You express mailing your weather to us in New England. "The Sky is Falling....The Sky is Falling!" It is going to be a couple of rough days and nights here. We are getting dumped on.
It is a good thing I stocked up on Chocolate Bars for the Mrs. B.
I have been listening to all the things closed and yep, "New England has been Canceled."
Roof rakes have been flying off the hardware store shelves...people are even selling them on the Street Corners at marked up prices.
We have had alot of roofs cave in over the past week. Yesterday my structural engineer sent out an email telling me to inform clients that they should remove snow from there roofs, as the additional snow in the works today and tomorrow could result in major structural problems.
job postings are a source of income for archinect. if i am understanding what happened, it seems like an archinect 'client' getting pasted because of an ad would be a bad path to go down, don't you think?
so, there's about an 1/8" layer of ice on everything outside here in philadelphia... unfortunately i found out the hard way... two steps out the front door to walk that dogs this morning and i was flat on my back... luckily i landed relatively softly... good day to stay inside and get some writing done...
Mrs thinks I'm a little over the top, just finished hauling in alot of wood thinking this storm could be the Big One. If it turns to ice I want to be sure I have plenty of wood on hand with out going out into an ice storm. Phase one of the storm has already dumped about 8" of snow and it is going to snow all day. Phase two is going to be the killer and it isn't going to get here until after midnight.
If we get ice I'm sure we will be without power. Being we are part of the largest Electrical Company in the USA....most likely things will be screwed up for a week....because they are just to big to fail~
What is a roof rake? It's a funny thought, since a rake is also a pitch, right? so I could say, "what is the rake of the roof?" But you're saying roof-rake, so I'm confused.
We have ice, and wind. Lots of wind. And strangely, we had one lightning strike and thunder clap last night. But it's a snow day jsut the same. Gosh, I love being part of the school system now - I get official snow days!
Oh, and I finally finished the wood hooks for the bathroom. Check them out. http://gettinby.wordpress.com/ [/shameless blog promotion]
here in north louisianastan we are having a torrential downpour with increasingly high winds. the back of my building has metal siding and the noise is already driving me nuts.
Hm. I posted, but got a 404 when I hit submit, and the posit never showed up. I was saying that image of a roof rake really doesn't help me understand it any better than what I infer: it rakes the snow off your roof.
It is what the name implies. It is usually a long pole with a paddle on the end of it for pulling snow off of a sloped roof. This can be accomplished from the ground, so no need to get on your roof with a shovel and shovel off the snow. However this winter I have seen all sorts of crazy things. Snow blowers on flat roofs...people on steep roofs..... Cracked trusses.....Cracked Beams..... Implosions....
Our big problem right now is that the existing snow has never really had and opportunity to melt because of the weather and we have had about eight inches today and well coming after midnight is alot more. They are calling for 20 inches alot of it might end up being
very wet snow. So we will be exceeding our structral design loads for this area on alot of old buildings....
Sarah Hot off the press: This ran in a local paper today,
State police were called to the Ovation Instruments plant at 37 Greenwoods Road, just off Route 44, Monday night after they received a report of gunshots being fired in the area. An unnamed man admitted to police that he had aimed his shotgun at the icicles hanging from the building to remove them.
Wow. That mans a genius. I saw a YouTube video of a guy clearing off his roof once, I'll have to find it. Just curious, how do you keep the snow from falling on your head?
Regarding our discussion of climate change and adaption recently Mother Jones has an article about exactly that. How Ron Simms chief executive of King County (aka Seattle) has focused on preparing King County for future climate, period.
i need to hang around people for whom the future looks bright. we're among the lucky/busy, but i sure hate the way the mood of everyone i meet is so defeatist and how quickly people abandon what they may once have valued - just because they think it matters less in tough times.
political expediency is trumping long-term thinking about building good communities for the future, clients aspirations are about next month instead of the next 10 years, and we find ourselves fighting our clients to actually get the fees we've earned for work performed in good faith. those who revel in pursuit of short-term gain, the failures of others, cynicism, and keep-it-for-myselfishness are having a field day!
and don't get me started on the triumph of bad taste and crassness over discernment and thoughtfulness.
