Archinect - Iowa State University

Airport

2006-10-27T15:25:46-04:00

A rhetorical response?

Vernacularism, Modernism, and Stuff

2005-10-18T01:58:06-04:00

negotiation
negotiating between the two extremes of architecture, the vernacular and modernism, is serving as the basis of my work this, my final, semester.

so far, this theme is being applied to a research paper for one class and to my independent studio project. somehow i imagine it creeping into the department of archiecture website redesign in the near future.

courses and other:
the horizons of design
professional practice
science and technology four
independent project (department of architecture website redesign)
independent studio project (a cabin in northern wisconsin)
ta for arch230: design communications one

a view looking out onto lake from the project site in northern wisconsin.

other
graduating in december
working on portfolio
starting to apply

apology
sorry for the lack of posts. busy, busy.

European Travel Photos - Summer 2005

2005-08-21T19:08:07-04:00

this past summer i spent the month of may traveling around europe and the months of june and july in rome for school.

Europe

2005-07-03T18:25:42-04:00

I did some traveling in May after the semester ended. Britain, France, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, and Italy.

I'm in Rome right now taking classes.

I'll start up again when Fall classes start on August 22nd.

20 days

2005-04-23T02:02:59-04:00

there are 20 days until i leave the country for the summer. may 13th - june 1st i am traveling around europe by rail. june 1st to july 31st i will be in rome. that's all i can think about with less than a week until my final review.

i'm not too pleased with my work this semester. i spent too much time trying to come up w/ different schemes and then throwing them in the garbage.

a couple weeks ago we had a review. two days before, i started over for the millionth time. the review went well. so i decided to stick with it. i just wish i had the whole semester to develop it and detail the crap out of it.

viva roma.

test elevation done today. (max, autocad, photoshop)

san fran montages and other plans

2005-03-02T05:18:48-05:00

on a side note...i'm going to rome this summer for 2 months. my plan for an independent study is to take 'full scale' montages of daily life, architecture, people, signs, and other curiosities.

lots of files

2005-03-02T05:11:58-05:00

so it's 4:07 am. the morning of a midterm review for the gliderport.
i spend more time searching for a file than i spend actually working on it. ok ok that's not true but sometimes i feel like it is. sometimes my file management is impeccable and other times (stressful times) it just goes down the shitter.

i just deleted 20 files from the desktop too.

Back from San Francisco...

2005-01-29T16:51:20-05:00

well we got back from san francisco this past monday. good times. basically we had a whole bunch of free time except for friday when we went to the site with the architectural engineering students from caly poly. friday evening and saturday morning we had a little site analysis charette at ARUPs. other than that we basically we just walked around a lot and hung out around columbus in north beach. in between the site analysis and the charette on friday we took a little side trip to stanford. beautiful campus.

Ames, Iowa Gliderport Visit

2005-01-15T18:38:09-05:00

On Friday we took a trip out to the local soaring club at the regional airport. It just gave the studio a chance to see what soaring was all about and to ask questions. It was quite cold to say the least. 0Ã‚Â° + windchill. At the end of the semester we get to soar. Sounds scary but fun.

We're going to San Francisco on Thursday, Jan. 20th through Monday, Jan. 24th for a site visit.
We are also teaming up with architectural engineering students from Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo for the project.

Spring 2005 Studio Project

2005-01-15T18:34:06-05:00

Gliderport
Brisbane, California

"This studio will examine the relationship between architecture and its defining technological issues - assembly, structure, and environmental performance. Rather than seeing building technology as consumptive, we will adopt the more enlightened paradigm of using building science in terms of performance. The program selected, a regional gliderport, exemplifies a subtle, carefully thought out and rigorous approach to such technical issues as materials, construction, climate, and structure."

"This studio's exploration is intended to exercise your ability to integrate diverse objective and technical requirements into coherent designs. Therefore, the studio will demand well-disciplined work and stringent standards for attendance, presentation, and process. Your work should be conceptually rigorous and technically fluent, a difficult goal involving integration and iteration in addition to inspiration and rhetoric."

Instructor: Tom Leslie, AIA

Spring 2005 Schedule

2005-01-15T18:21:07-05:00

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Arch602: Advanced Architectural Design II / Comprehensive Studio
Arch588: Architectural Research in Practice
Arch590: Independent Study (Exhibit for Chipperfield's Figge Museum)
Arch590: Independent Study (Structures / Building Systems)
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Auditing: Arch528: Rapid Prototyping
TAing: Arch232: Design Communications II
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First Day Back

2005-01-10T10:39:42-05:00

Well today is the first day of the new semester. I came back to Ames a week ago because my hometown was incredibly boring. Not like the middle of Iowa isn't...

I promise I will post what my new classes are all about along with juror comments about last semester's final project as soon as I find my sketchbook...

20/20

2004-12-10T08:01:10-05:00

I woke up at 4:30am not because I had work to do but I couldn't sleep. Anxiety, anticipation, excitement are all in the air. I wish I had another 30 days to work on the project.

I'll post pictures and juror comments tomorrow sometime.

