Lost Lines

Linee Occulte at New York’s Citygroup explores the unseen in architecture

By Aaron Smithson • July 5, 2021 • Architecture, Art, East, On View

Posted on: September 13, 2018

Studio Prize: Animate Archi-Tectonics: Structural Configurations Between Lines, Planes, and Volumes

This first-year undergraduate studio at the Cooper Union explored the principles of form and space by starting with Paul Klee's idea that "a drawing is taking a line for a walk."

Investigation | Mersiha Veledar, an assistant professor at the Cooper Union, doesn’t believe in easing her first-year students into the school’s rigorous undergraduate program—and it shows in the way she designed her studio, Animate Archi-Tectonics, which throws them headfirst into a deep exploration of how lines, planes, and volumes come together to create architectural forms.

The studio is split into three phases, beginning with an examination of the ways lines intersect. From those drawings, students investigate how the forms created by those intersections function at different scales and dimensions; they then build models, which they test in terms of scale and habitation—inserting doors and stairs, for example.

“In my book the most exciting thing about this studio is showing students how abstractions can be made real,” Veledar says.

RIBA President’s Medals: Silver
Cycles of Toolmaking: An Optic, Tactile, Haptic, Material, Scalar and Pedagogic Study

Cooper Union, New York

Student: Daniel Hall

Tutors: Lauren Kogod and Mersiha Veledar

‘Patterns emerge, as cycles of tool marks are used and misused. Embedded in the character of these patterns are indicators of time, scale, movements of the human body, and a genealogy of tool evolution.’

Flowers and Finals

May 4, 2014

So very proud of my first year Architectonics students as the studio lead at the Cooper Union! And thankful for these surprise flowers! End of Final review, May 4th 2014 / close to midnight, after 26 individual reviews in one day! Thank YOU. #‎architecturecanheal‬ #elements

"I just finished partaking in an 12 HOUR critique of first year architecture students at Cooper Union. I am awestruck by their brilliance and industriousness. There is no other academy like this one. Thank you @mersihaveledar for asking me to be one of the critics and for leading these students through such profound investigations. " Adam Whitney Nichols, Founder of Fortnight Journal

Latest & Greatest

2014

about 8 years ago

Fresh Tweets

Mersiha Veledar

RT @billpruitt: As a producer on seasons 1 & 2 of #theapprentice I assure you: when it comes to the #trumptapes there are far worse. #justthebegininng
Oct 10, 2016, 9:11 PM

Linee Occulte at New York’s Citygroup explores the unseen in architecture

Studio Prize: Animate Archi-Tectonics: Structural Configurations Between Lines, Planes, and Volumes

This first-year undergraduate studio at the Cooper Union explored the principles of form and space by starting with Paul Klee's idea that "a drawing is taking a line for a walk."

RIBA President’s Medals: SilverCycles of Toolmaking: An Optic, Tactile, Haptic, Material, Scalar and Pedagogic Study

RIBA President’s Medals: Silver
Cycles of Toolmaking: An Optic, Tactile, Haptic, Material, Scalar and Pedagogic Study