Trashold Project Final

Following on from the reading on the Medieval Carnival, I was immediately drawn to the purely egaliterian society that the carnival induced, albeit it being temporary. Such events revealed a celebration of equality of all kinds of people and that people are inherently more inclined to laughter and festivity when freed from strict rules and principles. This contrasting sharply to the segregation that existed outside the festival was a model in which I thought design to should follow: like the carnival, architecture should show through design glimpses of the possibility of an equality and its associations, even if the world was different outside. While sounding overly grandiose, and thus, excessively indulging in romanticism for while I was reading I was spell-bound by the literature; and if such things are possible with words, I pondered, why cannot it not with architecture?

Diverging away from the main threshold project a bit, and talking about the team-work process of collectively building a site model I began to realise one very important thing. The political and implicit ideologies of an act that on the surface may possibly be nice, but if it were on a different scale it could lead to disaster is one thing we learnt in team-working. A one person leading team may seem like a logical step at times, however, such acts are not what we in a democratic society practise; that is, even our design processes when working with others should strictly be founded on what we believe is right. While it may have led to well co-ordinated design - it would have meant less thoughts and inputs from each individual member in the class, therefore, not captivating the potential assets we have. This would also not have gone well with  the overall theme of 'classlessness' and fairshare vision that the reading provided. Of course, it does not mean that we should all act as individuals inconsiderate of others but it does mean that we should all be contributing equally in cooperation - one of the very reasons why I believed the site replica of the School of Architecture and Planning building to have been so successful.

Carrying on with the idea of team-work, I decided to work with Kim Hyunh and Patrisha - people I have never worked with. Naturally, the situation was both a challenge and an opportunity. Working togehter enabled an expanded vision of the possibilities and finer details of the project. It made us feel down together when we were constantly questioned, criticised and openly disliked, but it also made us tackle the design problem and when we succeeded it meant our happiness and satisfaction quadrupled. Such experiences are well-worth having and I am glad to have had such great thoughts from Judy to have allowed me to think of the greater political dimensions in the design cooperation process. We all came to share our ideas - the best aspect of working in a group.

One more thing I have learnt from Mark was this: always approach things with justification and sound reasoning. Define the concepts that are critical in the designs, question, observe and restate and reobserve and redefine and requestion. Such rigourous questioning will lead to a greater learning experience of realising with greater clarity the extent of what you have designed. It is also a rational and empirical approach - such philosophical reasoning that demonstrate the highest of critical thinking which all good designs must have. The thoroughness of such reasoning have led me to not only devise a better understanding of 'threshold' (note: devise - it was partly organised, partly created and partly from observation) and also an approach to things I will have on my mind, always.