 So good afternoon everyone. We're gonna go ahead and get started There was a little bit of sound, but I decided you know, we didn't need to listen to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, so anyway, but so here we are Welcome to the master of architecture Curriculum overview. I'm Mario Gooden the director of the master of architecture program And it's really my sheer delight to welcome you to our fall open house I saw you know a number of you Just over in Buol a few minutes ago or about a half an hour ago for the Dean's presentation Which was very exciting and I have to say that I was a little sort of exhausted after hearing about everything that's going on Going on at our school, but I want to give us or give you a bit of an in-depth Look at the master of architecture program this afternoon So here we are In Avery Hall there we were in Buol before so now you're in Avery. Hopefully you also had a chance to take a Tour this morning, but as you can see Avery is a kind of dense Combustion engine as we like to talk as we like to call it The master of architecture program is one of 11 programs in the building the architecture program the architecture programs the master of architecture program and the master of science and advanced architecture design set atop of The world's most foremost Architectural arts library. This is the Avery the Avery library And I would like to say that you know in addition to let's say the studios and the classrooms You know being the spaces that you would occupy a lot when you're a student here That I would hope that this would also be one of your favorite places on campus actually This library gets used most of the time by students not in architecture so if you go there at mid review or at mid-term or Near the end of the semester there are students from many many other schools that really love Particularly this room the reading room That's there on the the first level when you enter, you know to study and really sort of enjoy that as an atmosphere As a matter of fact, I think when I was a student here some 30 x years ago, you know my carol right here and My graduate carol and that's where that's where I studied Linda You probably had a carol on this on this level as well So But moving on so here, you know, you see we're there in wood auditorium you see that The architecture programs are not only stacked above You know Avery library But then seep underground and then into Fairweather Hall Hopefully you'll get an opportunity to to see that where there are you know the urban design programs and The real estate programs and there are spaces that we use from time to time as well and the other sort of crucial space that I would call your attention to in addition to You know the studio and particularly Avery library is the maker space or the You know the shop, you know, this is where As Professor Bernard shimmy says that architecture is the materialization of concept So it's not just what we draw, but it's also what we make that is a part of the representation It is part of the part of the practice if you will of architecture so G-SAP and the a mark program, and it's really I would say it's a global program And you know at this time of planetary crisis as we all know our planet is going through Enormous environmental social and technological technological changes and these manifest or made manifest across scales in which the ways in which the body space ecologies politics and aesthetics intersect and entangle These intersections are the terrain for the various disciplines in the school and very much the terrain terrain for for the master of architecture program, however studying architecture or being an architect or studying about the built environment. There's not a recipe and One of the things or three of the things that we say here within the master of architecture program Is that we do not presume to know what architecture is? So some of you might be thinking well, I Thought you're gonna come in you're gonna come here and teach me what architecture is as the dean said earlier We're not going to sort of give you a certain kind of knowledge We will work with you and I think most of the faculty here, you know, we enjoy teaching because we are We are researching we're learning With you and that is part of the that is part of the joy of teaching Second that architecture is not a given and then that architecture is not a preconceived idea So this is really where you know the root of where we work from is that again? There's no recipe you don't take a little bit of this form and a little bit of this style and then put it in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes and out pops a building or out pops, you know a landscape or what have you but we think of architecture in terms of questions and also particularly given The Situations that we are faced today. We've been thinking about what does it mean to practice? Radical pedagogy of uncertainty Certainly, we're living in uncertain times in terms of climate change in terms of the fights for social justice and I would say spatial justice in terms of Environmental degradation Rapid capitalism extreme sort of technological advances, you know, how do we Think about these as architects and so as part of Let's say the thought that Architecture is not a preconceived preconceived condition We're here to think about how do we design strategies? To combat or to confront these matters so we're not Here to let's say try to solve, you know the world's problems what we want to think Architecturally so how can we use the tools of architecture in order to to confront? These issues and so practicing uncertainty means thinking about the environment thinking about