T4T LAB 2021
Donation protected
Dear T4T Alumni:
It has been 10 years since the first time we had this Lab. As you probably remember it was originally called Mitchell Lab. It started as way to embrace a higher level of education regarding “emergent technologies” by having exterior influences to come and help us redefine was Texas A&M Architecture education was all about. I never thought it was going to last this long, because as you probably know most of these projects die because of lack of support or lack of interest. Fortunately, this was not the case for T4T, as years went by it got stronger and more people participated, and it has reached global recognition. The studio has been nominated twice by ACADIA board members as best digital studio. With a presentation recognizing its importance at ACADIA 2019.
This time I would like to announce the publication of the T4T Book with a tentative title of “Conspiracies and Collusions. T4TLAB. A decade of digital history.” It will be published by Routledge, which is a prestigious company for architecture books. We are in the second revision of the book, hoping everything goes well it has a due date of early 2022. Conspiracies and Collusions will offer an unflinchingly rigorous and unapologetically subjective account of architecture's disciplinary concerns through digital speculative projects from the end of the first digital turn and the start of the second digital turn of the 21st century. This is a story that has not been told; in recent years everything has been refracted through the prism of the post-digital generation. As a result, many of the underlying, real digital concerns remain obscured.
As a historic dossier the book provides a compilation of a 10 year period curated from the viewpoint of a documenter/provocateur, with essays and projects by the collaborators of the studios as well as people involved with the lab as critics with and an introduction by an internationally renowned American philosopher (Levy Bryant). The architects involved directly or indirectly in the Lab happen to be some of today's most influential digital architects, some of whom were practically unknown in America before the Lab, whose careers have since then achieved much greater visibility. In its final form, the book will introduce the perspectives of 10 architects who taught the studio, projects and points of view from 14 practitioners and academics that have been part of the review panel throughout the years, as well as the work of many students. The publisher has contacted or will contact the 14 possible collaborators whose names will be familiar.
I would like to think about in a larger sense, and I have been considering a conference/reunion when the book comes out in 2022, I will have to look for the right sponsorships. But the most challenging project is to do a documentary about the studio but perhaps about architecture in the last decade. I think it will require several grants, but I think it will be something quite unique, I have some people helping me out achieving that goal.
Through the years T4T has been about Design and Research using the latest of digital technology as the vehicle to achieve innovation. T4T has worked on emphasizing the importance of reintegrating theory and technology in a new type of practice for the 21st century in search of architectural agency. The premise has been and continues to be to invite the most notable young architects today dealing with issues of technology to participate in research and teaching. As previously stated, most of the invited professors have become well-known worldwide and some of them are already occupying important academic positions.
The T4T vertical studio has traditionally challenged, sequenced design studio organization by allowing students of various developmental and skill levels to interact and compete with one another in a topical, based studio. I honestly believe it is a pedagogical model for 21st century creating a student community in which individuals have several responsibilities like digital workshops and tutorial teaching as well as project management. It is a bottom up grass-roots model in reaction to the top down traditional modern studio approach. This type of vertical studio reassures that the body of knowledge about design, technology and theory stays in the school and benefits many students.
Many younger students are as skilled and insightful as their senior counterparts and bring to the studio an enthusiasm and fresh outlook that can be very stimulating and challenging to upperclassmen. Seniors have told me that the responsibility of mentoring others is what they love the most. Previous experience in T4T indicated that the combination of several groups in one studio, combined with their elective “choice” of studio, has produced much higher student performance and a broader range of experiences than is possible in a traditional structure.
Important goals for the studio have been self‐motivation, independent thinking, and accelerated performance, with the freedom to choose areas of focus within their teams. As faculty you feel more creative, independent, and professionally connected to teaching. Our students impact has been strong, 174 students have participated in the studio but if you consider the fact that 5 students took it 3 times and 51 students have taken it twice, the actual impact number in university terms is 230 students.
