I have a list of things to tell you about, but I'm too tired to get up out of my chair and go get it. Instead I'll tell you what I've been doing these last few weeks. One thing I wanted to mention is that I read the Bartlett article and I can say for certain: you will never queue here. This is Yale. They treat you right. That's what the Ivy League is all about.

I just finished a 13-page paper for Carter Wiseman and my "Writing on Architecture" class, which has 16 pages of figures to illustrate it. I paper was about the American Folk Art Museum in New York City by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. I concentrated on the real versus the rhetoric connections between the craft of the building and the nature of folk art. I enjoyed writing it, but it took me forever. I handed it in rather late. It wasn't until last night that I noticed my classmates' papers were either shorter than mine, or lacking on footnotes and images. I always wonder how so many people seem to get all their work done. Now I know: they only seem to get it done. I think I'm a pretty good writer, and I like this class, so I demanded a lot of myself. For example, I wanted to have a thesis! A clear thesis, something neither simple nor esoteric, written in clear manner free from jargon. (Words like "plan" and "section" or "axonometric" are not jargon, but "materiality" is, since it is not a word. I used the phrase, "use of materials" instead, as Carter instructed.) I should take a step back and say that all my classmates' papers were truly excellent. Perhaps mine was overwrought. -sigh- I had a hard time finding any review of the Folk Art Museum that was critical in any way. All the articles I read were glowing. It was only in Domus and Architecture + Urbanism, two Italian journals, that I found authors willing to criticize the section, the category of folk art, or anything else about Tod and Billie's work And I love their work. But I find it less awe-inspiring now that I've studied it
http://www.twbta.com/


a sparrow nesting in the facade (I took this. There are dozens of them in there.)

Two people wrote papers about SHoP, one about the Rector Street bridge in lower Manhattan, and the other about the Porter House apartment building in the meatpacking district. (We had to pick projects we could visit in person, so they were all in a hundred-mile radius of New Haven.) These students also had a very hard time finding anything critical published about SHoP. We talked for a while about that firm's ability to spin everything they do so well. They take intellectual ownership over everything they touch, even if their role was minimal, and they get away with it. One person commented that Greg Pasquarelli and Chris (or William?) Sharples never disagreed with each other during a crit when Greg taught a studio at Yale. They even dressed the same way, they were total masters of their image AND IT PAYS OFF! We all want to be like them. The class all liked their work, too.
http://www.shoparc.com/

I have another paper to write for my theory class, taught by the beloved Lauren Kogod.

Visit Lauren's faculty page
Everyone worships her. She's very intelligent, but I don't quite understand the fan-club phenomenon. Maybe it's because she's so good and she's a woman? I've never actually talked to her, but I'm meeting with her tomorrow to discuss my topic, Gottfried Semper and Cognitive Science. Yes, I'm one of those interdisciplinary people, and yes, I do have a background in biology. I spent 7 years working in labs until I realized I had to stop drawing glassware and switched to architecture.

And then of course there's studio. My critic is not so in to me right now. I haven't been working hard enough, according to him. What is really going on is that I'm writing these papers and that takes time too. I've spent more time in studio these past 2 weeks that ever before in the semester, but all he sees are unfinished wall sections. (I did do some bad ones, though, to be fair.) Tonight I worked to correct that. I laid out a structural grid and detailed some PVC-clad foam insulated panels for my facade -- it's a branch library, by the way. We've been working on it all semester, from type to prototype to variation. I want the PVC, or hopefully something non-toxic, because I want a shiny white exterior that's easy to clean, and I favor light-weight construction. It's modular, it's cheap, it's efficient; it's so hot. (That's the word my studio section uses to describe anything good.)
Visit Keith Krumwiede's faculty page

The good news it that I think I'm getting the hand of the nitty-gritty part of drafting now, ya'know, the part where you make things actually work and fit together and stand up. And I'm getting into it, too. I picked up a little book on Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa which is guiding me. They tend to publish quasi-construction drawings, which is so great. I love it. And the sudden affinity for white -- that's from them.

This is the new New Museum building on 235 Bowery in New York, about 4 blocks away from where I grew up. It's scheduled to break ground this month.




I promise more in the immediate future. I took more photos -- this time of the building.

Cheers! Here's to sleeplessness!