Sam Jacob Leads Practice Session No. 2

Assistant Professors Ellie Abrons and Adam Fure’s Practice Sessions was iterated this semester with Practice Session No. 2: One Thing After Another, held January 29 – February 1, 2016. Led by Sam Jacob (Sam Jacob Studio for architecture and design, London), this session focused on rebuilding, reconstructing, and regaining places and objects that we imagine once existed. Twenty-five architecture students participated and explored the topic through exercises, problems and puzzles led by Jacob. 

Jacob’s influence on Practice Session No. 2 was unique. Both in tune with the workshop’s theme, and to further Abrons and Fure’s goal of bringing practice to students, Jacob’s office was replicated in the college gallery where the workshop took place. Inspired by an excerpt from White Noise by Don DeLillo, students were challenged to engage with “the most photographed barn in America.” Students were asked to make a model of the barn, located in Wyoming, based on the mediated representation of the building. Students responded with enthusiasm, creating the unique designs displayed at the Practice Session No. 2 Exhibition.

Practice Sessions represent a new model of intensive collaborative learning, engaging architecture students in a four-day design charette that culminates in a juried review and exhibition. Each Session a new architectural practice is invited to Taubman College to facilitate a workshop and challenge students to work in experimental mode. This program is part of the University of Michigan’s Third Century Initiative, which funds action-based experimental pedagogies in a bid to change how teaching and learning happen within the bounds of the institution.

For more information on Practice Sessions, visit: https://taubmancollege.umich.edu/research/practice-sessions