the sort of deep time You know of the place in which we are you know situated here at Columbia University and You saw in the Dean's presentation and by the way the sump pumps are right underneath this jute Rug here, so if we pull this up, you will see the sump pumps and also the creek that is That runs beneath this campus and from the map that the Dean showed us of Manahata from the 17th century To the veil map of the the late 17th century you'll discover that You know this terrain that we are you know are situated upon is a terrain in which There is a lot under our feet a lot in terms of cultural practices in terms of thinking about the environment In terms of thinking about water earth and also the air around us Now that also makes manifest in in our design Projects design studios. This is a student Designed and constructed GSEP web, which was for the end of the year show in 2022 You saw this these images from the natural materials lab So thinking about other types of materials in terms of construction and the design of the built environment Again the Dean mentioned That GSEP has always been on the forefront of thinking about the entanglement of these issues as well This is the race in modern architecture Book that was edited by dr. Irene Chang and professor Mabel Wilson who you see here and dr. Charles Davis and this book actually started as a workshop and symposium that took place in this room in 2017 actually so you know Before if you will you know the summer of 2020 GSEP was already involved in thinking about The relationship between sort of race History and the making of the making of space so now to get into an overview of our curriculum the EMARC program is constructed if you will of six strands our design studios our building science and technology sequence representation sequence or history theory sequence Professional practice and our electives and you will meet some of our professors who are teaching across these strands Professor Lindy Roy is here. We'll be here for our Q&A and Alessandra Orsini Who teaches professional practice and Ray Wang who? coordinates architectural design and representation one and These strands are something of a kind of DNA if you will so again in in the blue the top strand being the design studios and From across the six semesters of the three-year EMARC program We have a number of studios and then you see our technology sequence the courses of our representation sequence history theory requirements in the first year, but then the number of electives and offerings professional practice and then Electives that you are free to take in the In the final semester, but the way that our curriculum is constructed The first three semesters are constructed around the idea or the question if you will have questions of architecture So we begin Thinking about what are the questions of architecture in terms of the environment in terms of climate in terms of Reparations in terms of care in terms of ecology and then how do those? How do we construct strategies? thinking of using the tools of architecture in terms of detail and structure and thinking about scale and and proportion and in the final three semesters We move from questions to then sort of okay, how do we let's say practice these questions How do we think about practicing? Uncertainty and so just to sort of come back and look at these and a bit more detail so in the In the first semester Questions of architecture again around questions of embodiment ecology environment care equity reparation as I mentioned How do we design strategies? Using architecture in terms of scale materiality space structure detail and relations You know in our building technology sequence environments in architecture in Representation what are the tools of representation again in relationship to these questions and Then much more directly in our history class required history class questions of architecture history and I was speaking with one of you at at lunch and we were talking about the way in which at GSAP we restructured our history sequence several years ago such that when I was a student and a number of my colleagues here when we were students we started with Ancient Greece and then moved sort of linearly through time But it was really based upon a kind of European understanding of history and European understanding of architectural history our history Sequence is constructed around space and time so while yes, we may look at Renaissance we're also looking at what was going on parallel to the Renaissance in the British colonies or in the French colonies or in the Portuguese colonies, so we're situating and and really sort of understanding that European epistemology is also a product of colonization right and much of You know the experiments which were happening whether or not they were scientific experiments or ethnographic experiments Whether or not there were even urban design experiments were being played out in the colonies and then sort of brought back to brought back to home so to speak and Then in the second semester Thinking about how do we deploy architecture as the production of knowledge? So what are other epistemologies? How do we construct knowledge using architecture and again? confronting questions of embodiment ecology environment care equity and and reparation That follows through in terms of now thinking about structures in architecture architectural representation and drawing again and then questions of architectural history to so moving from Let's say post-Renaissance into I Don't know if I want to call it the post-colonial era because we're still kind of in an area era of Coloniality but moving in terms of the era of coloniality I suppose in