Cath Wang Teaching Portfolio, 2024

TEACHING TEACHING

risd spring 2024... teaching + learning in art + design...

cath wang (she/her/hers)... master of architecture 2025... cwang18@risd.edu

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY... TEACHING PHILOSOPHY...

As designers, our strength is derived from continuous self-reflection and understanding of our identity, position, and background. In the creative space, particularly in architecture, the most impactful and fruitful work is produced by students guided by a stake and sensitive mentorship. Architectural instruction is rooted in transforming selfhood into design stake—a journey of refining student motivations through disciplinary immersion. I recognize this as a transparent endeavor; in addition to technical, conceptual, and practical competence, I encourage profound introspection on the influence of teaching.

Memories of instructor interactions become immediate emergencies when I reminisce on my learning experiences. I remember my breathlessness when my sixth-grade science teacher displayed my biology project as a poor example to the class, followed by a heated chest whenever I generated an inconsistent lab result. I remember my confidence draining as hours of studying proved insufficient to pass pre-calculus, haunted by my instructor’s comment that I was slow and unteachable. I remember my resignation when a studio critic described my project as ridiculous, unreasonable, and unacceptable for their prompt. I retained the course materials in each of these moments, but my learning capacity was preoccupied with non-material concerns, internalized and manifested into questions of my ability. These insecurities overshadowed any learning I accomplished as I stretched my capacity between class instruction and anxious awareness, unable to fully process course objectives. Today, as I reflect upon learning at these stages, instructor behavior, language, and attention retain an unwavering potency unrecognizable from a taught subject.

But in memories of positive teaching, I immediately honor and credit the instructors for their transformative guidance, joyfully delivering information to the front of my filing cabinet. In eighth grade, my history teacher would excitedly review my unit projects and vocalize their encouragement. While my pre-calculus barely survived, my chemistry teacher intervened in my struggle and checked in throughout the semester. Throughout collegiate studies, from community college to graduate school, my influential experiences derive from a multiplicity of learning methods, engaging the classroom as an allied unit and making space for individualized efforts. In the complexities of subjective teaching, these instructors prioritize the care for each student, accommodating every unique pace while progressing along the course structure. I remember support, intense focus, and agile motivation and restlessness in these environments. I remember kindness during semester turbulence, gentle stresses during challenges, and hands-on motivation during struggles. These lessons of creative labor, iteration, and resilience resonate closely with my evolving design practice; equivalent to negative experiences, the potency of the positive significantly directs my reflection toward the respective course content.

The classroom is a place of memory, where the experience of learning from the instructor carries further than the course content. In my studio, the instructor’s care for students is just as fundamental to the course knowledge. I believe in student allyship with individualized instructorstudent care and attention. Challenges and newness are essential to creative processes but are only productive when students are ready to welcome them. Motivation and inspiration are strong ignitions towards meaningful discoveries, but patience and stability are unsung generosities during these moments of processing and turbulence. Interdisciplinary theory is essential to situate architecture in the worlds of cities, neighborhoods, environments, and systemic complexities, but it must be grounded with material making and interrogation. Productivity is the driving force of a studio, but unproductivity is fundamental to alleviating exhausted capacities. In the creative space, especially in architecture, powerful and healthy work emerges from students fueled with a personal stake and sensitive guidance; the impulse to care becomes the greatest influence that an instructor can offer.

INCLUSIVITY STATEMENT... INCLUSIVITY STATEMENT...

Katarzyna Kasia Matlak (RISD MID ‘17)

Empowerment of People of All Abilities, Vari-Able Declaration.

We assume a particular set of human abilities to be normal. In this way, we construct abnormalities.

Every day, we fail to notice the whole picture. In this way, we create walls (mostly unintentionally). Our environment is a range of obstacles.

All of us experience them. We can choose to design around them. We should challenge everything we know and facilitate inclusiveness. If we create the world with open eyes, we can make it better. By addressing the needs of the masses, we address our needs.

If we make, build and represent looking at the most minor or oppressed individual, we will be able to do it right.

The thing that makes us all the same is that we are all different.

Unique.

We are all able and unable.

Variable.

Spaces of studio learning inherently assume positions of vulnerability. To learn is to be vulnerable, presenting one’s lack of experience and reliance upon a person of power. In a learning environment, students compromise the comfort of knowing in order to process new and/or different contexts, identities, perspectives, ideologies, languages, and opinions. This setting assumes a faith in the instructor before course commencement, establishing an automatic expectation to trust this figure’s literacy, competency, patience, and guidance. Thus, the position of teaching is a privilege— to receive assumed perceptions and responsibilities according to institutional affiliations, professional and academic work, peer-to-peer reviews, and content rigor. As a receptor of vulnerability and learning, teaching is an evolving education to diversify representation with sincerity, self-evaluate internal prejudices and stereotypes, invite transparent experimentation, and self-inform historical, present, and hypothetical contexts.

