Abstract

This paper will look at a new way to initiate, inspire, and foster innovation in the creative mind. The Artist, Poet, or Performer clearly enjoys the freedom of expression their disciplines demand. Finding ways to stimulate that same inquiry and passion in the education of an Architecture student shall be a focus of the paper. I have found in my forty years of teaching that a powerful, conceptual, and passionate first thought, gesture, or insight is necessary to begin any design. What it is or where it comes from is not the issue. I challenge my students to step outside their safe and secure design process to explore, see, and apply a new approach. This paper will concentrate on the philosophy and design process used in developing an artistic solution to an architecture design assignment. My students were talented and receptive to risk taking and eager to explore a new and different way of beginning and presenting a design. The END for the studio was the design of a sculpture garden adjacent to a nearby Art Museum. The MEANS were achieved by using the narrative in the form of an essay to metaphor eating as Architecture, an abstract painting used to capture spirit, meaning and intent, music to fill the silence, and videography in the form of a multi-media video to communicate and share the work with others. Examples of the student’s work will illustrate the paper along with a critique of the process showing its potential application to an art school studio or curriculum. The Art of Architecture was achieved as a result of seeing through the eyes of the Artist rather than that of the Architect. Collaboration between the disciplines was critical to the success of the studio. Creativity between the Arts prevailed....