I dropped this studio on the last day in class.
I would have failed anyways.
I spent my undergrad focused on the arts, not theory, much less jumping into the insanity of A Thousand Plateaus, by Deleuze and Guttari.
The studio was about the nomad. I picked the Truck Stop as my program and the site was the 16th Street Train Station, at the time completely abandoned.
Unlike the aborigines’ in Bruce Chatwin’s Song Lines, I stayed completely lost the entire semester.
I made a video of rubber ducks.
I visited a port terminal at the Port of Oakland (before 9/11 you could just drive up and ask for a tour).
I spelunked that Train Station multiple times.
I drove inland to check out real truck stops.
I mashed ramen onto a wood board (that didn’t go well).
One night, my buddy threw a pack of cigarettes on a desk and we spent hours hashing out a grand scheme that looked promising.
The next morning I reviewed it with my professor. She agreed it was a good start.
I pulled out my drop papers. She happily signed it to avoid failing me.
That was my last day of class at UC Berkeley.
The main takeaway from the studio was to trust myself.
Raveevarn Choksombatchai was a brilliant professor who would ask pointed questions every time I met her. As a young designer, I earnestly took in every critique.
Her pedagogical approach was to be the devil’s advocate. She stress tested my convictions. That would be a fun studio nowadays, but I wasn’t ready.
Her challenges convinced me to reassess everything every time. Starting over twice a week is a great way to get nowhere.
I’ve since realized that the grand concept is only the seed of a project. Part of the designer’s job is to say “fuck it, good enough, move on”.
There are plenty of problems at that next scale. Architecture is more than a conceptual art; it’s also a craft. Design challenges will confront you at every level along the way.
Don’t let (yourself or someone else) stop you at gestalt.
I’ve gone in quite a different direction from those high concept Berkeley days. Indeed, I don’t design. In the past five years, I’ve done four sketches, my last one locating one door in a short corridor.
But the lesson of this failed studio still lingers.
Not a painful barb, but a gentle reminder to trust myself.
My ideas aren’t perfect, but I know they’re good enough for taking that next step — cause analysis paralysis is so much worse.
I don’t think you can ask for a more impactful lesson coming out of college.
