P

O

R

T

F

O

L

I

O
y
o
u
r
The portfolio is one of several important com po nents of your application
to ar chi tec tur al stud ies at Rensselaer. It is also the one that prospective
stu dents have the most ques tions about. The purpose of this brochure is
to give you some general advice on pre par ing this doc u ment. Within it are
some ex am ples of work from recent pro spec tive student port fo li os to il lus -
trate what your port fo lio might include. We also show here what the overall
port fo lio might look like in side.
Much of the work that we show in this port fo lio was done by students for art
class as sign ments. It is all good, strong work. We realize that many po ten tial
ap pli cants to our pro gram may either at tend schools where strong arts
pro grams are not avail able or for one reason or an oth er they may not have
had an op por tu ni ty to take studio arts courses. This does not au to mat i cal ly
dis qual i fy you from con sid er ation for ar chi tec ture. Just take up a pencil and a
sketch book and start draw ing. Draw the things you see in the world around
you. But when you do so, attempt to make your own interpretations of what
you see through your drawings as opposed to trying to rep li cate these things
exactly. Also, experiment; try different things like composing ab stract forms
to geth er. Col or, col lage, or even radically modify existing pho to graphs.
* Why does the School of Architecture want a portfolio?
The portfolio is a project of design and assembly which gives you the op-
por tu ni ty to tell us more about who you are and your interests. Specifically,
the pur pos es of the port fo lio are:
it demonstrates your commitment to pursuing creative matters.
It demonstrates the level of your abilities in the arts.
it shows how well you can coherently present your work and ideas.
the content of the work, i.e., its subject matter, gives us some idea about
your level of intellectual maturity and cultural awareness.
the process of putting together and producing a portfolio gives us an
idea of your ability to take on a project and see it through to conclusion.
it demonstrates your ability to meet a deadline.
* What kind of work should be included in the portfolio?
The work you include should, in most cases, be recent ef forts, that is, things
you have done within the past 2 or 3 years and can come from a variety of
sourc es. It can come from classes that youve taken in school or in de pen -
dent ly. It can be something that de rives from an extra-curricular ac tiv i ty you
are involved in at school -- yearbook, drama, news pa per -- or a club or other
or ga ni za tion that you belong to, both in and out of school.
One of the things that is especially ap pre ci at ed in a portfolio is work that a
pro spec tive stu dent has done under his or her own initiative outside of for mal
in struc tion. This tells us quite a bit about the things you like, what you are
curious about, and your will ing ness to work in de pen dent ly.
The work you include may be of a very wide variety. It can be various kinds
of free-hand drawing, ink wash, wa ter col ors, oil painting, acrylics or other
kinds of pig men ta tion. You can include sculpture, furniture, ceramics, craft-
work, etc. However, any three-di men sion al work should be rep re sent ed in a
two-dimensional format, such as photographs. If you are a pho tog ra pher,
ex am ples of your photographic work are a good thing to include. If you have
designed and con struct ed something like a stage set for a high school dra-
mat ic production, or if you have designed and built anything, these would be
welcome inclusions in the portfolio. If you have ex per i ment ed with film mak ing
or videography, include a cassette of your work. If you are a car toon ist, if
you keep a sketch diary, even if you are an incessant doodler, these things
might have an important place in your portfolio.
Most of the work in the portfolio should be visual, however, if you write po et ry,
short stories or music, or are a performer or engage in any other cre ative
activity, examples of these should be included.
The subject matter of the work you include is im por tant, especially if it is work
that you have done under your own initiative. Subject matter helps us to get
a sense of your maturity, curiosity about the larger world, and the breadth of
your interests. We recommend that you avoid including work that is ex clu sive ly
concerned with typical adolescent pre oc cu pa tions (rock stars, fantasy and
comic book characters, cute animals, hot cars, pop-cul ture icons). We dont
want to discount the importance these things may play in your life, but we
are interested in seeing if you have the capacity and the interest to ex tend
beyond them in your creative activity.
About the only thing that we are not interested in seeing in your portfolio
is work done in a drafting class, mechanical drawing or CAD work. In fact,
we discourage you from taking mechanical drawing classes in high school.
Fur ther, we recommend that you not take ar chi tec ture cours es that might be
offered by your high school. We believe that it is much better for your cre ative
development to take studio arts courses instead. If you are interested in some
kind of academic preparation in architecture, we strongly suggest you
consider attending a summer program of fered to high school students by ac-
credited schools of architecture. It is best to consider such a course be tween
your junior and senior years.
* How many pieces should be included in the portfolio?
There is no set specific number of pieces of work to be included in a port fo lio.
The number of works you include gives us some idea about the length of time
you have been involved in creative activities as well as your com mit ment to
these activities as a regular part of your life. Normally, an ac cept able portfolio
will include about 10 -20 pieces of work. Some times there may be a few less
or a few more than these numbers. However, we would expect that you would
include more than one or two pieces of work.
* How do I go about putting the portfolio together?
Do not send us originals. All work in the portfolio should be some kind of
School of Architecture
Rensselaer Polytechnic In sti tute
110 8th Street
Troy, NY 12180-3590 ht t p: / / www. ar ch. r pi . edu
A R C H I T E C T U R E
sculp ture acrylic charcoal
(text continues below)
