so i'm sitting here writing my paper on marshall field additions, and i'm reading an SMLXL. and it's about the "typical plan:"
The typical plan is an American invention. It is zero-degree architecture, architecture stripped of all traces of uniqueness and specificity. It belongs to the New World.
Typical plan is Western. There is no equivalent in any other culture. It is the stamp of modernity itself.
Typical plan is neutral, not anonymous. It is a place of worship. More austere than a Cistercian monestary, it accommodates infinately greater numbers, a 20th century church without doctrince.
Although the domoinant emphasis of the Typical Plan is on abstraction, there is plumbing. It doesn't deny those residual features that make humans animals still.
The cumulative effect of all this vacancy - the systematic lack of commitment - is, paradoxically, density.
Concentrations of the Typical Plan have produced the skyscraper: unstable monolith; accumulations of skyscrapers, the only "new" urban condition: downtown, defined by sheer quantity rather than as a specific formal configuration. The center is no longer unique but universal, no longer a place but a condition.
and i'm sitting here trying to write about my plan for the new marshall field, and thinking: this is such a rare expression of hierarchy for OMA. it's like sort of this defining statement of how they approach programs. and i realize, it's like fractal chaos theory - the deeper and closer you go, the pattern keeps multiplying. near or far, the chaos of the narrative is equaled. I know this sounds crazy but it's actually very simple. in simpler words, i don't know if i'm gonna do this for a living but now at least i can see that it's not linear: it won't get boring in the way some things do. if anything it's in danger of black holing, rather than brick walling like art will. which is so cool.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
"holy hell are my boxers made of wool? because my weasel's getting heatstroke!"
check out these pictures of my sister and her friend adam ghostriding our whip, the two door scion!
so awesome. so, so, so awesome. they also hung out with diverse last night which is cool.
my night last night was a lot less exciting. we drank in pauline's room (it was her bday) and then went to 'its goin down' which was actually so great. it's so good to go to a party with a real dj - they played the greatest songs. like stuff people actually want to dance to. this year it's been a lot of self indulgant crap that people have to dance to cuz it's the only thing on campus happening. but last night there was a little soul to it. plus there was free beer. the thing that sucked was that i lost my white antler/coral necklace! i guess i was dancing to hard cuz it just snapped right off and then i couldn't find it on the floor. and then the whole thing got shut down because of a noise complaint from the neighbors. duh.
tonight is going to be funny because it's jason's fashion show and then jiddy's opening, which is going to be great. she's getting like 110 gallons of wine. and then i forget what else is happening..some kind of party.
so awesome. so, so, so awesome. they also hung out with diverse last night which is cool.
my night last night was a lot less exciting. we drank in pauline's room (it was her bday) and then went to 'its goin down' which was actually so great. it's so good to go to a party with a real dj - they played the greatest songs. like stuff people actually want to dance to. this year it's been a lot of self indulgant crap that people have to dance to cuz it's the only thing on campus happening. but last night there was a little soul to it. plus there was free beer. the thing that sucked was that i lost my white antler/coral necklace! i guess i was dancing to hard cuz it just snapped right off and then i couldn't find it on the floor. and then the whole thing got shut down because of a noise complaint from the neighbors. duh.
tonight is going to be funny because it's jason's fashion show and then jiddy's opening, which is going to be great. she's getting like 110 gallons of wine. and then i forget what else is happening..some kind of party.
Friday, April 27, 2007
travel
check out our video of the mixed use tower crawl we did last week:
jiddy is a brilliant editor...it's so awesome. we showed it at the beginning of our presentation yesterday and it was great. unfortch i only had like 5 minutes to give my part of the presentation because the group before us went like 20 minutes over. they were great - brought beer and peanuts for us because their presentation was on stadiums. i presented on albertslund syd and oma.
it's so busy here. every day passes and then i can't remember what happened because it went so fast. yesterday was the opening of the musical ross wrote, brick by brick, (based on the stories of edgar allen poe), which was surprisingly amazing. i mean i knew ross was talented, but generally i hate musicals, and this one i actually really enjoyed. i also think it was because my friends were in it - erica played the sassy hungarian nymphomaniac and jarett played dr. de kock, an insane doctor at an insane asylum. that was pretty much the funniest thing ever. jarett's stage presence could stand on its own beyond any show or anything like that...i just laugh and laugh at that stuff. afterwards he told us after the first number he faced in our direction because from our hysterical laughter he could tell where we were sitting. i wish i could describe the mannerisms to you. imagine a rooster dressed in 1890s clothing, wearing eyeliner, who uses his entire head as a beak, and keeps going squuauaaaarrrk. anyways erica has a really, really amazing voice so it was great. i was happy for all of them.
