Aug '08 - Apr '09
Impressions from the first two weeks:
T H E C I T Y
- Halifax is incredibly vibrant.
- People are kind and polite (they go outside to use cell phones! - this brings me renewed joy each day)
- The hills provide excellent exercise and landscape inspiration, which I have yet to see be utilized as the architectural asset I believe it to be
- The industrial aesthetic is better than I could have imagined - Train Yards, Shipping Port, Oil refineries, Enormous Ships. Primary colours, and a scale that makes one feel erased
- It rains about half the time, the sky is a constantly changing shade of grey
- NSCAD (http://www.nscad.ns.ca/) Art & Design university makes this city incredibly rich with fantastic people
- The food is excellent and reasonably priced, fish is the best I've ever had
D A L H O U S I E (the school)
- The architecture building is brilliant
- The studio space is inspiring with mezzanines, nooks, and exposed brick
- The school of architecture is on a separate campus (with the engineering school), which I feel is beneficial
- The students in the program are generally mid-twenties or older
- The staff is relaxed (to a point of jeopardizing professionalism)
- I am somewhat discouraged at the limitations that are put on 1st year (B1) architecture students (not allowed to use the laser cutter, etc.)
M Y L I F E
- I feel very relaxed here, and relieved at not knowing anyone, the anonymity that provides and time with myself
- I've started painting water colours (which surprised even me - I used to hate the medium, but its feasible for travel and captures a feeling)
- I joined a silk screening collective
- I have to take another class to be a "full time student" in order to get my student loan, which I have to figure out
- I went on the Critical Mass bike ride and met some brilliant people
- I realized I've rented a good space (In the south end of the city), but its overpriced and I can get a better space for less, which I look forward to investigating
- For the first time in my life I've considered buying property
My experiences in Halifax in the Bachelor of Environmental Design program.
3 Comments
sounds great.
i used to live in fenwick tower, which was an amazing dorm. parquet flooring and the view from 29th floor was perfect ( i was p.t. student at nscad, while da was doing masters degree at dal, if you can believe it ).
halifax is a brilliant student town. one of places i would still consider living if i ever moved back to canada. not so much work as i recall, but just a great city. glad to read it is still fun.
hope you enjoy dal !
actually this sounds like a great rule!
i look forward to hearing about the canadian side of things! i've heard nothing but good about halifax, dalhousie, etc. welcome!
mantaray - it would be a great rule if I hadn't been using a laser cutter for work this last summer where I used an identical machine to design and cut plexiglass projects. I understand the reasoning behind it - they don't want students trying to run before they can walk (ie. use an exacto knife and make models by hand first, which is very valuable), but this should be a rule perhaps for submitted studio work - not just a blanket rule "First year students can't use the laser cutter". Why put these unnecessary restrictions on people who already have the qualifications and training?
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