SPIRIT of PLACE / SPIRIT of DESIGN

OVERVIEW

SPIRIT of PLACE / SPIRIT of DESIGN is a deign-build exploration program primarily for architecture students. The program also affiliates itself with the fields of anthropology, archeology, environment and the arts.

The program provides students as a team, the opportunity to research, design, and construct a project in a remote landscape. The goal has been to explore, through the educational forum, the design and construction of architectural forms that are able to successfully respond to their natural and cultural settings in a modern idiom. The culmination of 13 projects over he last 11 years has resulted in a series of investigations into the spirit of remote landscapes, the diversity of appropriate cultures and the fusion of these arenas into practical and metaphorical architectural objects.

Environmental stewardship and the preservation of cultural metaphors in distant landscapes continue to guide the development of these built projects. The program's overriding goal is to foster a new language of modern architecture with a corresponding syllabus for the education of architects and artists.

The intense construction phase of SPIRIT of PLACE / SPIRIT of DESIGN produces practical, award winning built projects. The design process of the program takes place over the period of a semester, while the construction phase is completed in under 9 days. The students work hand in hand with Travis Price Architects and the client in remote areas and under strenuous conditions. For many students, this hands on experience is their first exposure to construction techniques.