then an hour later there was a lampoon show, well really they opened for "treble in paradise" which is a female acapella group. HA! anyways hilarious. they ended with a joke about a wheat allergy, which really got us all going. anyways it really took me back to highschool in a way - everyone's doing the SEEEEENooooiiiirs thing, and watching "the last show" of this school group. i felt like i was in mem hall. except a much queerer, less waspy version of mem hall. the black squirrel is in a room that is really pretty incredible. big bauhausian windows on one side, 20ft ceilings... too bad they slathered party carpet all over the walls. yeugh! actually i'm starting to like it just because it's so bizarre. it feels like a cross between an abandoned warehouse in brooklyn and a chuckey cheese in illinois.
then i think we were going to go to the bar, but it was just too much to do. i went home and went to bed. woke up this morning to a lot of rain, hopefully it'll end before tonight, because take a look at the poster for this party max martin and some other dudes are throwing tonight:
HAH! we need this.
jiddy is a brilliant editor...it's so awesome. we showed it at the beginning of our presentation yesterday and it was great. unfortch i only had like 5 minutes to give my part of the presentation because the group before us went like 20 minutes over. they were great - brought beer and peanuts for us because their presentation was on stadiums. i presented on albertslund syd and oma.
it's so busy here. every day passes and then i can't remember what happened because it went so fast. yesterday was the opening of the musical ross wrote, brick by brick, (based on the stories of edgar allen poe), which was surprisingly amazing. i mean i knew ross was talented, but generally i hate musicals, and this one i actually really enjoyed. i also think it was because my friends were in it - erica played the sassy hungarian nymphomaniac and jarett played dr. de kock, an insane doctor at an insane asylum. that was pretty much the funniest thing ever. jarett's stage presence could stand on its own beyond any show or anything like that...i just laugh and laugh at that stuff. afterwards he told us after the first number he faced in our direction because from our hysterical laughter he could tell where we were sitting. i wish i could describe the mannerisms to you. imagine a rooster dressed in 1890s clothing, wearing eyeliner, who uses his entire head as a beak, and keeps going squuauaaaarrrk. anyways erica has a really, really amazing voice so it was great. i was happy for all of them.
then an hour later there was a lampoon show, well really they opened for "treble in paradise" which is a female acapella group. HA! anyways hilarious. they ended with a joke about a wheat allergy, which really got us all going. anyways it really took me back to highschool in a way - everyone's doing the SEEEEENooooiiiirs thing, and watching "the last show" of this school group. i felt like i was in mem hall. except a much queerer, less waspy version of mem hall. the black squirrel is in a room that is really pretty incredible. big bauhausian windows on one side, 20ft ceilings... too bad they slathered party carpet all over the walls. yeugh! actually i'm starting to like it just because it's so bizarre. it feels like a cross between an abandoned warehouse in brooklyn and a chuckey cheese in illinois.
then i think we were going to go to the bar, but it was just too much to do. i went home and went to bed. woke up this morning to a lot of rain, hopefully it'll end before tonight, because take a look at the poster for this party max martin and some other dudes are throwing tonight:
HAH! we need this.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
my family's role in the world revolution
woo! i've stopped counting the hours i've been in the lab. we're all here in the lab working on our forte presentation on mixed use towers. jiddy is making an awesome video right now of our trip to three towers in the city and i am so so so excited about it. i'll post it here when she's done.
yesterday was our opening for our designs of the museum. it was supposed to be 'potluck' but everyone brought wine, and forte gave us like 5 extra bottles he had in his car. don't ever drink after you've stayed up for more than two days. you'll be hanging from the rafters! here's a couple samples from my project:
(i dunno why, but this first one's colors are coming out all crazy...it's supposed to be burnt sienna words on dark orange with yellow figures???)
