Archinect - University of Nebraska at Lincoln

ACSA / AIA Exhibition of School Work

2008-03-10T21:36:04-04:00

An exhibition of school work @ UNL

It will be on display at both the ACSA Annual Meeting in Houston (March 27-30 2008) and AIA Boston (May 15-17 2008).

UNL 2007-2008 Lecture Series

2007-08-08T22:15:18-04:00

University of Nebraska at Lincoln Lecture Series 2007-2008
Dwelling

07 Sept. 2007
Jonathan Segal
Jonathan Segal Architecture + Development, San Diego CA
www.jonathansegalarchitect.com

04 Oct 2007
Bruce Mau
Bruce Mau Design, Toronto Ontario
www.brucemaudesign.com

05 Oct 2007
Winka Dubbeldam
Archi-Tectonics, New York NY
www.archi-tectonics.com

17 Oct 2007
Vincent James
Vincent James Associates Architects, Minneapolis MN
www.vjaa.com

26 Oct 2007
Carolyn Torma
American Planning Association, Chicago IL
www.planning.org

02 Nov 2007
Randy Brown
Randy Brown Architects, Omaha NE
www.randybrownarchitects.com

16 Nov 2007
Marlon Blackwell
Marlon Blackwell Architect, Fayetteville AK
www.marlonblackwell.com

01 Feb 2008
Ghislaine Viñas
Ghislaine Viñas Interior Design, New York NY
www.gvinteriors.com

08 Feb 2008
Erla Dögg Ingjaldsdóttir
MINARC Architects, Santa Monica CA
www.minarc.com

28 Mar 2008
Doug Jackson
Jones, Partners: Architecture, El Segundo CA & 2007-2008 Hyde Chair
www.jonespartners.com

17 Apr 2008
Thom May...

Design Thesis Final [exhale]

2007-05-06T17:24:51-04:00

I just finished presenting my design thesis project. The last two months went something like this for me: mid-critique|baby|sell house|job interview|travel|present thesis|document thesis|present again for award|graduate. Here's the final product.

It's been a great year....let me credit the contributors.

Design Thesis Mentor
Chris Ford

Design Thesis Critics
Jeff Day
Martin Despang
Hyun Tae Jung
Keith Sawyers

Guest Critics
Lori Brown
Doug Jackson

Bonus:
I was in my Viticulture and Oenology class when the paparazzi found me. Great class...I sampled 8-12 wines a class and received 3 credit hours for it. In all fairness...it was a tough class.

Design Thesis .03

2007-02-03T11:57:31-05:00

I am now entering the final stages of my design thesis project. I'm currently working on assembling all the information obtained last semester and am focusing on the architecture.

Under the guise of my premise: -giving equal weight to sites that appears on the macro + micro scale (see the matrix). I extracted from the matrix three specifications: Packaging, The Sublime, and Scalar Oscillation. The specifications will guide the architectural solution.

Packaging: refers to the superfluous materials encasing the machines. This packaging attaches to the structures and plays an aesthetic roll and a division between human and machine.

The Sublime: (this is a heated word that has been debated for century's and even in archinect threads) I've defined The Sublime as danger without fear The sublime is powerful; The architecture will not be a literal interpretation, but a manifestation of the idea of sublime.

Scalar Oscillation: The far ends of the macro and micro scope and re...

Christmas Reverie

2007-01-09T15:37:25-05:00

Besides working, family, home/auto neglected repair, and fiancé attention, I built a new PC. For those of you that have an interest in computer building will understand; those that don’t bear with me. My (now ancient) Dell 8500 Laptop just isn’t cutting it for 3D modeling and Adobe applications. I’ve been scraping by year after year as new software updates tax my computer more and more. Sorry 85 (computer’s kickname); times are a-changin’. I firmly believe computers are only a tool for architecture, but when a tool is subpar, it’s necessary to upgrade.

I started my college career in computer programming; until I realized it’s pretty dull and I’m not as enthusiastic about staying on one-side of the computer screen. Plus, I just wouldn’t enjoy all the extra time and money afforded by a computer science degree *sarcasm*. It’s been a while since I’ve built a computer, and with some Christmas fundage, it is time. For those who are inexperience with pc building, it is actually ...

Under Review

2006-12-12T15:55:17-05:00

It is up to fate now. the 6th year terminal projects are under review by selected faculty members. It's an interesting process.