To add to Stevens pessimistic outlook, I got an email saying that the school won't be hiring an architectural teacher because of budget constraints. Figures. I leave one profession due to the economy, find a new one, and damn if that crappy economy doesn't bite my ass again. I think I mustve offended him or something. He seems to have it out for me.
S.Ward:"clients aspirations are about next month instead of the next 10 years,"
Same happened pre-recession. In fact, shift to short-term accounting practices got us into pickle to begin with. It's easy to romanticize the past, but even during the very peak of construction, things weren't that rosy. Bush years sucked as well, and a number of us were anticipating the market crash since 2004. It was the size of the crash that was truly humbling, not the fact that it happened.
Sorry for being a downer. Add me to your hate-de-jour list :)
Sarah, I'm really sorry to hear that the position has been eliminated. That sucks.
Strawbeary, I'm happy you're feeling happy. Steven's right, so many people are down lately, including, frequently, myself. But overall I really, truly have nothing about which to complain.
sarah - that sucks - are you planning on sticking it out in teaching? maybe you can teach one subject and start an "architecture club." Some school districts will pay you extra for extra-curriculars (although if texas is a testing state you might have demonstrate how it ties into the test).
manta - congrats!!!
steven - I'm also trying to find positive people. it's tough because there's still not a lot of decent-size projects and most of the paying work available is just trying to keep stuff from falling apart - however - there are ways to make this work enjoyable - especially if you're around people with good attitudes.
I don't know what it's like in your area, but it seems like the recession has caused a lot of organizations and municipalities around here to take serious looks at their long-term financial solvency, and part of this involves facilities. There is some work for firms that do master planning, but I think there are opportunities out there if you are proactive and invent the work yourself.
For example - a lot of school districts are consolidating and shutting down some schools - that means they have empty buildings and probably no good idea of what to do with them aside from sell them off. Personally, I think there has to be a way to provide a temporary (10-15 year) use to generate income and they could turn the buildings back into schools or some other community use when things turn around again - after you change something to residential it's hard to go back.
This is something architects CAN do - maybe we're not building new things, but we have some of the tools to help figure out how to repurpose what is existing.
Witold Rybzinski writes yet another self-flagellating piece of bullshit for Slate. What a putz that guy is - I can't believe he's getting paid to write self-hating half-truths purportedly about architecture, when all the smart, sexy, and funny people here could kick his sorry butt to Sunday with a single paragraph!
"I don't know what it's like in your area, but it seems like the recession has caused a lot of organizations and municipalities around here to take serious looks at their long-term financial solvency, and part of this involves facilities. There is some work for firms that do master planning, but I think there are opportunities out there if you are proactive and invent the work yourself."
I actually got invited through a friend to participate in some master planning for a beachside community that wants to 'change pace.' AKA, they had no real master plan in place for 50 years and decided that now was the time.
I felt bad for two reasons:
1) I said some really awful things about the city
2) It was an "experience-building" opportunity I pissed down the toilet for the sake of being right and or an asshole
This area over the last 10 years has lost nearly every major industry it is. And it's losing another huge one in June. Other than maybe 7 restaurants, half a dozen "O.K." hotels-motels, one big store and a handful of floundering strip malls... well, that's pretty much it other than the beach.
It's probably one of the ugliest, trashiest, run down places I've ever seen for a coastal city. And I've even been to Alabama (Zing! OK bad joke).
Anyways, I wrote this long proposal that basically said "Your city is not fixable given the wealth of your residents, the growing unemployment problem, the lack of functional infrastructure and the environmental regulations that prevent you from redevelopment of your waterfront properties. Given your budget shortfalls, lack of quality architecture and stagnant business base-- my only suggestion would be to pursue a controlled 'contraction' of your city. "
Donna, thanks for the kind words on the High Musuem op-ed... More than specify which building i liked i was interested in trying to describe the experience of the spaces...