Facilitation of a learning environment requires the collaboration of all contributors: students, instructors, guests. To propose an Inclusivity Statement is to curate a social contract under acknowledgement of student(s)-to-student(s), student(s)-to-instructor(s), and instructor(s)-tostudent(s) positionalities. An inclusive social contract must accept the vulnerability of learning and the responsibility of teaching, spanning every positionality.

Existing in all-or-every position, learning-space contributors express the conduct of a non-violent expectation, able to participate in discussions of conflict with openness and an understanding of vulnerability. Behaviors of violence, aggression, and ill-intention will not be tolerated.

SAMPLE COURSES... SAMPLE COURSES...

FINE-TUNING: FOUNDATIONAL STUDIO OF DESIGN THINKING.

Architecture Major Requirement, Open to undergraduate students.

RISD Bayard Ewing Building, Department of Architecture. 6 credits, Foundations Studio.

MTH 1:10 - 6:10.

Material Cost: $50 - 150.

“Fine-tune (v.): to adjust precisely so as to bring to the highest level of performance or effectiveness” (Merriam-Webster).

As designers, our strength comes from an evolving understanding of our identity, position, and background. In the architectural studio, powerful and healthy work emerges from students fueled with a stake and sensitive guidance. This course will exercise an interrogation of student attractions, interests, instinct, and motivations, funneling these mysteries into experiments of drawing, modeling, writing, and design. Students will find rigor in self-exploration through fast-paced activities, semester-long documentation, reflection journals, and small-group conversations. Students will investigate their backgrounds, experiences, and expertise as the course introduces materials of architectural convention and representation. Evaluation is based on participation, legibility of work, openness to experimentation, and contribution to the studio environment. The instructor will meet with students individually at the beginning, midterm, and end of the course to discuss student expectations in evaluation. From the course, students will produce exercises of visual, physical, and written representation, a midterm assembly towards a public pavilion program, and a final public-serving project situated in an assigned site in Downtown Providence.

1 of 3...

SENSITIVE INFORMATION: MULTIMODAL DRAWING OF MULTIPLE WORLDS.

Architecture Major Requirement, Open to undergraduate and graduate students. RISD Bayard Ewing Building, Department of Architecture. 3 credits, Representations Studio.

F 1:10 - 4:10.

Material Cost: $0 - 50.

“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt, of examining what our ideas really mean (feel like) on Sunday mornings at 7 AM, after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth; while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while tasting our new possibilities and strengths” (Audre Lorde, Poetry Is Not a Luxury, 1985).

Institutions as the North American invention are founded upon the value of imperial information— thoughts on rationality, order, and survey. While academia of this valuation has produced significant worlds of understanding, this perspective was informed, performed, and conformed by bodies of the colonial archetype. Outside of this subscription— of rationality, order, survey— what modes of thought were dismissed? What if the information of the “hysterics,” the emotional, and the feminine were to emerge of equal value to the rational, orderly, and masculine? This course will investigate the feminist presence of the architectural institution and discipline in the United States canon, drawing intersections across historical events, profession, gender, race, practice, teaching, and language. This course will engage with material for discussions that will confront conventional assumptions of academic performance. Students will produce a semester journal reflecting upon material references, discussions, and in-class activities. This course will ask students to reflect upon previous studio works and collaborate on experimental representations grounded in feelings, intuitions, and irrationals—in addition to architectural drawing convention, this course will introduce mediums in film, sound, and performance. Students will leave with an evolved confidence in their written and spoken language in the context of the architectural critique. Evaluation is based on participation, legibility of work, openness to experimentation, and contribution to the studio environment. The instructor will meet with students individually at the beginning, midterm, and end of the course to discuss student expectations in evaluation.

2 of 3...

LEARNING NOTHING… SPATIAL SURVIVABILITY.

Architecture Major Requirement, Open to undergraduate and graduate students.

RISD Bayard Ewing Building, Department of Architecture.

3 credits, Representations Studio.

F 1:10 - 4:10.

Material Cost: $0 - 50.

“...it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say… what a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying” (Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations, 1972 - 1990).

This course becomes comfortable with the ellipses (...)... In an environment characterized by efficient purpose, rapid production, and endless material, is there ever a time when your mind calms into a blank? Every day, how many traces do you collect, organize, and discard? What do you do as the quiet transitions into silence? This course centers around “doing nothing” as a calibration of productivity. What does it mean to be productive, and then unproductive? Through an exploration of personal memories, behaviors, and associations of domesticity, this course provides a space to empower unproductivity as a basis for writing, drawing, modeling, sampling, and filming. This exploration is complemented by the investigation of erasures (i.e., Tillie Olsen, Pedro Neves Marques) and supplemented by reflective practices (i.e., Tod Williams, Billie Tsien, Jenny Odell, David Gissen, Audre Lorde). Responding to these materials, students will co-generate a list of words and conversations in the spirit of Shifter 22: Dictionary of the Possible. This evolving list will be the center of individual endeavors: three representational experiments and one final spatial registration. Evaluation is based on participation, legibility of work, openness to experimentation, and contribution to the studio environment. The instructor will meet with students individually at the beginning, midterm, and end of the course to discuss student expectations in evaluation.

