About Blinn College
Established in 1883, Blinn College is a two-year academic institution based in Brenham, Texas. Offering associate and bachelor degrees and with about 20,000 students, Blinn boasts the highest transfer rate in the state of Texas, sending students to institutions such as Texas A&M University, Sam Houston State University, Texas State University, the University of Texas and the University of Houston. The Blinn College District Architecture Program focuses on design as the fundamental element of the architectural discipline and teaches solid fundamentals through design, drawing, history and related courses. Students learn to blend creativity and practicality for increased proficiency in design, engineering, and project management. Courses are designed for a two-year Associate of Arts in architecture that allows students to enter the workforce or transfer to a four-year university to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Architecture, Bachelor of Arts History, or Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. The Blinn College District is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (www.sacscoc.org) to award associate degrees.
Spring 2019
ARCH 1308 - Architectural Graphics II - Spring 2019
I had the pleasure of working with some of our most talented students this semester. By the end of the course, their AutoCAD, Sketchup and Photoshop skills were well-developed, they each built their own website and created their own business cards!
Students' Mid-term Portfolios
Students' Work
Students' Websites
Students' Business Cards
ARCH 1301 - Architectural History I & ARCH 1302 - Architectural History II - Spring 2019
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Each of my 70 'theory of architecture' students, created a research poster or a photo-essay, that illustrated the history of a significant building in historic downtown Bryan. This was in collaboration with Bryan's History Center - Carnegie Library - and help of the lovely oral historian, Ms. Anne Preston. This was a significant learning experience for students who had no previous experience with essay writing, architectural photography, research and presentation.
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Blinn College TEDx Event - May 2019 - Play Here!
Summer/Fall 2019
Iran International TV Interview
On July 17/2019 I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr Sadaegh Saba - the celebrated Iranian journalist and political theorist, and former head of the BBC Persian Television - at the Iran International TV studio in London, where I talked about the differences between the Persian colored glass windows and the medieval European stained glass windows. This conversation was complemented with a visit to Ely Cathedral and its beautiful stained glass museum in Cambridge, England. |
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Speed Dating: This semester, my students successfully found themselves a project-partner through speed-dating! This method - initially an ice-breaker invented by our colleague Mr. Guy Wade - does magic! It brings the class to life, people start talking and before you know it, everyone has the perfect partner. Can't wait to see their final projects in less then three months from now!
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Teaching Excellence Award Nomination: I was honored to have been nominated for the 'teaching excellence award' for the 2019/2020 academic year, which took place during the faculty convocation at Brenham campus on August 20/2019. It was lovely to be surrounded by so many wonderful people and colleagues in the old campus.
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Architectural History I, II (ARCH 1301/1302) & Introduction to Architecture (ARCH 1311) Final Projects - Fall 2019
In the Fall of 2019, 180 students from seven architecture courses completed a clay-model project in groups of two/three. The students had no previous experience in working with clay and were not provided with training or special equipment. They were required to experiment with polymer-clay and to create either a building/monument or a decorative element of architecture. The outcome of this project included the following structures/elements: gargoyle & grotesque, stained-glass windows, adobe houses, Olmec masques, Rose windows, Igloos, Aztec temples, Chinese Pagodas, Roman elements and monuments, Totem poles, Pyramids, mosques, etc.
Stained-glass Display
I was proud to have been given the opportunity and the space to display some of my photographs from Ely Cathedral in Cambridge, England.
ARCH 1301 - Architectural History I & ARCH 1302 - Architectural History II - Fall 2019
The ever changing interior temperature in our building, necessitated the need to refresh the 'photo-essay project wall' from last semester. We are happy with the new display but we had a hard-time letting go of the beautiful blue backdrop that simply fell off!
A Wall-display for Professor Jeffrey
I proudly created a wall-display for my colleague Professor Jeffrey, whose students drew beautiful perspective drawings for the course of ARCH 1309 or Architectural Design I.
I enjoyed participating as a new member of the hiring committee today for which I completed the training back in May. With thorough instruction from the assistant dean - professor Craig Jeffery - I found the experience pleasant and rewarding.
