mjhartdesign

mathew j hart, a brief history

Just before graduating from high school, I made a life-changing decision. I decided to pursue one-quarter of my ambitions in my life. I let the soccer ball deflate, the jazz in my saxophone stopped and I stopped crunching numbers in calculus to pursue engineering. I scrambled to rejoin the Art Club, and I accepted a scholarship to Ball State University so that I could study architecture. I wasn’t totally sure what all was going to be involved, but I was hoping it was a mix of that other three-quarters of my life ambitions because I had just picked the path that I knew least about.

I try to remember how I felt in those few weeks and months when I chose to start becoming an architect, so that it remind me to keep learning and exploring new opportunities in life. I’ve been very fortunate to learn about the wide range of architecture in the world.

My undergraduate thesis forcused on developing a better understanding of digital fabrication and design tools. The intense immersion into the leading edge of technology, at the time, and some of the limits that come with it, helped me evaluate the high-design side of architecture and building. In my graduate studies, I focused on leftover, reclaimed and found materials for building while studying construction and fabrication methods used in informal developments of Southeast Asia. This is the other side of architecture, on that an architect has very little to do with.

My travel and study around the world is another thing that has widened my perspective on life forever. Knowing basic techniques for lashing a thatch roof to a porch frame and being able to develop a 3D parametric model that can react to changes in project parameters are two extremes of design that I see as a asset to my design abilities.

What I call the extremes of design is important to me, but just as important is filling in between those extremes. I’ve been very fortunate to work on a wide-range of market sectors and building types during all phases of design and construction. I’ve also contributed to business development, marketing efforts, proposal design, RFP submittals and interviews on a wide variety of those projects. Under the blog posting LS3P Experience, I’m including a nearly complete list of projects and my role for those projects.

mjhartdesign history

The bones of this website were created during fleeting hours of early mornings while I was completing my studio thesis at Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning. I’m not totally sure why I started a web design portfolio, but I know that at one point in my life I really liked it, and maybe because I had a hard-bound portfolio leaving school. But since then, I’ve found that I need web design to keep up with the world. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and any other “about me” websites have made it easy to display work, but for some reason they just are “not me”. So until those websites reflect me and my style, I’m going to keep this work in progress going.

mjhartdesign 2.0 was launched September 2009, six years after the original mjhART:design, circa December 2002. mjhartdesign 2.0 is dedicated to a little higher design and collecting my writing about design and bringing it all together under one heading.

Now, one year later (November 201o) and it’s just time to update mjhartdesign.com to simplify and unify the presentation of all my academic and professional work. Thanks to some major developments in DIY-web design and a little more experience on my part, I’m able to transfer all my work to one place and make a stronger effort in presenting it.

I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to leave comments, questions, and suggestions.

_mat