1. The student gets a 6'x8' presentation space to display a semester's worth of research. No verbal presentation, just boards to explain your project to people often unfamiliar. One 8.5"x11" Arial 14pt font explaining your project.
2. After I pin it up, three faculty members at random review it and decide whether the student is in schematic design phase for next semester.
3. The jury will throw a flag if the student is questionable.
4. The student flagged has a chance to present their project to the entire faculty. Concluding the 15 min. presentation, the faculty takes a silent vote to whether the student is able to continue into the last half of their terminal project.
5. If the student is chosen not to continue, they are placed in vertical studio.

The flagged students find out tomorrow if they need to present. I am confident in my project but non-the-le...

Susudio Fun

2006-12-03T14:16:26-05:00

Just like everyone else, we're about 1 week out from the end of the semester, and needed a break from our projects. Therefore decided to invent Susudio.

Susudio (our name, not the students) is a terminal project from a student last year. The model has been adjacent to my desk since the begging of the semester and I noticed when people would converse around my desk, they would start to pick at and break the model just as someone doodles when talking on the phone.

To fulfill our appetite for destruction(thank you G'n'R) we started to destruct the model and rearrange the components. The process was extremely liberating. Other students would simply rearrange the components and after each rendition take a picture. Heres's some of the photos of the break from terminal projects.
-AJ

Beginning of semester

Erosion from the semester

Lingerie

Animated Destruction

Terminal Project .02

2006-11-18T00:24:59-05:00

“Vehr ist the money Lebowski?“ The critique was both inspiring and tangential. What to do? take on pure formalism or functional based architecture? Before I go into this my critics were:
Keith Sawyers
Jeff Day
Martin Despang
Hyun Tae Jung
Chris Ford
In summary, I have been exploring my site (roughly 56 city blocks) on a macro and micro level. In other words, zooming way out to a global scale and zooming in to the products that Kawasaki manufactures along with various agricultural equipment. These are all welded into a matrix that lines up the components on an equal benchmark. The matrix protects against a hierarchy that usually exists in an architectural project. The question is what do I do with the information? My critics were split, some wanted the studies I did of the interior program to be rearranged and begin to influence the new R + D attachment and others wanted the aesthetic and form of the machine to be the propellant. I believe that both can happen. The...

Architecture in Sci-Fi

2006-10-25T00:14:08-04:00

I am researching metal surfaces for Materials class and I've stumbled upon a topic I've always been interested in. What is it about the sci-fi architecture that makes it so appealing? Either it's over expressed with mechanical ducts/lines/grates EVERYWHERE (Twelve Monkeys, Aliens, Brazil, The Matrix) or its stark white room with anamorphic furniture. But what is actually so futuristic about these pieces. Look at this for example a rendering from the movie Serenity.

This shot - the planet Miranda- was filmed at the Diamond Ranch High School by Morphosis but look at the building to the middle right...similar to the Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin? And the tower in the upper middle resembles Piano's New Caledonia Center. Is corrugated metal the choice building material in 2300's? This begs the question: these things exist now, so are there movies that express architecture in a realistic projected future? One might say that Star Wars did a good job of this, but I would lo...

Terminal Project .01

2006-10-17T23:25:00-04:00

I'm about 8 weeks into my 6th year terminal project. Thus far it's been mostly nose-in-the-books and hassling people for information, however, this is not an atypical process. Instead of looking at just the Macro site ( the level we employ typical architectural conventions), I am focusing on the micro sites as well. Before I dive into this, let me break in with the overall terminal progect thesis statement (or question)....”What if Kawasaki Motors wanted to get into the Agriculture market?” Lincoln, NE houses one of the largest Kawasaki plants in the U.S. (In fact, the N.Y. rail cars are made here.)

Kawasaki makes everything except Agriculture equipment (aerospace, tunnel borers, wind farms...yep ton's of possibilities) . So I am proposing a Research and Development facility to help them answer this question. The end result is not as important as the process I am choosing to use to get there.

I've been collecting Kawasaki engine parts as well as farm-hopping for agric...

First year Projects

2006-10-12T15:09:33-04:00

Vinnie Chase (the lead character from the HBO series Entourage) remarked that Nebraska and the other Midwestern states are the "fly-over states."
Running parallel to my terminal project, I am also teaching architectural rendering to first and second year students. The emphasis is to not only teach what is done in the xyz axis, but what the output is. Just as Vinnie's observation of the flatlands, the students were asked to prepare an eidetic image of Nebraska. Following the logic of James Corner's "Aerial Representation and the Making of the Landscape", the students were to present their eidetic image of Nebraska using only Photoshop and Illustrator. Here are some of the first year's coarse examples.

