Archinect - Texas A&M University (David Morris)

AutoHotKey and Firefox Quick Searches

2007-01-17T15:14:16-05:00

All you windows users out there cannot possibly live without this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=autohotkey

here are some of my hotkeys i'm using right now:

::btw::by the way ::brb::I'll be right back ::gtg::Hey I gotta go ::lol::hahaha ::rofl::haha, awesome :OR:goog::http://www.google.com/search?q= :OR:froog::http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q= :OR:gimg::http://images.google.com/images?q= :OR:fimg::http://flickr.com/search/?q= :OR:gmaps::http://maps.google.com/maps?q= :OR:uslang::http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term= :OR:wk::http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=

thank you, lifehacker

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-fifteen-firefox-quick-searches-129658.php

Robot House Builder

2007-01-17T13:34:38-05:00

This is a long way from being a great idea, but it's still cool:

http://ummyeah.com/page/Contour_Crafting

Roldan+Berengue - closing look

2006-12-19T14:55:21-05:00

a few weeks ago, we won the Ascer ceramica award for interior architecture. I forgot to blog about it, so here it is in a nutshell:

link.

melissa bauld and I did all the photos and layouts for the competition, so i'd like to think my photos had something to do with the final decision. check out the project page for more of the photos.

my last photo for the office:

click this image for a bigger version as well.

Goodbye Barcelona Photoshoot

2006-12-19T14:45:23-05:00

I'm leaving tomorrow, and I just wanted to share a few of my last photos of Barcelona. I'm ready to go home, but i'll miss it... we were so close... *esnif.

click the images to see a bigger version:

let me know what you think, and no i have no idea what that black spot in the bottom one is...

Nou Mercat Barceloneta

2006-12-17T07:48:26-05:00

Construction photos of the new market in barceloneta.

More TopMod

2006-12-13T20:13:10-05:00

I haven't posted in a while now, but I will be catching up on old news this week.

This is a post about TopMod, a topological mesh modeling program for the Texas A&M Visualization Laboratory.

I'm doing a course called computer aided sculpting while I'm here in Barcelona, and I just wanted to put up a few sample images to show what I've been working on.

and here is the full gallery at picasawebalbums.

let me know what you think...

I've been working on getting the latest version of TopMod compiled on windows xp, which I finally managed to do last week, and eventually we are going to put it on sourceforge. stay tuned...

unofficial topmod discussion forum

Pharos Project

2006-12-03T18:22:45-05:00

I just got this link from a friend back home. It sounds really promising:

Pharos Project

Barcelona Meeting Point Photos

2006-11-13T12:53:44-05:00

I got a free pass to Meeting Point this weekend, the big real estate convention in the Fira Barcelona at Placa

Espanya. It was well worth going just to see how much money all the promotors spend on their stands and on the

professional models of all the new catalunya construction projects. R+B had three projects on display there. For

one of them, els munts, the promotor commissioned a gigantic detailed model. It's a small housing development in Altafulla

just outside of Tarragona.

The photos didn't come out that well since there was a big plastic case around the model.

Here are some of the stands that were scattered around the exhibition floor.

Yes, that's correct, they even had a 1-hole miniature golf course for the kiddos.

The big white-lit stand above was for the placa Europa if I remember correctly. It was a big series of competitions from a few years ago that is just now getting around to being built. Toyo Ito's building steals the show here. But we have a building ...

Barcelona Construction Photos - Justice City / Placa Europa / Random glass boxes and more

2006-11-09T06:56:24-05:00

I went on a site visit today to the placa Europa area just on the other side of Montjuic in l'Hospitalet, and on the way back I got lost, and ended up walking down gran via all the way to Placa Espanya. That translates in non-Barcelona terms to, a long f****** way. Anyways, here are some photos from my trip.

The new justice city by david chipperfield (we came in 2nd place apparently in the competition way back when, before I knew how to spell Barcelona)

The train to the airport near the hesperia tower.

obligatory photo of ikea

someone please comment on this post and tell me what building this is.

ditto for this one

and of course, the beatiful site photos of the torre habitatges gran via.