I think Witold -- don't ask me to spell his last name -- has a point.
After sitting through many tedious ANY conferences in the 1990s, I think that obfuscation is pretty popular in many Architectural circles. But that's not the same thing as saying that design isn't something that is done better by Architects and Designers because we look at things differently and see things that the lay person does not. What did Henry Ford say, "If I asked people what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses."
I think Witold -- don't ask me to spell his last name -- has a point.
After sitting through many tedious ANY conferences in the 1990s, I think that obfuscation is pretty popular in many Architectural circles. But that's not the same thing as saying that design isn't something that is done better by Architects and Designers because we look at things differently and see things that the lay person does not. What did Henry Ford say, "If I asked people what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses."
make, Witold isn't ever going to make your very good point, that big words don't necessarily mean poor design. He's a sad, sad person: never having been able to get ant traction in actually doing design, he decided to make his living tearing down those who can.
I agree that we shouldn't intentionally confuse people, and I think if an architect has nothing but words with no substance the layperson won't be fooled (granted, Libeskind's incoherent rantings yet success in making buildings seem to be the exception).
What's sad to me is that Slate is a respected venue with a wide audience: do they (I'm asking seriously) ever publish writings on architecture that are from someone without a failed prima donna axe to grind, as has Witold?
I agree that there should be a more nuanced a point of view. I have only read the last two columns and the previous one was a hit job on some of the nonsense that is being perpetrated at school. Like using Maya in Architecture. Why not use silly putty or match sticks? Maybe I am exaggerating a little but the parametric stuff is really a fetish and it's appeal and the economics of it are very limited. I dunno.
i'm using rhino to make simple installation/wall divider thingy for my office at the university (which is about 1000 ft 2). its not anything fancy, just a good opportunity for me to see what is possible with cnc and no budget. i have got to admit it is very very cheap to produce slightly interesting designs. i expected it to be more expensive. now i know how to use the software better i am itching to try and do a real design.
i am not doing parametric design in the sense you mean, but i can absolutely see its place. and really, could you imagine if gehry had made the gugg in spain out of boxes?
btw make were you at most of the any shows? my partner was in at least one of them. he is sitting next to pete eisenmann in one of the books. the way he tells it it was kind of nice being in delft back in days before any of those people were all that famous.
@ sarah, i am very sorry to hear that. keep at it though. things will turn round eventually i am certain.
I don't really see the conceptual difference between using Maya vs. using silly putty / foam / matchsticks / what-have-you in studio. (The practical difference, of course, being that they tool breeds a slightly different kind of design thinking due to its particular advantages / limitations.) But conceptually... what's there to particularly slam in Maya? I don't get the disgruntlement. And I'm speaking as someone who's not particularly techno-savvy in design (I still do most of my initial designing by hand-sketching & physical modelling, or sketch-uping, which works fine for me.)
It's not too bad! And thanks for all the congrats, everyone! Feels great to be accomplishing a dream I've had for my entire adult life.
Snowpocalypse is seriously not a big deal. For example - snowfall totals were like around 2'. That's NOTHING compared with what New England is dealing with this year. I've personally gone through at least 3 storms I can think of that were worse than this (not in Chicago). Chicago just doesn't get a ton of snow - people just like to make a big deal out of it here!
I will say though, I'm really impressed at how well the city services prepared AND responded. City trains are all running normally today, and most bus routes! The main streets around my neighborhood were plowed before I even woke up. Two of the 5 coffeeshops in my neighborhood were open for business, so I got to sit at the cafe for a while and talk shop with a journalist friend filing stories from home as a "snow bureau correspondant" hehe. It's been fun!
Wow. It's been crazy here. School has been closed for two days, and will be closed even tomorrow! Husband stayed home today, but will go to work tomorrow. Abram will probably be home with me again tomorrow. I hope he's good.
