With it being Ball State's Fall Break over the weekend, I took to the road and headed back to my Alma Mater at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The occasion was an Illinois/Indiana football game (I've now seen Indiana get whooped by Ball State and Illinois this season) but while I was... View full entry

Next week (Oct 20-22) Ball State is hosting an international conference on open architecture. There are two keynote lectures: Monday Oct 20- Dietmar Eberle presents "Teaching Based on Levels of Built Environment" Tuesday Oct 21- Paul Lukez presents "Suburban Transformations" Along with the keynote... View full entry

So that means I have an exam tomorrow in HP Building Documentation and one Wednesday in HP Technology. Its been at least 18 months since I took any sort of exam, but I think I'll do just fine. I've been to all the lectures and completed all the readings so I shouldn't see any surprises. Nothing is... View full entry

I just spent the last two days finishing up my Thesis and Design Project Proposal (10-page draft) and now I'm heading home for the weekend. This trip home has been on the calendar for a while as it's my Dad's birthday weekend and my sister and her husband will be in town one last time before they... View full entry

Next week I have a 10-page rough draft of my thesis and design project proposal due and part of the requirements is the beginnings of a literary review. So last week I headed to the library and checked out seven books to get me started. I'm sure some will be of great assistance while others will... View full entry

On Tuesday I headed to Arcadia, IN with my Historic Preservation Documentation class to begin work documenting our historic building. Arcadia is literally in the middle of nowhere. After about an hour of side roads lined with rows of corn we finally made it to this small town. Good think we didn't... View full entry

It was an architecture free weekend as things are just beginning to pick up this week. So with Ball State taking on in-state rival Indiana University in football on Saturday, three architecture graduate students and I hopped in the car and took a road trip to the game. All day tailgating ensued... View full entry

Alright here's a short recap of the past few days and a quick peek at the forseeable future. UPDATE: Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects will be coming to Ball State in November (exact date TBD) to both speak and teach/provide critiques in my design studio. Since I'm heading to Peru during winter... View full entry

In my last post I mentioned that for my photo essay (investigating an addition to a historic structure) due Monday in studio that I had chosen SHoP's, The Porter House. Well it turns out that not only is The Porter House one of my professor's favorite works of architecture, but also, that he and... View full entry

I just received the semester project for my Preservation and Documentation of Historic Buildings class. Working in teams of 4 (well my group got the extra person, so we're a group of 5) we're going to create an abbreviated Historic American Building Survey (HABS) report for a historic building in... View full entry

So two weeks are in the books and I think I'm finally finding my groove. There's been little work in the way of school, so I've been keeping myself busy with another project. Well that's not entirely true about the school work. I did have a small project due in Historic Preservation Studio on... View full entry

I think its pretty common for professors to get to know their new students for the semester by having them answer a few questions. However, I think the questionnaire I received yesterday, labeled "10 Questions" even though it is around 14 or 15 questions is the most unique and pertinent I have... View full entry

Day 1, done! I wish there was something that could be done about the first day of class as they always seem so useless. I guess its the nature of the beast that a small introduction and handing out of syllabi is the best way to get every one grounded before we hit the ground running. As its been... View full entry