The Schenck-Woodman begins with a long walk taken with others, around an area loosely circumscribed. This walk should take no less than two hours, preferably more, exploring and meandering rather than determining, deciphering and recording rather than circumscribing, in procedures which are additive rather than delimiting. In asking yourself--“What in actuality are the primary descriptors of this site?”--one might conclude that it is exactly the qualities that are not typically represented in conventional representations which answer that question. Is a site constructed from elusive environmental character and challenges? By the sounds around it? The animals that inhabit it? Is a site overshadowed by its history and popular myths? Is a site overwhelmed by the social relationships of the people who transverse it or live nearby it?” After walking and recording, students are asked to describe the site by producing a map of the site by inventing a notational language, a geographic mapping with inflected three dimensional information, which represents the most important factors in describing the site. In addition, the path of the walk taken must be conveyed and illustrated with photographic moments. The second task will be to intervene in that site, and its constructed language. Write a narrative which describes as it exists now and envisions a future, using imaginary provocative language. Using AI (Midjourney), conjure a new vision of a piece of the site with a small structure meant to be occupied by at least three people, to observe the site in partially or in its totality. This structure has many analogies in vernacular landscapes: a “duck-blind,” a “bothy, ”a machan,” a “lean-to,” a hut—that is, a simple shelter, free for anyone to use and occupy. Produce another drawing showing this vision and combine it with the first. The third task will be to compose a soundtrack to accompany your drawings, to be played at the competition jury, keyed somehow into the drawings you have made.
The jury: Matthias Armengaud, Matthijs Bouw (Architect, Weitzman faculty), Ann de Forest (Author), David Hartt (Artist, Weitzman faculty), Elizabeth Heldridge (Architect)
The Winners:
First Place Teams:
Team C: Xuefei Guo, Keke Liu, Mic Ma, David Owe
Team E: Joshua Bonamy, Sharareh Faryadi, Geoffrey Ford, Puxin Yang
Team G: Jonathan Bonezzi, Chul Yoon Chung, Cate Orchard, and Junxi Liu
Team R: Spring Yu, Jessy Xu, Ricardo Alvarado
Runners-Up Teams:
Team Q: Sepideh Bayat, Tylor Chu, Yifei Li, and Jiapeng Sun
Team H: Fasai Chainuvati, Dongsheng Li, Kerun Wang, and Chendou Zhu
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