3 of 3, Evolved to Syllabus Proposal...

DOING NOTHING... SPATIAL SURVIVABILITY WITHIN HYPER-PRODUCTIVITY. DOING NOTHING... SPATIAL SURVIVABILITY WITHIN HYPER-PRODUCTIVITY.

“...it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say… what a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying” (Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations , 1972-1990).

This course becomes comfortable with the ellipses (...) ...

Rhode Island School of Design, Department of Architecture. Wintersession 2025. Instructor Cath Wang (cwang18@risd.edu).

Open to Undergraduate Students. 3 credits.

BEB Studio. Time TBD.

Architecture Major Studio Elective, Open to all majors.

Estimated Cost of Materials… $0 - $25.

Discovering an environment motivated with efficient purpose, rapid production, and endless material… Is there ever a time when your mind calms into a blank? Every day, how many encounters do you collect, organize, and discard? What do you do as the quiet becomes silence?

Beyond the individual body… What surface marks do we observe, treat, and overlook? What parallel narratives suffocate beneath the quiet mundanity, fighting an impending silence?

What does it feel like to have nothing to say? … a humble paralysis… a welcomed relief… ... an embrace of sensitivity… a longing for words…

Whether induced by meditation, overexposed by media, or hummed through bodily function, a feeling of nothing allows for an immerse processing of environmental sensations… a calmed observation… buried beneath the impulse to speak.

“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt, of examining what our ideas really mean (feel like) on Sunday mornings at 7 AM, after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth; while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while tasting our new possibilities and strengths” (Audre Lorde, PoetryIsNotaLuxury , 1985).

This course will explore the concentration of individual student experiences, recording nothings from one’s memories, experiences, reactions… translating intuitions, attractions, repulsions into its simplest form… ... a marrow.

Combined with the investigation of erasures (i.e., Parallel Futures, Silences)... absorbing emergences, worlds, endings into the outskirts of busyness… ... an optimism.

“Architects need to be able to accept the commission and question the brief, asking, ‘Is this really necessary? Might we do less? Or nothing? And how?’ It is a question hugely at odds with a system that values output and a commercial expectation based on extensive previous experience and turnover. But it is humility that will begin to compensate for the enormous damage that has been done, and is still being done, to the planet by construction.” (Edwin Heathcote, “The Architecture of Doing Nothing “, 2023).

This course centers around “doing nothing” as a calibration of productivity. What does it mean to be productive, and then unproductive? In a phase of being productive, how does it feel to be unproductive, and vice versa? As a producer of designed spaces, who are the consumers from conception to construction to completion?

Emerging into “doing nothing,” this course introduces domesticity as a grounding of the body, realizing its connections of familiarity, instinct, and vulnerability with the human habitat… built, unbuilt, human, nonhuman.

Developing the redefinition of “doing nothing” into “doing something” transposes values, habits, and behaviors of your domestic being into mark-making. From automatic drawing to modeling, from photography to digital linework, artistic and architectural representations will concretize “doing nothing” as an active pursuit.

Advancement of “doing nothing” observes productivity as a multiplicity of truths. According to a reprogramming of productivity, architecture can be designed, used, destroyed, or hijacked. At this phase, “doing nothing” inherits a program, registering physical, spatial, and ephemeral representations.

COURSE GOALS... COURSE GOALS...

“‘Nothing’ is neither a luxury nor a waste of time, but rather a necessary part of meaningful thought and speech” (Jenny Odell, HowtoDoNothing:Resistingthe AttentionEconomy, 2017).

This course will introduce redefinitions of productivity and guide students through their personal understandings of their habits, behaviors, interests, dislikes, patterns... in relation to the human habitat, reflected through domestic spaces and architectural intervention.

Goals of the course will be addressed through three phases...

Weeks 1-2...

• To understand the definition of “doing nothing” in the context of sensationalized productivity in a neoliberal capitalist society.

• To recognize the acts of “doing nothing” as realms of productivity and architectural program.

Weeks 3-4...

• To analyze relationships between domesticity and “doing nothing,” connecting physical, spatial, memorial, and ephemeral traits to a “doing nothing” program.

• To literalize critical thinking processes through free-writing and free-drawing.

• To adopt architectural convention in 2D and 3D representations using Rhino and Adobe applications, and hybridize them with personal artistries in legible descriptions of a “doing nothing” program.

Week 5...

• To invite “doing nothing” rituals and programs into a personal calibration of productivity.

• To produce and adjust architectural representations in alignment with concept, sensitivity, and program.

Weeks 1-5 and After...

• To generate words and (re)definitions of productivity.

• To experiment and manipulate sketching, writing, drawing, rendering, collaging, recording, and modeling with flexibility, looseness, and detachment.