No, I like Maya and Rhino. I am using the latter on the Mac side and it's pretty damn cool! I just think that its uses are pretty limited in a field where very little is made on a CNC. I think there's an opportunity there but I am not sure what that is and what the scope of it is. I think it's worth exploring. I also think that figuring out what you're doing with diagramming and sketching out solutions is more important. I think you can have the latter without the former but not the other way around.
Jump,
What does your divider look like? Please share.
Our CNC router at school has been broken for about a year and a half with little interest on part of the higher-ups in fixing it.
I spent an hour and a half digging the I-Go car out at Western and Lincoln yesterday evening so I could head out to the suburbs and help my S.O. dig out. The Edens was still covered with snow in spots and I saw two different people spin out and hit the median at 40 mph. DANGEROUS! The City does an AMAZING job of cleaning up and the lot I got the I-GO car through 100 feet of snow and then a 4 foot tall wall at the driveway was entirely cleared by the time I returned at 10 pm. (So much for proof as to why I was late when I returned with the S.O. Ha!) Streets in the suburbs must use a different salt than the City as they were still covered with show in a lot of spots.
tonight there was supposed to be an artscrawl. there are actually some very good artists in town and in the region. a few of them have been featured recently in the new american paintings quarterly. but, apparently the 30 degree temperatures and threat of snow flurries have postponed the festivities.
Weird. I'm working on my arch. portfolio again, and writing up my ideas using words like facade and such seems so difficult. Amazing how the world can just slip away from you when your aren't immersed in it. I can't remember any of my archi-speak. Do you think an employer would hold it against me if everything is presented in simple english?
Hope everyone is dealing ok with the snow - it's freezing and business as usual here in the mountain west.
I am thankful for how busy I have been - the work is not glamorous (it can really suck some days), but I have been able to keep on truckin' through this recession, with the glimmer of my adjunct teaching to help me keep a hold on why I love architecture.
I need to finish my exams. I am having my second child next month. I have accepted a moonlighting job that I can't turn down but it will be a challenge to say the least after the baby arrives. I don't want to come back to this job - the job with a steady paycheck and insurance.
Hi smallpotatoes! Look at it this way: managing two small kids is going to be challenging for several years even under the best conditions. So whatever decision you make, you will have challenges, but you'll still have the amazing wonderfulness of babies to keep your spirits up even when you feel like you're drowning in diapers/snot/dirty dishes/ear infections/and yes money troubles too.
So the big question is: can you get insurance elsewhere? You have a life partner, yes? Does that person have a job that provides insurance? Which one of you has the job that makes the most sense to allow the other one to stay home and deal with family/home requirements?
make, I saw a terrifying picture of a Chicago freeway with long rows of abandoned cars stuck in snowdrifts - I can't imagine how it came to be, did people just leave their cars and walk down the freeway to home in a blizzard?!
it looks pretty much like all such projects look. nothing fancy. will post on our blog once it gets cut and assembled and i actually have time to breathe again (hopefully soon).
it seems like i am to go to india in a few weeks to present our school program and ask to join a fancy environmental research project. quite looking forward to it except that i need to make an awesome presentation to convince them that we are the folks to go to...up until now academia was always the quiet part of my life ;-)
that whole insurance thing is just not right. i can't imagine having to pick a job just to have insurance.
Thread Central
Donna,
You express mailing your weather to us in New England. "The Sky is Falling....The Sky is Falling!" It is going to be a couple of rough days and nights here. We are getting dumped on.
It is a good thing I stocked up on Chocolate Bars for the Mrs. B.
I have been listening to all the things closed and yep, "New England has been Canceled."
Roof rakes have been flying off the hardware store shelves...people are even selling them on the Street Corners at marked up prices.
We have had alot of roofs cave in over the past week. Yesterday my structural engineer sent out an email telling me to inform clients that they should remove snow from there roofs, as the additional snow in the works today and tomorrow could result in major structural problems.
