Rhetorical Analysis

After reading these articles in Architectural Record, I have begun to realize that they contain a repetitive structure and they were created for a specific group of people.

Linton's Framework for Analyzing Disciplinary Genres sets up what is expected (yet unique) in each diciplines articles. These architectural articles all contain similar rhetorical strategies. In the convention of refrence, I noticed that the articles mostly contain quotes from the architects and designers or other experts on the job, yet when they are elaborating on the structural design, there are less quotes, and more facts. In terms of the convention of language, there is not really any disagreement while talking about the building, only questioning if a building was built correctly or for the right reasons- most of the language was that of conviction. The conventions of structure seems less concrete within these articles as the topics do vary, but there are pieces based on Swales Genre model which are seen in all of the articles.

Swale's genre model talks mostly about the convention of structure within each article. Within move 1, establishing a territory, each article claims centrality and makes topic generalizations, but there is not a whole lot of reviewing previous research as most of these buildings were one of a kind. In move two, establishing a niche, a lot of the articles talked about continuing a tradition, talking about why buildings were build the way they were to reflect the surrounding area or ideas of the time. Finally, within move 3, occupying a niche, each article outlines the purpose buildings among other things.

Looking at these rhetorical structural elements in this journal, I have come to the conclusion that there is not a definate epistemology of the genre. While they are targeting architects, architects jobs can be seen as in the humanities and in the sciences.
For instance, there is no real right or wrong answer to the aesthetical design of a building. There is no truth to design, it is what an architect wants it to be, which would be pegged as a humanities epistemology.
On the other hand, the science epistemology comes into play when talking about the structural integrity of a building. There is an order and rules to follow.

These articles were designed to be read by people who can combine objective and subjective material into one. They need to be able to be creative while following rules at the same time. This is the job of an architect, so the idea that the articles follow this is very appropriate.

Zaha Hadid's Maxxi

It seems that there are a lot of designs these days which deal with building in environments which are previously historical. In 1999 when Zaha Hadid submitted a design for a design competition for a museum in Rome, there was no buildings of the sort in the surrounding area or even the city. Hadid's design showed how her extremely post-modern style fit into Rome's historical landscape. While at first glance the design seems very modern and alien from its surroundings, it actually brings in more aspects of the city than one might think.

First, it design is very flowing and riverlike which mimics a nearby river. Second, the grid layout of the building correspond to the city's grids. Finally, the building is only three stories tall to match the surroundings.

In addition to these three building features, the building is extremely open to the outside as almost every ceiling is glass- a very good lighting feature in a museum.

I love that architects are creating buildings which are unique to the surroundings yet still incorportate certain aspects that contain the area's footprint.

-"Maxxi" Architectural Record

Putting Yourself Out There

In this economy, it is very hard for many architects to get jobs. On the flip side, it is very hard for people to afford architects. When New York architect John Morefield was fired from his job, he did not just sit around and wait for a new opprotunity to present itself. He put himself out there and offered his expertise in an unconventional way. John set up a stand in a New York farmers market advertising architecture for 5 cents. People could come up to him and ask basic design questions for five cents. While he did not make a ton of money offering his services this way, his name became well known and he was able to get commissions for bigger projects and start to earn a living again. Most of the projects he does are affordable- things the average person can afford who normally would never think to go to an architect for. He would do anything from plans for a house or a larger building to redesiging a thirteen-year-old's bedroom. John took a situation most people would be helpless in and furthered his career.

Another story in this journal with the same qualities of helping others is an article about Haiti. While Haiti is not anywhere near ready to start building large projects, architects have begun to make strides in improving the nation. Most Hatians are living in tents at the moment. Many architects have been working on pre-fabricated cottages and more long-term solutions to living. Architects with no jobs have been donating their time to these projects and other similar projects.

Students are also giving their services to Haiti, using the experience as a way to improve a nation and as a learning tool.

