0242 Creating an Online Architectural Journal:Welcome to our website presenting the thoughts and visual expressions of students exploring the language of architectural representation. It was our collective desire to pursue topics in “transparency” and its relationship to architectural form, space and urban environments. Here we explore and parse issues of public"ness", private"ness" and the social domain of architecture. In pairs, students in this class have come to their own conclusions as to how to interpret and present issues of transparency––their inquiries, via websites, are presented here. January 2008

Sir Norman Foster’s addition to the Reichstag in Berlin was based on the ideathat the building present a transparent face for the country’s (relatively) new democracy. What can transparency--as both a physical and metaphoricalconcept--tell us about how democratic institutions use architecture in representing themselves?
From a shaft of light that falls into a subway station, to the glass walls of a drive-in church, transparency relates itself to the transportation experience in unexpected ways. Join us as we consider bringing light into subway stations to brighten the public realm, and contrast the private experience within the automobile.

Security. Paranoia. Fear. Anxiety. Crime. Visibility. Vulnerability. Voyeurism. Accountability. Big Brother. Dystopia. Democracy. Does transparency make you feel safe? Think about the connection between the animated film Renaissance, Barack Obama, and CCTV. Find out how to get from Point A to Point B without being caught on a security camera. And much more!

Transparency is at its core perception through movement. In an attempt to illuminate interconnectivity between bodies, politics, and space, we have created a microcosmic network that may be penetrated, explored, and further reimagined.
With the influential twentieth century works of Mies van der Rohe and other architects of the modernist genre, American cities have absorbed new characteristics. As real estate was being pushed higher into the sky, designers consciously chose to maintain a certain level of simplicity while also incorporating the notion of transparency into their works. The result: today's modern city.