Technical Review

The last two weeks were very busy with studio gaining in intensity. Despite my best efforts to not be in studio all the time as I had been in some early semesters, I'm spending way too much time there. I'm with both the early morning crowd and the late night crowd. My average sleep times are decreasing. I'm trying hard to average 6 hours a night, but that dropped a lot in the days leading to the technical review.

Technical review is the third of the five main milestones of degree project. Concept review is about concept, design review is about the design response, technical review concerns buildability, technical details, systems and structure. Then there is an informal final review where there will be a go/no go call for the fifth review, the big degree project review.

Technical review was yesterday. I pinned up my work to be reviewed by Derek, my old studio professor from the New Orleans studio, who is probably the most qualified person in the school to be my critic based on his work on the Mississippi river and infrastructure. I also got Elena, a Spanish architect visiting professor who is very knd and brings a different perspective.

I've noticed that over the semesters, I've gotten less afraid of reviews and juries. I'm more nervous, but its less about the quality of my work and more about whether I'll be successful communicating it. I need to practice my project pitch.

The review went pretty well despite the fact that my building is this bizarre accumulation of tubes and water, and I got some good feedback both in terms of documentation, design, and deployment of the work. It's a hard project to talk about because it's equal parts land/water art and machine, as it is architecture. It's going to be pretty cool though. I'm pretty happy with the overall direction the project is going, I just need to settle into the idea that it's not a building.