Roger Mullin Assistant Professor BEDS, MArch(FP) (TUNS) Background I joined the School of Architecture at Dalhousie University in 2003 from practice in Berlin and New York City, where I worked in areas of design and construction. Teaching areas I teach architectural design, representation, and technology. I encourage critical thinking through teaching and research methodologies that are primarily process and situation based. Results are informed by empirical evidence. Methodologies implement skills of drawing, observation, building, and dialogue to establish criteria for positioning architectural works. My approach understands design and making as multivalent activities. This attitude is then linked to pedagogies as they relate to activities in the studio and in the classroom of community based projects. Research and practice interests Broadly speaking, my research is two areas. It is in the landscape of architecture and industry as they impact coastal conditions and it is in the significance, selection, and use of building materials. These areas are bracketed by practices in Drawing / Representation and Design-Build. Developments of these activities are then carried by community partnerships and fieldwork or travel. Representations through drawing and writing act as additional tools to reflect upon, develop and further disseminate architectural works. Specific methodological case studies began in Spain in 2004 have enabled me to study three architectural landscape projects (Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos) through explorations in drawing and architectural representation. Drawing as research is a precarious enterprise, yet it is the most steady and certain thing that architects do. In JAE 61/1, Peter Schneider describes it well when he writes "that thinking by drawing - thinking through the crafting of the disegno - is the primary way that architects extend their understandings of architecture. It suggests that drawing is an architect's unique mode of research, inquiry, and is the site for his/her most crucial speculations and constructions." At present I practice a form of design-build. The scale, scope, and nature of making things with my own hands grounds the work and acts as a counterpoint to previous professional practice experience and traditional academic pursuits. It has the mandate of making architecture here and now and intelligently using materials and methods that are available. These projects are shaped by skill and not taste. I take great pleasure in completing this aspect of my work. It was Henry Thoreau who said, "To affect the quality of the day is the highest of the arts." The work also involves a method of bricolage (making things out of materials at hand). This posits unique design challenges and as a method it also touches on my desire to practice sustainable architecture through appropriate material selection and re-use. As part of the NAR (Northern Atlantic Rim) research collaborative since 2004, I have studied conditions of architecture and landscape in coastal regions of Iceland, Ireland, and Norway as analogues to teaching and research activities in Canada. This research work involves intensive 2-3 week travel excursions to record architecture and public space through drawing, photography, and aerial maps and will be part of a book scheduled for publication and partially funded by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Download Roger Mullin's curriculum vitae