It's been a really long time since I haven't posted anything so I will try to catch on what's going on in my life.

So I went to Australia over the Christmas break, and it was awesome. I flew from Toronto to Sydney via SF, and it was a long trip. I stayed about five days in Sydney and we spent a lot of time just walking around looking at buildings, taking of course tons of pictures and enjoying the masterpiece: Sydney Opera House. Sydney is a nice city although it definitely has this business feeling to it. It's not extremely beautiful nor it is ugly. What is great about it is that there are beautiful beaches 20 minutes away from the CBD, lots of beautiful parks and it is very pedestrian friendly. I would particularly recommend the Sydney architecture walks led by the friendly and knowledgeable Eoghan. These tours a led by architects who take on their free time to do a great job on explaining everything that has to do with Sydney architecture.



Weird Architectural contraption in Sydney Olympic Park.
Opera House

We then went a couple of days in Canberra, which is basically a collection of all the twentieth century failed planning theories. It has a very official feeling to it. One can definitely feel that the human individual is supposed to feel tiny in this huge and empty town. It is in fact uber boring and unless you like government style planned cities, there is nothing to do or to see there.

We then went to Melbourne, which is the most beautiful city I've seen since NYC and Barcelona. It has this combination of older and newer buildings but at no point, one feels that they don't get along well. It is extremely clean and pleasant to experience. There is tons of interesting and beautiful buildings and it's currently undergoing a building craze, not unlike Toronto, except that the outcome is beautiful and well integrated in the existing fabric. My personal favorite is Federation Square where I kept going back during my stay. The Melbourne Design Guide does a great job at explaining how the city works, the places to be etc...






CH2 Melbourne
Federation Square
Archinecters of the world unite (in Fed Square)
Fed Square

We also went a couple of days in the bush, in a small mountain range called the Grampians National Park, and it was absolutely breathtaking. 50% of the area burned down due to a bushfire a year ago, so the landscape alternates between black burnt forest and lush green areas, kinda surreal.




Grampians National Park

The return trip was kinda hard, really long and tiring.

Next post I'll tell how the thesis project is going among other things.

Flickr for more pictures, to be posted really soon.