I've gotten a lot of crap for my lack of attentiveness w/ the blog. I slowly fell behind last quarter as it was incredibly intense and I kept wanting to do a huge post and catch everyone up.

But it just has gotten bigger and bigger and in the name of good blogging we will have to ignore the lost time and get back to business.

This spring quarter is going to be a good one i think. Last quarter unfortunately I think I experienced a bit of burnout at the end and just didn't finish with the bang I wanted to. Much respect to my other classmates that endured and had some great projects.

So this quarter's lineup for myself:

Structures II, Studio (third of the five core studios), Climatology, and a Tech Seminar.

Studio this quarter has a focus on landscape. Starting out w/ a case study we've gotten our project which is housing for Olympic athletes under the premise that we're doing this for the LA bid for the 2020 games. There are two sites, each being quite long in dimension. One is over a storm-drain culvert in Lawndale and the other is in the valley under a high tension power line easement.

The tough part is everything we've done has originated from a strong pedagogical philosophy in how generative diagrams based on the conditions we're given are transformed into architectural form. This time, it seems wholly different as there are very few constraints. The only dominant factor is the dimension of the site and an overall FAR of 0.5. So it inevitably is focused on the remaining open space available.

I've picked the culvert site as I think it's got a lot of sectional potential. There's an existing two story parking garage that spans across the culvert which I think gives the site a lot of opportunities. The other site is a bit tougher as it's almost a tabula rasa with the only major gesture being some large powerlines overhead. It's affectionately as the cancer site. Though being over a Los Angeles storm drain probably leads to it's own health issues as well.

The interesting part of the project is that we have to project the housing into the post-olympic phase as it could function as a housing development.

The other studio I'm taking is tech seminar taught by Heather Roberge. This seminar is focusing on a method of panel fabrication known as superplastic forming. It's essentially a way of forming aluminum panels where they're heated and formed by moulds or female and male tools. It's very similar to vacuum forming plastic but has more potential as the metal provides better tolerances and structural possibilities. The process can also allow post or pre-forming CNC milling and routing that can further increase possibilities. The studio is bounded by the idea that we're making panels to fit a 30'x15' facade structural grid that is limited to two types of panels. In other words we tessellate with just two different panels. Though flipping of the panel or rotation is allowed.

We're working in groups and a lot of interesting stuff is evolving. Our group is chiefly interested in trying to create a panel system that allows for different patterns that can change over the course of the entire field so as to create difference at a variety of scales.


The field as a whole. These are a few possibilities in patterns. I think we can start emphasizing a different larger geometric grain if we play with the depth of the ridges and valleys more.



Iso's of the two pieces used to make up the pattern

It's been a great class as I've gotten to learn how to use Maya, the milling machine, and how to vacuum form.

More to come and I apologize about my previous absence. I know some ppl have been bitching at me about it. But I'm back.