My semester is officially over. I turned in a set of drawings for Professional Practice today and that was the end. Two years of architecture school officially done. I can't believe it has already been two years.

The above image of the exhibit that I helped to design/build/curate doesn't do justice to how good the space looked. I was already well drunk at this point and the lighting is hard to photograph with a point and shoot camera. It will be professionally photographed soon and I will get copies to post here. When we began, our Hollywood Studio was a dingy old white space with a yellow tile floor. We completely transformed it and I was very pleased with the outcome.

Highlights of The Show:

-The surprise and excitement of most of the faculty upon seeing the space.

-The introduction of the Woodbury University/Julius Shulman Fellowship. (Have I told you about the Julius Shulman Institute at Woodbury? Probably not, because I still don't know much about it, but he has been hanging around a lot.)

-Being introduced to Shulman and he hit on my date and asked her if he could take her for a ride on his walker.

-Watching someone spill a glass of red wine and seeing Julius Shulman forbid anyone from walking in it or wiping it up unitl he could borrow someones camera to photograph it.

-Seeing the place fill up to about 400 people not 10 minutes after we had finished painting alll of the lines on the floor.

-Meeting new Los Angeles architecture school brethren and realizing people actually read Archinect.

And. I have to take a minute to acknowledge the fact that I worked with an amazing team of people spearheaded by Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter, one of the greatest teachers that I have ever worked with.

For those who missed it, it will be on again the week of the AIA convention, and I will (probably) be hosting walk-and-talks if you would like to come by.

Other than that, I am happy that summer is here. I am currently working for three Norman's on unrelated projects, which I find a little odd.

One of them will be on display at LACMA on May 18th. I am doing some 3D modeling related to the Grand Ave development, but beyond that I am not sure what it is for or even what the LACMA exhibit is about. Details as I know them.

Life is good. Enjoy your Summer.

All are invited to a show that I am designing, building and curating. It is to showcase the faculty work from my school. Blah, Blah Blah...free drinks.



May 3rd 6PM-9PM
6518 Hollywood Blvd (Hollywood & Wilcox)
Hollywood, CA

Most people's entries on here begin with the phrase, "it's been a long time since my last post", and this entry is no different.

So to catch up:

1. Last semesters final project ended up with me in the ER. Lack of sleep + Lack of food + Red Bull x4 + Coffe x2= an EKG and some strong relaxation drugs pumped into me through an IV.

2. Relaxing over winter break in Texas reading Architecture and Dysjunction and Content

3. A drive from Texas to California and then studio started and here we are 2 weeks into school.

My schedule for the semester:

Studio 2B: Site Orders
History of Contemporary Art
Physics
Professional Practice
Hollywood Confidential

The class Hollywood Confidential has started out as the frontrunner for my Favorite Class of the Semester. It is taught by Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter and the synopsis of it is this: we are planning a party.

The AIA convention is in LA this year and we are making "maps" to be included in their convention guidebook. The "maps" will bring them to our Hollywood Studio where we will have designed a space/theme for the party.

We are looking at the Situationists for inspiration. Our reading for the class consists of Guy Debord, Tschumi et. al. So my reading over the break was actually quite accidentally helpful for the class. I will be doing a derive for the class next week and I will post images when I have them. I kind of have an idea of what it will be based on... but we'll see.

My other classes are a bit boring so far, but I will write about them as they pique my interest.

Good luck and good semester everyone. Cheers

Today I took a walk through downtown Los Angeles. I started at Union Station, made my way up through Olvera Street to Bunker Hill to Grand to the Cathedral and back to Union Station. I needed to stare at something that wasn't a computer screen and see people who weren't staring at computer screens. Here are some images with captions when applicable:




The Bradbury Building is one of the greatest spaces in LA, and you would never know it walking by the unassuming exterior.

This public art Sculpture is baffling. How it got built I will never know or understand. It appears to be four men choking one another filled with bullet holes. It is in front of a federal building and within viewing range of the prison. Hmm.





Some building by a little known architect.






Olvera Street is the origin point of LA, and still the best place in town to buy a wrestling mask.







A tree bursting out of its container and growing however it pleases. Photo-metaphor of LA.

So last week we all hadn't slept and were working on getting our projects ready for presentation. My desk is directly perpendicular to one of the two main doors in studio. As I was cutting basswood, I did my first actual doubletake in several years. I looked over at the door and a chicken nonchalantly walked through the door. My response was, of course, "Holy shit, a rooster just walked through the door". (Rooster. Chicken. Hen. Who can tell at first glance? It should also be noted that Woodbury is in an urban setting. Think NBC, Disney etc., etc.) As more people noticed the chicken, the chicken certainly noticed more people and got frightened. It began to fly (chickens fly?) from 3/4 walltop to desk to 3/4 walltop to desk; crushing 1/4 scale models in its ravaging wake. It was like watching a fowl reinterpretation of Godzilla as 1/4 scale buildings were being crushed beneath the apparently huge chicken feet. It was one of the most odd/funny things I have seen in a long time and I am kicking myself for not taking a photograph.