T4T lab represents an integrated approach to teaching students of varied academic levels. During the last 10 years that I have taught this vertical studio we have had sophomores, juniors, seniors and first year graduate students, in other words it had an enormous impact at all levels of the curriculum. Plus, once a week there is a theory seminar focusing on contemporary theory as well as specific topics that the guest professor requires. This type of studio stands in contrast to a more traditional, level-segregated model and it offers more challenges. At this point this type of course structure is not entirely experimental, because we have been doing it for a long time, however pedagogically—the vertical studio concept is supported by research on a number of topics related to learning.
This way of teaching because classic studio-based courses often attempt to emulate aspects of professional practice; however, communities of practice are rarely as homogeneous as the courses would like them to be in a level-segregated curricular structure. In contrast, a course like T4T vertical studio provides the opportunity for legitimate peripheral participation, and consequently situated learning can occur. Students develop a changing understanding of the practice over time from improvised opportunities to participate peripherally in ongoing activities and conversations. It becomes a full architectural teaching environment. Newcomers or lower level students, in the context of T4T develop a knowledge base through their observation, experience and increasing participation in the activities of the studio, gradually assuming an identity as part of the group of students that have participated in T4T before and are spread all over the US and abroad.
In a regular semester, the invited professor is required to visit at the beginning of the semester to introduce the project, the mid-term and final review and stay a few days to interact, critique and have direct communication with the students. This required a specific but modest fund to pay the invited professors’ fee plus keep about $ 2,000 to invite exterior jury members and have a bit of money for materials. At the very beginning there was an idea of keeping this budget as a permanent fund, unfortunately this did not happen.
As years went by the department support diminished considerably, I had to readjust the budget and the people invited barely made any money but did it out of the understanding that this was an academic and prestigious experience worth dealing with, of course friendship and solidarity played a great part of it. Out of the fee the guest professor received, they must take from that amount their trips and hotel expenses while at A&M.
So, at the end of every T4T, I had to start fundraising for the next year, it has been an exhausting effort, getting money from many different sources until I collect the needed amount, which included some college and department money, applying for grants which this has been the way that I have paid for the Lab every year, to the extent including putting small amounts from my own pocket but the end result was totally worth it. Not to mention that the department head’s decision to approve the lab every Spring kept me hanging until the very last minute, to the extreme that the final approval to let me have the studio for 2020 came on December 30th 2019. The department of architecture has never seen the studio as part of the A&M curriculum which is so ironic because as you know this is what most of the world know about architecture at A&M.
I’ve had several conversations with our fundraise director, the person in charge of dealing with donations, to help me get a $ 10,000 fund to do the lab every year with no luck, which by the way the invited professor’s fee is only $ 8,000 which is extremely low, minus expenses makes it even worse. I have been fundraising with no great luck; I have applied to some grants, waiting to hear back, but the grant money has been reduced as well all over the university. I do not want to cancel the lab simply because it will not look good to the publisher and I had already made a commitment with Barry Wark to teach the next studio and he is very excited to do it.
Which brings to the embarrassment moment, please excuse my bravado, of asking for a donation. It is an unfortunate situation, and it makes me look like a looser but I have faith that the present situation will eventually change. I am requesting a donation of $ 50.00. I know these are hard times for all of us but if you feel that this project gave you something and you think it is worth the cause, please think about it. This donation will help paid the invited professor's fee.
I have to say that the commitment to remain as an architecture competitive program across the university as well as nationally which includes continuing to offer the collaboration of innovative professionals to continue the T4T project. This will require an investment of additional funds and resources to fulfill our goals.
This will have to include the development of a comprehensive plan in support of the goals for new funding, as well as following the College of Architecture Plan in connection to the research and learning mission. We will have to continue producing meaningful contributions to a significant body of research and student’s learning experience which is critical to the success of this Lab and efforts are made to infuse programs and activities with rich opportunities for professionals and students to learn and grow through their involvement experiences. We have been in conversations with so many people during these past 10 years in order to find a way to permanently support this Lab as it has become a token for Texas A&M internationally.