afterwards katie drove us to cross county and made some bad drunk-buys. for example a white 'u.s. polo association' shirt. wtf????????? why did i buy this? i'm predicting it'll be my most-worn item of clothing for the rest of the summer.
i feel like i'm floating right now... everything is good and bad too. for example, volume emailed me to ask for writing samples but then i wrote the guy back as a "ms." OOPS!
p.s. i am so into beirut right now. it reminds me of our eastern european escapades last spring (one year ago to the months!). that was so awesome. but something tells me i shouldn't like beirut...much like my instinct to not like sufjan stevens. but you know what, i don't care. i like what i like!
yesterday was our opening for our designs of the museum. it was supposed to be 'potluck' but everyone brought wine, and forte gave us like 5 extra bottles he had in his car. don't ever drink after you've stayed up for more than two days. you'll be hanging from the rafters! here's a couple samples from my project:
(i dunno why, but this first one's colors are coming out all crazy...it's supposed to be burnt sienna words on dark orange with yellow figures???)
afterwards katie drove us to cross county and made some bad drunk-buys. for example a white 'u.s. polo association' shirt. wtf????????? why did i buy this? i'm predicting it'll be my most-worn item of clothing for the rest of the summer.
i feel like i'm floating right now... everything is good and bad too. for example, volume emailed me to ask for writing samples but then i wrote the guy back as a "ms." OOPS!
p.s. i am so into beirut right now. it reminds me of our eastern european escapades last spring (one year ago to the months!). that was so awesome. but something tells me i shouldn't like beirut...much like my instinct to not like sufjan stevens. but you know what, i don't care. i like what i like!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
and hold on
tonight was the 'glamour ball,' i.e., the re-named and slightly less raunchy sleaze ball. of course, traditionally, the sleaze ball was second to the fall's much more sexy "coming out dance," at which i was officially initiated into the sarah lawrence college community by seeing a classmate jerk off another classmate onto some girl. yes. i'm not exaggerating at all. these are commonplace acts at sleaze/coming out dances. for this reason among others, last year both dances were cancelled. mainly because 11-15 people each night had to get their stomachs pumped. so this year they're trying to re-invent the whole queer week thing by calling it "glamour week." it's a 'new leaf' that slc is apparently turning over, since the coming out dance had become way more about boobies than its original anti-homophobic angle. it was the frat party without the holier than thou validation factor, which i enjoyed nonetheless.
(amy and nick before the coming out dance sophmore year.)
i wish i knew how describe my experience of coming out dance for the first two years here. justin once said, "you only have fun at the coming out dance if you go to the hospital." they would literally just line up ambulances outside of bates, and if they saw some guy kind of falling all over the place they'd just take him away, clean as a whistle. it's held in the cafeteria, and the booths are specifically for having sex in. people come naked. it's really exactly what you'd expect from a school like this.
so tonight was the new and improved glamour ball. which was pretty much the exact same thing, except with one light turned on, 200 fewer people, no sex, and less dance music. more clothing too. i remember feeling shamed that i hadn't come in underwear when i was a freshman. tonight the craziest person was just wearing one of those silver lame leotards from american apparel.
i've only been here for four years, and i've seen the college atmosphere go from one extreme to something completely different. where's the gay royalty? where's the glitter? high heels? even the much-hated neon thong peeking out over stone washed mc hammer pants...at this point i'd take it! i'm glad in a way that it's over, because it makes me realize that certain social phenomena really truly are specific to certain time periods. by this i mean: what makes people wear this crazy shit isn't sarah lawrence, it's the general cultural climate of the years they attend. which is kind of cool when you think about it.
(amy and nick before the coming out dance sophmore year.)
i wish i knew how describe my experience of coming out dance for the first two years here. justin once said, "you only have fun at the coming out dance if you go to the hospital." they would literally just line up ambulances outside of bates, and if they saw some guy kind of falling all over the place they'd just take him away, clean as a whistle. it's held in the cafeteria, and the booths are specifically for having sex in. people come naked. it's really exactly what you'd expect from a school like this.
so tonight was the new and improved glamour ball. which was pretty much the exact same thing, except with one light turned on, 200 fewer people, no sex, and less dance music. more clothing too. i remember feeling shamed that i hadn't come in underwear when i was a freshman. tonight the craziest person was just wearing one of those silver lame leotards from american apparel.
i've only been here for four years, and i've seen the college atmosphere go from one extreme to something completely different. where's the gay royalty? where's the glitter? high heels? even the much-hated neon thong peeking out over stone washed mc hammer pants...at this point i'd take it! i'm glad in a way that it's over, because it makes me realize that certain social phenomena really truly are specific to certain time periods. by this i mean: what makes people wear this crazy shit isn't sarah lawrence, it's the general cultural climate of the years they attend. which is kind of cool when you think about it.