Stay Safe Folks!
job postings are a source of income for archinect. if i am understanding what happened, it seems like an archinect 'client' getting pasted because of an ad would be a bad path to go down, don't you think?
stay warm, everyone!
so, there's about an 1/8" layer of ice on everything outside here in philadelphia... unfortunately i found out the hard way... two steps out the front door to walk that dogs this morning and i was flat on my back... luckily i landed relatively softly... good day to stay inside and get some writing done...
Architecture - where you get a week to do something that takes an hour, and an hour to do something that would normally take a week.
Mrs thinks I'm a little over the top, just finished hauling in alot of wood thinking this storm could be the Big One. If it turns to ice I want to be sure I have plenty of wood on hand with out going out into an ice storm. Phase one of the storm has already dumped about 8" of snow and it is going to snow all day. Phase two is going to be the killer and it isn't going to get here until after midnight.
If we get ice I'm sure we will be without power. Being we are part of the largest Electrical Company in the USA....most likely things will be screwed up for a week....because they are just to big to fail~
What is a roof rake? It's a funny thought, since a rake is also a pitch, right? so I could say, "what is the rake of the roof?" But you're saying roof-rake, so I'm confused.
We have ice, and wind. Lots of wind. And strangely, we had one lightning strike and thunder clap last night. But it's a snow day jsut the same. Gosh, I love being part of the school system now - I get official snow days!
Oh, and I finally finished the wood hooks for the bathroom. Check them out. http://gettinby.wordpress.com/ [/shameless blog promotion]
here in north louisianastan we are having a torrential downpour with increasingly high winds. the back of my building has metal siding and the noise is already driving me nuts.
vado, metal siding or roofs and the sound they make during rain our one of my fav sounds of the south
morning all.
i was wondering what a roof rake was too... never heard of such a thing...
nam, i agree about the sound of rain on a tin roof... although i can imagine that is might get old after a while...
nam i thought that too. until today.
Yeah, after a while, it's just a roaring in your ears. Kinda like the ocean, or an HVAC unit. Noise you just have to yell over.
Hm. I posted, but got a 404 when I hit submit, and the posit never showed up. I was saying that image of a roof rake really doesn't help me understand it any better than what I infer: it rakes the snow off your roof.
Sarah I love the wood hooks!
Thanks. I was a bit worried it'd be too much of a statement, but I think it worked out.
My central AC is on full blast.
Sarah,
It is what the name implies. It is usually a long pole with a paddle on the end of it for pulling snow off of a sloped roof. This can be accomplished from the ground, so no need to get on your roof with a shovel and shovel off the snow. However this winter I have seen all sorts of crazy things. Snow blowers on flat roofs...people on steep roofs..... Cracked trusses.....Cracked Beams..... Implosions....
Our big problem right now is that the existing snow has never really had and opportunity to melt because of the weather and we have had about eight inches today and well coming after midnight is alot more. They are calling for 20 inches alot of it might end up being
very wet snow. So we will be exceeding our structral design loads for this area on alot of old buildings....
Sarah Hot off the press: This ran in a local paper today,
State police were called to the Ovation Instruments plant at 37 Greenwoods Road, just off Route 44, Monday night after they received a report of gunshots being fired in the area. An unnamed man admitted to police that he had aimed his shotgun at the icicles hanging from the building to remove them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wow. That mans a genius. I saw a YouTube video of a guy clearing off his roof once, I'll have to find it. Just curious, how do you keep the snow from falling on your head?
Regarding our discussion of climate change and adaption recently Mother Jones has an article about exactly that. How Ron Simms chief executive of King County (aka Seattle) has focused on preparing King County for future climate, period.
The future looks bright lately. I'm excited.
Strawbeary, don't you know that's just the lights bouncing off the snow and ice?
i need to hang around people for whom the future looks bright. we're among the lucky/busy, but i sure hate the way the mood of everyone i meet is so defeatist and how quickly people abandon what they may once have valued - just because they think it matters less in tough times.
political expediency is trumping long-term thinking about building good communities for the future, clients aspirations are about next month instead of the next 10 years, and we find ourselves fighting our clients to actually get the fees we've earned for work performed in good faith. those who revel in pursuit of short-term gain, the failures of others, cynicism, and keep-it-for-myselfishness are having a field day!
and don't get me started on the triumph of bad taste and crassness over discernment and thoughtfulness.
i hate people. (today.)