And.

As we were all wondering how to get the chicken out of studio, studiomate Ruben walks over grabs the chicken puts its head under its wing and kind of spun it three times and put it to sleep. And then did with it what should naturally be done with a sleeping chicken; put it under someones desk in 3rd year studio.

How Ruben knows chicken hypnotism I will never know.

This is the site model for Project Two, that is already well underway.

For this project we were given one of three sites that are right here on campus. I was given the site that is in between our library (that was a church when our campus was some sort of all-girls catholic school. i think.) and the library annex. It is currently wasted space on a campus crying out for more space. The neat thing about having this site is that there is going to be a competition at the end of the semester to design and build something here. I don't know much about it yet but I will update when I do.

Anyhow, the program I was given is Taste, We are to incorporate a primary and secondary material into a cohesive design. I am sticking with plywood as my primary material and adding some sort of plastic cloud structure to it. I think. I was excited to have this site, but it is turning out to be more difficult than I expected. Both existing elevations are the asses of the buildings and I am having to deal with emergency exit doors and ducts and grills, not to mention its imposingly harsh rectalinear plan. I will post some sketches and concept models later. I think I am going to take the rest of the evening off to relax.

As soon as the wifi signal in my studio is fixed, I will be able to post on a regular basis. Posts might be sporadic until then.

Here are some images from my project. Briefly Explained:

We chose (randomly, from a hat or something shaped like a hat) a material, a methodology and a case study(ies). We then had to explore the chosen material and document 20 explorations with the object and an exploration in an accompanying book. After the explorations, we had to use the knowledge we had gained from the experiments and construct an object occuppying three cubic feet of space (as always, three cubic feet is kind of a loose number that can extend to, say, 20)

My material was wood composites, my methodology was laminating and my case studies were Alvar Aalto, the Spruce Goose and Renzo Piano. I took the Aalto and Spruce Goose route and began bending and laminating 1/8" bendable poplar plywood, truly an amazing material. I experimented a lot with simple bending and then went more toward complex form building and splitting and bending a single piece in multiple axes. The final construct is a chair that consists of over 70 linear feet of bendable poplar. It is still drying (I had to build a 2'x8' "bathtub" to soak the wood in overnight) and there are some cosmetic touch ups that are neccesary, but it is almost finished.

I have to say that I have never been more impressed by the work of my class as a whole, there was truly something remarkable to observe in every gallery. I will try to compile some images of their work and post them here as well.

Project One: Plied

This evening, Woodbury hosted a lecture by the quite brilliant William McDonough. He was incredibly informative; my first-thought description of him is that he has delusions of grandeur, only he isn't delusional. His ecological design ideas make sense, nothing seemed half-baked. China has adopted his book Cradle to Cradle as national policy and the work he is doing in China is nothing short of revolutionary. Did you know it is now illegal to build with brick in China?

Mr. McDonough seemed to have a thoughtful solution to every question given to him in the hour long post-lecture Q&A. Many of the questions were on the topic of New Orleans, and what do we do now. An area the size of Colorado is toxified; should we rebuild. He admitted that he hadn't had much time to think about the New Orleans problems, but then spoke for 15 minutes, in that very intriguing manner of someone who is figuring things out in their head as they are saying them. He proposed to rebuild the areas that had meaningful memories, "Imagine not having Jazz". He had a plan for the areas that are uninhabitable though I couldn't get it down in my notes quick enough. He seemed to have very little faith in the current administration, and mentioned that the people of New Orleans should consider rebuilding the communities themselves, to strengthen community bonds in the ravaged city.

In a certain area of the pacific, there is now more plastic than plankton. Something, something, something (again, bad note taking, my apologies) we are completely losing our coral reefs and large amounts of crustaceans, the bottom rung of the food chain. Ponder that one. He referred to this as a giant toilet that doesn't flush. And again in the Q&A rattled off his response on how to fix this problem. I'm paraphrasing to the best of my memory:

"we could have several square miles of a floating grid with windmills at each intersection that could be a giant floating wind farm. Below each windmill there could be a 3 foot net that collects all of the plastics to be recycled into polymer."

He also mentioned something about fantastic fishing.

One of the most fascinating parts of his work are his buildings that produce more power than they use, and distill water no less.

I will try to get my hands on some of the images he showed in his slide show, there were some great ones. It began with an image of a childs rubber ducky and then showed the label warning that the materials used to produce the ducky are known by the state of California to cause cancer:

"What species would make something like this and then give it to children?"

Our first project of the semester (Studio 2A) is a material exploration. We were assigned, at random, a material, a method of working and case studies.

My material is wood composites. My method of working is laminating and my case studies are Eames and Aalto furniture and The Spruce Goose. We have to have at least 20 material experiments, a final construct (on which I am still not 100% clear of the details) and a book. So far I have several bending/laminating experiments and a few pages of the book.



It's been a relatively mellow first week; the calm before the storm.