terms of questions of of architectural history and then in the third third semester Beginning to now think of architecture as situated practice And this is something that the dean sort of spoke about that we do not necessarily think of architecture or any of the Disciplines within GSEP as operating within a vacuum or in abstraction, but thinking about the real world in terms of Situating these in terms of how do we put these into into practice and by practice? I don't mean necessarily mean professional practice that is certainly a part of it But how do we put these into practice in terms of a way of thinking a mode of thinking using architectural thought? as a way of engaging the world and engaging the issues and planetary crises that we are confronted with And again, this then comes down to our other sequences in terms of the technology sequence our history theory sequence and as you will see Professional practice as well as representation then in the fourth semester Contested territory so now we're working at larger scales Larger scales thinking about extraction. Where do materials come from? Where are they sourced? Thinking about labor. How does labor and the How is labor used? How is labor perhaps even exploited within the design and construction process? So we're really thinking about architecture's entanglement, you know at a much larger scale Not just let's say the building scale or the local scale, but at a scale that Is much much much much much broader and this comes down to questions again of ecology environment carbonization extractivism equity and reparations and Here this ties directly into our technology sequence because we're thinking about construction material sources life cycles of materials in terms of representation and History theory in terms of our seminars and electives and distribution requirements in the fifth and sixth semester Practicing uncertainty and what does that mean? How do we think about architecture's entanglements and the intersectionalities of architecture with regimes of power and How do we deploy architecture as a again as a practice to confront? these issues and to confront power structures and You see we have our technology electives history theory distribution requirements and professional practice and while officially you see that you know There is a professional practice course. There are actually two professional practice courses There's a required course and an advanced professional practice Elective practice and the question of practice is actually situated across the curriculum and that gets played out in a number of ways in terms of symposiums in terms of having guest speakers and all of our Studios come and meet with students have conversations with students and Talk about let's say real-world issues and how do we think about sort of architecture in terms of in terms of these these issues and then in the final semester again practicing uncertainty and You see there are a number of of blue bars in both of these The fall semester is our Studio five and hopefully some of you will have a chance to go upstairs today We're in mid reviews for for studio five studio five actually brings together the master of architecture students and the second term master of science and advanced architectural design and Reviews just started today mid reviews and they go through Thursday, but I invite you to To visit as many of the mid reviews as you can and what you will see is that there is a kind of diverse Ecology of of studios that happen in the fifth and sixth semester Actually, there are 18 studios this fall in the The studio five studio five Sequence I believe about six of them are having mid reviews mid reviews today So now how does this all sort of play out in terms of Requirements you will find this information on On the school's website You know in terms of you know what's required Per semester and then where you see these the empty sort of blocks those are also opportunities for you to take other electives Which could be additional visual studies electives or should say representation electives or additional History theory electives or seminars or perhaps even if you are a Thinking about Doing a dual degree, you know, maybe taking an elective, you know in another in another program or even a program outside of Outside of GSAP so very quickly here. I'm just going to go through the you know Just show you some some slides and get to give you a kind of taste of Of the work that's produced in the different sequences Professor Lola Benelan Will be joining us a little bit later this afternoon and you can we'll also have the opportunity to ask more questions about The technology sequence work that's produced in the technology sequence You know very much thinking about construction and detail, but may perhaps thinking about construction and detail I won't even say with alternative materials because I think it is time that we sort of think about really think about Carbonization and think about the kinds of materials in which we are are constructing the built environment But also getting into you know the technical issues of lighting and acoustics But when it comes down to it our sequence lies You know on top of four pillars which are equity and health climate and energy High-tech and low-tech if you will and and design build So very quickly. I mentioned the tech one environment and in architecture So here we are not only thinking about the environment in terms of an abstract sense But also environments in terms of embodiment thermal comfort if you will Tech to is about sort of structures and structures when it comes down to it, you know I would say is somewhat intuitive right thinking about the relationship