Not mine. Keep reading below...

I'm working on my final project for the year: a look at an extremely large refugee camp that existed on the Thai-Cambodian border from about 1979 to 1993. The camp held up to 200 000 Khmer refugees in a space of about 3 square miles.

In any case, it's not done yet. You can find some good pictures on the Internet in a few places:

members.iinet.net.au/~pictim/site2/site2.html
www.peshawar.ch/portfolio/portfolio-5.htm
www.kheow.de/html/camps0.htm
www.mikefarrell.org/Journals/Thai2.html
www.asiahorizons.com/CAMBODIABOOK/index.html

But, mainly, I recalled once taking pictures for my student newspaper of this amazing gun sculpture built from 7000 deactivated weapons. You could actually step inside and see bits of light shining through from the outside. But it's the creepiest thing in the world. The gunpowder smell hadn't left it at that point, and it was like standing inside some kind of death. It was just overwhelming. Anyhow, if you ever get a chance to see it, do it.

More info: www.gunsculpture.com/installation.htm View full entry

That's a rhetorical question, by the way... View full entry

I'm currently slogging through a theory paper that was due yesterday. It's slow-going, but I find the topic interesting. Basically, this is my thesis statement: -- Power and preferred urban form: Coercive infrastructure and the politics of participation Is urbanism possible without power?... View full entry

This was brought to my attention last term: people in our school (students and professors alike) use the word "interesting" way too often. "I found such-and-such interesting," or "What you've done here is really interesting," or "So-and-so presents some interesting ideas on such-and-such." It... View full entry

This occurred to me just now, while sitting here in theory class. It's student presentation day. Anyhow, I think it's a bit weird, you know, being always daytime... View full entry

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They are demolishing an add-on to the Main Library building here on campus, and rebuilding in place. The Library itself was quite beautiful, but this add-on was, well, pretty terrible. Execution of the innocent and defenseless, or or an architectural criminal? Is demolition like euthanasia for... View full entry

fifteen.ca/ That's my friend, Raymond Biesinger, who's based in Edmonton, Alberta. He's one of them freelance illustrators, and I'm rather proud of him. I was just breezing through some of his recent stuff and wanted to share. You can also check out some of his gig posters here... View full entry

UBC is being accredited starting tomorrow and going until Wednesday. Been through an accreditation at your school lately? As regulars of this soapbox might know, I think architectural education needs to be reworked from the ground up (pun completely intended), so I find this kind of exciting. I... View full entry

I was bored, so I made these. My sources:news.spirithit.com/index/articles/more/islam_and_the_west_in_a_transmodern_world/P0/www.belgium-architects.com/content/profiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile&architect=2788?=e&locale=e Use the Rasterbator to blow them up stupid big and post them in... View full entry

OK. Just a quick one. I should have posted this with the other one, but that was funny, and this one is more, um, astonishing. Hence, it's more important and deserves its own post. For studio, were in the research phase, and I'm looking at El Ejido, Spain. Go on, type that into Google Maps, turn... View full entry

Some folks in the studio are planning on pinning up drawings of an Imperial Star Destroyer as a precedent for their project. I really hope that goes over well.www.obh.snafu.de/~madley/starwars/dataimg/imperial_star_destroyer.gif View full entry

I'll post something about architecture soon, I promise. It's shaping up to be a bizarrely fantastic term. Right now, we're enduring days upon days of fucking rain in Vancouver. We missed breaking the record for the most consecutive days of rain ever here (28 days) by 2 days. Weirdly, the city has... View full entry

I actually have a bazillion things to write about. But I always have trouble sitting down to take care of it. It's 4:30am and I can't sleep. I ate a "I'm 120% full now" sushifood meal last night to celebrate the raise I got at work. Went home, watched one episode of the Chappelle Show, and then... View full entry

I keep forgetting: the UBC SoA is no longer. For a number of reasons (most of which I can't really remember) the school of architecture and the school of landscape architecture have merged, making it SALA: the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. I think part of this whole merger... View full entry