Friday, April 20, 2007
classics
it's starting to finally act like spring around here. today is gonna be funny because my freshman yr best friend who graduated early, tasha, and her parter mel (they're the agytators) are taking my picture. you might ask, why? you take the dumbest, though funniest, pictures ever? and honestly i couldn't tell you the answer to that one my friends. theyre also shooting jason and adam nichols. i just remembered this whole thing this morning and so now i dont have time to practice my blue steel in front of my mirror. CRAP
anyways so here i am waiting for them to show up and doing the usual "i'm being paid to be here" dance around helping anyone do anything in this lab. yesterday night we went to the aspace unveiling of the first art review, which was pretty cool. i am always so impressed by my friends' art. then we went to ac12 but i lost momentum and decided to just go home instead of going to the bar. i've just had like no sleep in a week and blah blah blah...anyways i talked to my parents and they were doing well. my dad told me that he had lunch today with the ex-vice-dean of UT austin's arch school. DAMNIT. he said he told her i got rejected and she said it's been so selective the past 15 yrs that they go almost completely on test scores alone. crap. at least this validates my theory about my GRE math disaster.
in other news, i am so completely screwed with my museum design! haha!
anyways so here i am waiting for them to show up and doing the usual "i'm being paid to be here" dance around helping anyone do anything in this lab. yesterday night we went to the aspace unveiling of the first art review, which was pretty cool. i am always so impressed by my friends' art. then we went to ac12 but i lost momentum and decided to just go home instead of going to the bar. i've just had like no sleep in a week and blah blah blah...anyways i talked to my parents and they were doing well. my dad told me that he had lunch today with the ex-vice-dean of UT austin's arch school. DAMNIT. he said he told her i got rejected and she said it's been so selective the past 15 yrs that they go almost completely on test scores alone. crap. at least this validates my theory about my GRE math disaster.
in other news, i am so completely screwed with my museum design! haha!
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
FOA sermon
i am a maniac. i can tell you that right now. here's the hours i logged in the lab for the last two days:
10am - 3am
10am - 10pm
WTF? it's because i started my museum model OVER and it's supposed to be done for our class' opening next tuesday. OH MY GOD. and i went crazy with this new design and i mean...it really is crazy. i don't know if i'm even making the right decision with this thing. but i can tell you right now i like this one a lot better. that other one was evil. but it sucks: yesterday in class everyone was finishing their final presentations with their final model renderings and going around looking at each other's and saying "oooh! awwww!" and they came to mine, and all i had was this little grey thing and they all kind of just stood there silently..justin actually said "good! keep working..!" HAHAH! but it'll be sexy in the end!!!
okay how hilarious is this. this was sent my my friend jessica, she was a donee of forte a few yrs ago and started at harvard this yr. i've been facebooking with her cuz i wanted to get her advice about schools, and she just send me this message with all these pieces of advice...one of them was to watch this video, which some people at penn made about FOA's yokohama ferry terminal. it's called "FOA sermon." so click here.
10am - 3am
10am - 10pm
WTF? it's because i started my museum model OVER and it's supposed to be done for our class' opening next tuesday. OH MY GOD. and i went crazy with this new design and i mean...it really is crazy. i don't know if i'm even making the right decision with this thing. but i can tell you right now i like this one a lot better. that other one was evil. but it sucks: yesterday in class everyone was finishing their final presentations with their final model renderings and going around looking at each other's and saying "oooh! awwww!" and they came to mine, and all i had was this little grey thing and they all kind of just stood there silently..justin actually said "good! keep working..!" HAHAH! but it'll be sexy in the end!!!