Right now, in my architecture clas,s we are designing a boarding school for girls in Haiti. My partner and I are mainly focusing on the protection of the girls and on making school sustainable or envrionmentally friendly. This is an actual design competition, so we are trying to create a situation which would be beneficial for Haiti and for our career, giving our skills to a good cause.

fearless design

There are countless buildings throughout the world which have an awful desing yet hide behind an intriguing facade. A lot of times, these buildings with promising facades unveil very ordinary or unpleasant interiors. Massimiliano Fuksas's design does the opposite. He was successful in creating a meshing a modern interior with the existing facade from the more historic feel of the town.

While the majority of the buildings in the town were built in postwar Germany, this building brings a new light to the towns architectural program. While Fuksas's design is not visible from the square (as seen from the facade shown below), he was still inspired by the steep roofs of the surrounding area, so the building became a merging of old and new geometires, which were consistant to an extent with the existing area.

The interior of the buidling is extremely modern, consisting of many open areas and glass which make one feel as though they are outside in certain areas as you can see to the left.

One thing that caught my attention was how controlled this completely modern building was in such an old city. Fuksas said he was "not afraid of context", but he "does not think you can build in the center of a city without paying attention to what is already there."

This is an emerging problem throughout the architecture world as buildings begin to change their form and materiality, especially in places like Eurpoe where the building style is dominatly historical. Although this can be achieved in many different ways, architects must pay attention to what is around them, and create spaces which recognize the events that are already happening.

- "market value" by Josephine Minutillo, Architecural Record

Burj Khalifa

Some of you might have heard of the world's tallest skyscraper completed only a few months ago, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Being such an architectural feat, many people have questions on how it was built and its significance, and why is it in Dubai.

Being the first building to rise a half a mile, its Chicago architect, Adrian Smith was not in control of where it was located, just that it was a monsterous achievement. There were many extreme height and extreme climate obstacles the designers had to achieve to create such an imense building.

The building is essentially five 30 story buildings stacked upon each other. It had to be built this way mainly for pressure reasons. There is a tremendous amount of pressure on the building in both water and air. Imagine the pressure a water pipe that is 800 meters tall would need to allow water to get to the top. You would not want to be around if this pipe ever broke. For this reason, they created a system which there was a new pressure system for each section of the building. Another water problem that came up was that the hot water was hot and the cold water was hot. They did not want hot water coming out of a cold water spicket in a five star hotel that is located in the building. To solve this problem, they used the high humidity and condensation of the area to create a system which collects water during a cooling period, collecting about 15 million gallons of cool water a year.

Air pressure and temperature were also a large concern for such a tall building. The air in the middle of the building is very cold, while the air at the top of the building is very hot. For this reason they created a air suction system that takes the hot air from the top of the building to the middle of the building and vice versa.

It seems to me that such a tall building is going to have many concerns regarding fire and life safety. While they seem to have worked everything out, I still have my doubts that this buidling could possibly be completely safe. Another problem is that in this economy, they are having trouble filling all the spaces in the builidng. While some parts of the building consist of a hotel, restaurants, apartments, and office spaces, there are many parts which cannot be filled. Even though this is a remarkable builidng, I have my doubts that it was a smart building to build. I guess only time will tell if this high of a building works in this world.

-ARCHITECTURAL RECORD

genre

I have always known what genres were, but I never knew there was such a debate over them and how you define a genre. To be honest, I really have no interest in learning about the debate over what makes a genre. However, unless I am mistaken(which I might be) Miller's idea was who cares what a genre is as long as you are entertained. Genre's change, just like people's style and interests change. Personally, I like her attitude towards genres more than Bitzers ideas which are more deductive. In my opinion though, I dont care what genre I am reading/listening to/and so on.. as long as I like it.

So personally, this part of last class was not too interesting for me.

On a brighter note, I think our group is pretty much set on an idea for our commissioned document, doing something with the extension center and perhaps forestry? Maybe I will find this more interesting!

