Description I

Exercise: Write about the physical, sensorial, emotional experience of a specific location (restaurant, bar, club, art gallery, theatre, etc.).

Example: Restaurant reviews from the New Yorker magazine.

In this one-week intensive workshop, writing is considered as a tool to communicate ideas in a clear and direct way, moving away from the complexities of architectural jargon and academic writing. Each day consists of the introduction of a writing example, the discussion of it, and then the writing and reading in public of a short piece. There will be a final presentation at the end of the week.

The two main references are:
Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, 1988
David Foster Wallace, Authority and the American Usage, in: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, 2005.

Description II

Exercise: Note during a period of 5 hours and then edit the time spent in a public space (the same for all of the students) in London.

Example: Georges Perec, An attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris.

In this one-week intensive workshop, writing is considered as a tool to communicate ideas in a clear and direct way, moving away from the complexities of architectural jargon and academic writing. Each day consists of the introduction of a writing example, the discussion of it, and then the writing and reading in public of a short piece. There will be a final presentation at the end of the week.

The two main references are:
Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, 1988
David Foster Wallace, Authority and the American Usage, in: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, 2005.

Cause and effect

Exercise: Identify a building in London and speculate about the political, socio-economical and technological conditions that informed and possibly determined its design.

Example: Jonathan Massey, Risk Design, 2013.

In this one-week intensive workshop, writing is considered as a tool to communicate ideas in a clear and direct way, moving away from the complexities of architectural jargon and academic writing. Each day consists of the introduction of a writing example, the discussion of it, and then the writing and reading in public of a short piece. There will be a final presentation at the end of the week.

The two main references are:
Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, 1988
David Foster Wallace, Authority and the American Usage, in: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, 2005.

Translation

Exercise: Select a brief text in a foreign language and then translate it into English, highlighting the words, themes or concepts which meaning does not properly transfer through translation.

Example: Toyo Ito, Tarzans in the Media Forest, 2011.

In this one-week intensive workshop, writing is considered as a tool to communicate ideas in a clear and direct way, moving away from the complexities of architectural jargon and academic writing. Each day consists of the introduction of a writing example, the discussion of it, and then the writing and reading in public of a short piece. There will be a final presentation at the end of the week.

The two main references are:
Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, 1988
David Foster Wallace, Authority and the American Usage, in: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, 2005.

Summary

Exercise: Summarise an assigned architectural essay in 300-500 words.

Example: Colm Tóibín; Callil, Carmel (editors), The Modern Library: The Two Hundred Best Novels in English Since 1950, 1999.

In this one-week intensive workshop, writing is considered as a tool to communicate ideas in a clear and direct way, moving away from the complexities of architectural jargon and academic writing. Each day consists of the introduction of a writing example, the discussion of it, and then the writing and reading in public of a short piece. There will be a final presentation at the end of the week.

The two main references are:
Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, 1988
David Foster Wallace, Authority and the American Usage, in: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, 2005.