• To develop allyship with students in discussions, activities, work sessions, and critiques.

LEARNING OUTCOMES... LEARNING OUTCOMES...

As the course introduces conversations of slowness and unproductivity, students are guided through exercises of writing and making to literize architectural connections between domestic reminders, spatial reactions, and environmental encounters. Course understandings compose of...

Writing and Discussion of Productivity, Domesticity, Slowness...

Collaboration with fellow students on a Dictionary of Nothings...

Experimental Drawing and Making in response to writing exercises...

Integration of discussion topics into making processes and techniques...

Finalized Representation of a Nothing-programmed space...

Legibility of learned representations from course introductions and tutorials...

Peer-Critique and Self-Critique...

Navigating through free-writings, a class-curated Dictionary of Nothings, respresentational experiments, and a spatial registration, students will adopt specificity in writing, multi-medium representation, and concept development. By the end of the course, students will have practiced the designing of a constantly-narrowing interrogation of language. Students will translate their findings of domesticity into architectural ingredients, forming spatial imaginations of something that is new and unseen, yet familiar that slowing.

In response to materials by Giles Deleueze, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Audre Lorde, Jenny Odell… students will practice free-writing—to externalize their material processing in its immediate form. After consuming a material, students will allocate a ten-minute interval to record uninterrupted thoughts, references, reminders, distractions… After the ten minutes, students will move locations (to-or-from home to park to cafe to library to studio, desk to couch to bed to floor to balcony to dining table). At the new location, students will review their free-write by highlighting and annotating their first writing. Each week, students will produce a free-write and discuss their findings with the class.

Adjacent to free-writing, students will co-generate a Dictionary of Nothings (Finding the Words) in the spirit of the Shifter 22: Dictionary of the Possible, extracting ideas from class discussions and refining them into instinctive entries. Each week, students will discuss their free-writing experience and findings from its review. Collectively, students will identify, define, and contextualize resonating words or phrases, and record them on a collaborative Google Doc. Each week, the document will develop: adding, removing, changing. At the end of the course, each student will have a printed copy of this Dictionary with additional blank pages.

Throughout the course, students will exercise various mediums— drawing, shaping, sounding, composing, editing, filming— to understand modes of communication, which may become close to doing nothing... a something removed from efficient values. These experiments are non-precious attempts to marry mediums to the Dictionary. Experiments will be conducted in three stages, each exploring a representational mode of drawing, model, or video. Students will select an entry from the Dictionary of Nothings and a representation (drawing, model, video) and produce visual work, relating the entry towards personal experiences and identities, and articulating a reach to a definition. Through these three representations, students will have experimented with Dictionary understandings across each representation.

During each class, students will participate in an activity to collect ingredients for experiments. Students will save each activity and experiment in a physical and/or digital bundle, a safe storage.

These experiments and activities will inform a final spatial registration. Students will select a Dictionary entry (previously experimented or not) and produce its representation in a bodily scale. In reflection of the three experiments, students will propose a written motivation with their chosen entry and representation.

Students will have in-class time dedicated to activities and discussions. Every week, students will have at least one class period for studio time and desk conversations with the instructor to work on experiments and the final spatial registration. Time commitment outside of class may range between 1-5 hours a week accounting for free-writing assignments and studio work leftover from in-class studio time.

ON LAND

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT... ON LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...

These are two statements I authored at different times and positions during my time at RISD...

The first is from the position of an academic (October 2023):

In a state of study, we are not strangers. We are academics, we are visitors, and we are outsiders. We acknowledge the site in the speculative context, where it exists only as we imagine it. We come to the site with a demand of return, as if we are expecting guest-quality hospitality. We gather what we know about the site to then visit with an omniscient hubris, assuming that the knowledge we absorbed through institutional media is worth more than the values of land. We treat the land as a subject, respecting it only for the duration and the depth of the project of which we manifest. We appropriate the land into an exercise, from personal interest to public exhibition, where the consideration involved is its ability to stimulate foreign bodies. We must learn to become a stranger, “a person or thing that is unknown or with whom one is unacquainted… one ignorant of or unacquainted with someone or something” (Merriam-Webster).

The second is from the position of a dweller (April 2023):

You are the longest-lasting being that you will ever know in your lifetime. But you are not alone— never were, never will be... Land is your companion. They witnessed you at your birth, they carried your weight as you grew, they supported your stories as you lived them, and they will hold you when you die... Land is loyal, then, to you and everyone, everything, and anything to ever exist. Land will know you and your intimacies, and share your weight with their own.. But land does not serve you, nor others. Land is not exclusive to you, and their relationship with you is not extraordinary... Land is your partner, and you are not entitled to them. As your partner, they shall never be owned, controlled, belittled. As your partner, they are deserving of your acknowledgement, your attention, your legitimacy... Land can be your ally, land can also be sensitive. Land can live life with you, land can also blend into the background. Land can be your resource, land can also be fragile. Land is your messenger, and you must be the listener... Land gives for you to receive, not to take. And land awaits to be tended, cared for, treated with consistency and graciousness... Companionship is what connects you with land. Whether that relationship is challenging, abusive, and confusing, or healthy, joyous, and equitable— the companionship is real, and held within your recognition.

