Ulrike Altenmuller….such a shame that she is not likely to be given the opportunity to replace Walter Moleski of the school of Architecture at Drexel University. I think she would be a pivotal character for helping to implement a new age at the school. Her philosophy for life, learning, and design were ones that truly struck a chord w/ me and I’m certain they would have hit just as hard in the rest of my peers had they been at the presentation. I particularly appreciated her determination to have her pupils design their schemes and their presentations with the approach of it being presented to a client to win a contract for further design development and realization. So many great buildings in our world have been the result of just such a method….though these initial schemes were often spot drawings on napkins….
Either way…here are the best points of her philosophy:
*Focus on the Presentation, verbal and visualÂ
*Design everything from the urban scale to 1:1
*Get students to think in detail so the building begins to live
*Building….strong conceptual design nd then go to details
*Conistency in student design development
*Studenthood is a time for experimental deisgn to develop a student’s self sense and design self
*In design studios you can explore anything and explore it with models and etc.
*Students must learn to be self-critical
*Theory and Practice and Research and Pracice are essential to the development of the design field and of Architects as environmental designersÂ
