101 ThIngs I Learned In Architecture School

101 Things I Learned
in Architecture School
Matthew Frederick

101 Things I Learned in Architecture School

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T HE MIT PRESS

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01 Frederick FM-F.indd ii

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

LONDON, ENGLAND

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Matthew Frederick

101Things I Learned
in Architecture School

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© 2007 Matthew Frederick
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means
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MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55
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This book was set in Helvetica Neue by The MIT Press. Printed and bound in China.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frederick, Matthew.
101things I learned in architecture school / by Matthew Frederick.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-06266-4 (hc : alk. paper)
1. Architecture—Study and teaching. 2. Architectural design—Study and teaching. I. Title. II. Title: One hundred
one things I learned in architecture school. III. Title: One hundred and one things I learned in architecture school.
NA2000.F74 2007
720—dc22
2006037130
10 9 8 76 5 4 3 2 1

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To Sorche, for making this and much more possible

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Author’s Note
Certainties for architecture students are few. The architecture curriculum is a perplexing and unruly beast, involvinglong hours, dense texts, and frequently obtuse
instruction. If the lessons of architecture are fascinating (and they are), they are also
fraught with so many exceptions and caveats that students can easily wonder if
there is anything concrete to learn about architecture at all.
The nebulousness of architectural instruction is largely necessary. Architecture is,
after all, a creative field, andit is understandably difficult for instructors of design to
concretize lesson plans out of fear of imposing unnecessary limits on the creative
process. The resulting open-endedness provides students a ride down many fascinating new avenues, but often with a feeling that architecture is built on quicksand
rather than on solid earth.
This book aims to firm up the foundation of the architecturestudio by providing
rallying points upon which the design process may thrive. The following lessons
in design, drawing, creative process, and presentation first came to me as barely

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discernible glimmers through the fog of my own education. But in the years I have
spent since as a practitioner andeducator, they have become surely brighter and
clearer. And the questions they address have remained the central questions of
architectural education: my own students show me again and again that the questions and confusions of architecture school are near universal.
I invite you to leave this book open on the desktop as you work in the studio, to
keep in your coat pocket to read on publictransit, and to peruse randomly when in
need of a jump-start in solving an architectural design problem. Whatever you do
with the lessons that follow, be that grateful I am not around to point out the innumerable exceptions and caveats to each of them.
Matthew Frederick, Architect
August 2007

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