Sep '04 - Apr '06
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 place to work, with good people and all the rest. Totally Mac-based office; there seems to be quite a few of them in Vancouver.
I've been programming in VectorWorks's bastardized version of Pascal, customizing the software for the office's purposes. I'm doing some promo work and admin work too. I headed up an RFP submission that was due last week, so that was good times. What else....
Next week I'll be starting on some actual project work, probably doing drawing revisions and some FSR calculations. These are apparently the things working architects hate more than the plague itself, but for a newcomer to the game, I find it nothing short of fascinating.
That's the other "problem," I guess. I find work in architecture about a billion times more interesting than school. Working in an office actually makes me excited about becoming an architect, whereas in school it was sometimes hard to find the line where good design (education) ended and the bullshit began.
In any case, I'll be sticking it out at work for an eight-month term, and gaining some co-op credits in the process. I think I'll be quite excited by school come December, and I think the real-world experience will not only improve my core design skills, I think I'll have a much better idea about the types of things in architecture that interest me, from an architectural design/research/theory perspective.
On my reading pile:
Robert Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
Tschumi and Bermans Index: Architecture
Koolhaas's Delirious New York
Richard Francis's Fat Hen (not an architecture book so much...)
Terence Conran's Easy Living
Frankel, Litchfield, and Ord Manroe's Design & Detail
The Home Decorator's Bible (I'm remodeling the apartment... My girlfriend picked up this one and the last two from the library)
I don't have many images at this very moment, but I'll post this one from the Flickr going-away party that happened last month here in Vancouver (apologies about the size):
It's been pretty shoddy weather here in Vancouver (lots of rain), but when it's nice out, damn, is it ever nice. I must find you a picture.
My girlfriend is in London for a number of weeks right now working for CBC London, so that's pretty cool. Except that it's been pretty depressingly quiet around the apt... :(
And I ripped apart a laptop earlier this evening. A friend of mine spilled wine into it and fried the motherboard, so it was time to see what was salvageable....
And now, back to the student-loan applications. Wish me luck. Talk to you soon.
9 Comments
What kind of "bastardization for the office" are you doing? Just curious (wouldn't want you to let out confidential info).
VectorScript. It's VectorWorks's "built-in" scripting language. It essentially uses the basic programming constructs (syntax, etc) of Pascal, but it's greatly extended through various VectorWorks functions. It lets you do some pretty fancy stuff, but I'm pretty sure they couldn't have used a more cumbersome, outdated system. Maybe Fortran...
This portion of my work involves making customized drawing symbols so that the office can have consistent labelling across drawings and projects. Part of this also includes automation of various schedules and streamlining a collection of standard symbols (toilets, etc) as well as template definition and standardized classes. Add it up, spice with Pascal, and you get FUN!
Anyone wanna hire me? I can always use extra cash on the side...
you're such a poser. UBC Architecture school is full of people like you, it makes me sick.
What exactly am I posing as?
you're a phoney.
A phony architecture student? Not dedicated to architecture? Not "keeping it real"? Not architect material because I enjoy the odd interior design book now and then? Obviously I'm doing something wrong, according to you. Please elucidate...
Mitra,
I hate to argue with you, really I think your a sweetheart. But, David is a sweetheart too. Not a phoney. He is intelligent and nice. He is exactly the sort of person the SOA needs more of.
"Here at least we shall be free;
the Almighty hath not built
Here for His envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
This is getting confusing...
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