Hello -

My name is Steve Walton. I was born in Los Gatos, CA in 1984. I have a four siblings, all of whom I am very close to, but especially my little brother, Eric, who just turned 10 years old.

I was part of the inaugural class of Sixth College back in UCSD. After a year, I put aside my studies to serve as a missionary. I went to New York City, where I lived in several areas, namely Washington Heights, Harlem, and the Bronx. Washington Heights was definitely one of my favorite places. It was fun to learn and experience Dominican culture.

Afterwards, I resumed my studies here. I am currently working on my B.S. in Bioengineering: Pre-med. One of my favorite feelings is coming to an epiphany of how parts of the body work, especially from an engineering perspective.

My strong fields have always been art, biology, and math. My brother and I share talents. He has exemplified the first by exploring a major in Animation, while I decided to go with the last two. An influence on this was an event in my youth. At age 12, I found out my sister (then of age 8) had thyroid cancer. She has it under control now, but I gained a tremendous respect for those that helped her in that time. My drive to get to medical school is my way of saying thanks.

That's a lot of me in just a few sentences. I'm excited to be taking this class.

I have included my proposal below:

The questions/problems that will be addressed are the following as stated by the mentor, Derek Lomas: "How does the design of an architectural space affect social dynamics?" "Can art stimulate social engagement and social movement?" The goal of this course, then, is to answer these questions by studying them on a variety of levels and then testing some methods that will bring about the desired change.

Social architecture can be observed on a variety of scales. At the macroscale, the community as a whole with relation to its architectural characteristics may be observed. It can, also, be related on a microscale (even microscopic). Mr. Lomas suggested finding access to a video-microscope and observing the affects of different structures on the growth of microorganisms.

Social architecture deals with communities that are virtual as well as physical. This can be seen by the increasing popularity of online communities such as "blogs," mySpace, Facebook, and others which all serve to keep people connected regardless of distance.

Because the word "art" has such a general connotation (especially in the Sixth College curriculum), the second question listed could have so many meanings. It is important, also, to note that in order to answer the second question, one would first have to explore the concepts of the "social engagement" and "social movement" and where, exactly, he/she wanted these to go.

In m y own life, I've seen small examples of the large effects of social architecture. For two years, I lived in New York City in various areas, ranging from Washington Heights in Northern Manhattan to Harlem to several different areas of the Bronx. There, while serving as a missionary, I was able to visit hundreds of different buildings. Although the buildings are somewhat different than the one I live in now as a student, I have given some thought to the prompt questions with respect to the architecture of these buildings. Truly, despite the large difference in socioeconomic status of the tenants and the location, the buildings tend to serve the same purpose and have the same social characteristics. In reality, there is quite little social interaction.

Those of us in the course would hope, of course, that the community as a whole would benefit from the project. I was pleased to find that there are many different organizations concerned with the impact of social architecture on communities. It seems that the given field has a great range of impact.

I am not certain of what, exactly, the end product of this project will be. Certainly, there will be research and observation, so it would seem that a research paper or presentation could be put together. Hopefully, though, it would be possible to do a project, maybe even here on the UCSD campus, that would test some of the social architecture ideas that have been discussed in the class.

Mr. Lomas has been contacted and knows of my interest in the project. Already he has begun an online community for those of us in the project to help us interact and share our ideas.