Last Night

Last night the first lecture of this semester’s lecture series took place. It was held at Charleston’s Visitor’s Center in downtown Charleston. The speaker was Wendell Burnette, an Arizona based architect. An interesting piece of information about him is that he never had formal academic training, but trained under Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin East and West Studios. Being apart of Taliesin West is how he got to Arizona. His lecture was about his work and his career. He presented his past work, and current projects, while explaining his design process and ideology. He explained very well how he came to forms, program configurations, and material choices with these projects. It was very helpful to hear a successful, practicing architect explain how he tackles projects. He talked about being sensitive to the site, and the situation at hand, to create dialogues that can communicate qualities of the place. Not only could this information and perspective help us after school, but it can help us right now with the Vat Shack project. Remembering the purpose of the project and who it’s for can allow us to design a space that is meaningful and useful for this cause.