The expansion of available information, technology, and evolution of design practice areas highlights the continual need for knowledge, reasserting design’s place within a culture of inquiry. As time in the academy is a brief period for intellectual, technical, environmental, social, aesthetic exploration, how might a robust culture of inquiry continue? To support this idea, the MITArchA Professional Forum and mentoring initiatives establish a community for knowledge sharing throughout one’s career. Sharing can come in many forms, through a range of interactions, as in the examples that follow.
After winning a competition to design a waste treatment plant and education center, the artist invited three young architects to his Vermont barn (temporary studio) for a two-month project development charette and dialogue on land art and Brutalist architecture.
The design architect in London, the client in New York, the construction drawing production in Bangalore, and the project architect on site in San Francisco all commented on how the online Mural board evolved each member’s language of productive, concise dialogue.
Along with cinder blocks, tin sheets, and palm fronds, delivered via wheelbarrow from the nearby road, the islanders continually imparted their knowledge on ecology, hurricanes, and construction during an improvisational design-build within a palm grove, one hundred feet in from the beachfront.
Having purchased an aircraft interiors company to be a new center for custom 3D fabrication, the architects soon promoted the two union shop managers to design fabrication leads for every project to tap their wealth of (computational) craft knowledge.
At the same café table within a very archetypal Italian plaza for the duration of the seven-week consultation, daily lunches between the elderly architect and junior designer became afternoon-long debates on how to position a design in a culture of historical conservatism.
The breakthrough came after three long days and two paper tablecloth dinners, when the artist, architect, computational designer, and etching fabricator conceived of a new way to etch the photographic works at high resolution and fantastic effect on to 1720 square feet of black marble panels.
There are likely many more interesting examples of sharing knowledge within the experiences of the alumni, and we hope this initiative provides a community platform for continued, productive inquiry.