12:25am: The Final Push

2004-12-07T01:26:35-05:00

about to pull my 4th all nighter in the past 5 days. it's crunch time.

project progress and a bubble

2004-12-04T16:45:51-05:00

the museum project is going ok. i would like to think that's a decent project but i'm realizing that i could have done a few things to make it a lot stronger. hindsight is always 20/20. with 6 days left to go those changes are possible. perhaps over x-mas break.

week old ground floor plan of the history museum

we built a bubble a couple days ago.

decay

2004-11-15T00:19:14-05:00

i went to sioux city, iowa on friday to visit our site for the sioux city history museum. it wasn't all that interesting and was fairly straightforward. what was interesting however was the physical evidence of the decay of the city.

mmmm...creative juices...

2004-11-07T23:32:34-05:00

just listening to music and slaving away in 3ds and AutoCAD.
after a rough week, i finally had some creative juices flowing tonight.
still working on the sioux city history museum project.

one of my independent studies (structures) ended last week so that's pretty cool.

other than that...not much going on.

elevator ride up to studio.

the plastic column in the atrium that i promised a long time ago. sorry for the wait.

i don't know the story behind it.

outside the studio doors.

spider-man in his web of hot glue drizzles.

twilight zone

2004-10-29T16:23:04-04:00

well when i first came down to iowa i thought it was very strange. people staring. bees the size of your pinky finger. a love of corn that is very disturbing. things just got a little bit more strange yesterday morning. leonardo di caprio and jon bon jovi campaigning in the atrium of the college of design at 9:30am on a thursday morning. no one knew about it except for a couple people. quite the turn out indeed. 99% of which are design students no doubt.

marlon blackwell

2004-10-15T02:16:10-04:00

well james carpenter had to postpone his lecture until next spring. good news. marlon blackwell showed up. i can sum up the lecture in one word. amazing. i've never been to a more interesting and thought provoking lecture in my life. and it couldn't have came at a better time. he got me excited about the profession again.

here are some random scribbles i wrote while there:

dualities
ordinary vs. extraordinary
magnify small things
micro vs. macro
ideal vs. improvised
find a place between dualities
stay consistent and vigorous even if it means going at it alone.
bobo the wrestling bear
most buildings are diagrams; detailing makes it architecture
the act of detailing is a spatial proposition
it's like looking through a keyhole with both eyes. open up.
travel.
facadomy. (hahahaha)
a slipping relationship.

steven holl is coming soon. people are getting excited. i'm not. i want marlon to come back.

lecture series

2004-10-13T09:33:40-04:00

09.10 David Orr (Oberlin College)
09.12 Rob Rogers (Rogers Marvel Architects)
10.06 Christine Binswanger (Herzog + De Meuron)
10.13 James Carpenter (James Carpenter Design Associates)
10.20 Greg Pasquarelli (SHoP Architects)
10.27 Steven Holl (Steven Holl Architects)
11.10 Scott Murphy (Art Director, NYC)

lecture poster

sioux city, iowa

2004-10-13T09:20:15-04:00

The Sioux City History Museum is the next project on the agenda. Along the way we are having small projects to supposedly complement the museum project.

The first of which is to pick an object from the museum and design a sterioscopic postcard of the object. Seems a bit childish but when picking the objects the architectural implications of these things are pretty amazing. It's nice to finally be excited about this studio (even on the most simple of the tasks). I haven't finalized my object yet so I'm going to do four.

A Giant Clam
Altoids Tin
Railroad Car
Pigeon Camera (see below)

randomness is key. there are connections however.

more later.

by the way.....i moved back into studio. it's nice. how i missed you dear studio.

pigeon camera circa 1900 (the pictures are pretty spectacular)

on w/ the project

2004-10-05T02:13:14-04:00

so here's a quick recap of the past month and a half of studio.

project 1: analysis of cubist painting (not much to say)
project 2: loft (not much to say)
project 3 (current): sioux city history museum (just starting)

my daily schedule varies so much from day to day it's hard to fall into the rhythm of things. some days i have to be to campus by 9am to TA for 'history of western architecture: prehistoric - 1750 AD' and other days i can sleep until noon.

my laptop died about 4 weeks ago. it was a sad day.

i got my new computer (a desktop) last thursday. i'm still debating whether i should take it into studio or not. i work a lot more efficiently at home but i miss the studio culture. it's a toss up.

hopefully i'll get into my groove soon. i miss my groove...

laser modeling goodness

x-acto used for modeling

gotta love the flat land of iowa

and blurry sunsets.....

keep the ch'i flowin'.

brrrrr....

2004-10-05T02:02:03-04:00

it has gotten bitterly cold (40Ã‚Â°F) in the past week. it was 80Ã‚Â°F last week. what the hell happened?

The Beginnings....

2004-09-01T12:22:00-04:00

Well class has been going on for a little over a week.

Schedule
-----------
Arch 601 (Studio) - Advanced Architectural Design
Arch 528 (Seminar) - Urbanism: A Multidisciplinary Discourse of the Production of Space
Arch 541 (Seminar) - Building Systems and Techniques
Arch 590 (Independent Study) - Editor of the "Graduate Student Journal of Architecture" (yet to be named)

The faculty here are great. Very knowledgable, open, and witty.
The students (like most other schools) are a mixed bag.
Three of us have banded together and are pushing each other and collaborating on many ideas since we aren't finding it in other studiomates.

Today we have a studio review on a project we've been slaving away at since last Monday.

Project Description
-----------------------
"We will examine the concept of layered space, and the formal properties of such layering as evidenced in visual irony and visual play. As some of us may know, figural space is explicitly articulated and cir...