The Pavilion of the Broken Horizon

2006-09-26T12:09:37-04:00

The Pavilion of the Broken Horizon was the product of a design/build class under visiting professor Johan Granberg. The pavilion is a temporary structure on adjacent to Architecture Hall. The steel was generously donated by Rivers Metal Products, Lincoln, NE.

The bodily conditions of being under, on, and above constitutes a particular relationship between us and our environment (loci). This gives us a spatial understanding of our surroundings. The Pavilion of the Broken Horizon operates on this idea of spatial relativity. The body understands gravity through balance. Balance is a complex process where gravity, velocity, bodily configuration, and center of gravitation are constantly recalculated and reacted to. Designing the pavilion according to the body's position in relation to the ground plane was an exploration of our perception of height and our understanding of gravity. The overall design of the pavilion gives users a sense of unbalance and makes them aware of the proce...

Design/Build Internship: 3

2006-08-14T13:03:49-04:00

Continuation of my summer internship at Randy Brown Architects, Omaha, NE

The interior wall stairs are completed. In keeping with the play of entering and touching the wall as the viewer ascends, the exterior stairs needed to be similar in nature, but provide a different material to traverse on. The solid folding stairs were the antithesis to the open metal risers inside the wall. The folding plans create the stair for the occupant. The manipulation of the material into an ergonomic stepping surface is the human affect on the staircase. The railings are the next interaction allowing a moment to touch and be guided around the structure; it never touches and stays a distance from all the objects; the railings are human.

The bar progresses to take a skin. We first built the double stud skeleton for the entire bar solving structural issues and keeping a couple steps in front of what we are doing. The entire bar design was a continuous folding wall that erupted from the baseme...

Design/Build Internship: 2

2006-07-31T23:14:30-04:00

Continuation of my summer internship at Randy Brown Architects, Omaha, NE

After all the rigorous designs and construction documents, we jumped head first into construction. Although most of us had drafting experience on the designer's side, now was the time to switch to the builder's. The precision of the measurements and angles of the stair design amazingly ended up being right-on (even to the 1/16 of an inch). By frontloading the design process and using Sketch-up to design the timber layout, the construction moved steadily. The entire timber wall structure rises about 20' then another 10' to the upper bar level. We devised a way of using 1”x3” steel for planks for the wide stairs which proved to have little deflection at all. These metal planks were carefully drilled and installed.

I found it a challenge to leave studs exposed in a finished framing situation (as opposed to a rough framing that will be covered by plywood or drywall). The bare studs hide nothing. They...

Design/Build Internship

2006-06-06T19:49:25-04:00

For the duration of this summer, I will be posting about my internship here in Omaha, NE. I am working with Randy Brown Architects design/build program and am assigned to the McKinley Project (a residential addition.) The ten interns spent the first 2 weeks drawing, modeling, and designing different areas of the project. I and another student are to design the staircase/bar (ascending 20 ft.) to connect most of the house together. After our challenging design began to take shape, reality started to strike. However, since most of the modeling was done in Sketchup, the ability to move from massing to construction documents was fluid. I am not usually a big fan or using Sketchup for design, but the ability to draw very quickly and use dimensioned lumber/steel was extremely handy. The Sketchup model was all to scale and with dimensioned lumber provided by Sketchup, we were able to bring life to the form and create a feasible structure. The model then was sectioned and put into CAD...

Photoshop Experts Can Help Katrina Victims

2006-05-04T13:36:40-04:00

Operation Photo Rescue (OPR) Needs help from anyone that can lend a Photoshop hand. Many family photo's have been ruined due to hurricanes or earthquakes.

I know most of the Archinect users know Photoshop. Here's your chance to use it to help repair a family.

Here's an e-mail from Dave Ellis.
---------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for volunteering and providing me with the link to the posting on digg.com. There's some interesting comments there.

We're willing to give anyone and everyone a chance to help. Our issues with quality control are very specific cases and not necessarily the norm of what the work that's being produced.

We don't send the original photographs to our volunteers due to the fragile nature and mold contamination of the images. What we are doing is digitally copying the images with Nikon D2X's mounted on copy stands. After sizing the images, we email them out to our restoration volunteers.

Like the post on digg.com mentioned we...

Blender Conclusion

2006-04-14T13:52:11-04:00

The result of implementing the blender scheme. We (studio partner) chose to let the site talk. All we did was apply a translation and sort out the areas. In a way we are the "Rosetta Stone" for the Ham Yard.
You can view the previous post here:http://www.archinect.com/schoolblog/blog.php?id=C0_293_39

Unrelated Question: Is there a way to post bigger pictures on Archinect? Is it always limited to 400 px wide?