between materials and how materials go together and Their relationship to gravity if you will You know, how do they come together in terms of materials and assembly? So once again if architecture is the materialization of concept then how do you construct a concept? right not just the concept theoretically, but how does that translate to Actual construction and then construction in the life cycle of of materials That we use in in building in tech five in the fifth semester Professor Ben-Alan is also the director of the natural materials lab And the natural materials lab here at G-SAP has really been on the sort of leading edge if you will of thinking about the use of of bio materials of earthen materials and there is just a New materials Symposium that was here two weeks ago and Representation and you'll hear a little bit more from professor Wei Wang Before we end this afternoon You can also see some of this work on our website and also the end of the year show examples from architectural drawing and representation one and work from Architectural drawing and representation two which happens in the spring of the first year and Here you see this is from the from the make Elective seminar elective that And I want to come back to this thought of that. We don't necessarily you know Pretend that we know what architecture is and I think that also comes down to thinking about materials because if Drawings are let's say a representation of an architectural idea buildings are actually also a representation of a concept Right the building is or the built environment is a translation of a concept So then how does that translate in terms of? Materials and the kinds of materials that get deployed in the built environment And then history theory And history theory at GSAP is not thought of as something which is at the service if you will of design but history theory and design work very closely together and Professor Reinhold Martin is joining us and we'll perhaps have more to say about History theory here that later this afternoon I'll just keep going through all of these very quickly The Dean mentioned the Buell Center earlier our illustrious history theory faculty professional practice and You'll hear from Professor Orsini professional practices also taught by Professor Robert Herman our design studios In the fall we have the first semester of each of the three years. So If you go upstairs, not only will you have an opportunity to see what's going on in the Semester five reviews, but you can also visit The studios studio one, which is our first semester first year studio That is currently being coordinated by a visiting professor in poem at SIPA and this is some of the work from from just a year ago and I was having a conversation at lunch about the relationship between Candidates for the M. Arc program who have an architecture background versus candidates who did not have an architecture background and I will say that For Those of you who do not have an architecture background. It is certainly not an impediment. We welcome you and What you will find is that let's say the the tools that that you use or that you will be using here Those you will pick up, you know, I would say somewhat easily And it's really your colleagues who have an architecture background who I think will actually perhaps be learning You know just as much from you as you will be learning from from them one of the things that I would also say to To some of the students who have architecture backgrounds is perhaps forget what you think you know about architecture such that Again, we don't presume to know what architecture is I won't say that you're starting tabula rasa, but we want to question those assumptions and in that way Those without an architecture background and those with an architecture background are actually somewhat starting I would say on a level playing field and you will be a kind of amazed at the You know at the conversations that can that can take place in that first year, which is an exciting that first semester which is an exciting time in the in the curriculum and these are just some images from from final reviews last December then to Hopefully you'll also have an opportunity to visit the housing studios which are on the 500 level That's coordinated by professor Hilary sample. This is some work from from last fall as well And again the studio five work from last fall You'll Have an opportunity to attend some of the mid reviews which are going on Going on now. I won't play that because you saw that in the dean's presentation and Then I would just say there was so much to Also to unpack on the school's website, please also avail yourself of the end of the year show This happens, you know every spring in May at graduation But it's not only for graduating students You'll find work of all of the programs of all of the courses in the M. Arc program Are represented in the in the end of the year show, so please avail yourself of the school's website for that So Darwin if you would stand This is Darwin and Darwin is the assistant director of the master of architecture program I'm sure not only will some of you be in contact with in our admissions office and Dean Stefan Bottiker, but if you have questions about requirements or what have you you can also reach out to Darwin or myself so So now I like actually like to ask the faculty who are here Professor Reinhold Martin our Ray Wang Gali is not yet here Lindy Roy and Alessandro Orsini if you would join me here And we will open it up for any any questions that you may have Hi Thank you all first of all for for coming and So I'm Reinhold Martin. I am an historian of architecture Here at GSEP where I says somewhere