It has been an extraordinarily hectic last two days. Was up at 5 am yesterday booking tickets and hostels, worked til 1.

blake and i did go to regents park theater for Much Ado About Nothing, which was MAZING (though cold) and have been visint people and taking short breaks... but for the most part struggling to plan the net 5 weeks of life.

All is (almost) set and we are headed to Oxford in a few hours..... if only those blasted train tickets would work out!!

RAH! to Eurostar/TheFrench/and all others who stand in my way of making convenient bookings. =[

but yay for vacation! finally....

will try to post.. no promises

Last day in Neverland

It's strange and refreshing to be done. Blake is here, and is excessively annoying (he is pestering me at the moment to finish up quick so that we can eat chocolate and watch a movie), so to make this quick, I will post photos... that hopefully capture and sum up the last day more completely than I could write.

More photos, including detail shots of projects, can be seen here.


One full, slightly panic-stricken day of painting letters with Mike and Daniel preceded Blake's arrival and the opening.


All happy after a successful review. My review went well and it was really interesting to hear the emphasis of certain jurors. Brett Steele loved the chairs and dress as excellent representations of architects sneakily stealing other bodies of work and presenting them in only a way architects would (process - based). Eugene and Valentin loved the crazy mooshy "house" for its bold use of form and color. Ironically, the Zaha dudes didn't like it as much.


The exhibition (monia's side) after we all set up our final models


Post-crit, we journeyed to the balcony for to change into our freshly painted shirts that read ["Suckers for Sam - Moanin for Monia - VSP 2009"]


All of us, in our new shirts after giving Monia her gifts (a similar shirt, the studio Mix CD of all of our Project-title songs, and a frame with photos of us jumping and being silly with our projects)


Lil Mama Monia...


...took pictures of us all with our exhibition spreads.


After a farewell dinner in Soho, we got pastries at the best bakery in town, and ate on the steps of a Roman Catholic church off Tottenham (after being kicked out of the park by skeezy security guards).

It wasn't sad saying goodbye to anyone, because it doesn't feel over. I feel like I'll walk to school Monday with a cup of coffee, as usual, and wait for tutorial in the evening. At the very least, I feel like I will see them all again.
VSP '09 reunion, anyone?

This Week's Work 13

I've spent the last few days teetering on some sort of edge between school and summer, excitement and nostalgia, relaxation and stress.
All of our whitebooks and final drawings have been submitted and are coming back from the printers today. The model is done. The presentation is (nearly) done.
I've been in studio, however, with everyone and it feels like the beginning of the term again. There's work to do, but the temptation of outside is hard to overcome, and we all want to spend the afternoon shopping or sipping coffees. Go home late, maybe grab a beer, and talk about AA.
Except the conversation has changed; it's no longer about how we are so excited to be here, or how to next develop our project... it's how much we are glad to have been here, how we don't want it to end or go home... II've never had a stranger end to a semester. Instead of the abrupt stressful end to the term (a flury of long nights and hurried printing the night before), we had to have all of our things due a week in advance, giving us time to prepare ourselves and final models for the exhibition on Thursday. I've had over a week of almost no work.
But the stress is still there, partly, because we've had to organize everything and submit it. Daniel and I, having finished early, put together the Bible whitebook and ran some errands.

We've made shirts, silly signs, had a brunch outing, gone dancing. My studio friends have been wonderful, and it's really strange that in 4 days everything will have changed.

Code of Honor?

I stumbled upon this article from a recent Bldgblog entry.
Read and view for yourself, but I can't get over how wrong it is.

"The Explorers, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts... train members in confronting terrorism, illegal immigration and border violence."






Equivalent?

Very Special People!

A select few from our photoshoot for the EventsList.







The rest are here.

Collage development

I've been working on a collage for the last few days as one of my finals plates, and I've gotten it to a point of semi-completeness. I still have a bit of work to do on it (Monia doesn't like the bottom), but I should be able to fix it up tonight and be all ready to go for the 6pm deadline Wednesday evening.

I can't believe it will be over so fast. I'm really tired of working this hard, and could do with a little time off, but I'm not ready to go back to Chicago and IIT. As much as it irks me when Blake says it, he's right; the schooling here is just better. The freedom and intensity has been amazing, and it will be a sad Friday when I have to leave NeverLand.

===
The collage illustrates all of the experiences I've considered in plan: from pedestrian walkways, to planned parks, small roadways, drainage zones, purely wild habitat, overgrown buildings, and public-use canopy spaces.
Take a gander!


Pedestrian walkway and planned garden


Small road


Wild zones


overgrown building and canopy public space

Regents Park flowers

I took these while photographing plants in Regents Park for my collage. The rest are here.

Studio Amusements

When sleepiness and stress prevail, stupid things get funnier.

1) Zaha must feed! Zaha HUNGRY!!




2) WHY is this HAPPENING TO ME???




3) Caaaaake [vulgar... sorry]



4) babies!