RISD Course Policies and Expectations/ Learning Environment

Diversity/Civility

Resource: Office of Equity & Compliance

The RISD community is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the development of integrity. In order to thrive and excel, this community must preserve the freedom of thought and expression of all its members. A culture of respect that honors the rights, safety, dignity, and worth of every individual is essential to preserve such freedom. We affirm our respect for the rights and well- being of all members.

Disability Statement

Resource: The Office of Disability Support Services

Rhode Island School of Design is committed to providing equal opportunity for all students. If you are a student with a disability who needs accommodations to complete the requirements of this class, you must contact the Office of Disability Support Services. I also encourage you to discuss your learning needs with me during the first week of term so that we may arrange reasonable accommodations based on your Disability Support Services accommodations letter.

Chosen Name Policy and process to update it systemically

Trans(gender) Student Policy Related to Gender Identity/ Expression

Resource: Office of Intercultural Student Engagement (ISE)

Absence Policy

Academic Code of Conduct

SAMPLE ASSIGNMENT... SAMPLE

The Free-Writing Assignment… An Exercise of External Processing. Assigned weekly with an accomodating set of reading, watching, and listening material.

It can be hard responding to materials, whether it be readings, lectures, videos, artworks… As our minds process incoming information, we form a multiplex of incomplete thoughts, each emerging and fleeting, dodging and escaping, merging and colliding… In the context of course outcomes, there is a pressure to extrude words onto a digital document for review, reflecting hesitation caused by: “Am I doing this right? Is this what the instructor is looking for? Am I understanding the material? How do I even begin?”

In response to weekly materials (i.e., by Tillie Olsen, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Audre Lorde, Adam and Zack Khalil, Jenny Odell…) you will practice free-writing—a quick, non-precious method of externalizing one’s processing in its immediate form. After consuming a material, you will allocate a strict ten-minute interval to write, type, sketch, doodle, or scribble nonstop to every thought, reference, reminder, distraction… After those ten minutes, you will move locations (to-or-from home to park to cafe to library to studio, desk to couch to bed to floor to balcony to dining table). At this new location, you will review your free-write, highlighting and annotating. Each week, you will exercise this procedure in response to the weekly readings, and contribute your highlighted-annotated free-write towards class discussion.

Assignment Steps...

Prepare your space to consume the weekly materials (reading, video, etc.).

Whether you clear your table, do the dishes, or purchase a coffee, conduct your ritual. Set your mind and body for about 1-2 hours of focus.

Open and organize the weekly materials digitally or physically.

Read… Watch... Listen… through the materials. Take notes if it is helpful to you.

When finished, put away the materials (close the tab, pack up the papers, turn off the monitor, etc.) and open a new document or page.

Set a ten-minute timer on a device (phone, computer, kitchen timer, oven, etc.).

This timer MUST HAVE AN ALARM.

Start the timer and free-write until the timer sounds.

When finished, create a copy of this free-write (duplicate the digital document, take a picture of the paper on a device, etc.).

Put away your writing materials (close the laptop, journal, sketchbook, sticky notes, etc.).

Think of a new location that is convenient and comfortable.

Relocate to that place.

Re-prepare your space.

Open and organize the weekly materials AND your free-write.

Review your free-write closely. Observe your language, reference between words, memorable events… Observe where you wrote quickly, slowly, energetically, dreadfully… Observe what sentences came easy and what came hard. Identify places of the text that encouraged your strongest writing… Identify places of the text that produced confusion and blanks in your writing…

Annotate and highlight your free-write, connecting understandings between your thoughts and the materials, identifying key themes to share in class discussions.

Submit your reviewed free-write to Canvas.

Be ready to share your findings before the next class discussion.

Some Reminders…

Be honest, thorough, and transparent in your free-writes…

Record everything that passes through your mind.

Don’t worry about “making sense,” “needing context,” or “drawing conclusions” during this process.

Include the “umm’s,” “I don’t know’s,” “I’m drawing a blank’s,” “lalalala asdfasdf’s,” “I wonder what’s for dinner’s,” “My dog just barked I lost my train of thought’s,” “I just forgot what I was thinking about, I’ll remember it later’s,” “I don’t know what else to say’s,” etc.

This ten-minute period is yours and yours only… Use it to let your hands write or type freely without resistance. Use it to record and understand how you perceive, process, and reflect information.

During the review phase, take this time to redact any information you’d prefer to remain private. Please don’t erase this writing, rather acknowledge that space where some-thing happened…Scribble over your writing with a black pen… Replace digital words with “[redacted]”...

Keep a record of your original free-write for your reference. You will only be submitting your reviewed free-write for assignment and discussion purposes.

