Architecture School Jury Review Bingo

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Remember those day-long juries from Architecture school? Where a couple dozen bleary-eyed students crammed into a small, hot review space and tried to stay awake while waiting their turn in front of a firing squad? I had a few I would prefer to forget. My first architecture review I was so sleepy I only covered the first bullet point of my hastily-scribbled presentation outline and then pretty much rambled about nothing for a good ten minutes. The first line out of a reviewer’s mouth was an exasperated “What are you doing?”, and it only went downhill from there. I got better at it, though, and I got better at paying attention during others’ reviews. These are often, but not always, really valuable discussions, and it’s a big loss if you nap through all the reviews but your own.

At some point in those early years, a couple sleep-punchy compatriots and I devised review bingo, basing it on the briefly popular (among nerds, anyway) Steve-Jobs-apple-product-introduction bingo, around the heyday of the iPod. A spring cleaning and organizing trip through my hard drive turned up the old files, and since I’ve sent this to several folks over the years, I thought I’d just post it here. It’s a good way to occupy your mind during tough stretches, and it’s a way to have a little fun with the tropes of student criticism at a time when the idea of fun seems a long way away.

StudioBingo

Tips: have someone from another studio (who isn’t sleep deprived) keep an official record, and make a wager of it. Winner gets their post-review meal and/or drinks covered by the losers. Or, give a card to each reviewer and tell them to make it hard. Hilarity ensues.

The source/generator is a macro-containing .xls file. The ‘shuffle’ button will randomize the fields and create a fresh pair of cards. To edit for your own usage, change the entries in the card on the left, they will update the next time you hit shuffle. Apologies in advance for the lame graphics and fonts. It was a generator found on the internet in some haste.

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