okay how hilarious is this. this was sent my my friend jessica, she was a donee of forte a few yrs ago and started at harvard this yr. i've been facebooking with her cuz i wanted to get her advice about schools, and she just send me this message with all these pieces of advice...one of them was to watch this video, which some people at penn made about FOA's yokohama ferry terminal. it's called "FOA sermon." so click here.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
i'll write the album of the year
ugh what a weekend. my god. its like hell here. i cannot wait to go back to dallas. it's like everything was going great for a while and now suddenly i live in the house from aquateen except without frylock,shake,or meatwad. just the same enviornment. okay, that metaphor didnt work just forget it.
anyways, yesterday night started out great, perfect - we hung out in jarett's room and then we went to anna/caitlyn's party, which was really great - they opened up both their rooms and filled the bathtub with ice and drinks. they even had snacks - you're lucky if you even see some cut up limes at most parties at slc. luxurious! anyways it was really fun. unfortch later i slapped justin for saying something really meanspirited, so then of course we spent the rest of the night fighting. this same fight keeps happening over and over. but last night it was truly inimical. how embarassing. but really. i'm tired of him being able to push, hit, insult, and generally harass people when he drinks, and then when he provokes me i get in huge trouble. anyways i feel so embrassed about what happened, but listen to the advice annicka just gave me, which is brilliant:
anyways, yesterday night started out great, perfect - we hung out in jarett's room and then we went to anna/caitlyn's party, which was really great - they opened up both their rooms and filled the bathtub with ice and drinks. they even had snacks - you're lucky if you even see some cut up limes at most parties at slc. luxurious! anyways it was really fun. unfortch later i slapped justin for saying something really meanspirited, so then of course we spent the rest of the night fighting. this same fight keeps happening over and over. but last night it was truly inimical. how embarassing. but really. i'm tired of him being able to push, hit, insult, and generally harass people when he drinks, and then when he provokes me i get in huge trouble. anyways i feel so embrassed about what happened, but listen to the advice annicka just gave me, which is brilliant:
but people get butt ass wasted and make asses out of themselves ALL THE TIME. youre just another one of them. people actually dont even give a shit or remember, theyre just worrying aobut whether theyll get laid that night
anyways after anna's we went over to the slonim 4 party and that was okay. i will go out on a limb here and say that i drank too much last night. but hey, when else am i going to act like a fool?
i found out that my friend leah from berlin is moving to ny! YES! she is the most wonderful person. she is that classic type of european (shes a dane) that's all business on the outside and hilariously neurotic on the inside. she is so smart...she goes to oberlin for art history but she's considering med school. badass! anyways if i don't get university housing we're going to live together. i'm really hoping that she'll paint our apartment white. tired cliche anyone? but it's true.
another really exciting thing that i found out today is that the entire dollaghan clan is renting two houses in rhode island for a week this summer. YES!!! every summer since i was a baby we used to all go to rhode island - in 1991 we even had to evacuate for hurricane bob!!! i think we go to rhode island because that's where grandma's parents settled when they came over from sweden. i think her uncles built a bunch of houses on narraganset. anyways we haven't gone since i was in elementary school and now ITS HAPPENING! BOOYAH! every time the dollaghan family gets together it is a nonstop laugh riot. they are all the funniest coolest people and i've always been pissed that i'm not more like them. for starters annicka and i are the only ones out of 12 cousins and seven aunts and uncles with dark hair. WTF? ive always been resentful of this fact. i don't know why, i mean i like my hair. it guess i made into a symbol of how i wish we were closer to colorado and all of them. i mean we're very close, it's just that they all live in the same city and so they get to see each other more than twice a year.
in other news my work has come to a standstill because of my ocd about loosing my skills. like my whole life, with every thing i've been moderately good at, after a little while i loose interest or i just can't do it anymore. it happened with swimming, painting, writing...and now i'm terrified it's gonna happen with this stuff. so i'm convinced that if i do my best on my conference projects i won't be able to do well next year in grad school. so yeah. just a little glimpse into the insane logic of my constantly terror-stricken mind.
will it ever stop raining?