EVALUATION... EVALUATION...

“I want to be clear that I’m not actually encouraging anyone to stop doing things completely. In fact, I think that ‘doing nothing’—in the sense of refusing productivity and stopping to listen—entails an active process of listening that seeks out the effects of racial, environmental, and economic injustice and brings about real change. I consider ‘doing nothing’ both as a kind of deprogramming device and as sustenance for those feeling too disassembled to act meaningfully. On this level, the practice of doing nothing has several tools to offer us when it comes to resisting the attention economy” (Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, 2017).

For all assignments and submissions (Free-Writes, Experiments, and the final Spatial Registration)... Your final evaluation will be considered through this rubric. Each category is defined by Check-Minus, Check, and Check-Plus benchmarks.

Check… The baseline grade. The submission is on-time and demonstrates thorough exercise of the assignment criteria. The submission aided your participation in class discussions. Estimately… 4 of 5 points.

Check-Plus… The submission is on-time and demonstrates an extraordinary or improved engagement with the assignment. The submission drove class discussion participation of yourself and your peers, inviting connections to additional findings. Estimately… 5 of 5 points.

Check-Minus… The submission is late. The submission demonstrates superficial findings with minimal review. The submission seems rushed or delayed. Estimately… 3 of 5 points.

Missing submissions are considered a tentative 0 of 5 points until evidence of a free-write is uploaded.

When a submission receives a Check-Minus or lower (0-3 points of 5), you get a chance to resubmit your free-write review at any point before the semester ends. Pending improvement, the maximum score achievable is a Check (4 of 5 points).

Under final evaluation, the average point is taken for each assignment category.

0 pt

Missing all or most submissions.

Missing all or most submissions.

Missing all or most submissions.

Check

Minus (1-3 pt)

Student completed the assignment to a superficial quality. The work underrepresents the course materials and the student’s reflection. Barely contributes to class discussions and the Dictionary.

Check (4 pt)

Student demonstrates care for the work. The work speaks for itself and sparks thoughtful conversation. Insights derived from the work adds to the Dictionary and inspires the studio towards creative assignments. Check Plus

(5 pt)

Student consistently delivers free-writes that improve, build, and expand. The work brings anticipation in class discussions and drives and/or initiates themes towards the Dictionary. Its contribution shapes not just the Dictionary, but also architectural themes extended into creative assignments.

Student delivers work to a poor degree of legibility. There is little use of the introduced architectural convention and/or technique demonstrated in class activities and tutorials. The submission presents little to no iteration.

Student commits to the procedure of architectural convention and engages it with their personal art practice. Reference to the Dictionary is acknowledged and engaged. The student experimented, showing evidence of thoughtful iteration.

Student exceeds metrics presented from in-class introductions and tutorials. The work develops its own understanding of architectural convention. Experiments show curiosity and fearlessness to try new and strange things.

Student is despondent during activities, moving through the exercise until completion. The time dedicated to the activity is largely spent on something else.

Final Spatial Registration Participation + Decorum

Missing all or most submissions.

Student engages the activity for the entire extent of the allotted time. The work alludes to emerging themes across the course, through previous assignments, discussions, and Dictionary themes.

Student completes the final in a rushed work. Reference from the Dictionary is static and singular. Representation disregards architectural introductions presented and insufficiently encapsulates the project’s concept.

Student is largely absent and/or alienating themselves or others in the studio and/or violating Academic Code of Ethics.

Student is attending class with little to no preparation or readiness. Disengaged from class discussions, critiques, and activities. Present only during individual settings.

Student references course themes into the activity, or elicits discussions to contribute to the Dictionary. Spatial and/or architectural questions emerge from the activity.

Student legibly translates a Dictionary entry into an architectural visualization, grounding it to a personal experience. Evidence of representational development from activities, tutorials, and experimental assignments.

Student shows an incredible effort built from a momentum developed through the course. The representation adopts a thorough and reflective synthesis of preliminary assignments, activities, and discussions. Dictionary references demonstrate multiplicity in discussed (re)definitions.

Student is attending and present. Demonstrates active responding, initiating, listening, and/or note-taking. Encourages other students to participate. Respects shared studio spaces and contributes positively to the learning environment.

Student plays a crucial, collaborative role. Their presence is a reliable, energetic, encouraging asset to the class.

*Assignments/Submissions: The number determined in these categories is taken from the cumulative average. For example, the final grade of Free-Writes/Draws is:

(Free-Write #1 + Free-Write #2 + Free-Write #3) / 3 = Final Free-Write Grade.

** Evaluative qualities are discussed during the midterm feedback session. The final grade concerns any steps taken from the midterm forward.

THE WEEKS... THE WEEKS...