coordinate the in terms of the M. Arc program at least the history and theory Part of the curriculum Which is a significant portion of what students here do beginning with the first Semester in fact I currently am doing this right now because because we you know I teach In the in this thing so it's called questions in architectural history These are the two core required Architectural history courses that that we do And so I'm currently teaching a group of your you know those of you who might join our predecessors Who are the first year I'm our students and I know we share we share we share these students They spend them some Wednesday morning with us and then they go over to Lindy And and you know there's many much more to say about the curriculum But but that's maybe more interesting to kind of develop it through Q&A than the speech Sorry, yes, okay. Thank you With this I always forget I'm Lindy Roy, I'm teaching the first semester in the core which is always I think best place to teach in the school for a lot of the reasons that Mario Brought up. There's this incredible mix of students who have Architecture background and know how to do stuff and students coming with incredibly beautiful Undergraduate degrees in other disciplines that really create an unbelievably compelling environment For thinking and learning and that's certainly been the case It is the case this semester So should should should we just keep going so Okay, so I also teach a seminar and Again to Mario's point. You're going to encounter faculty here who are deeply Involved in their own work and so one's own research and thinking is active and it's active in the studio and in the other classes so for me When I was thinking coming up here like just two years ago, it might have been It might have sounded a little dramatic to say that the climate crisis compels us to imagine other ways or other forms of human existence But now it's just a fact right so so so how do we begin to think about these things and the Curriculum's interest in uncertainty For me is a very very powerful It's not even an entry point. It's it's a way of being as you're working and my research is I work with neuroscientists And the seminar I teach called I guess it's this semester. It's called nervous systems Really looks at looks to neuroscience not as a metaphor or as a kind of prescription for cause and effect If you know how to do this you'll elicit this response, but really it looks at new to neuroscience for its extraordinary models For dealing with uncertainty risk and change And that class is also transdisciplinary bringing students in from other schools as well All right My name is Alessandro. I Teach here In the professional practice sequence as Mario said and I agree with With Lindy in the fact that you will encounter a lot of Professors that are entrenched in their own research and their own or some of them practicing like myself and And so you you will see a lot of our research that is brought into the studio space but also You will notice how certain type of seminars or courses like something that is Really much related to the building of architecture or the professional of the architect like the professional practice course is actually very much related to the practicing Uncertainty that is the curriculum the core curriculum and also the core curriculum of Climate equity and and data design and We Rebrode the sequence Mario I and other faculty and so we started to sort of Bring forward a lot of questions that relate to the responsibility of the architect itself Towards the built environment towards how are we gonna practice architecture? in this moment of uncertainty and so Yeah, I think I'm looking forward if you if you Have questions and so on Hey everyone, my name is Ray Wang. I'm coordinating the first year representation class and You know, I loved Mario your presentation and your idea that we need to you know Not presume that we know what architecture is right and so then in some sense That's a that's quite a challenge for the drawing class because how do you draw something that you don't know what it is? But it's it's also great great because you know, I love Teaching this class because I think drawing is in a lot of ways At least for me personally like what pulled me into the profession in the first place, you know But we quickly realize that architectural drawing isn't just making a nice image, right? Like every line you draw You know tells someone, you know, how much concrete to mix right tells a worker where to put a beam, right? Tells someone how many trees to cut down. So we really have to start questioning, you know, what does it mean to draw? in our day and age and especially now with You know all these new technologies that seem to change, you know months a month, right? You know, you guys probably heard of BIM and like VR AR Now we have like generative AI so in this sort of new space of technology and tools You know, what is the function of architectural drawing and representation? So that's something that we look at really close and we look at that by Sort of trying to relearn and rethink the fundamentals of what it means to represent architecture, right? What is the plan? What is the section? What is the physical model? What is the animation? What does that all mean in today's age? and so in other words to summarize I think You will be learning tools to make really amazing representations But we will also be exploring your representations and your drawings themselves as a kind of tool to be learned from Hi, my name is Nina Lossattle so earlier in your In your speech you're talking about how Students ask questions. What are students at the GSAP asking? What are the questions