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Portuguese-tile Display
Since beginning the beautification project here at Blinn, we have displayed many of our students' projects on our many - otherwise - bare walls. This has also provided me with the opportunity to display some of my photographs, collected over many years of traveling in Europe.
Spring 2020
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The highest point of each semester, for me as the professor, is when students turn-in their architectural models. I can then see how my many hours of instruction - verbally and electronically - have guided the students to create a small but significant artwork. This is not an ordinary project; for many of my students, this is the first time they are completing a group-project, seeing and touching a piece of modeling clay and researching a historical building and learning about a specific architectural element such as gargoyles or Rose windows. Being finally able to see these individual artworks at the end of each semester is something that my colleagues and I are all looking forward to. This semester, the Coronavirus pandemic signaled a different ending. Following our return from spring-break, and over a period of 7 days, all instructors worked as hard as humanly possible to transition over 2,000 face-to-face classes online and to have them ready and running by March 23rd; this required many instructors to learn how to design an operate classes in an online platform (D2L), while assisting students with learning and adapting to the new format, in a very short period of time. Learning how to find the right recording equipment to create voice-over for power-points and creating/editing video presentations, was a challenge on its own! The indefinite closure of the campus also indicated that I will not be receiving the clay-models this semester. Meanwhile, we continue to teach our classes fully online and hope that everyone is well, safe and sound wherever they are. |
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Architectural History I, II (ARCH 1301/1302) & Introduction to Architecture (ARCH 1311) Final Projects - Spring 2020
In Spring of 2020, 180 students from six architecture courses completed a clay-model project in groups of four. The students had no previous experience in working with clay and were not provided with training or special equipment. They were required to experiment with polymer-clay and to create an architectural model inspired by a real life stained glass window tracery. Despite the fact that - due to the Coronavirus pandemic - I wasn't able to collect the actual models, photographs submitted by the students proved that the outcome of this project - which included an essay based on historical research of the site and the clay model - was a pleasant surprise, as always.
Students' Feedback
Despite the fact that COVID-19 has changed the teaching environment significantly, some students took the time to provide me with feedback (20/21), which I will forever appreciate.
Summer 2020
Webinars
June 18: In quarantine and with the ongoing lock-down due to COVID 19, I had the opportunity to attend several great webinars from all over the world this summer. The webinar 'Luftwerk on Mies van der Rohe: Reinterpreting Space Through Light and Color' (June 18/2020) was an interesting and beautiful display of light installations accompanied by artists' input. 'Organized by the Goethe-Institut Chicago in collaboration with the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Elmhurst Art Museum/McCormick House, Farnsworth House, and MAS Context, Luftwerk - the artistic collaboration of Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero - discussed the interventions in buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe that they have done throughout the years. The following images were shared during the webinar:
Barcelona Pavilion, 1929
Farnsworth House, 1951
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July 2: Another interesting webinar took place in London on July 2nd, and was given by David McKinstry, who 'works as a freelance urban design and conservation professional within local government. He is completing a DPhil on metropolitan Italianate architecture at the University of Oxford and teaches the history of design at Imperial College London'.
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July 14: The Medieval Academy of America put together an interesting discussion panel titled 'Thinking and Teaching Online: Best-Practices and Inspired Learning at a Distance'. The webinar focused on approaches to teaching the Middle Ages for online learning, which I, as a a new online instructor found very helpful.
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July 15: This year, the Stained Glass Museum's annual lecture was live online, and the creative director Helen Whittaker gave her lecture as a webinar! 'The Stained Glass Museum in Ely, is the only museum dedicated to stained glass in the UK. Its collections span over 800 years from the medieval period to the present day. The museum holds an annual lecture each year, and this is the first time that this event will be held online, making it open to global audiences'. I had the pleasure of interviewing Helen some years ago and also visited her beautiful studio in lovely and picturesque York, England.