I was kind of looking for the habitat LED solar powered mesh hotel thing, but I had no luck. Have they even started building it yet? I could have sworn I saw a siteplan of it somewhere on the internet, and I walked right by where I thought it was, but alas, it wasn't. And to top it off I ste...

Barcelona Architecture Music Video

2006-11-06T14:59:31-05:00

My old roommate sent me this video today. I'm not crazy about the song, but the video is really great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUGh_3UYtIk&NR

It would be nice to be able to embed videos in blog posts.

I dropped the plate.

2006-11-02T18:22:39-05:00

I remember back in high school spanish class the day we learned how to tell someone you dropped a plate. You can say, "Se me cayÃ³ el plato," which roughly comes back into english as "The plate fell, but it certainlly wasn't my fault."

I was thinking about it on my way to work this morning, and for me, that really sums up my experience here so far. I don't know if I can even explain that very well, but suffice it to say that if you plan on dropping any plates any time soon and getting away with it, better do it in Spain.

In other news, I found out today that Google stopped indexing content in hidden or display:none divs on web pages... in late 2005. Why didn't I get the memo? I made the menu on the r+b website with a hidden div, and if you try to search via google, none of the project pages come up on any of the searches, or the news items for that matter, since they are also hidden. Something has to be done about this. I haven't really found a good fix that I want to try yet, a...

Jaume Fuster Library Photos

2006-10-25T16:36:31-04:00

I saw the news post today about the jaume fuster library, I guess I'm a little late on that, but anyways, I took some photos of the library a while back in July. It's a really great building, but the space outside is just awful. In time I'm sure it can turn into something, and as long as they don't let it turn into another Sants EstaciÃ³, then it should be okay.

I had to hop a fence and go on a closed walkway to get this one:

and here is the one that was on the croquis website (he must have been on top of the building behind where I took my shot from, and I suppose he photoshopped that light pole out of the picture):

I had to delete the last photo competition post, sadly, but anyways, let me know what you think.

original post

Roldan+Berengue new website launched. finally.

2006-10-19T12:07:21-04:00

I finally got to "launch" the new website of the studio today. Let me know what you think:

http://www.roldanberengue.com

Gmail Lockdown

2006-10-03T13:08:18-04:00

Since I started creating the new web site for the office, I've been looking for the ultimate architecture project display engine for the web. I like the works page of Jean Nouvel, example, but it's completely inaccessible being put into flash like that.

After hours of Google searches and no less than 50 seemingly endless wiki article chains, I stumbled upon the WikiTimeline Project. It's a script written by Erik Zachte. It's basically a script that converts time based data into a static image with hyperlinks. It even supports svg now. Anyways, it's an amazing project, and I thought I had finally found the answer. But something about the timelines is missing. They display all the information, and you can pick whatever colors you want, but a lot of times they end up looking... ugly, or something close to it.

Which brings me to the next great discovery for me for the week: The MIT Simile Timeline project. It's an AJAX DHTML timeline app that anyone can include in their own webpage....

Spanish Building Facade Designer

2006-09-30T08:17:32-04:00

We just finished a competition at the office yesterday afternoon, and after seeing the elevation drawings that were produced, I was inspired to create the first ever javascript css Spanish building facade designer.

It's still in the works, but it works well enough for now to try it out. *edit - my old website is down, so for now i changed the address over to good old zippyzest.com...

Why does every elevation drawing of a "Spanish building" have to look the same? It's a box, with floor height divisions, and then a bunch of windows, of all different widths, that seem to have some kind of meaning. Well I asked in the office yesterday who drew them on this competition and why, and the only answer i got was, "b/c it's cool to draw buildings like that." Surely there is a reason. Or was it just that one cool Spanish architect drew a building that way 10 years ago, and it became trendy.

Someone please explain it to me. I just don't get it.