Wikipedia

For class last week we watched the Jimmy Wales and Andrew Keen debate on the issue of Wikipedia and we also read an article about smart mobs. From what I can gather, Wikipedia is essentially a smart mob. A "practical implementation of collective intellegence", a group that "behaves intellegently or efficiently because of its exponentially increasing network links", an "indication of the evolving communication technologies that will empower the people". Ironically, all of these definitions of a smart mob came from Wikipedia.

The Jimmy Wales and Andrew Keen debate was for the most part discussing whether Wikipedia was a creditble source or not. What was pretty much concluded is that Wikipedia is a good source to go to for quick information, information that you do not need to do heavy research for to find. It is practical and efficient, and it empowers people to become a part of something, all of which are characteristics of a smart mob. It also shows how are technology is allowing any person to contribute to a unit of information, rather than just professionals. I use wikipedia to find basic information such as who someone is, to find the importance of a certain place, or to get more information on something I dont know that I hear or read about. I would like to use it for research papers since it is very accessible, however that would not go over too well.

The problems with wikipedia arrise when people question the importance of certain materials. The example of how someone might think Harry Potter is more important than Hamlet was discussed in the debate, since the Harry Potter entry is longer than the Hamlet entry. Also, people question whether professional reporters are being rewarded or not for their work since people are going to these quick search engines instead of professional sources.

In this day and age, technology allows the everyday person to access and input information on the internet. The fact that people might think Harry Potter is more imporant than Hamlet, or that the internet is more useful than professional's work, only shows how our priorities are changing through time.

Group Projects

Today in class we started talking about our group projects. We began class reading an article from a Penn State student on the different personality types who make up a group. There is the controller who is always in charge, the passive/aggressive who doesnt really do anything, the pseudo-productive who says they will do more than they do, the busy guy who is always busy, the mute, and the slacker.

I honesty could not decide which person I am in group settings. I think it depends on who the group is made of, and what the group is for. If it is something I am really passionate about, I would most definately take charge. On the flip side, when I couldnt care less about a group project, I think I would have a hard time being the controller. In general, I would say I am focused and very good with time management and practicality, which would make me a "tester" and a "focuser". I like to get work done in the best, most effecient way possible.

Last year I had an awful group project in my architecture class. We were in charge of creating a site model that we could insert our architectural models into. To begin, there were two different teachers facilitating this project. One teacher was fine with us doing this freehand and with cardboard, while the other teacher wanted us to use expensive material and the laser cutter. This created the first problem. The students of the first teacher did not want to spend the money or the time creating a model they didnt have to, while the students of the second teacher really needed to do it her way to get a good grade.

When we finally decided on the material/method, we decided to divy up the responsibilities. One girl became in charge of the whole thing. While she was good at first, she became very annoying as she complained all the time about how she was doing all the work. This is what the Penn State student would call the "matyr controller". She did volunteer for the position- mainly to get brownie points with her teacher, so I feel that is partly her problem.

After intense debates/arguments/frustration/headache, we finally completed the project. Some people did very little work while others did a lot.

I feel if everyone knows the "personalites" and roles of group members from the get go, this could possibly save a lot of headache.

What does this mean?

Today in Class we looked at an example of how one set of words meant different things to two groups of people. For the first group, this set of words was simply the authors names to assigned readings. For the other group, this was a poem in which they completely disected the religious meaning behind it without any previous knowledge of what it meant. This is the perfect example of how different instructions provide different results defined by what the reader knows. What may seem clear to one group means something completely different to another group, depending on the community or setting of the information.

In the class following my technical writing class, we talked about something which almost completely relates. This class is a visual comm class in which we were discussing the study of semiotics. For those who do not know, semiotics is the study of signs and codes. Within this study, we talked about denotative meaning and conotative meaning.

Denotative meaning= literal meaning, what is actually there.

Connotative meaning= implied, evoked meaning, what our culture teaches us.

One example we looked at was from an actual ad. As you can see, my teacher has a dirty mind, but the example gets the point across.
This means different things to different people depending on what thier cultural background is

When asked, children saw this as a twister game on bed, but to some adults, the idea they got from this image was kinky sex. I guess this shows how one image/idea can mean different things to different people depending on the context they are looking at it in, and thier background experiences.

