Tomorrow's exam is going to be messy. One good thing about UBC (and maybe about other schools too?) is that the profs tend to be very understanding about conflicting deadlines. I was able to defer this exam until now on account of having the exam originally scheduled for the day after the most... View full entry

With 7.5 hours before pin-up, this was the state of the studio. Kinda funny. Photo courtesy Graham Barron, who sits at that end of the studio. View full entry

I just sent this to the Director of the School of Architecture. Sad, huh? I can't decide if the situation is quite as dire as I've painted it here. I do know that I'm royally screwed for this coming week. It's already 2:30am, and I'm not done even half of what I wanted/need to get done today. Am I... View full entry

I just finished reading Why Buildings Stand Up by Mario Salvadori. It's a fairly playtime-esque intro to structural engineering, but it does have some interesting bits about how certain historic structures were conceived, designed and built, such as the pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, and the Hagia... View full entry

I've been having a bit of an internal struggle between architecture as art and architecture as manifestation of purpose (i.e. form follows function, etc). When asked where my interest in architecture lies, I find myself responding, I want to make architecture that works. It's kind of a vague... View full entry

Myself and about 12 others had a fantastic dinner last night. Those of us who couldn't make it home for turkey threw ourselves a party and invited anyone else who was lonely and forlorn away from home. We actually ended up with quite a few of the American students who, of course, don't have turkey... View full entry

I'm gonna be a jerk for the time being and just post some pics of what I'm working on without any context. I'll update this post some time when I'm not exhausted and it's not 3am. Yay? View full entry

A garmenture is a "garment without precedent." The project was purposely vague, but essentially it was a materials exploration exercise, but in the end you need to create something that could be "worn," in the sense that it had some intimate relationship with the body... View full entry

It's yet another late night in the studio. I drove to school today, anticipating this. Click the photo for a larger view. This is the corral I'm in. My workspace is on the far left, with the plant (that's Narm) and the autographed pic of Julie Payette, a female Canadian astronaut, my girlfriend... View full entry

I have so much to tell, but so little time to do it in. I had two all-nighters last week (Wednesday and Thursday) in preparation for the project deadline on Friday, and I had another all-nighter last night. This week, I still have sectional drawings of an existing site (to be renovated) to do, a... View full entry

Back on September 7, nearly two weeks ago now, the first day of school included a party/showing of the work all us first-year students had done during the Intro Workshop in the week before: we all had our 5-panel postcard series, and each tenting group was required to reconstruct their tents, sans... View full entry

The Laserre Building has a basement and four floors, with the main architecture studio space on the third floor. The program here essentially runs you through two years of basic school, followed by a 1.5-2 year thesis project. The third-floor studio is currently occupied by first-years (us) and... View full entry

All applicants to the UBC SoA were made aware this was a very intensive program. I was skeptical, to an extent, coming from an engineering program that required at least six classes per term (sometimes seven) for the entire four-year program; we were at school from 8am to 5pm just about every day... View full entry

Over the course of a week, the Intro Workshop is used to introduce all new MArch students (the course is mandatory) not only to the study of architecture, but also to the city they will be studying in. The schedule was something like this:Saturday: walking tour of Vancouver The walking tour... View full entry

The drawing workshop is a way for the many new MArch students from non-architectural fields to become acquainted with the technical, visual language of architecture. In short, we spent four days drafting. (The workshop is optional, so those from architectural backgrounds aren't required to take... View full entry

The University of British Columbia School of Architecture is based out of the Laserre Building, a modest four-level structure on the main UBC campus, which is located at the tip of a peninsula to the west of Vancouver's main land mass. (The UBC SoA also maintains auxilliary studio space in... View full entry

It was two weeks ago that I was finally getting to bed the evening before the Drawing Workshop, after a week of fretting. Prior to formal classes beginning each September, the UBC School of Architecture (SoA) hosts two workshops for new MArch students. The first is an optional, intensive four-day... View full entry