Fiesta de la MercÃ© - Fireworks Spectacular

2006-09-25T19:52:50-04:00

This is the only way I know to describe the fireworks mania that happened tonight (give it some time to load):

Corre Foc Barcelona

2006-09-24T18:48:45-04:00

Last night was the Corre Foc, part of the weekend of La Mercé. It was my first time to be a part of something so insane in Barcelona, but definitely my second time since i've been in spain this go-round.

I left with my newly repaired digital camera and a blue sweatshirt, and I came back soaking wet with 460 blurry photos, two burn marks on my neck that ended up looking like a vampire bite, and a really nice smoke smell all over myself that is still kind of hanging out.

Highlights of the Corre Foc: hands down, the boob-pig, pig with boobs, whatever you want to call it. There was also a cute bouncy dragon with boobs, but I didn't get a good photo, so therefore, the pig was the best part.

The second best part was my roommate borrowing my aTm hoodie sweatshirt. Some guys who are here on their study abroad semester saw her in the crowd when she wasn't with me, and they got so excited, they screamed, "hey are you from A&M???" and she said. no this is my roommate's. Then they found ...

I made the InfoDomus Magazine Cover!:L:

2006-09-19T09:24:35-04:00

What, you mean you haven't heard of InfoDomus magazine? It's only one of about a million Spanish AEC magazines. Yeah, so I hadn't heard of it either, but anyways, here it is. It's a staircase from a project of my boss from a few years ago. Maybe my next magazine cover will be, oh, a magazine that someone has actually heard of. I'm not keeping my fingers crossed.

*edit: here's the quicktime link that's also in my comment below.

Spanish Tech Talk

2006-09-14T18:42:55-04:00

I feel like I've learned so much already after having lived in Barcelona for only four months. I'd like to share some of what I've learned now. But only the most important things. I'll start with tech lingo. This one is quite a doozy, because it follows absolutely no standard whatsoever, and knowledge of how to say a techie term in Spanish can only come from saying it wrong ten times in a row and having everyone look at you like you're an idiot.

1. dot com = punto com
2. youtube = yo - ew - too - bay
3. google = google (but go - oh - gull is also acceptable)
4. google earth = google airth
5. giga- = *cough up some phlegm and then say "eegah", but just say it like Jay-z if you're catalan
6. router = roo - tare
7. cable = kah - blay
8. mouse = rah - tone
9. CD = say - day
10. DVDs = day - ew - bay - dayz
11. record a CD = grabar un disco
12. open ports = abrir puertas
13. emule = eh - moo - lay
14. backup = bah - KUP
15. copy/paste = coh - pee - pah - stay
16. ...

The Curse of Flash Websites and Architecture Firms

2006-09-12T15:57:59-04:00

I was reading the Archinect weekly email, and when I read this post, I couldn't help but write a little something about it:

Palace of Peace and Reconciliation opens in Kasakhstan (Sep 08, 06 | 9:29
am) Photos of the actual building in Foster and partners website, go to News and then click into the relevant item (I can't link directly due to their flash
website)...

Why do architects insist on having their websites done in Flash? Flash is the epitome of inaccessibility, and as a result, most architects are poorly represented on the web to say the least. A firm like Norman Foster's probably pays a lot of money for their web page creation and upkeep, and it's obvious that this flash website has a database driven backend. But why do they insist on serving up the content in Flash? Most of the features people use when making flash webpages can be done in the browser with javascript nowadays. And the other features are just not necessary. If someone tries to argue that it's easier to keep...

Hotel Pool Hopping - Barcelona

2006-09-09T12:34:33-04:00

During the August vacation from work, I picked up a new hobby. Simply put, the idea is to go into any random hotel in the city with an extremely nice pool, preferably on a higher floor with a nice view of the city, act like you are staying there, and steal time in the recreation area.

The first successful attempt was at the AC Hotel in Barcelona, at the Forum. The pool is on the 13th floor underneath a big cantilevered chunk of the building. It has an amazing view of just about everything you could want to see in Barcelona. You can even see the top of the Herzog and DeMeuron triangle. It's full of water again, and seagull poop, again.