This shows us why it is important to create a clear context in which our instructions should be writen, designated for a specific audience, as it can be interpreted different ways.

Terrible Instructions!

Today in class we discussed what makes good/bad instructions. One particular example on tape dubbing was awful! First of all.. What is tape dubbing? I wish I had known before I read those instructions. Too bad they didnt really say what it was until the last paragraph. If I had really wanted to know what this was and how to do it, I would have had to re-read the instructions to fully grasp what they were telling me. Another thing I noticed was when they said "Go find Katie". Who is Katie? If I was a new employee learning the skill of tape dubbing, I probably wouldnt know who Katie was either!

This example of tape dubbing possessed many of the same qualities I have previously encountered in awful instructions, so naturally it had me thinking about them and why they were so bad.

Once someone gave me instructions on how to get to their house. They said something along the lines of "go straight through the light, turn at the stop sign, go through the next three stop signs and then turn. Then go left and then go right". Never having been to this persons house before, I had no idea what he was talking about. I didnt know which ways to turn, or really when to turn even. He assumed I knew the basics, however he misjudged my knowledge on the area. I needed more specific directions.

Another time, there was simply a terrible picture on instructions of how to put a chair together. Being a visual person, I naturally looked at the picture which ended up being an awful idea. My chair ended up being backwards so that you could not sit on it. I guess this tells us that if we are going to have images in our instructions, they should actually be beneficial and serve a purpose.

Hopefully by learning through the bad instructions I have previously encountered, I will be able to create coherent instructions which actually help somone preform a task.

Rhetoric?

This week in technical writing we continued our discussion on rhetoric. More spicifically what makes up a rhetorical situation. It was summed up in three parts, an exigence, constraint, and audience. An exigence being the expectation of the speach or the reason to speak, constraint being what should not be said, and audience being who is listening. We looked at a speech Obama gave containing these three things, and I have to wonder how something that contains these three parts is still rhetorical? I understand that the three parts are necessary for a rhetorical situation, but where is the line drawn between something you want to speak about and persuade people of, and what you are required to speak about because the timing is right?
What if we had a president who was completely against all the things Obama said in his speech, regarding the mosque near Ground Zero, and how Islamic people should be treated (not that this would be a good thing)? Would he still be required to speak about this topic? Disregarding Obamas topic (being a completely unpolitical person), I thought you used rhetoric to persuade people of a topic that you want to talk about. I am left wondering if these rhetorical situation criteria might cause people to be hypocritical of their own beliefs in certain situations. Do people always have to talk about something because there is an expectaion at the time to talk about it? If it is your duty to address something you personally dont believe in, would this still be rhetoric?

What is Rhetoric?

Hello, my name is Sarah and I am a senior studying Architecture at Clemson University. At the moment, in my English 314 class, we are studying what rhetoric means. I have heard that word thrown around a lot, but I was never sure exactly what it meant. More importantly, why are we talking about it in a technical writing class? Through my readings I have learned a lot about rhetoric, and I am starting to realize why it is important in technical writing.
I have found that rhetoric is the art of using a language to communicate with other people effectively. Just recently has rhetoric become an important topic. For many years, it was condemned and looked down upon. This is where I was surprised. How can rhetoric, basically persuading people to change their views, be bad? In my opinion, the more people change their views, the more our societies grow; and if people are persuaded to change their view, there is nothing wrong with that. The only conclusion I can come up with is that people get irritated when other people try to persuade them of something; we want to believe that we are right all the time.
Rhetoric is extremely ubiquitous. While most people do not realize it, rhetoric is seen in athletics, medicine, romance, at the marketplace, during our social lives and so on. People plan to use rhetoric in these situations to persuade someone else of a point, or to do something. Since there are so many outlets to use rhetoric in, the rhetor must consider the audiences feelings. I believe that rhetoric is perfectly acceptable, as long as it does not persuade someone of evil, or cause someone to hurt themselves.