Sep '06 - Dec '09
The season has begun. We lost two faculty members last year but we gained two as well, Paula Loomis and Sarah Robertson. I look forward to working with the both of them sometime during my time here. It’s been a hectic week with schedule changes, book purchases, and the architecture adrenaline is high. I’m pretty sure it’s the same environment across the board in architecture schools. I ‘am taking Intermediate Arch Design with Daisy Williams and Paula Loomis, Building Science II with David Peronnet, and Graphic Design with Joseph Martin. A light schedule this semester thanks to being a transfer student as my general courses are all completed. I can focus more on studio this semester and possibly some extra curricular activities or a new hobby. We had our annual welcome back lecture where the faculty members introduce themselves and spread a little knowledge of what we can expect this year. I think I will be pulling many all nighters this year because third year is known as the “zapper” year. Most students decide weather they want to continue or switch majors in this year. I hope we retain our class because we have a great mix of talent in my studio. 
On another note we hit the studio running. We were to think about our position on public transportation. What is transportation today? What was transportation yesterday? Why does it or doesn’t work? Should we return to it? How? We are to convey our point of view through graphic poster, story book, web page/site, model, video, etc. The work is to speak for itself. I took it as a silent critique but with thorough discussion at the end. I’m for public transportation. We have become a society dependent on the motor vehicle. We have begun to build our cities based around the car. The Federal Highway Act of 1921 put the automobile in a whole new spatial arrangement by mandating the creation of double lane paved surfaces known today as the interstate highway. A great feat in public works but where has it left us in the way we build our built environment? “Sprawl Land.” “Spatially obese land.” I drive ½ hour everyday to attend school and would jump on the opportunity to take a light rail to save time and gas. I took into account the fact that I live in suburbia land and I have never ridden Hampton Roads public transportation. I take that back I‘ve ridden the Ferry from Norfolk to Portsmouth on various occasions. I’ve ridden DC’s, NY, and San Francisco’s public transportation but not any of the buses in Hampton Roads. So I went for a ride on the “Net” in Norfolk, Virginia. Quite an adventure because I didn’t know exactly where I was going. I started off in waterside and ended up at the local Opera house. I had enough and walked the rest of the way back. It wasn’t a long ride but I just wanted to get a feel for how our local transit system works, plus it was free. Through my research I found that Norfolk is building a light rail system this year. It will be called The Tide.
I decided to design their metro card holders and information packet. I hope it conveys my idea that I’m for public transportation. Mind the colors I forgot to switch to RGB but they turned out great when I printed them.
5 Comments
Dude, that looks pretty sweet! Larger pictures available anywhere?
You might like my favorite transit billboard of all time, plastered all along the side of the constantly-jammed freeway here in Chicago:
FIGHT CONGESTION ... support mass transit
With a really cool simplistic graphic of one train = lots and lots and lots of little cars. I wish I could find a pic of it online to show you how cool it is. They also have awesome billboard ads that say something like "if you rode metra you'd be home by now." an oldie but a goodie!
I actually was leaning towards a billboard but the photo I took was too congested (pun intended) with clutter and i didint want to fix it. It was hard coming up with witty punchlines for the bill board. Here is one of my prototypes.
<img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1258/1353609930_fdf145d008_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="rear view prototype" />
If you click on the picture it will link you to my flickr page where you can view them in a larger size.
nice work.
mass transit is cool but not a panacea. i use the train to go to school and office everday. however, and this is a big one, i absolutely would get to school faster and with more options upon arrival if i had a car. this is cuz my school moved and it now takes 2 hours to ride to school ONE WAY. a car trip would be less than an hour cuz the roads are direct while the train requires a trip into the center then back out again.
my commute to work is 40 minutes one way across tokyo. i like this trip most days, but i am also getting tired of it. and i am in the centre of the city. not even in the suburbs proper. driving would take longer on regular roads, about as much time if i used the toll roads/highways. it would def be more expensive by car.
i think there are many roads to sustainability and mass transit is only one way to get there. it is as a method entirely dependent on the assumption that we will never improve our energy use patterns...which i am not so certain of. i mean if the goal is to reduce energy use why do we always get stuck into the automobile question? with so much energy use sucked up by houses and offices etc, it might be more useful to consider improvements on that level...or even elsewhere.
it is interesting to note that the idea of mass transit is only a bit older than a hundred years and lasted only for a few decades...there are a group of academics who suggest the idea is therefore an anomoly and abberation that only worked when people were not able to make decisions for themselves. they are neither pro nor anti-auto, but they suggest that the democratisation of movement via the auto changed the situation so thoroughly that any attempt to return to a system based on a paucity of choices is not likely to succeed. unless other cultural changes also take place. which makes the problem much harder...
Being reliant on mass transit leaves me frustrated and angry on most days. My boyfriend's being reliant on his automobile leaves him frustrated and angry most days. We go back and forth and back and forth on it--I, pining for some control over my movements and he, longing for the peace of the passenger side. I think the only truly satisfying approach for a city-dweller is a mixed one--if only because it lessens one's exposure to each extreme of annoyance.
good luck on the new school year... i thought i'd let u know that i sent a copy of the Fresh Air publication to the Arch Library- so talk to Norma and make sure they got it if you want it.
-again, good luck-
krissy
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