Archinect - Boston Architectural College (Albert)

Transferring to the sunshine state

2009-10-05T16:01:32-04:00

I’ve been dreading writing this last entry for weeks now, but I think it’s finally time to come clean. I’ve made the big decision and I’m transferring to New School of Architecture and Design in San Diego. It’s a tough decision for a lot of personal reasons—I’ve lived in Boston for 10 years now and it’s just started to feel like home. All of my friends, networks and associations are here. So naturally moving cross country alone is a difficult decision. And transferring to a relatively new and unknown school was also a decision that required a lot of introspection.

People who know me or have met me in the past year know that I am all about the BAC. And I think I kinda shocked a lot of my classmates when I told them I was leaving. And I do want to make it clear that my decision to leave has little to do with the quality of education at the BAC. And I whole-heartedly believe that achieving a BAC degree is an impressive feat in and of itself. It is however, unfortunate but t...

Lifecycle Building Competition: Project Farm To Market

2009-09-03T12:19:50-04:00

Our entry for the Lifecycle Building Challenge

Farm to Market: A Place for Nature in the City

Our structure is an abstraction in modular design using reclaimed grain bins from regional farms. The concept of brining the farm to market is the driving force behind this design. Two main case study locations were chosen within Boston's urban landscape: Government Center and Prudential Center. The ease of assembly and structural versatility allows this design to be erected in either a linear or cluster configuration. The steel grain bins, while rural in origin, have a sleek, urban finish that writes them fluidly into the city's vernacular. With the addition of the wooden palettes and concrete rainwater purification planters and supports, the entire structure transforms into a cohesive design that connects the farm to the market.

Design Adaptability and Disassembly:

Currently, the farmers' markets in Boston are held under temporary tents placed sporadically around the city, depending ...

2009 Graduation Exhibition

2009-06-29T19:37:04-04:00

Some pictures of our Thesis Student's work on display in our gallery. The display is up until July 12 and open to the public, come visit!

I'm going to start liking these photos to my Flikr account, which is a little easier to post photos to, so click on the images below to see more.

B-1 Boathouse Final Photos

2009-06-02T21:13:23-04:00

site analysis/diagrams

LEGO Architecture

2009-05-25T11:37:28-04:00

Maybe I should build my studio models out of LEGO's?

http://www.lego.com/en-US/architecture/default.aspx?domainredir=lego.com

All Done! 1 year down, SO many more to go

2009-05-23T14:29:40-04:00

While I recover from the after-studio-final-crit party, I thought I would share some images from the past few days. I have to work on documenting all of my work, so in the next couple days I'll be putting final photos of the boathouse project up, but for now:

3 Days in the laser cutter room...are laser cutters bad for your health??

Key Concept Model for Site Analysis

My DISGUSTING living room, which still has yet to be cleaned.

My final model.

Some work from fellow students:
concept model depicting noice and views in kenmore square

Maryna M's work

Presentation

Celebration

.....

3 Days and Counting

2009-05-19T01:15:12-04:00

Just 3 more days! Final review is this Thursday and it's crunch time! The past few weeks have been a little rough. I'm relieved to say that I'm pretty confident that I passed Structures I. Definitely NOT with flying colors though! In fact, I'm not even going to post up my final project...it's just embarrassing.

With Structures and History A out of the way, all I have left is Studio. Motivation has been running low. There's just not enough time, as usual. BUT, after today, I'm starting to feel hopeful about my project.

Since my last post, I feel like I've gone through dozens of iterations and it feels like i've just been spinning the wheels over and over again. Here's what i'm working on now. I've only modeled the structural and floor plates so far, but it's coming along.

More updates as I go....

Boathouse Concept Model

2009-04-18T10:46:25-04:00

A few random notes:
Spring is here in Boston! WOO HOO! It actually made it into the 60's two days in a row!
A big congrats to my friend Lisa who just got accepted to Columbia's GSAPP program!
And finally, good luck to Raj who is running the Boston Marathon on monday!

Ok...now to architecture
Below is the preliminary design for a community boathouse to be sited on the Boston side of the Charles River. It is to house crew boats, not sail boats. We've just been introduced to the specific program elements, so this model doesn't incorporate specifics, but it does differentiate between athelete's areas vs public/guest areas. The goal of the project is to develop site analysis skills, create a thesis from that, and incorporate it into building design.

The site for my boathouse is at a location which can be described by convergence. It is where Boston and Cambridge connect. It is located in the vicinity of Kenmore Square which is a major node in Boston. It is also the lo...

