The 8.5x11 sheet of paper formats our lives. From letters to homework to W-2’s, it collects most of the ink we spill. We print it out, fill it out and turn it in. We hang it up as flyers and scribble on it as scrap. It's anonymous, amenable, and available in most stores. But what is it? And nowadays, what is it good for?
In this course, we’ll turn our attention to the 8.5x11 sheet itself: its shape and scale, its strength and floppiness, its resilience and memory, its transiency and use. We’ll look at its structure and material. We’ll consider its context, its history, and examine its qualities, one dimension at a time. We’ll focus on what we can do with it and, importantly, learn what it does to us.
The course will be primarily hands-on, with intermittent presentations and discussions, and a few readings to supplement. It is taught by architects who utilize paper in their design process, so we’ll spend time on how the two-dimensional sheet becomes a reliable resource for thinking through and realizing three-dimensional ideas. We’ll practice how to imagine with it. And we’ll explore how making and then attending-to-what-was-made is fundamental to the creative process.
Led by Kyle Winston, an architect and teacher based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Jonathan Toews, an architect and founding partner at Davies Toews Architecture in New York City.