Sincerely
Gabriel Esquivel
https://www.t4tlab.com/
It has been 10 years since the first time we had this Lab. As you probably remember it was originally called Mitchell Lab. It started as way to embrace a higher level of education regarding “emergent technologies” by having exterior influences to come and help us redefine was Texas A&M Architecture education was all about. I never thought it was going to last this long, because as you probably know most of these projects die because of lack of support or lack of interest. Fortunately, this was not the case for T4T, as years went by it got stronger and more people participated, and it has reached global recognition. The studio has been nominated twice by ACADIA board members as best digital studio. With a presentation recognizing its importance at ACADIA 2019.
This time I would like to announce the publication of the T4T Book with a tentative title of “Conspiracies and Collusions. T4TLAB. A decade of digital history.” It will be published by Routledge, which is a prestigious company for architecture books. We are in the second revision of the book, hoping everything goes well it has a due date of early 2022. Conspiracies and Collusions will offer an unflinchingly rigorous and unapologetically subjective account of architecture's disciplinary concerns through digital speculative projects from the end of the first digital turn and the start of the second digital turn of the 21st century. This is a story that has not been told; in recent years everything has been refracted through the prism of the post-digital generation. As a result, many of the underlying, real digital concerns remain obscured.
As a historic dossier the book provides a compilation of a 10 year period curated from the viewpoint of a documenter/provocateur, with essays and projects by the collaborators of the studios as well as people involved with the lab as critics with and an introduction by an internationally renowned American philosopher (Levy Bryant). The architects involved directly or indirectly in the Lab happen to be some of today's most influential digital architects, some of whom were practically unknown in America before the Lab, whose careers have since then achieved much greater visibility. In its final form, the book will introduce the perspectives of 10 architects who taught the studio, projects and points of view from 14 practitioners and academics that have been part of the review panel throughout the years, as well as the work of many students. The publisher has contacted or will contact the 14 possible collaborators whose names will be familiar.
I would like to think about in a larger sense, and I have been considering a conference/reunion when the book comes out in 2022, I will have to look for the right sponsorships. But the most challenging project is to do a documentary about the studio but perhaps about architecture in the last decade. I think it will require several grants, but I think it will be something quite unique, I have some people helping me out achieving that goal.
Through the years T4T has been about Design and Research using the latest of digital technology as the vehicle to achieve innovation. T4T has worked on emphasizing the importance of reintegrating theory and technology in a new type of practice for the 21st century in search of architectural agency. The premise has been and continues to be to invite the most notable young architects today dealing with issues of technology to participate in research and teaching. As previously stated, most of the invited professors have become well-known worldwide and some of them are already occupying important academic positions.
The T4T vertical studio has traditionally challenged, sequenced design studio organization by allowing students of various developmental and skill levels to interact and compete with one another in a topical, based studio. I honestly believe it is a pedagogical model for 21st century creating a student community in which individuals have several responsibilities like digital workshops and tutorial teaching as well as project management. It is a bottom up grass-roots model in reaction to the top down traditional modern studio approach. This type of vertical studio reassures that the body of knowledge about design, technology and theory stays in the school and benefits many students.
Many younger students are as skilled and insightful as their senior counterparts and bring to the studio an enthusiasm and fresh outlook that can be very stimulating and challenging to upperclassmen. Seniors have told me that the responsibility of mentoring others is what they love the most. Previous experience in T4T indicated that the combination of several groups in one studio, combined with their elective “choice” of studio, has produced much higher student performance and a broader range of experiences than is possible in a traditional structure.
Important goals for the studio have been self‐motivation, independent thinking, and accelerated performance, with the freedom to choose areas of focus within their teams. As faculty you feel more creative, independent, and professionally connected to teaching. Our students impact has been strong, 174 students have participated in the studio but if you consider the fact that 5 students took it 3 times and 51 students have taken it twice, the actual impact number in university terms is 230 students.
