101 Things I Learned in Architecture School pot

101 Things I Learned
in Architecture School
Matthew Frederick
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
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THE MIT PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, ENGLAND
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Matthew Frederick
101 Things I Learned
in Architecture School
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© 2007 Matthew Frederick
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frederick, Matthew.
101 things I learned in architecture school / by Matthew Frederick.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-06266-4 (hc : alk. paper)
1. Architecture—Study and teaching. 2. Architectural design—Study and teaching. I. Title. II. Title: One hundred
one things I learned in architecture school. III. Title: One hundred and one things I learned in architecture school.
NA2000.F74 2007
720—dc22
2006037130
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To Sorche, for making this and much more possible
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Author’s Note
Certainties for architecture students are few. The architecture curriculum is a per-
plexing and unruly beast, involving long hours, dense texts, and frequently obtuse
instruction. If the lessons of architecture are fascinating (and they are), they are also
fraught with so many exceptions and caveats that students can easily wonder if
there is anything concrete to learn about architecture at all.
The nebulousness of architectural instruction is largely necessary. Architecture is,
after all, a creative fi eld, and it is understandably diffi cult for instructors of design to
concretize lesson plans out of fear of imposing unnecessary limits on the creative
process. The resulting open-endedness provides students a ride down many fasci-
nating new avenues, but often with a feeling that architecture is built on quicksand
rather than on solid earth.
This book aims to fi rm up the foundation of the architecture studio by providing
rallying points upon which the design process may thrive. The following lessons
in design, drawing, creative process, and presentation fi rst came to me as barely
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discernible glimmers through the fog of my own education. But in the years I have
spent since as a practitioner and educator, they have become surely brighter and
clearer. And the questions they address have remained the central questions of
architectural education: my own students show me again and again that the ques-
tions and confusions of architecture school are near universal.
I invite you to leave this book open on the desktop as you work in the studio, to
keep in your coat pocket to read on public transit, and to peruse randomly when in
need of a jump-start in solving an architectural design problem. Whatever you do
with the lessons that follow, be that grateful I am not around to point out the innu-
merable exceptions and caveats to each of them.
Matthew Frederick, Architect
August 2007

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Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Deborah Cantor-Adams; Julian Chang; Roger Conover; Derek George;
Yasuyo Iguchi; Terry Lamoureux; Jim Lard; Susan Lewis; Marc Lowenthal; Tom Parks;
those among my architecture instructors who valued plain English; my students who
have asked and answered so many of the questions that led to this book; and most
of all my partner and agent, Sorche Fairbank.
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