Saturday, April 14, 2007
opus 36
well i just sent in my five hundred buckeroos to columbia. or, should i say, my parent's 500 buckeroos. the point is, i'm either going to columbia in the fall or i'm giving them a free half grand. either way, whew.
yesterday was weird... after work i came home and took a nap, where i had a crazy night terror/nightmare. i'm really worried my night terrors are coming back (i've had bad reoccuring nightmares about volanoes and fires and stuff since i was little, but then senior yr in high school i had crazy apocolypse nightmares constantly and my mom made me go to therapy for it). it would make sense since i think those nightmares were symptoms of repressed anxiety, and the pattern of senior yr right before graduation also fits. anyways this one was particularly terrifying - it started out innocently enough: i was on a ferris wheel waiting for my friends (it looked a lot like the columbian exposition of 1893's midway area, though i knew i was in bronxville), doing work on my laptop. it started to go really fast and my bag fell off - so i jumped off the ferris wheel to go pick it up. as i was doing so, i heard a huge vibrating BOOM and looked in the direction of manhattan - there was a crazy mushroom cloud. so i dropped to the ground and tried to push my head down in the sand of the midway. the next thing i knew, katie and i were in some room at slc with the windows drawn, trying to figure out what our next move would be - leave, head north, or try to wait it out in the room until someone came to get us. but would anyone? there were some other people there too i think. two security guards came in and said they had a van that was working - they could take us. so we got in. for some reason we headed down into manhattan, and we stopped outside of the main gate of columbia's campus. the buildings were all torn up and it looked like a disaster zone. for some reason we went in, and went to the administration building. we walked into a room where there were three clearly higher-ups from the board of directors maybe? the funny thing was, they were all dressed in turn of the century tuxedos - tail flaps, crisp white collars, and so on. a few of them even had white andrew carnegie-style beards. anyways we talked to one, and i forget but we had to ask them a question. so he turned to the other two, who were both looking away. when they turned towards us, i finally saw that they were zombies from the nuclear fallout. they both had two different colored eyes. there mouthes were hanging open and they just sat at their mohogany desks and looked in our eyes. then i woke up. BOOYAH!
dang was that scary. the two different colored eyes thing is from the promo poster for the new 28 weeks later movie. which i am SO EXCITED FOR! then i spent some time researching how to survive a nuclear attack (answer: there really is no way to survive a nuclear attack!). it's bad, because the Apocolypse and related apocolypses are the most fascinating ideas to me - i love books about them and movies and stories and so on...but that stuff is also the scariest stuff EVER to me. so it's like a vicious cycle of alternating fascination and terror. but geez i hope these dreams don't continue. i'm gonna have a hard time living in manhattan if they do.
anyways we postponed our tower crawl because justin had some kind of nervous break the night before and only slept an hour, so he was too tired to go. so i woke up all disgustingly sweaty and freaked out, then katie drove us all to new rochelle, so we could go to one of their favorite midwestern chain restaurants, buffalo wild wings. we ordered ONE HUNDRED wings and got them in medium, mango habenero, and asian zing sauces. oh my god. i've never really been to a place for wings so this was new to me. everyone chided me throughout the meal because apparently, i am a very wasteful wing eater. as justin yelled, "THE CARTILAGE IS THE BEST PART! CRACK OPEN THE BONES!" ugh. but it was delicious.
i'm excited for tonight, there's a party in DL on justin's hall and those are always the best ones.
yesterday was weird... after work i came home and took a nap, where i had a crazy night terror/nightmare. i'm really worried my night terrors are coming back (i've had bad reoccuring nightmares about volanoes and fires and stuff since i was little, but then senior yr in high school i had crazy apocolypse nightmares constantly and my mom made me go to therapy for it). it would make sense since i think those nightmares were symptoms of repressed anxiety, and the pattern of senior yr right before graduation also fits. anyways this one was particularly terrifying - it started out innocently enough: i was on a ferris wheel waiting for my friends (it looked a lot like the columbian exposition of 1893's midway area, though i knew i was in bronxville), doing work on my laptop. it started to go really fast and my bag fell off - so i jumped off the ferris wheel to go pick it up. as i was doing so, i heard a huge vibrating BOOM and looked in the direction of manhattan - there was a crazy mushroom cloud. so i dropped to the ground and tried to push my head down in the sand of the midway. the next thing i knew, katie and i were in some room at slc with the windows drawn, trying to figure out what our next move would be - leave, head north, or try to wait it out in the room until someone came to get us. but would anyone? there were some other people there too i think. two security guards came in and said they had a van that was working - they could take us. so we got in. for some reason we headed down into manhattan, and we stopped outside of the main gate of columbia's campus. the buildings were all torn up and it looked like a disaster zone. for some reason we went in, and went to the administration building. we walked into a room where there were three clearly higher-ups from the board of directors maybe? the funny thing was, they were all dressed in turn of the century tuxedos - tail flaps, crisp white collars, and so on. a few of them even had white andrew carnegie-style beards. anyways we talked to one, and i forget but we had to ask them a question. so he turned to the other two, who were both looking away. when they turned towards us, i finally saw that they were zombies from the nuclear fallout. they both had two different colored eyes. there mouthes were hanging open and they just sat at their mohogany desks and looked in our eyes. then i woke up. BOOYAH!
