SENIOR HOUSING STUDENTS & PROFESSOR A CONVERSATION

Students: Professor: Moderator:

Ciera Chamberlain, Jonathan Reyes, Jasmine Tarley, Cole Wishman

Jason Sowell

Charlie Stevens

Celebration Over Competition

This group of students and their studio instructor, Jason Sowell, were chosen because they were all new to the senior housing studio and final competition, an annual tradition for over a decade. Bringing fresh perspectives to the methodology and ideals of the studio, student pairs, along with their instructor, formed effective working relationships to move projects through an intense semester of collaborative work.

The final competition, as the faculty members often remind students, is about celebrating the collective work of the studio, and the intense discussions, design meetings, and research activities that characterize the studio. This conversation gives insights into the studio dynamic and how these students and their instructor captured the essence of celebration over competition.

Working In Tandem

Charlie Stevens: Where have you seen themes of care progress during your time at UB?

Jasmine Tarley: As we’ve progressed through our semester, we started working with people who actually live in the neighborhood. In the senior housing studio we got to work with the BMHA (Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority).

Ciera Chamberlain: I think it all begins in the freshman studio, when you don’t truly have an idea on what kind of designer you are. But as you move through the studios, you develop those ideas with the faculty, walking you through this process of harnessing those ideas into sites you care about. I think there’s something really special about designing in and around Buffalo.

CS: Was the design process driven by the issues you identified through your research or by a prompt?

CC: It wasn’t the title of ‘competition’ that needed to be there; I think it was seeing work from past competitions. Using this as the precedent, I knew what we had to work towards and that we needed to get these boards done. The level of craft and quality is not really influenced by the competition; the competition is more of a reward to show your work at the end.

Cole Wishman: We didn’t know a whole lot about what each team was doing until review. We basically kept blinders on and did what we wanted to do. What we were doing was a proposal, so there’s still always going to be, ‘What’s the next step?’

JS: Part of my role as a design critic is to help individual students or teams advance their ideas and their skill sets as best as possible. It’s not my role to dictate, as much as it is to help direct. It’s important to provide my opinion as a framework for students to keep decisions advancing. Each class period was about how to advance the project, not about ‘how you win the competition.’

CC: I think this goes back to the studio culture built in here at UB. The mutual celebration of each other’s projects is present even around competition time.

"I think that for this generation, the design to have an impact even prior to becoming a practicing architect has shifted how curricula in architecture school utilize the community in which they are set as a place to test out and build sets of relationships and ideas."

- Jason Sowell

Jason Sowell: As a faculty member, there’s a question of care in terms of how everything is constructed to build a knowledge base and set of skills with each progressive semester. As you get into the housing studio, there’s an increase in complexity that then draws on, in this instance, an organization of community that has a set of challenges that the program and students can address. I think the reciprocity between BMHA, the studio, and the student teams enriches the outcomes at each level.

"Jason would not tell us what to do, he would tell us to, 'bring questions and I will help you answer them."'

CC: We had to keep in mind that the residents already living in the building were not to be displaced from the property.

CS: Do you think anything would have changed in your work if the studio was not set up as a competition?

CS: In a project as intense as this one, how did you get past the moments of struggle?

CW: For Jonathan and I, we each have our own set of skills. It became, ‘Where can we be most effective and how can we apply our time in the most efficient manner?’

Jonathan Reyes: A big thing was being open to change or different ideas.

CS: Jason, how were you able to teach students with different learning styles, which was further complicated by the team structure?

JS: Setting up consistency across the studio as a way to set the tone for what each team is expected to achieve—with the understanding teams will meet those expectations in different ways, at different levels, and at different times in the process. The question is what are the levers that help each person and each team meet the goals they’ve set. That’s a matter of psychology on the part of what I see versus what I understand is the capability, and then what’s the thought. What’s most critical is being open to communication and being reflective about what I’m trying to communicate and what the students need. A part of that care is simply asking, ‘What type of feedback do you need right now? Is what I’m communicating clear?’

CC: Every professor has a challenge in their tackle. For Jason to take the time to nurture everyone’s project, and foster those ideas along the way, it was powerful.