Skip to main content

Faculty

Students

Staff

Publications

 

 

Student Profile

David Gull

This project is for apartment housing of at least thirty two bedroom units. The design is for a “Wine Center” at street level as the Finger Lakes wine country emerges as a prominent wine-producing region.

By taking a standard high-rise arrangement, with a circulation core at the center of a square, and drawing out from the four corners of the core, one can very specifically increase the quality of each apartment’s access to light, view, and air, and conform to or express site grids and orientations. In this scheme, one unit of housing occupies one floor of the tower and the strip that connects to the next tower.
View Work Detail

"There is an amazing work ethic among the students in the (architecture) program that surpasses any other I have ever seen."

David Gull

B.Arch. 2008

“Where you can be . . . is where you need to be.”
-Professor John Zissovici

To me, this quote defines my experience in the Cornell architecture program. One of the most interesting things to me about a design education is that it is so subjective that it cannot be taught in a traditional fashion. The structure of most classes, especially design studios, is lack of structure. Deadlines are often flexible and with highly unrealistic goals. Design is a continuous process and never a complete one, which can be both frustrating and rewarding. Although one may never feel closure with a project, you can simultaneously accomplish a huge amount of work for the given period of time. Besides providing a student with "design sense," an education in this program also successfully gives the “know-how and the elbow grease," for the "real world."

Because of the flexible nature and subjective measurement of progress, a student must learn self motivation, self regulation, and self discipline. There is an amazing work ethic among the students in the program that surpasses any other I have ever seen. If there were a world record category for the most all-nighters pulled by a single group of people over the course of five years, it would most certainly belong to the students of Cornell architecture.

Most professors focus on criticizing design and rarely comment on progress or lack thereof. This approach to pedagogy is fun because it allows the student to control their education. No student shares the same experience in this program, and, in my opinion, the approach to education Cornell architecture takes has the potential to provide a solid base that allows self-motivated students to develop into talented, professional designers rather than a group of “CAD monkeys” cut from the same mold.
One of my specific approaches to design is the use of digital media as a tool for exploring and representing a design. In general, the use of digital technology has been a partial player in the overall design process, but has enabled visualizations and accurate simulations that further the completeness of a design presentation.
A “Media Center” design for the Chelsea area of New York City. The “program here is less something with required spaces, but something that is created and developed through exploration in ideas about the city, armature, passage, revitalization of a district, visual and cognitive experience, the possibilities of media, and exercise in formal composition to reflect and reinforce these ideas.”