Studio and the Pandemic Stimuli
Carolyn AbdallaThe digital age redefines the relationship between space and time. Distance is no longer an obstacle and has been transformed into an opportunity. Conversation and exchanging ideas can occur across time zones and oceans, offering unique perspectives from almost anywhere. Software like Google Earth allows students to experience places around the globe without ever stepping away from their desks, from the Appalachian Trail to Istanbul and Barcelona. While examining a place in Google Earth is not the same as truly being there, it is still a valuable tool. In contrast to the real spatial constraints of physical studio spaces, Miro has infinite virtual pin-up space, where students can upload sketches and model pictures throughout the semester, and instructors can view live updates of their work. These boards serve as a form of documentation and a tool for learning and interacting with one another’s work, no longer restricted to the four walls of a studio room.
In 2024, studio is no longer completely online, but some students have not fully returned to it as their main workspace. Even in second year, many, especially those that commute to campus, have set up their desktop computers at their homes, with studio becoming an interim workspace navigated on a laptop. A precedent has been set with preceding virtual studio experiences that gives students new possibilities in their workplace and exploration of ideas.
While virtual environments succeed in gathering students and bridging the space and time between people, initiative must be taken to establish conversation. They do not replace the organic exchange of ideas that occurs when students work side-by-side. It also requires adapting the way work is presented. In physical presentations, large-scale boards are meant to be viewed in tandem. In virtual ones, they must be arranged into a sequential series of images that account for the screen through which they are viewed. This shift allows a different language of representation with the possibility of integrating video or animation. Today, these opportunities are occasionally employed in-person with the use of devices like television screens to display videos or virtual reality experiences to supplement a presentation.
For architectural pedagogy, the pandemic did not simply accelerate the development of modalities in studio education; It has altered our perception of space as living spaces also became academic spaces for more than a year. It prompted a reevaluation of what makes a space fit for a specific use and an opportunity to test those qualities. It tore down all our routines and systems and left us to piece together some semblance of normalcy with the walls we had left. In doing so we pushed the boundaries of our developing digital world.
Carolyn Abdalla is pursuing a Bachelor of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. This essay was originally prepared for the Space-Time-Studio research group organized by Gabrielle Esperdy in Summer 2023.
This essay was published as part of Transect Volume 5: Pedagogy (2024), Jacob Swanson, Daniel Girgis, Dhruvi Rajpopat, Fatima Fardos, Jimenna Alcantar, Elizabeth Kowalchuk, eds.