DATE

WEEK 1

Day 1

AGENDA

• Course Introduction

• Free Write Assigned

DETAIL

• Syllabus Review

• Activity - Collaborative Drawing

• Activity - Free Writing Introduction

• Free Write #1, DUE NEXT CLASS

Day 2

• Discussion

• Dictionary

• Experiment Assigned

Day 3

• Demonstration

• Desk Conversations*

• Discuss Free Write #1

• Introduce Dictionary of Nothings (Finding the Words)

• Dictionary Update [Free Write #1]

• Experiment #1, DUE WEEK 2 DAY 1

• Presentation of Representations - Drawing

• Precedent references, tutorial resources

• Activity - Sharing Previous Work (BRING DEVICE)

• In-Class Studio Time

• Desk Conversations

Free Write #1: Longing - David Whyte, Poetry Is Not a Luxury - Audre Lorde

WEEK 2

Day 1

• Discussion

• Dictionary

• Free Write Assigned

Day 2

• Discussion

• Dictionary

• Demonstration

• Experiment Assigned

• Experiment #1 Review

• Dictionary Update [Experiment #1]

• Activity - Partnering and Borrowing

• Free Write #2, DUE NEXT CLASS

• Discuss Free Write #2

• Dictionary Update [Free Write #2]

• Presentation of Representations - Model

• Precedent references, tutorial resources

• Experiment #2, DUE WEEK 3 DAY 1

Day 3

• Demonstration

• Desk Conversations

• Check-In

• Activity - Scavenge

• In-Class Studio Time

• Desk Conversations

Free Write #2: Parallel Futures: One or Many Dystopias? - Pedro Neves Marques, Tillie Olsen’s Tell Me a Riddle: The Dialectics Of Silence - Jean Pfaelzer

WEEK 3

Day 1

DATE

AGENDA

• Discussion

• Dictionary

• Desk Conversations*

• Free Write Assigned

DETAIL

• Experiment #2 Review

• Dictionary Update [Experiment #2]

• Activity - Repetition

• Desk Conversations

• Free Write #3, DUE NEXT CLASS

Day 2

Day 3

• Discussion

• Dictionary

• Experiment Assigned

• Demonstration

• Desk Conversations

• Discuss Free Write #3

• Dictionary Update [Free Write #3]

• Experiment #3, DUE WEEK 4 DAY 1

• Presentation of Representations - Video

• Precedent references, tutorial resources

• Activity - Alone Recordings

• In-Class Studio Time

• Desk Conversations

Free Write #3: On Slowness - TWBTA, How to Do Nothing - Jenny Odell (pages TBD)

WEEK 4

Day 1

• Discussion

• Dictionary

• Spatial Registration Assigned

• Experiment #3 Review

• Dictionary Update [Experiment #3]

• Printing Discussion

• Activity - Spatial Registration Proposal, DUE NEXT CLASS.

• Spatial Registration, DUE WEEK 5 DAY 3

Day 2

• Discussion

• Dictionary

• Desk Conversations

• Resource Request Assigned

Day 3

• Demonstration

• Desk Conversations

• Share Proposals

• Dictionary Update [Spatial Registration Proposal]

• Activity - What’s at Stake

• In-Class Studio Time Desk Conversations

• Resource Request, DUE NEXT CLASS

• Presentation of Resource Request

• Precedent references, tutorial resources

• Activity - Dictionary Touches

• In-Class Studio Time

• Desk Conversations

WEEK 5

Day 1

DATE

AGENDA

• Dictionary

• Desk Conversations

• Course Evaluations

• Bundle Assigned

DETAIL

• Activity - Free Write

• Dictionary Update

• Activity - Wander

• In-Class Studio Time

• Desk Conversations

• Course Evaluations

• Bundle, DUE LAST DAY

Day 2

Day 3

• Desk Conversations*

• Discussion

• Dictionary

• In-Class Studio Time

• Desk Conversations

• Spatial Registration Review and Celebration

Dictionary Delivery

*Desk Conversation to include individual student-instructor check-ins on student learning methods and paces.

CRITIQUE STATEMENT... CRITIQUE STATEMENT...

The process of design is personal, dedicating time, physical and creative labor, and care towards an external outlet. In a communal studio shared with allied creatives, the space is a ritual of arriving, learning, sharing, creating, changing…leaving, unlearning, keeping, limiting, plateauing… Work is the evidence of these becomings, supplemented by the conversations and relationships exchanged within and outside the studio. Work is fundamental to your design development— a personal development— as the receptor of creative curiosities, producer of experiment and craft, and the prompter of conversation and feedback. Your work speaks as its receptor and producer, but its role as a prompter requires collaboration between itself and an audience. In the vigor of this studio, your instructor, peers, and invited strangers-turned-guests serve as this audience. This collaboration—between work and audience— is performed as critique.

To the audience...

Critique is a reflection of the legibility of your work…

Critique is not an evaluation of skill.

Critique is a welcoming of ideas, suggestions, and advice…

Critique is not an invitation for discrimination and unsolicited comparison.