that they're interested in? What topics are you is the GSAP interested in? researching Wow It's a very good question Thanks for that question. I one I think you should also ask some students when you're when you're around today But it seems to me that students are It's actually a very big question students are asking why should they become an architect? Why should we build or should we build? That's a very big question That's not just for students. I think it's it's a question that should be put to the profession of architecture I'm not just not just the discipline and not just within the within the academy and if we build. How do we build? How do we build? Responsibly, how do we think about that say the life cycle of materials? How do we think about where those materials are coming from? How do we think about the processes? You know in terms of extraction or not in terms of in terms of materials, so it's a very big question of I Would say not why do we build but should we build and I think also questions of technology and you know really Active in studio and active in the Tech sequence and I'm sure yeah, I can yeah Yeah, and then the questions around that would be as varied as the students right as But it's deaf. Yeah, it's it's and the ADR course which works very closely with Studio is another kind of forum where you know we're like hurry up. Let's get the skill level up so that we can start to Get closer to some of the ideas that are emerging in studio While skills are being developed even if you've got a background. There's new technology There's new you know new ways of making things new way with thinking about communicating your design Or communicating or thinking That's very very active So yeah, so I would that's a great question and it's difficult to answer In in a sweeping way Because I think you'll you know get different answers across the board if you no matter who you had on this panel But I can report to you two things from again. I'm as I'm saying I'm teaching currently about one-third of the current mR class in history In the class with a cue in front of it so questions are already built in Questions in architectural history, so we pose them questions. That's part two of my question my part one of it is Probably something you're all asking to in addition to the immediate urgencies You know different versions of the question of what happened. This is the kind like what happened How did this happen? How do you know it could you could pose this relative to climate relative to world conflicts of various kinds and and so on and You know architecture finds itself often in the middle of these type of situations as I guess you just you know You could just hear about Technological questions and climate But these are frequently not new questions and And so that's one of the things that we try to do in response is to answer the question Concretely with facts right. It's not just all questions. There are facts something happened and and then Explain that and it could have to do with the design and construction of a particular building it could have to do with the oppression of Whole peoples in order such that that building would been built or the building itself as a machine to oppress and or Liberate and you know you get into many very very difficult and often contradictory situations with architecture So that's that's a that's a it's it's a kind of churn that just keeps going But but be reassured. I really want to emphasize this things happen right, unfortunately before our very eyes in ways that we are you know often horrified by but things happen and And and that's part of our responsibility is to understand how things happen And they don't happen passively. They are made to happen So architecture is a domain in which of makers of people who make things happen Whether it has to do with the design of something or the enabling of something through that design Or the con or the prevention of something so and so on and so on I asked a question the other day to my students This is I do this every week every year. I have to say so there's a famous text from then sorry This is very esoteric But hey, we're in graduate. This is graduate school in the Ivy League. So There's a famous text in if I'm the 19th century in Prussia and in what would come Germany Called in what style should we build that that's titled as a question. So I think they've maybe read it and And and so We discuss many aspects of that but that that's they read that text and we contextualize it I give them explain what this means something about the author and so on And recoupions the author. It's an architect But one of the the you know, just even that might seem like an anachronistic question to you, right? Like in what style we don't really talk about style very much anymore. I Suggested to the students the other day. It may be this question is not resolved And maybe there's still something in this question. Why for two reasons one is that style is something Typically that is produced collectively by entire societies entire eras or epochs And it has been understood as as that and so thinking in those terms Asks us to think not just what what it doesn't say what style should I build a design says we And and you know who that we is is and that's a absolutely critical in face of the various crazies You know, everybody is aware of right The we right and then there is this this we itself. So in that in what style should we build who is this we In that context it wasn't yet we Germans, but it was soon to become we Germans It was in the early 19th century. So this this is the earlier Phase of the development of nation modern nation states as we you know have inherited