Sep '08 - Sep '11
We've entered Los Angeles' rainy "season" today (last year there were like three days total of noticeable rain), and have discovered some more delightful qualities of our studio in Perloff Hall: leaks. I don't know if institutional buildings in Los Angeles are just not waterproofed (is it cheaper to clean up after leaks three times a year than actually pay for waterproofing?), but these leaks are a bit disturbing because they mostly don't seem to be coming from the wall of windows, but instead from the joints between the columns and beams. This was made a bit more disturbing tonight after a small earthquake that felt and sounded a bit like someone dropped a car on the floor downstairs. I'm sure the leaks couldn't have corroded ALL of the beams' reinforcing and that we still have enough shear strength to withstand the Big One... right?
The official solution; yes, draining into a small trash can. I'm told I have weekend emptying duty.
Leakstop or installation art? (nice work Alex)
Opaque window
Also, I'm hoping the drip stains form a Virgin Mary like the one that appeared in a stain on a freeway overpass in my old neighborhood in Chicago. Maybe some Mary candles would liven this place up a bit.
Our studio could be...
Holy!
5 Comments
I feel your pain! My studio leaks above every window, and windows span its entire length. We had a long day of rain and a puddle collected in the middle of the studio, ridiculous.
Nice duct tape work.
wow...im sorry to say, this actually makes me feel a lot better about my own studio conditions.
UCLA studios WOULD leak. Just kidding.
yeah our first year studios are in the basement and I remember last year walking into a room with half an inch of water after a night of hard rain.
I was enjoying the prospect of long periods of rainlessness in southern california, but then you mentioned 'small earthquake' in such a casual manner. It may be snowy, rainy and cold in newark, but at least the ground stays put!
Podzilla, it's actually kind of fun to feel like the ground below is like a living thing - it adds vibrancy to the "urban experience" ... or something. And small earthquakes are interesting because they inject a brief moment of the uncanny into the day; but yeah, the mythical "Big One" is actually pretty scary. It was even kind of scary to be in a high rise hotel in Mexico City a couple years ago when a relatively minor earthquake had the whole building gyrating. You just have to not think about the Big One or find outlet in the classic laid-back California version of pathos in obsessing over the apocalypse - my roommates and I love disaster movies and talking about post apocalyptic survival, but we've only gone as far as buying an emergency supply of water and a box of cliff bars. Despite all that, I think I'd rather be in LA obsessing (good naturedly) over natural disasters than experience that neurotic New York obsession with death by terrorism. It's just not P.C.!
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