reproduction, photo-copied or otherwise. Each item in the portfolio should be ac com pa nied by a brief, descriptive self critique of your work . It should state what
you learned from doing it. If you have access to a computer, scanner and image processing software such as PhotoShop, PageMaker, InDesign, or other such
applications, these are ex cel lent means to develop your portfolio. This brochure was de vel oped this way.
There are a number of ways you can have work reproduced. Large-scale work can be photographed and processed as a print or as a slide (which can then be
photo-copied in color to any size you wish). Photo prints can likewise be photo-copied to whatever size you wish. A photo-copying center such as Kinkos can
do this work. You should check with various copying centers to see what is the largest sized work their equipment can handle. Three-di men sion al work such as
sculpture, ceramics, furniture, etc. should be pho to graphed first as a print or slide, then modified as you wish by photo-copy ing as just described. Your finished
work can be put into pro tec tive acetate sleeves and inserted in a 3-ring binder or a pre-bound folio with acetate sleeves. These can be purchased at sta tio nery
and art, or office supply stores. Or, you may choose other means of putting your portfolio together such as pasting or dry-mounting your copied work onto poster
board or some other surface cut to an ap pro pri ate size (see below) and bound. Use your imagination. For binding, again visit Kinkos or a stationery store.
There are a number of ways that you can organize this work: chro no log i cal ly, by media (pencil, pen and ink, photography, painting, water color, sculpture, etc.)
by subject matter (still life, portrait, interiors, ex te ri ors, land scape, car toons, graphic design, etc.). The actual layout of the work included in your portfolio is
also important in com mu ni cat ing your thoughts, ideas, and experiences in producing it.
* What format should the portfolio be?
If you are using some kind of photographic process to duplicate your orig i nal work, the individual pieces are usually going to be 5 x 7, 8 x 10 or 8.5 x 11.
The format of the work in your portfolio should be of a size that it is easliy examined without the aid of any instrument. Most portfolios are of a format of 8.5
x 11 or 9 x 12 or 11 x 17. You can choose the size you want as long as the size of the represented work is large enough that it can be seen without the
aid of mag ni fi ca tion. There fore, a collection of slides or transparencies should not be sent as a portfolio.
When you have accumulated a body of work and would like some direct advice from us about it, we invite you to arrange a visit to the Architecture School to meet
with one of our faculty to discuss your work. On a Saturday early in November every year, we hold an Open House here at the School of Ar chi tec ture for this
purpose. During this event, you can speak one-to-one with one of our faculty about your work, also talk to stu dents, see our various facilities, talk with alumni
prac ti tio ners about their ex pe ri enc es in the profession, learn about the diversity of our pro grams, see current student work, etc. Contact Rens se laers Ad mis sions
office at 518.276.6216 or by e-mail at admissions@rpi.edu for more details about this event. If you are unable to visit during our Open House, you can arrange
a special port fo lio interview with one of our faculty by get ting in touch with Lecia ODell at 518.276.8478 or by e-mail at odelll@rpi.edu.
18 x 21, Acrylic
This painting was completed during the 94 - 95 school year in Studio
Art. Apainting by Bonnard was to be copied, but altered in some
fashion by taking a rectan gu lar portion, and changing its position and
colors in the style of the artist.
22 x 29(1/8), Colored pencil on paper
This piece was completed during the 95 - 96 school year in the Drawing and Painting
class. An axis was frst established over the entire paper as a means of organization
as well as a springboard for various ideas. The process started with flling in one of
the pieces of the grid with a tone, erasing away a portion, and observing the resulting
space that was usually more visually stimulating. The process was repeated until the
grid dissolved away or was made to be barely visible, serving occasionally to defne
an edge. This was probably my favorite piece that I did during high school. I had seen
some students work fromprevious years of the same problemand something about it
was very appealing to me. I like the pieces whimsical quality and how fuid the differ-
ent elements seemto be. This piece won 3rd place in the Graphite/Pastel category at
the Rexford Womens Club District level competition.
18 x 24, Paper collage, ink on paper
This piece was completed during the 94 - 95 school year. The frst step was to
make a pen and ink drawing of various unrelated small objects. The pen and
ink drawing was then photocopied and used as the ba sis for a collage along with
white and black paper. The collage explored concepts such as con tinu ity, motif,
and fgure ground rela tion ships. This piece was rath er tedious be cause of the
process involved in coming to a fnal solution that couldnt really be achieved by
simply cutting and pasting. The effect and composition can only be reached after
going through a process of rep etition, building upon areas that dont add to the
effect of the piece and pre serving those that do.
15(1/4) x 20, Watercolor
This piece was completed during the 96 - 97 school year in Advanced Studio
Art. It is a watercolor of art student lying down on a table with her feet against
the wall. It was one of the watercolors completed in an extensive fgure draw-
ing and painting period.
The examples shown directly below are 2 sets of facing pages from one ap pli cants port fo lio. Each piece of work is accompanied by the ap pli cants descriptive critique. The format is 8.5 x 11. It is dis played in a folio with acetate leaves that can be pur chased at most stationers, art or of fice supply stores.
The work shown in this brochure is selected from the application portfolios of stu dents recently admitted to architectural stud ies at Rensselaer and cur rent ly en rolled in the program. They are: Matthew Buck, Erin Cusker, Adam Dyer, Justin Ferrazzano, Craig Hoffman, Scott McGinley, Katherine Mora, Jiwoo Park, Peter Stephenson, and Kathryn Zilka.
pastels pen & ink furniture design conte, charcoal, & pencil photography architectural design collage