Prove It – Episode 7 – Back to School with Shelby Doyle

Special guest Shelby Doyle – Architect and Assistant Professor of Architecture at Iowa State University – joins Nate and Steve for Episode 7 of Prove It! The group discusses digital transformations taking place in architecture schools, the tension between academia and practice, women in architecture, computational feminism, alternate dimensions, and our reality being a simulation – wow, things got trippy this time!

Connect with Shelby on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelby-elizabeth-doyle/

Discussion notes:
01:10 Steve has a theory…
01:41 What a way to start a podcast!
02:42 Shelby drove 2.5 hours to be here… for this?
03:21 Debate over who is a millennial
04:26 Old millennials remember a time before the internet
05:33 Traveling the world before smart phones
07:55 Problems predicting the future
08:19 Science fiction and predicting the future based on the present
09:14 The privilege of being without media
10:29 Transformations in communication
12:19 Informal communication and sending emojis to clients
12:56 “gif” or “jif” let’s settle this – what about the peanut butter?
13:31 What is a scotcheroo??
14:40 How did Shelby get into architecture?
16:49 Finding a niche with computational design
18:26 Is a “parametric moment” kind of like a “digital turn”?
20:12 Shelby talks about digital craft
22:22 Changes in the architect’s deliverable
25:33 Shelby talks about teaching digital fabrication
28:03 The importance of trade knowledge
33:25 Ethical and moral implications of technology transformations
35:51 How did Shelby end up in Iowa?
41:41 Thinking carefully about the moments we choose to use technology
43:12 Technology is a hearts and minds game
44:38 It is important to understand the current state when preparing for transformation
47:46 Shelby explains that there is a myth that technology is somehow unknowable
48:28 Struggle to bring people on board with new things
50:24 Teaching methods related to computation
52:58 Maybe there should be a crumpled paper tool in LunchBox
54:46 Bringing in outside expertise into the classroom
55:52 What was the biggest challenge in starting the Shelby’s ISU computation curriculum?
59:04 Discussion about women in architecture and equity
01:02:57 It is hard to not re-perform your own education in the classroom
01:07:21 Shelby discusses “Computational Feminism”
01:10:51 Data is not neutral
01:13:45 Challenges and over-simplification with “optimization”
01:17:17 The digital panopticon
01:18:29 What are the disconnects between academia and practice?
01:20:36 Architecture is not about singular authorship
01:21:34 Critique of the trades mentoring model
01:22:42 Shelby has a crazy good voronoi joke
01:24:13 Student loans suck
01:25:37 Shelby asks if there are things Proving Ground wishes students had coming out of school
01:27:54 The difficulty in teaching when things are changing so fast
01:29:06 WTF is post digital?
01:32:13 Nate is legitimizing post digital by always shitposting about it. The end! Byyyeee!

Other Links:
Iowa State University: https://www.iastate.edu/

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