Organic Design Seminar

---

I’ve just returned from 10 days of a wonderful seminar course. Where better to study about Organic Design and Architecture than up the hill from Starnbergsee in a seminar center situated amongst farmland? I have no way of summing it up, because I had such a totally amazing time that words won’t ever cover it all! (Plus, dear readers, you are true saints if you’ve honestly read everything I’ve posted to this point, so I won’t try to burden you with ‘another long one.’)
Herr Bodack is one of the instructors at Fachhochschule Coburg and the main reason there is a product design department here. He’s an extremely generous character and uses his contacts and knowledge in a most giving way. That’s how I needed up being able to afford the week near a resort town to study alongside students from the University of Kiev, Ukraine and fellow students from the Fachhochschule. I went expecting to work like I work on every other assignment, but ended up having the kind of fun you have at summer camp, staying up too late and becoming friends with every single person there. When I got out of Tina’s car on Wednesday evening, I thought “20 people that I don’t know? We’re a big group!” I left thinking “man, it hardly seems like there are 20 of us, these people have become my family for the past week!”
We met for class periods for 5 ½ of our 9 days, spent one day in the city of Munich visiting cultural sites relevant to our topic of study, and one day in the Bavarian alps enjoying the astonishing weather. Class in the morning was theory, as taught by Herr Bodack, where we learned about history, proportioning systems, and generally how man relates to the built environment. Afternoons were taught by Reinhard Coppenrath, and covered practical application - I designed a single family dwelling, basing my design on one of the other students. In my case, I designed for Nazar, a boy who lives in the Ukraine, but whose father is Lebanese. Needless to say, it was an extremely interesting problem with which to be presented!
Beyond that, I suggest reading through the picture captions to understand what went on…

---