T4T lab represents an integrated approach to teaching students of varied academic levels. During the last 10 years that I have taught this vertical studio we have had sophomores, juniors, seniors and first year graduate students, in other words it had an enormous impact at all levels of the curriculum. Plus, once a week there is a theory seminar focusing on contemporary theory as well as specific topics that the guest professor requires. This type of studio stands in contrast to a more traditional, level-segregated model and it offers more challenges. At this point this type of course structure is not entirely experimental, because we have been doing it for a long time, however pedagogically—the vertical studio concept is supported by research on a number of topics related to learning.
This way of teaching because classic studio-based courses often attempt to emulate aspects of professional practice; however, communities of practice are rarely as homogeneous as the courses would like them to be in a level-segregated curricular structure. In contrast, a course like T4T vertical studio provides the opportunity for legitimate peripheral participation, and consequently situated learning can occur. Students develop a changing understanding of the practice over time from improvised opportunities to participate peripherally in ongoing activities and conversations. It becomes a full architectural teaching environment. Newcomers or lower level students, in the context of T4T develop a knowledge base through their observation, experience and increasing participation in the activities of the studio, gradually assuming an identity as part of the group of students that have participated in T4T before and are spread all over the US and abroad.
In a regular semester, the invited professor is required to visit at the beginning of the semester to introduce the project, the mid-term and final review and stay a few days to interact, critique and have direct communication with the students. This required a specific but modest fund to pay the invited professors’ fee plus keep about $ 2,000 to invite exterior jury members and have a bit of money for materials. At the very beginning there was an idea of keeping this budget as a permanent fund, unfortunately this did not happen.
As years went by the department support diminished considerably, I had to readjust the budget and the people invited barely made any money but did it out of the understanding that this was an academic and prestigious experience worth dealing with, of course friendship and solidarity played a great part of it. Out of the fee the guest professor received, they must take from that amount their trips and hotel expenses while at A&M.
So, at the end of every T4T, I had to start fundraising for the next year, it has been an exhausting effort, getting money from many different sources until I collect the needed amount, which included some college and department money, applying for grants which this has been the way that I have paid for the Lab every year, to the extent including putting small amounts from my own pocket but the end result was totally worth it. Not to mention that the department head’s decision to approve the lab every Spring kept me hanging until the very last minute, to the extreme that the final approval to let me have the studio for 2020 came on December 30th 2019. The department of architecture has never seen the studio as part of the A&M curriculum which is so ironic because as you know this is what most of the world know about architecture at A&M.
I’ve had several conversations with our fundraise director, the person in charge of dealing with donations, to help me get a $ 10,000 fund to do the lab every year with no luck, which by the way the invited professor’s fee is only $ 8,000 which is extremely low, minus expenses makes it even worse. I have been fundraising with no great luck; I have applied to some grants, waiting to hear back, but the grant money has been reduced as well all over the university. I do not want to cancel the lab simply because it will not look good to the publisher and I had already made a commitment with Barry Wark to teach the next studio and he is very excited to do it.
Which brings to the embarrassment moment, please excuse my bravado, of asking for a donation. It is an unfortunate situation, and it makes me look like a looser but I have faith that the present situation will eventually change. I am requesting a donation of $ 50.00. I know these are hard times for all of us but if you feel that this project gave you something and you think it is worth the cause, please think about it. This donation will help paid the invited professor's fee.
I have to say that the commitment to remain as an architecture competitive program across the university as well as nationally which includes continuing to offer the collaboration of innovative professionals to continue the T4T project. This will require an investment of additional funds and resources to fulfill our goals.
This will have to include the development of a comprehensive plan in support of the goals for new funding, as well as following the College of Architecture Plan in connection to the research and learning mission. We will have to continue producing meaningful contributions to a significant body of research and student’s learning experience which is critical to the success of this Lab and efforts are made to infuse programs and activities with rich opportunities for professionals and students to learn and grow through their involvement experiences. We have been in conversations with so many people during these past 10 years in order to find a way to permanently support this Lab as it has become a token for Texas A&M internationally.
Sincerely
Gabriel Esquivel
https://www.t4tlab.com/
Organizer
Gabriel Esquivel
Organizer
College Station, TX