As part of my busted-laptop-harddrive saga, I haven't been able to find a good time to post these images. (The archinect.com cover photo ain't mine.) Last Thursday, SPACEAGENCY hosted a party in downtown Vancouver (Gastown, specifically) to celebreate the completion of the FRONTIERSPACE design... View full entry

In other news: My Mac's hard drive got weird and kinda crapped out. I think I fixed it, but I didn't trust it, so it's in the shop now. In the same weekend, my work computer's power supply blew out, so that's in the shop too. My digital life is currently stored on a 40GB hard drive I've been... View full entry

... I get sad. I just discovered that one of my favourite bands - ever - broke up. I hadn't paid much attention to them recently, because they just released an album in 2004, and, you know, it usually takes bands a couple years or so to pop out another solid one. Anyhow, the band is Despistado, of... View full entry

I bought a laser printer. Not just any laser printer, though. An industrial-strength high-capacity 11x17 B&W HP LaserJet 5Si MX. This thing was top o' the line back in about 1998. I bought it for $150 CAD, but realized after getting it home that the dude I bought it from had stripped its extra... View full entry

So, here we are. Struggling to keep this thing going. I've been working this summer. I finished exams on a Tuesday, mussed around for a few days, and started work the next Monday. Here's my place of employment: www.actonostry.ca (I think the site is due for a bit of an overhaul soon.) It's a nice... View full entry

We have our last exam tomorrow. Consider the following exchange over e-mail, formatted in chronological order for your viewing pleasure (these are all different people speaking): > hi guys. > > i have misplaced the list that says what chapters we covered in Allen and > CMHC... could... View full entry

Hi everyone, I am sorry I have not posted in a long time. A big reason for this has been a general unhappiness with my work. I'm a highly self-critical individual, which can be quite annoying, even to me. Anyhow, I realized I haven't shown you my home for this term. I have a window seat (click on... View full entry

I was thinking about a post that was something along the lines of, "What would you give up for greatness?" I tend to have architectural dreams about being famous, as I'm sure most architects do. I mean, sure, the starchitects get a lot of flack, and sort of become media darlings, often not living... View full entry

I can think of three separate occasions when someone has cut themselves fairly seriously in the studio since September. In fact, one person ended up at the hospital on Monday getting bandaged up. Any good/gorey X-acto/OLFA stories? View full entry

It's been a weird term so far. The studio I'm in hasn't been moving overly quickly, so I'm not sure what to report on exactly. My courses this term include Architectural Technology, a second History and a second Design Media. This morning, for Architectural Technology (colloquially referred to as... View full entry

Our studio work here has started off rather slow this term, mostly by the choice of the people in my studio group, despite the fact that it means we're probably digging our own graves... Anyhow: Past the introductory studio everyone takes in first-term, first-year, we now move on to what are... View full entry

Also, after spending three weeks in Alberta braving the -25ËšC weather I used to be OK with, I returned to Vancouver expecting the glorious year-round positives. They say this weather should continue for another week or so: I also saw folks sliding down the hill on... View full entry

UBC has this great karmic thing where younger non-thesis students (the whole place is MArch, though) help out the thesis students in the final days before presenting. This weekend is the thesis presentations, and over the past few days I've been helping Jacqueline Chan... View full entry

Well, we're back at it. We had the studio presentations yesterday, ballots were due at 3pm, and today the studio assignments are posted at 1:30pm. Exciting, yes? And now, here is a picture of what it's like to ride the bus to school in the morning: Also, I bought myself a digital camera over... View full entry

Is that any excuse for not posting? So much happening, so little sleep, SO MUCH EXCITEMENT. Anyhow, couple things: we are gettin' shirts made up, and the design is very nice (designed by John Roddick, a third-year here at UBC): Can you see it? "SOA"? Also, here's a link to another UBC student's... View full entry