The Third Center

What is the third center?

I don't know myself, but as I sat down for the first time in studio I was told to draw what the third center is (picture not provided).  

Then I was given a piece of paper and told to show the center of two centers without drawing anything.

Lastly, I was told to show a center as a point of arrival without drawing.

I was given five minutes.
The project for studio will focus on an area of Charlottesville from the Lawn to the Downtown Mall by the train station.  I'm not entirely sure what the project will entail, but I'll be doing a site visit soon and learning more in the mean time.  I've printed a CAD drawing already and started my next design book for the Fall semester.  Things are picking up and my guess is they won't be slowing down.

Also the visualization class looks awesome and I'm wicked excited to learn the software more completely.

Thanks for reading.

Here We Go Again

Hello all!
It's been a while since my last post.

I figure now that SDI is over my posts will be less frequent as I'll have more work to do and less time for journaling.

But to start off the semester, I'll make a short post.

So I had orientation yesterday and started classes today.  So far it looks like it's gonna be a lot of work and a lot is expected of us, but that's not surprising.  Assignments range from very technical, like heat change in surfaces, light diffusion calculations, and construction techniques, to historical case studies and research assignments.  I haven't had studio class yet, but I'm sure that's the most intense.

It's weird having the A-School full of people and even weirder sharing my classes with other graduates and even other undergraduates.  But it is nice to see some more people and it's exciting to have new professors and a new schedule.  Days are still going to be long, as I had class from 11-6 today, and that doesn't include the time that I'll be spending in studio.

This semester I'm taking a survey of modern architecture, a technical seminar on building structures and materials, a building integration workshop focusing on materiality, light, heat, physics, biomimicry, chemistry, and combustion, a geometric visualization course, a common course for all new students about general ideas of design thinking, and of course, studio.

I haven't had the visualization course or studio yet, but the others seem challenging and interesting, except for the technical course but that's still super important.

Anyway I don't have much work to show since I haven't done anything other than some floor plan sketches and sections which I didn't scan, so I'll end here.  Thanks to everyone who made my break awesome and thanks for reading.

That's a Wrap

There's something immensely satisfying about holding a book in your hands.  It's even more satisfying when you've made it, printed it, cut it, bound it, and designed it.  My Design Log is a crystallized version of my Summer Design Institute, and flipping through the book it's really amazing to see everything that happened in four weeks.  

Today I finished everything.  My book, my plots, my diagrams, my sketches.  Everything, really.  What may be the most expensive fraternity I've seen, UVa Architecture has forced me to drag around a model across states and spend countless hours in studio.  My friend aptly describes it as "architorture"  and SDI as "Sleep Deprived Individuals."  But what I've learned is incredible.  The amount of information and skills they've crammed into me in a mere four weeks is amazing.  Hopefully this will provided a good foundation for my studio this fall.  Coincidently, my spring semester studio professor saw me and asked if I was Eric, saying he's been looking over his students and asked if I was ready for what's to come.  I wasn't, but I said I was.

This poster greets people upon arriving into studio: a panel of the entire M. Arch program.  Should be a fun time.

The exhibition is mostly set up.  The 72 foot long table of models is incredible, and I hope that the table stays as a permanent installation.

Our plots cover the entirety of many walls, as well as our diagrams which wrap around another wall.  Our models take up a hallway.  It's nerve-wracking knowing my peers will come later this month and scrutinize my projects, but I hope I've had a good start.

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Tomorrow we have our last meeting, which hopefully won't be too bad.  I've got to pin up all my drawings and diagrams tomorrow morning, but that shouldn't be bad either.  It's time to enjoy some free time while I still can.  Thanks for reading and thanks for joining me in my journey this past month. It's been fun.  The 650 pageviews I've amassed means that people are reading this consistently, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  It makes it all worthwhile.

Last Crit of the Summer

Quick recap:

The last crit was long, but interesting because of the group format.  Each presentation was about half and hour long, and the jury wasn't too harsh on us.  The general ideas were there, but they were looking for us to explore it a little differently and more in depth.  

The sea of black was cool to see, except for the one guy in the middle.  Afterwards we took and SDI picture, then I got some lunch to go with some people and went back to studio to work.  I worked all day until 8, when we went to our professor's house for dinner, which was delicious.  It was also a good break to hang out with people.  We had some tomato smeared bread or something, which was surprisingly good, cheese, a delicious potato dish of some sort, a roasted anchovies and pepper dish, which was also good, and of course, wine.  Free food and cooked food is always a treat, so I stayed there for a few hours, then it was back to studio.  I worked the rest of the night finishing up my book, diagrams, and drawings for the exhibition.  I tried to print, but couldn't get the crop and bleed marks to line up, so I gave up around 12:30 and left.  I'll have to print and bind tomorrow, as well as plot my final drawings by 5, and move out of my apartment.  Should be a super busy day, but if I can get everything done, Monday will be more relaxed.  Anyway, I'm gonna get some sleep so I can go into studio early tomorrow and print before everyone else does.  Thanks for reading.

The Curveball

As usual, there will be crits tomorrow morning.  However, this time we are doing group crits.  This week we've been diagramming our case studies from week 1, which I have posted about before.  Originally we were divided into small groups and were assigned one topic (I was in infrastructure).  In these groups we had to develop a language to convey infrastructure that could be used by all the case studies.  This way the diagrams would be clear and consistent.  Tomorrow we will be presenting in groups.  Each small group will present all 22 diagrams in their section, so there will be 8 presentations.  

This means we have to know the infrastructure of all the projects, what the main idea is, how it is integrated into the design, the most important aspects, etc.  It should be interesting, but confusing.  I'm not sure what the result will be, but the change is kind of nice.

Today we worked on all of our stuff.  In the morning our drawing teacher came in and marked up our drawings.  I finished redoing my week 3 assignment, cleaned up the drawings for that and weeks 1 and 2, finalized my diagrams, and worked on my design log.  I also made another test model of a detail of the new topography I designed.  

This week, the TAs have been setting up the exhibition for our work.  Around 4 we brought all our models, test models, and stacks of chipboard to a 72 foot long table the TAs built that spans a large part of the hallway at the main entrance.  This table will be up, displaying all of our models and iterations we did.  It looks really cool and hopefully it will go well.  Other details are still unknown.  Our week 2 and 3 plots get 25"x28" sheet each and they will be gridded.  Aside from that, I'm not entirely sure.  

I still don't have pictures or real insight to give, but I'll talk more later, hopefully.  

Also we're all gonna wear black tomorrow like real architects, so that'll be cool.  And tomorrow is another work day.  Usually we have part of Saturday off, but we've been told we're expected to be in studio tomorrow as if it were a normal day.  We'll see how that goes.  Thanks for reading.

Deja Vu

Photoshop and Illustrator class
Bookbinding tutorial
Studio: diagrams, drawings, AutoCAD, Rhino, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, sketches, scanning, revisions, etc

Time is running short as we all scramble to revise, redraw, reinterpret, and reorganize out material for the exhibition.  The bookbinding room in the school is so cool and we can do everything within the A-School, so making the actual book should be fun.  I've been working on all my stuff, and I redesigned my assignment from week 3 (the path one).  I'll get photos up eventually.  

Tomorrow is more of the same.  Pinups with our final plots tomorrow morning bright and early, then more revisions.  Hopefully I can get my act together and put up some quality work.  Again sorry for the short post.  Thanks for reading.