Process - Blender

2006-04-07T09:35:35-04:00

Nearing the end - about a week left of a short project entitled Ham Yard. My partner and I created a mode to generated various interactions on the site. Since we had no program in the beginning of the project, our job was to find a way of finding out what the site needs. By taking all the adjacent programs we set them in a matrix to compare and contrast. In Soho, there is a mixture of everything from Sex clubs to primary schools. We set them all up against each other and extracted the information in a periodic table way. From here we will start to match there qualities based on the observations.

Archinect-effect

2006-04-04T05:43:50-04:00

Continuing my research on a site entitled Ham Yard in London, I did a simple Google search of "Ham Yard." To my surprise, my archinect school blog was in first place! So your archinect voice pulls more weight then you think...keep posting!

Thesis Proposal- Need references please

2006-03-30T08:29:46-05:00

This is my current proposal for a thesis project. I'd appreciate any suggestions or leads to where to look for books or other information. I'm currently reading "Devices" by CJ Lim and web crawling looking for information.

1. Current Building Machine:
To support the life systems inhabited. The condominium is dependent on all the external systems for life. Without the mechanical, electrical, water, and other utilities, the condominium would not be able to function.
The condominium contributes nothing to the greater system. It is a by-product of the building.
Condos now act as if they were infants in an incubator. Great care is taken to make sure each one is at a 80% satisfaction level. Rather than a life-support system for each of the living programs, what if each played a roll in supporting the greater whole? Condos increase, generally speaking, in sqft'age as they rise, so there are social and monetary differences between all of them. The difference is already there! ...

Ham Yard Project

2006-03-20T08:20:39-05:00

A brief introduction to our next 4 week project. I will be posting more about it soon.

Location: Soho, London
Program: To be determined

The site is really interesting. Just read some of the history

History
”¢ Soho was grazing farmland until 1536
”¢ The name Soho first appears in the 17th century
”¢ Bricklayer Richard Frith in 1677 began its development.
”¢ In 1698 William III granted the Crown freehold of most of this area to William, Earl of Portland.
”¢ Earls of Leicester and Portland to develop the land on the grand scale of neighboring Bloomsbury, Marylebone and Mayfair, immigrants, such as French Huguenots, settled in the area, and it never became a fashionable area for the rich.
”¢ Soho's charm and character that it has been neglected and undeveloped and allowed to run a little wild and rough and cosmopolitan.
”¢ mid 1800s all respectable families had moved away and prostitutes, music halls and small theatres had moved in.
”¢ early part of the 1900s there was a heal...

Final Project

2006-02-24T16:30:21-05:00

The final Project.

Windsor/Eton Site Photos

2006-02-21T15:01:33-05:00

Panorama's of the site.

My partener and I are in final stages of design, so I will post the final outcome to our 3 week crash-coarse project soon.

Windsor/Eton Project

2006-02-20T12:49:44-05:00

Windsor Athenaeum
Windsor U.K. -- Home of the Queen.
3 week sketch problem

The program is for the Town of Windsor and Eton. The site is located across a huge pedestrian bridge which supported by the traffic from Windsor Castle and Eton Collage. Interestingly enough the bridge is used on Saturdays for a meeting place for the boys from Eton and the girls from Windsor.

The program is a small community room for spaces for Library, Trustee's, reception, and other public areas. The Athenaeum is an important cornerstone of the two adjacent towns.

Being here in London, we are extremely limited in materials. No printer, no scanner, and expensive by-the-hour internet. A shortage of materials is not a shortage of ideas. This has offered us a great opportunity to explore alternate mediums for presenting. And in the end, we are designing just as fast and rigorous as before.

The project is a sketch problem. By that I mean it should not result in one final solution, but many. ...

Computers impressive to the layperson?

2006-01-15T22:28:08-05:00

In a conversation, when I tell someone I am an architecture student, the thing they seem to be dying to know is "So...do you use computers and stuff for drafting?" I've gotten this response many of times, as if the computer is the most impressive thing in my profession. Why? I understand that I am part of the new generation of computer drafting/modeling and hand drafting is dying, but who doesn't use a computer in any profession? There must be some sort of aura(Walter Benjamin) of using a computer to construct and design.
-Alexander
-University of Nebraska-

Corn and Beef -vs- Fish and Chips

2006-01-10T13:45:46-05:00

Greetings, I will be soon posting on my study abroad experience in London. The perspective will be from a midwestern student in the most expensive, massive city in the world. Also view my progress at www.alexanderjack.com
Best,
Alexander Jack