Project Statement
lunch 2: dialect
is the second volume of a student initiated and student
run publication. This issue of the journal explores
the issue of communication between landscape architecture
and architecture as well as the related fields of environmental
planning and architectural history. The journal further
seeks to engage communication within the school and
connect it with the extended alumni network. Finally,
through expanded dissemination it achieves an outlet
for the voice of our work and community.
Project Narrative
lunch: the journal
The term ‘lunch’ is an informal
derivation of the word luncheon. lunch
is inspired by chance – by chance discussions
that grow from a meal in a shared setting and by chance
discussions that alter or challenge views of the space
and place we inhabit. lunch provides
for the meeting of diverse voices in common place tended
by a casual atmosphere. To lunch suggests an escape
from the day’s work; perhaps even a break.
Intrepid thoughts, influential experiments,
and accomplished works race through our place of practice.
How often is such work limited by insular conversation
and isolated presentation? As a reaction to these limits,
we present lunch. The works collected in lunch
mix a range of studies, conversations, drawings, statements
and stories that together aspire to reflect an experience
of our School of Architecture.
The first issue of lunch
was published in the spring of 2006 and included student
and faculty work.
lunch 2: dialect
published spring 2007
The word dialect has origins in discourse and
conversation. During the 17th and
18th centuries this word began to connote
a subordinate form of a language. More recent linguistic
investigations have reframed dialect within
an understanding of languages as contextual and temporal,
constantly shifting in response to social and economic
events. In this interpretation, every dialect bears
the marks of the environment and resident culture that
created it, a certain specificity of place.
Within our School of Architecture a new
dialect of the language of architecture and landscape
architecture is evolving. In particular, it expresses
the dynamic and tightly linked relationship between
the disciplines of architecture and landscape architecture
within our combined program. Our work embodies something
of both the friction and symbiosis of this relationship,
and we communicate it to others through our words and
our making. Rather than an attempt to fix or formalize
our own emerging language, this issue of lunch
is an initiative to engage its diversity. We present
our work and the work of those who impact this place
as a means of honing its intentions and revealing its
character.
One characteristic of a dialect is its
limited audience. At a time when changing ecological
and social conditions demand a new level of interdisciplinary
action, we are concerned that the languages of landscape
architecture and architecture are increasingly isolated.
A primary goal of this publication is to facilitate
an expanded conversation within and across disciplines.
In this issue we include pieces that interpret dialect
through a variety of lenses. In addition to work by
architecture and landscape architecture students and
faculty, contributions come from architectural history
and urban planning, as well as practitioners who challenge
sharp boundaries between disciplines.
In this journal, we also make an effort
to respond to the tendency to communicate designs, built
or conceptual, as finished products. lunch:
dialect offers the processes of design –
making, collaborating and building. We believe that
the expression of process allows for greater accessibility
into a design, in turn fostering a deeper level of engagement.
For instance, one piece about Watts Branch in Anacostia
presents the process of working both within a community
and in studio. The article on the Learning Barge explores
the construction of the barge as well as the ecological
and social relationships it generates. An interview
with Russell Katz discusses the necessity for collaboration
in realizing projects. A short piece by Michael Vergason
affirms a focus on collaboration by presenting how drawing
is integral to communication in practice. These examples
are among many in the journal that express a variety
of ways that design is actively informed by processes
of communication, foregrounding the need for designers
to value it as an essential tool in both education and
professional practice.
Audience
The breadth of the audience is portrayed
in the diversity of the submissions. The journal has
already been successful in connecting practicing alumni
with student work and allowed them to become more connected
to discussions within the school. By including the work
of some of these practitioners we hope to make the academic
community aware of contemporary issues in practice.
Distribution
The journal is sent to the libraries
of all accredited schools of landscape architecture
and architecture in the United States. It is also available
in a number of architectural bookstores across the country.
The journal can be purchased online through Prairie
Avenue Books in Chicago. An digital edition is available
through our website.
NUMBER OF JOURNALS PRINTED (1500)
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