them Such that we can maybe that that phrase we Germans echoes in ways to our ears that didn't quite You know wasn't weren't really Available at that time. So the we of nationalism basically So there's the we of a collective bearing collective responsibility for cultural expression Something like style, which is hardly superficial. It's profound and in in these and other ways and then there's that the other aspects of this of a Default we like a we who belong in this room and we might be doing building But somebody else is going to be on the receiving end of what we design or build and so that we is both an inclusive and an Exclusive term so so that's that's the kind of work that questions can do. So I thank you for your question Thank you So you mentioned Kind of in your in your talk that you're questioning what architecture is but also that we're defining questions of whether we should even build or whether Architects should be people who design how they design space and looking at that not just as the singular building but as the Entire velocity of the building from creation whether that's exploitation of materials or labor to Demise and so I think in kind of that framing. I'm curious what collaboration within GSAP looks like across Discipline and programs say from architecture in the real estate Because some of those questions are not just architectural, but our economic in questioning what it looks like to redesign Economic systems that necessitate building and so I'm just curious what that looks like within the program and courses and studios And wherever else. Yeah, that thanks that that's really a great question And I'll say a couple of things about that I think The question of collaboration is not only I would say question about What's happening across disciplines, but it's also a question about what's happening in within the discipline and I think one of the One of the things that's happening not only in the within the school But perhaps within not as much in the profession as yet But there is a beginning of a decentering of the architect of the kind of heroic figure of the architect such that And I think we do this quite well within the airmark program Is offering opportunities for collaborative work, you know in the design studio in certain in certain courses So that's so that's one in terms of you know, record the recognition that Nothing gets built kind of singularly or a kind of singular Singular genius, and I think there are a number of examples in architectural history of You know whether or not it is you know if you could think of You know Eileen Gray or others who you know were not given proper credit And we know that you know these works were not just kind of singularly sort of done So the idea of the singular genius then in terms of more practically in terms of Collaboration across disciplines there are opportunities we have and They do not have a mid-review today, but their mid-review I think is later this week we have a joint architecture and preservation studio in the in the studio five So there are those opportunities. We have architecture and planning studio and studio for We have architecture and real estate and studio and studio six And so we're looking for and we're also trying to construct more opportunities at the moment Those are singular studios within each one of those Semesters, but we are also looking for opportunities for example that all of the architecture studios for example in the fourth All semester would be collaborating with planning studios urban planning studios for example and more opportunities for for collaboration with With the real estate because you're exactly right that also perhaps means redesigning Economic systems, so that's a great question. Thank you Because these are all questions that we cover in the professional practice course as well in which The new course is really more designed to Tackle all these issues of ethics equity and labor exploitation or environmental exploitation but and it's very interesting to see how all these things are intertwined and We just had our mid-term review on Friday and so part of the course is students will sort of exercise on Forming a firm a design firm and so all those questions on how we design For whom we design and how we consider the context of architecture are really embedded in the course and so for example One of these questions that you said the collaboration with real estate and and the redesign of economic Systems and circularity They were really brought forward this past Friday in which a lot of students had a Firm that was a design firm associated with a real estate for for this specific purpose of understanding how to create a different kind of Financial paradigm behind the construction of architecture So in a sense the way that Professor Martin was explaining how the question of architecture are designed. It's that the professional practice one is also designed intertwined with all these questions of ethics and so on I was just going to ask How is GSAP is GSAP embracing the idea of AI? How is that being embedded into the curriculum? I know because I know people like I hear people using You know chat GBT or other AI softwares to create pretty realistic renders or drawings and come up with programs and Full projects for their thesis or something so what what is y'all stance on that and is that something y'all are embracing? We're embracing I would say the possibilities. We do not have I think we are there are a number of experiments or some studios that are experimenting with You know with things like mid-journey and what have you but in terms of and I'll let Brian I'll also kind of talk about in terms of writing and and what have