, bleed, and die to be considered a genius.

TAKE
Take a lunch break every day. Give your brain a rest. Even if the day is hectic, take that break—not just to have it, but to decree that you are still in control of your day.

UNDO
If your work is boring you, do something different. If you are boring yourself, be someone else.

VICTIM
Try not to dress in all black. Don’t be a fashion cliché.

WRITTEN
Read everything: not just design magazines and blogs. Read poetry. Read the classics. Read autobiographies, non-fiction, comic books, music. Even read horoscopes and advice columns.

XANADU
Get used to senselessness and not knowing everything. The world is asking for too many answers. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” so said Albert Camus.

Sisyphus (photo from theonwardupwardjourney.com)

YOUTH
Like a young student, believe that you will save the world through your idealistic spirit. Hold tight your hopes, dreams, and ambitions.

ZENITH
Terms used to describe Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: icon, masterpiece, seminal and absolute. The curse of The Ninth prevented superstitious composers from attempting to write a tenth symphony and surpass perfection. It goes so far as believing that the composer will die after writing his own Ninth. Gustav Mahler did. What would the world be if Beethoven had written a Tenth Symphony?

ARCHITECTURE IS

April 18, 2015

Tools from Anthony Poon’s art studio

Architecture is not a painting because it is three-dimensional. Architecture is not sculpture, because it is more than an object that you engage by walking around, at an imaginary perimeter. Akin to installation and experiential art if it was permanent, architecture is a space and a place that one moves through in time—maybe once, maybe over and over again.

Architecture is a journey and a work of art that exists to attract and serve. Architecture has beauty, has form, and has function.

University Library, American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt, by Anthony Poon (while w/ HHPA) — University Library, American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt, by Anthony Poon (w/ HHPA)

In its making, architecture can be created slowly and methodically like a surgeon working on a painstakingly complex procedure. Architecture can be created strategically, like a general preparing for a battle. Or architecture can be created impromptu and improvisationally like a jazz musician sitting down as his keyboard playing a tune of which he has no idea where it began and where it will go.

Architecture is about persistence, courage, optimism, and passion, and perhaps, a bit of insanity. What other field is the intersection of art, science, business, and even human survival? What other field provides emotional, spiritual and intellectual responses, as well as put a roof over our heads?

W-V Mixed Use Project, Manhattan Beach, by Poon Design, photo by Gregg Segal — W-V Mixed Use Project, Manhattan Beach, by Poon Design (photo by Gregg Segal)

We need places to live, and we want these places to be warm and welcoming. We need places to go to work, and we want these places to be comfortable and efficient. We need schools, and we want these places to be inspiring and safe. Our neighborhoods need places to gather and socialize, and we want these places to be democratic and energized. Our communities need churches to worship in, and we want these places to be aspirational and uplifting. Our businesses need places to thrive and grow, and we want these places to be strategic and informed. Our rulers need places to create and debate policies, and we want these places to be powerful and influential.

Architecture is all that. And more.

Tag Archives: function