After almost a month of online classes, the Cornell in Rome architecture studio has found a new home – the internet. As the early guinea pigs for the new format of online learning, we have gone from uncertainty and confusion to a weekly routine that – while nothing compared to being in Rome – works well. Of course, given the situation around the world, it’s understandable that the typical studio life is much different from home. Being separated from each other has made studio a much more individual effort and the typical creative environment that characterizes studio has been difficult to replicate digitally. However, despite the setbacks, our studio has handled the situation well, and even though our daily walks around Rome have been replaced by Google Street View, we’ve done our best so far to keep the spirit of the semester alive.
Since our schedule has remained essentially the same as it was in Rome, our bi-weekly studio meetings have been helpful in keeping us oriented with our projects. Unfortunately, given our dispersion all around the world and time differences that make it difficult to stay connected, the typical “studio-time” has mostly been individual meetings with our professors. Each week we submit updated PDFs of our work to Box for our professors to review and give feedback on, and similarly for other students to look at as well. This overall system has worked well in keeping our studio projects moving forward, but ultimately is devoid of something very essential – our engagement with each other.
The situation around the world has obviously pulled everyones attention away from classes, but given the circumstances our studio has stayed alive and continues to move forward. There’s no way to replicate the studio environment online, but what we have now has been successful in keeping us going.
Written by Allan Mezhibovsky