you But it is something that that we're actively exploring and You know, I would say the school has always kind of been on the forefront of technology and in this case You know AI has really been moving very very quickly It was just a few weeks ago or or so. There was a you know another what seems like a sort of another Generation of you know of AI But at the moment what we are asking students to do is wherever and whenever AI is used is to cite their references In terms of that in terms of that use But we're I would say are extremely interested in what the potentials are I would say what the potentials and the risk and kind of knowing You know, so we're not adopting something blindly or suggesting that students use it blindly but Understanding, you know it and all of its and it's kind of full context if you will Yeah, no, I mean on because obviously this has Hit the headlines Probably first like in high schools and you know people writing their paper I'm sure all of you in one way or the other if you've been in school recently You would have faced this issue already and the straightforward answer is no You cannot write your paper with it with chat GBT unless you my some of I will just I'm just echoing Conversations amongst, you know people who grade these papers unless of course you'd like chat GBT to grade the paper also So in other words, there is a human to human kind of critical dimension to all the work that we do And I don't think that's gonna change But the the way in which these relations are mediated is changing and this is among them. It's not the only one and so Just two more one is very philosophical the other more concrete answer People around here every that you can't turn anywhere on a campus like this without somebody thinking critically imaginatively Technologically about and you know even financially about about these these types of questions I'm part of something called the Committee on Global Thought here in which we're organizing a panel Panel discussion in a couple of weeks on AI and labor, which is about what like what's not in the newspaper So it's kind of related. It's in the spirit of some of the things you just heard, you know from my colleagues Of you know who is training the AI to to recognize happiness or something like that It this is these are people who are not paid At the scale by any means that the people who design the AI are paid or those of us who use it, you know are paid and and in fact, they're typically not They're in the typically in the global south and countries like Kenya and so on where English is spoken But unless there's you know, there's all their conditions their historical conditions. Okay, that's one So there's so that it's just yet another case in which we want to think critically historically contextually About technology, you know, it's really honestly I don't think is that different and the other thing the philosophical is it it seems to me I don't know. I don't go into the whole thing, but if you're familiar with the Turing test This is one way to think about it. The the the problem what AI is the question that it's posing to us is who are we? Like not who is of course, what is this new machine? But whenever there's a machine there's a question of the user in the maker of the machine. Who are we? Such that we can't tell the difference between a paper written by an AI and a paper written by a human student So that kind of course, that's an interesting question And then we can contemplate those type of questions in academic setting Well actually that that's part of my interest in working with neuroscience as well where you know these cognitive based technologies like AI are infiltrating our lives and of course how we design and how we think about design And neuroscience gives sort of a pretty incredible window into starting to think about You know as we start to deal with these technologies to think critically about them But also ways of starting to think about these melded assemblies That we increasingly work with of matter and data And dealing with human more than human and artificial intelligence Right all sort of within one sort of construct as you're working to Theoretically think through how does one begin to develop tools to think through these issues So that's Yeah just maybe a final final comment because I think the rendering question really I think got to the heart of Someone we've been talking about in our architectural drawing representation class I mean but I want to go back to you know what Mario presented right like we come in here Presuming not to know what architecture is If you think about what AI is it presumes the exact opposite right and knows exactly what architecture is Because it's based off of this you know large image model of all the architecture It's seen basically like on the internet right and if you think about that a little bit more Then you start to realize well what kind of architectural images get on the internet Right it's mostly probably like portfolio images Glass images by developers trying to sell a specific you know product even architectural firm Like best glitziest images so that's what AI thinks you know architecture is right it's based on this Catalog of images and it talks nothing about process or design and knows nothing of those things right So if you're thinking about AI as a tool you need to be aware that that's the specific perspective that that AI tool kind of comes to the table with And if you do have questions and you see any of us The building later today, please come up and I speak with us and just another reminder to come back here in this room 634 Professor Mark Sirmaki's lecture tonight Thank you very much Thank you guys