Anyways, no one said anything to us the entire time we were up there, in the jacuzzis, the saunas, the outside pool, etc... I even went back a second time a few weeks later, and there wasn't a soul in sight.

The next attempt was the Hotel Diagonal at the foot of the Agbar Tower. Don't be fooled by this hotel. The roof is incredibly lame. not only i...

SÃndrome de DiÃ³genes (Hoarding)

2006-09-08T18:53:25-04:00

This is by far the coolest disease I have ever seen or heard of. Living in a city like Barcelona, you can't help but wonder what is going on in the minds of all those extremely tan and wrinkled old ladies in torn up flowery sun-dresses who spend all their time picking stuff out of the garbage bins.

While I was eating dinner tonight, a show came on on quatro about this "hoarding syndrome", or SÃndrome de DiÃ³genes. It took me a while to realize that it is actually recognized by the medical world, apparently only the spanish medical world, as a "condition." The show basically consisted of a woman going to all these small villages in Spain, and entering apartments of these affected people, all extremely old ladies, most of whom lived alone, and filming the insides of the flats FULL from floor to ceiling with clothes, boxes, bottles, garbage, you name it, etc...

I've never seen apartments as disgusting as these. Anyways, I read a litle more on wikipedia, which doesn't have an engli...

Working in an Architecture Firm in Barcelona

2006-09-06T17:23:41-04:00

I completely forgot about my archinect blog over the summer, and I never really even finished the last semester. Sorry about that. Anyways, I've been in Barcelona since May 21st, working at Roldan+Berengue arqts. (RoldÃ¡n+Berengué, for spanish websites). Things have been going very well here. I have kept a blog during the summer on my own personal website at http://dave.showviz.net/blog/. Feel free to check it out. Right now my latest project at the office is to create a database of all the office's projects/publications/awards/etc... and put it all onto a brand new web page. I started four days ago, and it should be up sometime next week in some form or fashion.

The old website is from three years ago and was made by some other guy who thought it was a really good idea to make an architecture studio website in flash. We all know now that it's kind of fruitless to make an architecture website in flash, so hopefully with this new database driven site, the office can stay a little mo...

Studio Review and College Station Aerial Photography

2006-04-10T11:22:21-04:00

We had the CEO of Foster and Associates, Graham Phillips visit last week and review our ACSA competition. He was a really great guy, and his critiques were extremely well received. The lecture was pretty fascinating as well. Anyways, I'll keep it short and sweet. He definitely didn't say he didn't like my project, so it was a success for me. Here are the two boards I showed for my presentation to him. We have 3 weeks to finish the whole project, so I have a lot of work to do:

Let me know what you think.

And in other news, I had the opportunity to fly over College Station with a friend from class in a Cessna airplane for about thirty minutes. We took up a video camera, and two digital slr's and went to town. It was a blast. The pilot took us all over the campus / city, and I took about 220 photos. Here are a few samples I've been playing around with:

Comments welcome. And for more fun with faking tiltshift photography, visit flickr.

I'm thinking about buying a tiltshif...

The Future of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University

2006-03-30T03:30:00-05:00

Does anyone use the Google Reader? I recently started using it, and we have a love hate relationship right now. It's awesome, but it could be so much better. Why can't it do everything you would expect it to do? Anyways, here's a quicklist of reasons to use it:

the future

sustainablity

architecture

They are so good at aggregating and indexing content, but the AJAX interface and functionality needs to step it up a notch.

Here is my blog spotlight of the day:

Om Malik

And in other news, I started using del.icio.us today. I have thousands of Firefox bookmarks in all kinds of subfolders, and I'm so accustomed to that structure, that it's hard for me to get used to this delicious thing. I like it so far, but getting the thousands of bookmarks migrated over is going to be a task.

Tonight the dean of the college met with students at the AIAS meeting to talk about the "future of the college of architecture at Texas A&M." He spent a good chunk of the time talking about the reason ...

Shackathon, Laser Cutting, Skiing, Swimming Pool Design

2006-03-28T04:08:52-05:00

I apologize for not posting for such a long time. It's been busy here, you know the typical excuse.