I JUST RECEIVED PASS LETTER #7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Congrats, manta.
To add to Stevens pessimistic outlook, I got an email saying that the school won't be hiring an architectural teacher because of budget constraints. Figures. I leave one profession due to the economy, find a new one, and damn if that crappy economy doesn't bite my ass again. I think I mustve offended him or something. He seems to have it out for me.
S.Ward:"clients aspirations are about next month instead of the next 10 years,"
Same happened pre-recession. In fact, shift to short-term accounting practices got us into pickle to begin with. It's easy to romanticize the past, but even during the very peak of construction, things weren't that rosy. Bush years sucked as well, and a number of us were anticipating the market crash since 2004. It was the size of the crash that was truly humbling, not the fact that it happened.
Sorry for being a downer. Add me to your hate-de-jour list :)
Sarah, I'm really sorry to hear that the position has been eliminated. That sucks.
Sarah, sorry for your bad news.
manta, congrats for your good news.
Strawbeary, I'm happy you're feeling happy. Steven's right, so many people are down lately, including, frequently, myself. But overall I really, truly have nothing about which to complain.
i really appreciate that i still have my one room and one man office and it is not at home!
sarah - that sucks - are you planning on sticking it out in teaching? maybe you can teach one subject and start an "architecture club." Some school districts will pay you extra for extra-curriculars (although if texas is a testing state you might have demonstrate how it ties into the test).
manta - congrats!!!
steven - I'm also trying to find positive people. it's tough because there's still not a lot of decent-size projects and most of the paying work available is just trying to keep stuff from falling apart - however - there are ways to make this work enjoyable - especially if you're around people with good attitudes.
I don't know what it's like in your area, but it seems like the recession has caused a lot of organizations and municipalities around here to take serious looks at their long-term financial solvency, and part of this involves facilities. There is some work for firms that do master planning, but I think there are opportunities out there if you are proactive and invent the work yourself.
For example - a lot of school districts are consolidating and shutting down some schools - that means they have empty buildings and probably no good idea of what to do with them aside from sell them off. Personally, I think there has to be a way to provide a temporary (10-15 year) use to generate income and they could turn the buildings back into schools or some other community use when things turn around again - after you change something to residential it's hard to go back.
This is something architects CAN do - maybe we're not building new things, but we have some of the tools to help figure out how to repurpose what is existing.
@manta :)
@sarah :(
Witold Rybzinski writes yet another self-flagellating piece of bullshit for Slate. What a putz that guy is - I can't believe he's getting paid to write self-hating half-truths purportedly about architecture, when all the smart, sexy, and funny people here could kick his sorry butt to Sunday with a single paragraph!
Toaster:
"I don't know what it's like in your area, but it seems like the recession has caused a lot of organizations and municipalities around here to take serious looks at their long-term financial solvency, and part of this involves facilities. There is some work for firms that do master planning, but I think there are opportunities out there if you are proactive and invent the work yourself."
I actually got invited through a friend to participate in some master planning for a beachside community that wants to 'change pace.' AKA, they had no real master plan in place for 50 years and decided that now was the time.
I felt bad for two reasons:
1) I said some really awful things about the city
2) It was an "experience-building" opportunity I pissed down the toilet for the sake of being right and or an asshole
This area over the last 10 years has lost nearly every major industry it is. And it's losing another huge one in June. Other than maybe 7 restaurants, half a dozen "O.K." hotels-motels, one big store and a handful of floundering strip malls... well, that's pretty much it other than the beach.
It's probably one of the ugliest, trashiest, run down places I've ever seen for a coastal city. And I've even been to Alabama (Zing! OK bad joke).
