Reflections

Now that the madness is over, I will probably reflect for a few days on the Hellowood experience. The Hellowood summer camp is a hands-on experiential design and build program that has teaching at the core of its mission.

As a program, it embodies my teaching philosophy and is a large scale version of my work with students and interns.

I was not sure what to expect. In some ways, it felt like we were given a site and a team and then left alone to build our vision. In other ways, it felt like there was a lot of planning and support. Was it our choice to work so many long hours? Was this driven by me or by the team? Or by the combined spirit of all of us to achieve the outcome we invisioned? When we were in the thick of building I never thought of being sore or being tired, and I never thought what we were doing was extrordinary.

Here is my reflection for today, though. We shared a supply of tools with 14 teams. Everyday we had to request the tools we needed. On an average day we had one circular saw, one cordless drill, two wood chisels, one wooden hammer, one tape measure, and one level - and eight architecture students with limited construction experience. With this tool assemblage we built a 6m x 11m timber structure 6 meters high, and erected over 1600 liniar feet of wood. Plus we built by hand, and installed, a 9m glue lam 6m, or 18 feet, in the air. We did the majority of this work in four days.

It is extrordinary that we finished. But it is still more extrordinary what we accomplished.