As an audience member, you are responding to a phase of the work presented— something that has arrived to this point according to pressures of time, labor, and studio and non-studio commitments. Your contribution to critique, whether you say something or nothing at all, carries value to not just the work, but the momentum of conversations aggregated.

To you and your work…

Critique is an observation of reactions and reflections…

Critique is not judgment.

Critique is a source of diverse feedback, containing both confirmation and contradiction…

Critique is not a place of defense and competition.

As a receiver of critique, you are evoking response to the current version of your work through its representation. Listen to your critique and organize them to your priorities. The subject of critique is your work and its presentation, signaling a momentary departure between you, as the creator, and the work, the progress.

Critique may exist in several forms, varying degrees of work and audience... (Listed from Low Stakes, Common/Working Stakes, Formal Occurrence)

Desk critiques are low-stake and consistently-held throughout the course, aimed to progress work towards clarity and excitement. This collaboration occurs in individual and small group settings, where new ideas and explorations are comfortable topics. Individual conversations would foster familiarity between the student and the instructor, building an understanding of learning styles, creative processes, cultural and colloquial expressions, and pacing expectations. Small group conversations—either as student pairs or groups of three—would facilitate allyship between students, discovering shared project themes, representational methods, working and learning processes, and challenges and resolutions.

Small group critiques outside of the desk setting provides the opportunity for students to check in with one another, catching up with studio happenings and sharing feedback during pivotal points of production. In groups of 5-6, students would share their works in-progress and goals towards a formal review. In addition to instructor input, the conversation is primarily student-driven, providing supportive and relevant feedback towards the communally-decided goals.

Formal critiques celebrate the milestones of a project, where all students will prepare their work to its greatest legibility and present at a point of clarity. These critiques would welcome a guest audience to provide feedback pertaining to their experiences, backgrounds, and expertise. Leading up to formal critiques, students are encouraged to support each other’s process towards success. During formal critiques, students are expected to exercise respect for the work and the guest audience.

MIDTERM FEEDBACK... MIDTERM FEEDBACK...

A lot has been done to get to this point, the mid-semester. Amidst the multiple moving parts of this time, this midterm feedback will gauge the depth of your involvement with the course and its goals. The midterm feedback encompasses your satisfaction with the goals from Weeks 1 and 2, and your readiness in progression between Weeks 3 and 4. As the instructor, I will answer these questions and provide you with a written summary:

To reiterate course goals…

[Weeks 1-2]

• To understand the definition of “doing nothing” in the context of sensationalized productivity in a neoliberal capitalist society.

• To recognize the acts of “doing nothing” as realms of productivity and architectural program.

[Weeks 3-4, Midterm Alignment]

• To analyze relationships between domesticity and “doing nothing,” connecting physical, spatial, memorial, and ephemeral traits to a “doing nothing” program.

• To literalize critical thinking processes through free-writing and free-drawing.

• To adopt architectural convention in 2D and 3D representations using Rhino and Adobe applications, and hybridize them with personal artistries in legible descriptions of a “doing nothing” program.

[Week 5]

• To invite “doing nothing” rituals and programs into a personal calibration of productivity.

• To produce and adjust architectural representations in alignment with concept, sensitivity, and program.

[Weeks 1-5+]

• To generate words and (re)definitions of productivity.

• To experiment and manipulate sketching, writing, drawing, rendering, collaging, recording, and modeling with flexibility, looseness, and detachment.

• To develop allyship with students in discussions, activities, work sessions, and critiques.

The midterm feedback encompasses your satisfaction with the goals from Weeks 1 and 2, and your readiness in progression between Weeks 3 and 4. As the instructor, I will answer these questions and provide you with a written summary:

• Has the student completed the free-write/free-draw assignments in response to their respective readings and/or videos?

• Has the student contributed to class discussions about the free-writes/free-draws and provided input into the collective Dictionary of Nothings?

• Is the student demonstrated connections between the course material (readings, videos, presentations, discussions) and their living experience, shown through free-writes/ free-draws, class activities, experimental assignments, and desk-crit conversations?

• Is the student seeming to reflect, defend, contradict, or interrogate their views of productivity?

• Is the student digesting the introduction to architectural convention and following their subsequent tutorials through Rhino and Adobe applications?

During Week 3, there will be time during studio working sessions to discuss midterm feedback. In addition, I will ask you to respond to a midterm course evaluation for my review. Across the studio, the course evaluation will begin as anonymous feedback, unless a student requests for a conversation during this Week 3 feedback session. Conversations surrounding the course evaluation feedback is not required, but they can take the form of one-on-one or small group discussions with the instructor. As the student, I ask you to consider these questions:

Why did you choose to take this course? Has it met your expectations thus far?

How has the course structure facilitated your learning?

Have you done free-write/free-draws before prior to this course? Does that activity add or detract from your understanding of the course materials and discussions?

Does the instructor support your interests, skills, and challenges in the studio?

Do you have a stand-out moment from the course so far? What seemed to be the most effective or ineffective to your learning?