RESEARCH

     I will not sugarcoat it; halfway through my extra project for Structural Systems II, I wanted to give up. It was the spring semester, and I had just spent my entire spring break doing research and getting nowhere on these obscure 3D printed case studies. I emailed the professor to beg for mercy, and she told me that a deal is a deal, so I spent the entire last week of school — architecture presentations are the week before finals, so most students only have one or two exams that week — grinding out these two research presentations.
     

     I vividly remember taking model pictures during sunset the night before it was due, while the models were still drying, and the embarrassing mix-up of having accidentally mirrored the 3D printed model and having to mirror the images to correct it. But, with a few months' time to emotionally recover from the whole ordeal, I’ve come to be extremely proud of how deep my understanding became and how thorough the resulting presentation is. I even found some quotes from one of the grad students who worked on one of the designs about their experience! 

     Altogether, this experience showed me my own resiliency and taught me the value of thorough architectural research, not only through reading but through making as well.