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July 21: 'Native Knowledge 360°: Foundations for Teaching and Learning about Native Americans' was the tiled of a fascinating webinar/workshop organized by the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC, which I, as a a lecturer in Native American architecture enjoyed tremendously. |
Fall 2020
August 2020: This semester is like nothing I've ever experienced before. All I can say is that I'm grateful to my smart and bright students, who chose not to come into class, and decided to participate via Zoom. The Fall classes began quietly but the excitement of the presidential election made up for the quite times! And I'm proud to say that I have fulfilled my civil duty for the 4th time in the past 20 years.
Webinars & Courses
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November 5: As teaching on Zoom with empty classrooms continued, I found myself having more time to attend several webinars organized by my fellow art and architectural historians in London. The first webinar was organized by BRISMES, which 'provides a forum for educators and researchers in Middle East Studies'. Although I feel that I have come a long way from my days of desperately looking for a job that would fit my CV, I found the webinar highly educational. Thank you BRISMES.
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November 23: My lovely friends at SAHGB (the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain) organized a great talk titled 'Histories of Architecture and the Architecture of History in Pakistan' by Dr. Chris Moffat, who is a 'lecturer in History at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of India’s Revolutionary Inheritance: Politics and the Promise of Bhagat Singh (2019)'. |
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December 3: I had the pleasure of attending an online class by master Adam Williamson, who taught the basics of arabesque plaster carving. The class lasted for about 3 hours and was organized by 'The Art of Islamic Pattern'. 'Adam Williamson is a skilled stone/wood carver and practicing artist in many media. He undertakes interior, architectural and sculptural commissions. Adam has traveled around the world to work with artists, including Mount Athos, Greece, Spain, Morocco and Turkey'.
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December 7: The lecture given by Prof Sheila Blair, titled 'Art as a Source for the History of Mongol Eurasia' was just fantastic; many beautiful images and a lovely narrative about Mongol arts and artifacts. Although the Mongol period is not my area of specialty, lightening to experienced writers and lecturers such as Prof Sheila Blair is gratifying for sure. 'Prof Sheila Blair is an American scholar of Islamic art and the Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art at the Boston College. She has written several books with her husband Jonathan Bloom'. The talk was organized by BIPS in London. |
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December 8: 'Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture shaped Europe' was the title of a talk by Ms. Diana Darke, who is an 'author, Middle East cultural writer, Arabist and occasional BBC broadcaster'. ' Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture shaped Europe (Hurst, 2020) uncovers a long yet often overlooked history of architectural ‘borrowing’, revealing the Arab and Islamic roots of Europe’s architectural heritage. Ideas and styles are traced as they passed from vibrant Middle Eastern centers like Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo, entering Europe via gateways like Muslim Spain, Sicily and Venice through the movement of pilgrims, bishops, merchants and medieval Crusaders. It is a rich tale of cultural exchange, shedding new light on the backstory of some of Europe’s iconic landmarks'. The talk was organized by SOAS in London.
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Spring 2021
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December 21: Right around Christmas, I had the pleasure of meeting Rec. Daryl T. Hay of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Downtown Bryan to discuss a future collaboration between the church and Blinn Arts. Despite the fact that 2020 was not an exciting or an inspiring academic year, I'm certain that we will make up for the lost time in 2021. And I'm very much looking forward to our future collaboration which will celebrate and promote our lovely local church and Blinn's faculty of Arts.
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January 17: When getting tested for COVID-19 becomes the new norm, you find yourself booking online appointments and driving to places you've never been before to get tested. And I'm grateful for all the hardworking individuals who make testing possible. I was happily vaccinated in March, receiving the single dose Johnson & Johnson shot. |
Webinars & Courses
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January 26: The talk 'Highgate Cemetery Through Victorian Eyes' by Ian Dungavell, explored the early Victorian cemeteries in London, including the Highgate, which I have visited several times in the past. The society provides highly educational lectures that you can register for via their website.