Career Symposium

2009-04-07T11:06:13-04:00

This past weekend the BAC held a Career Symposium. In past years it's been a job fair, but given the state of the economy we felt it would more appropriate to have something a little different. The symposium included workshops with BAC alumni and faculty in interviewing skills, resume, cover letter, and portfolio workshops, an IDP workshop, and job tables from "alternative practice" type firms. These are companies that are related to architecture, but not traditional architecture firms, and included Autodesk, Green Jobs Coalition, Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, Neoscape, and the Center for Human-Centered Design.

The alternative jobs were particularly helpful for BAC students considering that we need to fulfill a set amount of internship hours in order to move on to Segment 2 (or 3) of our program, and since most arch. firms have a hiring freeze the BAC is allowing students to submit credit hours for related work.

The show stopper was definitely Neoscape--the...

Visual Candy

2009-03-26T11:03:26-04:00

Just wanted to share a website I came across the other day.

http://www.thecoolhunter.net/architecture/

The images below are taken from thecoolhunter.net.

Paris based architect Jouin Manku, built in Kuala Lumpur called the YTL Residence.

A Bookstore by Amsterdam based architects Merkx + Girod, in Amsterdam.

Antwerp, Pieter Peerlings and Silvia Mertens.

Exploration vs Instruction

2009-03-21T11:59:50-04:00

Sorry to everyone for not having had the chance to write the past few weeks. I've been pretty occupied with work, and part of it was my own fault. I took a a 5 day trip to the Bahamas for a wedding which was a well needed break from things, but ended up putting me so far behind in my work, it got pretty crazy.

My studio review went ok. Part of the criticism was on my failed ability to communicate my ideas visually--which was a valid point considering that I had flown in from the Bahamas the night before and had 6 hours until my review to organize and clean up my drawings and diagrams. (I’m pretty sure I was still a little hung over too.)

I've started noticing a recurring theme at the BAC which is beginning to frustrate me. I think the overall teaching methodology could be described as "exploration" as opposed to "instruction." We're generally thrown into the deep end and expected to learn how to swim. For those who manage to figure it out the experience is incredibly fru...

Snow Day!

2009-03-02T11:08:44-05:00

It's a Snow Day today! Which means my mid-term review is postponed, which means I chose to sleep last night instead of finishing my work, which means I'm even farther behind than I was before! awesome.

My B-1 studio review was on our progress with our building analysis. I was assigned the Shodan House by Corbusier, tasked with analyzing its elements and relationships and deploying them in a new inhabitable space/structure. My analysis involved looking at how 1) structural system enhances vertical perceptions, 2) facade and edge conditions dictate sun and wind effects, 3) structural system's relationship to circulation and program. The first stages were really basic--diagraming isolated elements. Then diagraming elements that are in relationship to each other. We spent a good 5 weeks doing this--which honestly could have been done in less than half the time.

Onto to deployment. I first started by creating a new structural system, similar but different. Instead of usi...

Sketch Problem 1

2009-02-27T13:09:47-05:00

Posting some photos of our one-day Sketch Problem—it’s basically a 1-credit required class where we’re given a design problem at 9am, and given about 12 hours to design a solution via model and drawings. They kept calling it a charette, but there wasn’t much of a collaborative effort, or sharing of ideas. It was however pretty intense, and really made us work our butts off and overall a pretty awesome experience....other than the fact that it ate up my saturday.

We were basically tasked with designing an artist’s studio, given the dimensions, and asked to implement direct and indirect sunlight. Representatives from Velux, a skylight company, came and introduced us to a number of their products, which also included solar water heaters (those are the black panels on my model).

Below are photos of my work on display along with a few other’s whose work was chosen out of the seminar.

A summary of 1st semester work

2009-02-16T11:54:47-05:00

Some work from last semester

Figure/Ground Study

Inhabitable Wall Project

A space sited in a Boston alley. System of circulation, and heirarchy of private vs public spaces derived from a musical analysis of Radiohead's Subterranean Homesick Alien, performed by The String Quartet.

Entry 1

2009-02-16T11:42:53-05:00

Welcome to my blog. I chose to start writing about my experiences at the Boston Architectural College for a number of reasons. First and foremost to give back to the Archinect School Blog project—Nicholas Ng’s blog about the BAC was a huge help for me when I was trying to determine what school to attend, and even whether or not I wanted to pursue architecture as a career.

I’m 27 years old and I’ve done a plethora of different things in my life. I wanted to be a photojournalist in high school, decided to do my summer internships as a newspaper page designer. After college I worked at a special education high school for students with emotional/behavioral problems. I then worked for three years in real estate, and as the real estate bubble burst, I was up for yet another change. I had narrowed the decision down to school but I was faced with deciding between getting my MBA, or going for the much more lengthy, less promising (in terms of salaries), and less astute in my family...