as some of you may know, i am in my graduate thesis semester and this week marks the beginning of the final stretch for our final presentations which will take place in a little over a month. i'm a little freaked-out, but i figure i would offer up a discussion that may help divert some of the... View full entry

there is yet to be any mention of chreods (i feel it's coming soon), but i found the introduction to this seminar course no less interesting. pleistocene describes the period during which humans evolved into their current form, and kwinter suggests that a return to understanding this primal... View full entry

i've been reluctant to post any thesis related material on this blog because post like these are so often thrashed for being only a means to solicit research help...please know that this is not one of those post. i think my research agenda is in place (as well as my advisors: juan azulay and tulay... View full entry

Wendover Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base in Utah. During World War II, it was a training base for B-17 and B-24 bomber crews before being deployed to the European and Pacific Theaters. Also, it was the training site of the 509th Composite Group, the B-29 unit which dropped... View full entry

An artwork by Nancy Holt, completed in 1976, consisting of four large concrete tubes, laid out in the desert in an open X configuration. The nine foot diameter, 18 foot long "tunnels" are pierced by holes of varying size, that correspond with the pattern of selected celestial constellations. There... View full entry

i'm out of breath and out of commentary, but hopefully the images will speak for themselves...The Spiral Jetty, considered to be the central work of American sculptor Robert Smithson, is an earthwork sculpture constructed in 1970. Built of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks, earth, and water on the... View full entry

I almost forgot... 01.16.08 | Jeffrey Kipnis: *@$#*!#!! 01.23.08 | Dan the Automator 01.30.08 | Peter Walker: Before the Memorial 02.06.08 | Manuel DeLanda: The New Materialism and the Mind 02.13.08 | Edward Eigen: A Crash Course in History 02.20.08 | Neil Spiller: Communicating Vessels 02.27.08 |... View full entry

somewhere within this collection of books lies a compelling and well articulated thesis argument just waiting to be extracted (now if i only knew where to begin looking). at this stage so much is left to faith, and it's easy to get lost, or at least misdirected, from the path of poignant... View full entry

Drop day is still in front of me, but for now the semester lineup looks like this: 1. Studio: X-Lab Vertical Studio: Hernan Diaz-Alanso 2. Theory: Philosophy of Technology: Wes Jones 3. Professional Practice: Project Management: Burcin Bercerik 4. Theory: Revenge of the Thing: Objects as Media... View full entry

This is an open invite for all to please join us for the SCI-Arc Graduate Thesis presentations on September 15 + 16, 2007 Sept. 15 Saturday 9am–12:30pm 2pm–5:30pm Sept. 16 Sunday 10am–1:30pm Thesis projects will be on view throughout the school from September 15&ndash... View full entry

I'm pretty hyped about the lecture series this fall. They all promise to be very relevant and exciting discussions...and what's even more exciting for me is that i may actually have time to attend them! Good work by the lecture organizers. All lectures begin @ 7pm and are open to the public. more... View full entry

I get the phone call from juan azulay around midnight on a sunday to come help out for a few days with some kind of temporary tent structure for the coachella festival. i didn't know what to expect at all, and was only told that lodging and accomodations would be provided and people who helped out... View full entry

as sad as it may sound, i'm going through a bit of studio withdraw right now as i upload these images from our final review. the delerium has come to a sudden halt, and i am left to wonder what to do with all this free time... the presentations went well for us. there was high praise for our... View full entry

For any prosepective students or anyone with interest in the MArch II Program at SCI-Arc SCI_Arc Main Space 2GBX Final Review | 18 April 2007 1:00 - 6:00pm My group is set to present around 4:00-4:30 Jurors include: Hernan Diaz-Alanso David Erdman Neil Denari Ramiro Diaz-Granados Sulan Kolatan... View full entry

assignment 01: re-parameterizations: a parametric case & design exploration "the purpose of the exercise is to research a given building envelope (ONL cockpit) to tease out the parameters of design and design thought. the exercise will provide a background in parametric design thinking and to... View full entry

this semester we are in groups of three, meaning they expect the output of nine. each group is asked to start with one of four templates: 1. structure 2. membrane 3. circulation/core 4. cellular aggregation our project started with an analysis of circulation systems, described here as a network of... View full entry

admittingly, my blog has been a bit photo heavy as of late. this is to mask the lack of written insight. although i very much enjoy writing, some things just have to give. maybe the lack of time. maybe the lack of motivation. probably both. this past weekend in pictures:planes, trains, and closed... View full entry

View full entry

after a little shifting, dancing, and finagling, the next semester's line up looks like this: 1. Studio "Infrastructural Architecture": Peter Testa 2. Theory "Design Intelligence": Michael Speaks 3. Research Seminar "Free Form Fabrication": Peter Testa 4. CATIA/Parametrics seminar: David Gerber... View full entry

inspired by the archinect post in the forum, here is my SCI-Arc top 10 must have/thank/see/do/eat list. 10. mytunes redux - free downloadable software that allows you to jack a person's entire itunes collection in a matter of minutes...err ummm, i mean that's what i've heard. 9. blossom... View full entry

love, 2GAX View full entry

midterms have come and gone. overall it went well for my partner and i. no severe criticism from the jury, and no comments that weren't forseen, but still plenty of room for improvement. more importatnly, however, i wanted to share some of the discussion/criticism that our studio got as a whole... View full entry

I often get asked who's teaching at SCI-Arc these days, so I compiled these images to give some faces to the names. I think its interesting that it is always the case for people of the arts to never smile in their pictures e.g. band members, philosophers, and in this case, architects. does it... View full entry

i found this posted on my door today. its the 3rd notice of its kind since i moved in 2 months ago (prior was a rap video and car commercial). word has it, bruce willis will be in the neighborhood tomorrow and already his presence is causing a commotion. the filming of this movie will cause the... View full entry

Mont Blanc (1999?). picture taken during a spring break trip in college when life gets muddled in the confines of long hours in concrete boxes, i look to pictures like these for inspiration. oh yeah, the bike that i wrote about earlier was stolen last night :( we had a good run while it lasted. View full entry

This is a sample of the work I have been doing for 2GAX studio (2.5 year grad). The result is not an architectural solution per se, but is an exercise to develop formal techniques to be applied towards a design brief in the next phase. we dealt mostly with issues of: 1. morphology: body... View full entry

so this entry is not architecture related, but i thought since there has already been discussion of mistaken identity and nobel prizes today (orhan wins), i thought i'd share a bit of coincidence with you. meet Quang Do, candidate for the nobel peace prize from BBC news:Thich Quang Do is the... View full entry

For the architecture student, finding that elusive balance between school life and life outside can be quite a challenge. What I've discovered is that this notion of “balance” doesn't just mean having one life to counterbalance the other as a matter of convenience, but actually... View full entry

a few shots of the library during my first work-study shift relax, reflect, repeat. and some pictures of exibit posters from yesteryear (in no particular order)... View full entry

Fall 2008 Thesis Presentation: a Foretelling... Once again, the main hall at SCI-Arc, in the middle of this pre-semester Sunday afternoon where he could not stay, he thought in a confused way that the new student he had been was due to be there too, watching the presentations. But first of all he... View full entry