Anyways, I wrote this long proposal that basically said "Your city is not fixable given the wealth of your residents, the growing unemployment problem, the lack of functional infrastructure and the environmental regulations that prevent you from redevelopment of your waterfront properties. Given your budget shortfalls, lack of quality architecture and stagnant business base-- my only suggestion would be to pursue a controlled 'contraction' of your city. "
manta congrats!
Donna, thanks for the kind words on the High Musuem op-ed... More than specify which building i liked i was interested in trying to describe the experience of the spaces...
morning all
Donna,
I think Witold -- don't ask me to spell his last name -- has a point.
After sitting through many tedious ANY conferences in the 1990s, I think that obfuscation is pretty popular in many Architectural circles. But that's not the same thing as saying that design isn't something that is done better by Architects and Designers because we look at things differently and see things that the lay person does not. What did Henry Ford say, "If I asked people what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses."
Donna,
I think Witold -- don't ask me to spell his last name -- has a point.
After sitting through many tedious ANY conferences in the 1990s, I think that obfuscation is pretty popular in many Architectural circles. But that's not the same thing as saying that design isn't something that is done better by Architects and Designers because we look at things differently and see things that the lay person does not. What did Henry Ford say, "If I asked people what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses."
make, Witold isn't ever going to make your very good point, that big words don't necessarily mean poor design. He's a sad, sad person: never having been able to get ant traction in actually doing design, he decided to make his living tearing down those who can.
I agree that we shouldn't intentionally confuse people, and I think if an architect has nothing but words with no substance the layperson won't be fooled (granted, Libeskind's incoherent rantings yet success in making buildings seem to be the exception).
What's sad to me is that Slate is a respected venue with a wide audience: do they (I'm asking seriously) ever publish writings on architecture that are from someone without a failed prima donna axe to grind, as has Witold?
I agree that there should be a more nuanced a point of view. I have only read the last two columns and the previous one was a hit job on some of the nonsense that is being perpetrated at school. Like using Maya in Architecture. Why not use silly putty or match sticks? Maybe I am exaggerating a little but the parametric stuff is really a fetish and it's appeal and the economics of it are very limited. I dunno.
i'm using rhino to make simple installation/wall divider thingy for my office at the university (which is about 1000 ft 2). its not anything fancy, just a good opportunity for me to see what is possible with cnc and no budget. i have got to admit it is very very cheap to produce slightly interesting designs. i expected it to be more expensive. now i know how to use the software better i am itching to try and do a real design.
i am not doing parametric design in the sense you mean, but i can absolutely see its place. and really, could you imagine if gehry had made the gugg in spain out of boxes?
btw make were you at most of the any shows? my partner was in at least one of them. he is sitting next to pete eisenmann in one of the books. the way he tells it it was kind of nice being in delft back in days before any of those people were all that famous.
@ sarah, i am very sorry to hear that. keep at it though. things will turn round eventually i am certain.
I don't really see the conceptual difference between using Maya vs. using silly putty / foam / matchsticks / what-have-you in studio. (The practical difference, of course, being that they tool breeds a slightly different kind of design thinking due to its particular advantages / limitations.) But conceptually... what's there to particularly slam in Maya? I don't get the disgruntlement. And I'm speaking as someone who's not particularly techno-savvy in design (I still do most of my initial designing by hand-sketching & physical modelling, or sketch-uping, which works fine for me.)
manta, you're alive! How are you handling Snowpocalypse?
It's not too bad! And thanks for all the congrats, everyone! Feels great to be accomplishing a dream I've had for my entire adult life.
Snowpocalypse is seriously not a big deal. For example - snowfall totals were like around 2'. That's NOTHING compared with what New England is dealing with this year. I've personally gone through at least 3 storms I can think of that were worse than this (not in Chicago). Chicago just doesn't get a ton of snow - people just like to make a big deal out of it here!
I will say though, I'm really impressed at how well the city services prepared AND responded. City trains are all running normally today, and most bus routes! The main streets around my neighborhood were plowed before I even woke up. Two of the 5 coffeeshops in my neighborhood were open for business, so I got to sit at the cafe for a while and talk shop with a journalist friend filing stories from home as a "snow bureau correspondant" hehe. It's been fun!
