Penelope West
Lecturer
Penelope has been teaching graduate and undergraduate studios in the architecture department at UW since 2007.
With a background in graphic design, sociology, ecology, and material studies, Penelope sees architecture as the process of place-making within a complex reality.
She has three primary aims in design studio:
- connect students with their own intuition and help them use it in concert with analytical and representational techniques throughout the design process. This means lots of different drawing techniques and iteration.
- connect the design and making of architecture to place through studies of landscape. This means investigating ecological processes and narrative histories as well as a lot of walking around in all seasons, getting wet or dusty or tired, learning how to observe a site through multiple senses.
- experience the physicality of architecture and the haptic realm of three-dimensional design through analog modeling at many scales with a variety of materials. This means paper and glue and cardboard and plaster and wood, assembled to explore spatial relationships, light and shadow, and structural logic.
Penelope has her own domestic design practice in Seattle, using similar aims in collaboration with clients to make indoor and outdoor living spaces that connect people to place. This means simple materials, good daylight, rainwater catchment, gardens, and spaces that are generous without grandeur.