Baby Animalz are plotting to rule the world

5) The books I've consumed since January:

-Harry Potter 3, JKR
-Strange Dreams [poetry], Brian Andreas
-Mostly True [poetry], Brian Andreas
-Shirlock Holmes, AC Doyle
-Big Fish, D Wallace
-Oliver Twist, C Dickens
-Bridget Jones' Diary, H Fielding
-Hooked, M Richtel
-Lipstick Jungle, C Bushnell
-Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
-Perelandra, CS Lewis
-The Great Divorce, CS Lewis
-The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
-[part of] The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis
-[part of] Mere Christianity, CS Lewis
-How I Edited an Agricultural Paper, Mark Twain
-A Place of My Own, Michael Pollan
-Count of Monte Cristo, A Dumas
++the shorter texts and excerpts read for classes, including Ruskin, Evans, Cook, and Eisenman.

rain and shoes

I wore nice heels today (some of my grandmother's) but it was rainy, and now they look discolored and gross. Really hoping I didn't wreck a $200 pair of shoes after one wear.

Making a collage. I've been cutting out squirrels all day.

Planning Rule Sets

Neighborhood Plan - showing interaction of lattice with building zones and streets

I've been getting the question " So... what IS it? " alot, so I figured I quickly try to explain what is actually happening here.

The lattice installments (light metal and wood frames) both divide plots, define how large the neighboring buildings can be, provide a framework for vegetation to take over, and create sheltered garden thoroughfares.

The plan above shows the lattices (blue squiggles) within their planter zones (the green poly-shapes represent planter beds). The grey masses are the allowable building footprints. Several different pavement cracking patterns are shown as well.


Building Zone Diagram - showing height and size determination by density of lattice vegetation


Single plot quick sketch diagram - showing garden space between and around lattice

The planters and lattices are installed first, creating a rough guideline for building zones. The smaller and denser the pocket created by the lattice, the smaller the building. If the space is too small, no building is allowed, and that pocket is allowed to grow wildly. If the space is at first too large, it is only set aside for buildings, and later divided with more lattice.

The lattices perform significant functions at connection nodes; at multi-point nodes (when a lot of lattices come together), they create a canopy space, providing both a semi-sheltered public area and a means of access to gardens and building blocks. When a lattice meets a road, the lattice becomes crack and "fold" lines in the pavement, directing rainwater runoff into the green spaces. Lattice can vary in height, from nothing, to 1m, to 6m.


Lattice in Plan


Lattice from birds eye perspective - showing density at base, overhead connection, and partial canopy


Lattice garden interior

So, in the CNC model below, the hills and valleys represent the massing of the initial lattice; the green represents the same at a higher resolution and a little later in time; the etched plexi (the white bits) represent the highest resolution of the same and serve to show all of the lines from the original plan (which will be hung directly above it)

(more) Lines and Leather

This past week most of our studio went out to Jas MB's studio and warehouse where we fondled huge walls of leather and were laden with gifts. It was, essentially, all of my dreams come true: a large studio space (a little disordered), purses and fantastic things everywhere, the heavy scent of dust and leather. Jas is an incredible person; a talented designer and exceedingly generous. He is one of those people that makes life and success look easy. It's hard not to be jealous, but it's more impossible to dislike him at all.

We spent the morning picking out scraps of leather we wanted, rummaging through sample bags and his entire collection of work, crawling over bags of ancient fabric samples, and trying on vintage leather coats (of which he has hundreds). It was such a fun day and I ended up with far more than I expected (and should have gotten) for only 140 pounds.

There were one-of-a-kinds, almost all hand made, and super affordable designer things from his old shop. I purchased my first designer bag!

And this should probably be my self-forseen warning- pandora's box is now open.


Otherwise, studio has been boring because I've continued to draw lines for the last week. I am done with my model (see below!), nearly done with my plan plate, and getting started with my collage.
Would have 3d printed my lattice today, but it was too expensive for something unnecessary, so I passed it up. If needed, I'll do it once the collage is done, but I doubt that will happen. I can't justify spending 80 pounds on a little piece of plastic that will either be broken, lost, or stolen in 3 weeks.

Urban Scale Model

The CNC model is painted and done. The green still needs to be glued, but I'm waiting until the last minute to do that since it doesn't require any brain power or computer skills. I'll either recruit a slave or finish it up when my drawings are out to plot.


The whole thing


A little corner


Scale reference

I'm debating on putting tiny little scale foxes as reference. Haha!

Hoping to Fall

Leaning out as far as she can, hoping she'll fall soon, so she can stop worrying about whether it will happen or not.

-Brian Andreas

Regents Park

The roses are out in Queen Mary's garden!


York Bridge at entrance to the Park, from Children's Wildlife garden.


Green path behind the Avenue Garden

This Week's Work 12

This will be more of an addition to the last two posts.

My work this week has included:

-Going to 2 parks on sunny mornings to "photograph"
-Drinking free wine while laughing and spray painting my CNC model gold
-Painting my model GOLD!!!
-Convincing Mike to do part of my project in Grasshopper

It sounds like fun and games, right?
It's been a productive week.. again 10a - 10p every day... but this week felt more exhausting, so I've also taken some time off.

Loren and I went to see Is Anybody There? at Baker Street Theatre, where several lines of badly uniformed theater personnel check your ticket 3 times and then show you to your assigned seat with a flashlight. A tiny screen with moderately sized seats, it was far more like small town theaters in days-of-yore than Big-City theatre. They were excessively friendly.

I actually feel well on top of things for the final; in fact, I feel a bit under-worked.. must correct this!