Sep '04 - Aug '08
Summer was nice and while it's great to see all my friends here at school, being back in Cambridge is a little less than exciting. This summer I worked for Toshiko Mori on Varrick St. in NYC. Varrick is an interesting place because it's stuffed with architects and designers. Our floor had Hargraves and OMA (before they converted to REX), the building also houses Sorkin, 2x4, and others. Down the street is Asymptote, Vinoly, etc, etc. It was great to live and work in NYC as I had never spent more than a week there. I already miss the buckwheat noodle salad from Mooncake Foods on Watts.
Being a 3rd year M.Arch I student I will be in option studios this semester. Options are a big to-do. In the morning all of the profs pitch their course with a short introduction to the project, the site, and-- importantly-- whether or not there's a funded trip. This year there are studios going to Tokyo, Mumbai, Detroit, Paris, Istanbul and maybe Dubai. Once the presentations are over everyone races to file their choices ranked 1-6 and then the ballots are computed by a secret algorithm which seeks to find the distribution with the fewest number of people getting their lower choices-- that is, it tries to make as many people as possible at least moderately happy.
I got my first choice which was a studio by Wes Jones. We're going to be looking into the work of SF architect Paffard Keatinge-Clay and then designing a building for a SUNY campus. There's no funded field trip for us (doh) but I think I may take it as an excuse to visit SF for a week this Fall. More on that later. If you're interested, the other options studios are not too shabby.
The semester is also starting off with a bang when it comes to lectures. Koolhaas will be speaking on the 26th, to be followed up by the likes of Gregg Pasquarelli (SHoP), Jan Kaplicky (Future Systems), Ben van Berkel, Keller Easterling, Greg Lynn, and numerous others. Look for the neon-colored flyer designed by Omnivore in the halls of an arch. school near you.
3 Comments
I thought lecture flyer looked like the cover of the new Praxis. Now I know why...Omnivore!
BOSS at GSD. You'll have a fun semester-
You really had studios going on funded trips to all those places? Options really are a big to-do. We were the envy of Fall options '87 when the Las Vegas Arts Council (yes, Virginia . . .) flew us out to kick off Antoine Predock's studio for the Clark County Library/Children's Museum.
I got to fly out there solo to set up the resulting exhibit. My entire night at the Golden Nugget was spent painstakingly trying to reconstruct other people's models from the shards in their inadequately cushioned crates. Rewarding studio nevertheless.
Your interesting slide shows compensate for the absence of blog for the third year, but I'm glad you are back and splitting for thesis so that I can ride the rest of this blog out as it unfolds.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.