A Sponsored Studio

The paper I have prepared is about sponsored studio, specifically a sponsored studio I ran in the Fall semester of 2017. While not the same, the sponsored studio shares many similarities with a competition-based studio, the incentive factor perhaps being first among them. Whether it is one or a combination of, monetary compensation, notoriety, or the opportunity to compete and compare oneself with one’s peers across possibly an international spectrum, these are incentives shared by the competition and sponsored studio format. The paper I have written examines the incentive factors, the educational merits, as well as issues like corporate influence, pro and con, in architectural education, through the sponsored studio. Both the paper and the studio happen in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, a place whose image and reputation conjure simultaneous notions of the desert, and corporate luxury and virility, and the writing looks to examine the endemic contextual issues; cultural, geographic, and economic as they relate to the understanding of this studio. Ultimately, there is the students and their work, the problems they faced, the solutions they achieved, and hopefully a better understanding of the design problem above and beyond the formal, to an initial understanding of the problems associated with the business of architecture.

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ISBN
978-1-944214-31-9