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February 2: Professor Cath Noakes OBE, presented an interesting and informative talk titled 'engineering the environment to control infection'. The lecture 'considered the complex interactions that determine the dispersion, transport and survival of microorganisms in aerosols and droplets, and what this means for respiratory disease transmission including the SARS-CoV-2 virus'. I'm thankful to my alma matter, the University of Kent in Canterbury, for making these lectures accessible by the public. |
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February 13: Ms. Katherine Carter, the property curator for the Chartwell House in Kent, presented a lovely talk about Churchill's house, which I have had the pleasure to visit some years ago. The building, its history and of course its famous residents remain a major point of interest in the Garden of England. |
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February 6-20: It's simply fantastic that we can now access so many wonderful online courses for free. You can't teach without learning every day of your life, and with the help institutions such as the Open University, the task is effortless and rewarding. |
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February 15: Experiencing the Arctic climate in Texas is something that you won't believe unless you live it. I will remember this event as one of the saddest and most devastating experiences of my life. My heart goes out to all the families who lost loved ones and experienced an absolutely preventable phenomenon that was nothing short of my childhood experience of war. An incompetent local government, a dysfunctional electric grid system and the lack of proper infrastructure and better built housing, were all to blame for the unnecessary pain that millions of Texans experienced. |
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March 24: In another lovely webinar by the Victorian Society in London titled William Morris & G.F. Bodley, the Burlington magazine editor Michael Hall explored Morris's friendship with a leading Gothic revival architect. This webinar was filled with beautiful images of stained glass windows and churches, created by both artists. I believe you can access the recording here. |
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March 26: The Stanford University's Virtual Exhibition Opening titled 'Mapping the Islamic World: The Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires' was absolutely fascinating. 'The early modern world witnessed enormous changes in long-distance travel. Merchants, diplomats, and explorers from all regions of the world traversed new routes on land and sea, forging new global networks between European and Islamic worlds. This exhibition will examine the maps and cartographic studies of Ottoman Turkey, Safavid Persia, and Mughal India. The Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals vied for control over the early modern Islamicate world. Known as the “gunpowder empires” for their successful use of firearm technology, these three powers constantly shifted between enemies and to allies, but always remained rivals. This exhibition examines a series of cross-cultural artistic exchanges from maps that are not usually represented in early modern cartographic studies. The very content of the show challenges the notion of Europe as the epicenter of the Renaissance World. As such, the exhibition encourages viewers to question the historiography of Renaissance cartography'. As someone who spend several years exploring these maps at the British Library in London, I found the exhibition highly enjoyable. |
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Fall 2021
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First week: The Summer holiday is officially over and we are heading back on campus while the Delta variant is spreading through Texas like wildfire. Almost all precautions have been removed and we are more anxious than ever to go back face to face teaching, with so many students attending classes in person. The majority of Texans at this point have not been vaccinated and more and more young people are getting hospitalized. This year's convocation took place online. On the bright side, we received new Blinn t-shirts in my absolute favorite color, blue! I hope that everyone stays safe and out of hospitals in the new academic year.
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September 23: We are halfway through this semester and 4 weeks away from final exams. We've had a number of staff and students out sick with pneumonia and COVID but everyone has been doing well. As always, I like to point out the fact that nowadays so many organizations offer free educational workshops and lectures. The New York Times Climate Hub is one of the websites I've been studying for the past several months. Check them out here! |
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The beautiful city of Bryan is celebrating its 150th birthday this year and I had the opportunity to visit the lovely Carnegie Library this week, which is displaying some of the historical artifacts from about 150 years ago to this day. I think the city has done an incredible job, inviting the public and local residents to participate in the celebration by sharing their lovely pictures, postcards, letters, historical objects, etc. |
I was very pleased to have had the opportunity to take a short break and finally visit the most beautiful and historical city of Santa Fe in New Mexico. The trip was filled with meeting interesting people, visiting beautiful museums and learning a great deal about Native American cultures, which admittedly, are not my forte. But I'm getting so much better at understanding these ancient civilizations and all their architectural and cultural achievements as time goes by.
The Kaleidoscope of Perspectives Art Show
It's always lovely to see the works of our students and staff in print! With an emphasis on diversity in the arts, Bryan campus was host to the annual art show from November 29 to 3rd of December and I - finally - got to see some of my own photographs printed :)
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December 16: Another semester has come to an end... I have just completed my first training as a public official... and I'm more than ready for the new year! Wishing everyone a year filled with health and happiness.