Too bad I have to go back to work tomrorow...
Wow. It's been crazy here. School has been closed for two days, and will be closed even tomorrow! Husband stayed home today, but will go to work tomorrow. Abram will probably be home with me again tomorrow. I hope he's good.
Snook, you're not burried, are you?
morning all. while the rest of the country is buried in snow, Fl is getting soaked/flooded out by rain.
i'm really sorry to hear that, sarah. i know you've invested a lot of time into this...
Manta,
No, I like Maya and Rhino. I am using the latter on the Mac side and it's pretty damn cool! I just think that its uses are pretty limited in a field where very little is made on a CNC. I think there's an opportunity there but I am not sure what that is and what the scope of it is. I think it's worth exploring. I also think that figuring out what you're doing with diagramming and sketching out solutions is more important. I think you can have the latter without the former but not the other way around.
Jump,
What does your divider look like? Please share.
Our CNC router at school has been broken for about a year and a half with little interest on part of the higher-ups in fixing it.
I spent an hour and a half digging the I-Go car out at Western and Lincoln yesterday evening so I could head out to the suburbs and help my S.O. dig out. The Edens was still covered with snow in spots and I saw two different people spin out and hit the median at 40 mph. DANGEROUS! The City does an AMAZING job of cleaning up and the lot I got the I-GO car through 100 feet of snow and then a 4 foot tall wall at the driveway was entirely cleared by the time I returned at 10 pm. (So much for proof as to why I was late when I returned with the S.O. Ha!) Streets in the suburbs must use a different salt than the City as they were still covered with show in a lot of spots.
tonight there was supposed to be an artscrawl. there are actually some very good artists in town and in the region. a few of them have been featured recently in the new american paintings quarterly. but, apparently the 30 degree temperatures and threat of snow flurries have postponed the festivities.
Weird. I'm working on my arch. portfolio again, and writing up my ideas using words like facade and such seems so difficult. Amazing how the world can just slip away from you when your aren't immersed in it. I can't remember any of my archi-speak. Do you think an employer would hold it against me if everything is presented in simple english?
Hello Archinect-er's, it's been awhile.
Hope everyone is dealing ok with the snow - it's freezing and business as usual here in the mountain west.
I am thankful for how busy I have been - the work is not glamorous (it can really suck some days), but I have been able to keep on truckin' through this recession, with the glimmer of my adjunct teaching to help me keep a hold on why I love architecture.
I need to finish my exams. I am having my second child next month. I have accepted a moonlighting job that I can't turn down but it will be a challenge to say the least after the baby arrives. I don't want to come back to this job - the job with a steady paycheck and insurance.
somebody slap some sense into me, please.
Hi smallpotatoes! Look at it this way: managing two small kids is going to be challenging for several years even under the best conditions. So whatever decision you make, you will have challenges, but you'll still have the amazing wonderfulness of babies to keep your spirits up even when you feel like you're drowning in diapers/snot/dirty dishes/ear infections/and yes money troubles too.
So the big question is: can you get insurance elsewhere? You have a life partner, yes? Does that person have a job that provides insurance? Which one of you has the job that makes the most sense to allow the other one to stay home and deal with family/home requirements?
make, I saw a terrifying picture of a Chicago freeway with long rows of abandoned cars stuck in snowdrifts - I can't imagine how it came to be, did people just leave their cars and walk down the freeway to home in a blizzard?!
snook, calling snook, are you alive?!
@manta,
it looks pretty much like all such projects look. nothing fancy. will post on our blog once it gets cut and assembled and i actually have time to breathe again (hopefully soon).
it seems like i am to go to india in a few weeks to present our school program and ask to join a fancy environmental research project. quite looking forward to it except that i need to make an awesome presentation to convince them that we are the folks to go to...up until now academia was always the quiet part of my life ;-)
that whole insurance thing is just not right. i can't imagine having to pick a job just to have insurance.
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