Curated by Danny Samuels, B.Arch. ’71, and Nonya Grenader.
This exhibition presents a selection of works from the archive Twenty Years of First Year, documenting the foundation design sequence taught at the Rice School of Architecture by Professors Nonya Grenader and Danny Samuels from 1991 through 2012. Over two decades, they developed and refined a distinctive pedagogy for the two-semester Principles of Architecture sequence, bridging the principles of basic design with the specific intentions and demands of architecture.
During this period, more than 566 students produced thousands of remarkable projects, many of which were preserved for future study and exhibition. The sequence comprised a connected series of exercises exploring two-and three-dimensional design through diverse materials and media. Grounded in the act of making, each exercise emphasized the relationship between hand and eye, material and form, and, above all, the development of conceptual understanding.