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December 29: And I finally managed to complete my long overdue first aid training before the year ends! :)
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Spring 2022
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January 10: Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) is the prerequisite for the Peer Reviewer Course, which is the required course to become a QM Peer Reviewer. This was one of the longest workshops I've ever attended but thanks to our wonderful instructional design instructor, Dr. Sally Hughes, time flew by and we all enjoyed a highly educational and productive workshop while obtaining our certificates.
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January 13: Today, I've attended my first meeting - as a commissioner - with the Historic Landmark Commission in the City of Bryan - which was a truly educational and rewarding experience. I'm looking forward to all our future meeting throughout the new year.
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January 22: I began the new semester with a short trip to Houston to obtain an in-person inventory of the Islamic art collection at the Museum of Fine Arts. Naturally, I was nicely surprised to find a much more elaborate collection, compared to Dallas Museum of Fine Art. Considering the fact that Texas with a population of 30 million and about 200K Muslims - which is significantly less than a city (not a state) like London, with a population of almost 9 million and a million Muslims - doesn't benefit from the rich cultural experiences that are a natural impact of having large Muslim communities, the museum collections are a relatively adequate educational source of visual information in the area of Islamic arts. Expanded over several decades, the museum now has 3 galleries devoted to the arts of the Islamic worlds, including Iran. I'm glad that I can now better reference their collections, having had the experience of seeing them in person. (Image: Muhammad Baqir, Persian, active 1740s–1800s - Dancing Girl) |
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'The Quality Matters program provides professional development, a set of rubrics, and a course peer review process that work together to support faculty in improving the quality of online and blended courses. QM has received national recognition for its faculty-centered approach to continuous improvement in online education and student learning'. Having just received my QM certificate as a Higher Education Peer Reviewer, I'm very pleased that I have had the opportunity and support from the instructional design team at my college, to complete 4 QM courses. I can tell you with confidence that learning about QM standards and rubrics, has significantly improved my online courses.
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Architectural History I (ARCH 1301) & Introduction to Architecture (ARCH 1311) Final Projects - Spring 2022
The term known as Aniconism, refers to opposition to the use of icons or visual images to depict living creatures or religious figures. Such opposition is particularly relevant to the Jewish, Islāmic, and Byzantine artistic traditions. Islamic geometric patterns are one of the major forms of Islamic ornament, which tends to avoid using figurative images, as it was forbidden to create a representation of an important Islamic figure according to many holy scriptures. The geometric designs in Islamic art are often built on combinations of repeated squares and circles, which may be overlapped and interlaced, as can arabesques (with which they are often combined), to form intricate and complex patterns, including a wide variety of tessellations. I was very excited to finally have had the opportunity to present this project to my students, most of whom were not necessarily familiar with the Islamic arts. I believe that creating art, is the best way of appreciating it and it's lovely to see my students' beautiful works of art this semester. The coloring project was accompanied by a short essay.
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February 25: There is absolutely no need to emphasize how incredibly hard the past couple of years have been on all of us, personally and professionally. We have been in the classroom from the beginning of the pandemic, sometimes with no in person audience, and sometimes with a handful of students present. I think most professors will agree that lecturing with no audience is a lot like talking to yourself, which is not fun! The students' presence, energy and interest makes teaching so overwhelmingly rewarding. I don't believe that most students are aware of their impact on their professors... I don't think they know how much their little thank you notes means to us. The fact that they take the time to tell you what they learnt in your class, without being asked in a survey, is just amazing. So I'm sharing this little lovely note with all of you, to thank both of you - the students and the professors - for everything you do, day after day after day <3 It doesn't go unnoticed.
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April 20: We are three weeks away from Summer holidays and since I've been teaching exclusively online lately, I had the time to complete several short courses offered by Open University and my latest favorite institution, Energy.gov. This particular website features highly educational online and on-site training offered by the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP). If you find yourself interested in public policy or energy management, this website is for you! The mostly video courses are short, and do not require a substantial knowledge about the energy sector prior to taking a course.
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