The Ecstasy of Influence: an urban Design Studio

research, teaching, and student work

Titled after Jonathan Lethem’s 2007 essay, “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism,” an eight-week vertical studio project investigates the uses and limits of precedent in architectural and urban design. Setting aside issues of originality, historical and contemporary precedents are utilized as direct source material for student works. Combining overtly appropriated precedents with collage techniques such as cut-up, sampling, and remix, students explore alternative design methods toward the development of a heterogeneous and inclusive urbanism.

Design prompts require short iterations developing high-density housing, articulated municipal networks, ecological systems, and cultural spaces; associated readings underscore the historical breadth and relevance of collage theories and techniques.

Students given license to become ‘active readers’ of history, to work transparently and forcefully with precedent and engage the history of the discipline as a cultural commons of knowledge, reveal that appropriation enriches the range of their methods, resulting in transformed and, paradoxically, original works.

credits

Architecture 554 Studio: The Ecstasy of Influence, University of Idaho-Boise, Spring 2020, Dwaine Carver

Students:

Kayla Duclos

Samantha Jesser

Lauren Johnson

Elyse Hardesty

Kelsey Ramsey

Lyndsay Watkins

Adriana Zamorano-Gonzalez

Publications: “Precedent and Influence: An Urban Design Studio Project,” Architectural Research Centers Consortium – European Association for Architectural Education (ARCC-EAAE Resilient City 2022)