Anyways, to catch anyone up as quickly as possible. I went skiing in Breckenridge during Spring Break, and I got incredibly sun and windburned. The just opened up the highest lift in north america on peak 7 there, and I blame that for the horrible condition of my face.

I had a great time with my family, and I got to play with my 11 month old neice. She just started walking today. One of the images above is of my parents new house in Breckenridge. It's absolutely amazing. The photos can't really do it justice. I have begun to experiment with HDR panoramic photography, and needless to say, it's a very tedious and rough process that I have yet to refine... Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I'm still working on the aquatic center project, and here are a few images I showed at the midterm review two weeks ago:

It didn't go as well as I thought it would. The visiting ar...

Notes for those considering buying the new Michael Meredith publication

2006-03-08T20:43:14-05:00

I'll make this as brief as possible. The publication by Michael Meredith is not a book. It's a piece of paper with a lot of small words written all over it. It's really well-written and has some great thoughts in it. But it's not a book, and it's not worth $20. There is a lack of scale in the images that represent the publication on youworkforthem.com, so I would like to clarify for those interested in purchasing it.

To incorporate contemporary human scale into the decision to purchase this thing, just understand that it's roughly 2 ipod mini's x 3 ipod mini's.

In summary, read it, don't buy it. As for the DVD, I'll just spoil it here. They replace the word architecture with a bleep as if it's a curse word, and it's cute for a few minutes, but not thirty five.

Topological Mesh Modeling

2006-03-02T16:32:00-05:00

One of my professors created a polygonal mesh modeling program that is incredibly fascinating. I think anyone in architecture ought to check it out. .

It's free to download, it works on Windows through cygwin, and it does some amazing things that are absolutely not possible to do with any other program. 3d studio, rhino, maya, you name it. Cannot make things like this with such ease and precision:

This one was printed by the professor, Ergun Akleman, on our new 3d printer. We're a little late with the 3d printing technology, but at lleast we have some nice software. The program uses .obj files for anyone familiar with the format, and you start by loading a pre-made obj, like a cube or soccer ball, and go to town.

There are a lot of options that let you subdivide faces using various algorithms, like doo-sabin (my favorite), and there are also some great functions that let you create holes and handles. I could explain more, but it's definitely worth checking out. It will op...

HDR Photography

2006-02-28T11:02:13-05:00

I haven't posted in such a long time. Sorry about that. I will write more later, but I just wanted to write a little about hdr photography. Is anyone interested in HDR photography. I have been messing around with it this semester very little, and I finally managed to get a decent example to showcase what can be done with current technology. The following photo was taken at the site of the new woodshop / design-build workshop at the Riverside Campus of Texas A&M. It was shot with a digital rebel at f22 1/100.

The next shot was done by compositing 13 different exposures of the same view with hdrshop.

HDR shop is one of the best programs I've used to handle hdr images. Photoshop CS2 supports it, but frankly, their implementation sucks. CS3 will inevitably have to step it up a notch. But then again, HDRShop will too if it wants to compete. Adobe needs to come out with some new tonemapping algorithms if they want to stay ahead.

For anyone interested, here is a list of links ...

Parama / Nurbster

2006-02-05T14:35:54-05:00

I've been trying to get this program called Parama to compile for days, and nothing seems to work. Has anyone out there heard of it? It's written by a guy from San Jose State I think, and it's basically a simpler version of Bentley's Generative Components. It's written in Python and has so many dependencies that it take a few hours just to find them get them all installed. the sourceforge page is located here: PARAMA

I can't get nurbster to compile properly on WinXP at home or at the lab on Fedora. No one has answered my emails sent to the mailing list for it, and after all this hassle, it seems like this project is fake or something. It's really inspiring to read the research article on the Parama page, but I wish I could get the program to install.

It's also inspiring to hear that it is developed around the SLUT framework, also coded by the same guy. If you haven't read this, please do it. You owe it to yourself.

One a random sidenote: I tried to call Bentley to see a...