dang was that scary. the two different colored eyes thing is from the promo poster for the new 28 weeks later movie. which i am SO EXCITED FOR! then i spent some time researching how to survive a nuclear attack (answer: there really is no way to survive a nuclear attack!). it's bad, because the Apocolypse and related apocolypses are the most fascinating ideas to me - i love books about them and movies and stories and so on...but that stuff is also the scariest stuff EVER to me. so it's like a vicious cycle of alternating fascination and terror. but geez i hope these dreams don't continue. i'm gonna have a hard time living in manhattan if they do.
anyways we postponed our tower crawl because justin had some kind of nervous break the night before and only slept an hour, so he was too tired to go. so i woke up all disgustingly sweaty and freaked out, then katie drove us all to new rochelle, so we could go to one of their favorite midwestern chain restaurants, buffalo wild wings. we ordered ONE HUNDRED wings and got them in medium, mango habenero, and asian zing sauces. oh my god. i've never really been to a place for wings so this was new to me. everyone chided me throughout the meal because apparently, i am a very wasteful wing eater. as justin yelled, "THE CARTILAGE IS THE BEST PART! CRACK OPEN THE BONES!" ugh. but it was delicious.
i'm excited for tonight, there's a party in DL on justin's hall and those are always the best ones.
Friday, April 13, 2007
big!!!
alright. i need to get how much i love BIG (bjarke ingels group) off my chest. he and julien de smedt used to make up half of PLOT before they parted ways. this might not make much sense if you haven't been keeping up on your future-city contemporary danish architecture lately (shame on you) - PLOT is a firm that designed a bunch of really cool bldgs in copenhagen. anyways, they separated and now it's BIG on one side and JDS (juilen de smedt). and it's AMAZING. like the craziest awesomest coolest stuff ever.
click here to see the website. he lectured at columbia this week i think, too.
anyways, i was just reading this article in metropolis and i can't get over the last paragraph:
“Do you know the Notorious B.I.G.?” Ingels asked me as we returned from the VM Houses in his Volvo wagon. “I read in Wikipedia that B.I.G. stands for ‘Business Instead of Game.’” If gangsta rap and progressive Danish urbanism seem worlds apart, Ingels views Biggie Smalls’s nickname as a simple metaphor for his own “big,” moving toward ever more ambitious, and realizable, urban schemes.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the rivington
okay, you need to click on this link and watch this intro flash animation. it's for the rivington hotel, which is cool if a little snotty...but that intro is fucking awesome. and at the same time reminds me of rotterdam?? you have to listen to the walkmen's 'wake up' while looking at this intro, then the circle of massive douchery will be complete.
celebrate the new, celebrate the few
i'm so excited, tonight is our HIGH RISE MULTI-USE TOWER CRAWL! wooo! in forte's class we're giving group presentations on contemporary arch. typologies, and me/justin/jiddy/sarah chose the multi-use tower. so tonight we are going to do a 'tower bar crawl' and make a movie out of it. i'm so damn excited!!!
last night was great - we went to the malthouse as is our wont on thursdays. jiddy showed up so that was funny. at the end of the night we were doing shots of sambuca and that crap is so sugary and greasy, when someone handed me mine, it slipped right out of my hand! oh god it was awful. now everything i own smells like licorice. i guess it could be worse. but seriously, the section of my pants where it got spilled was literally hard by the end of the night - like it had been sprayed with some kind of disgusting clear sealant. hah! so anyways the end of the night was just really great. and then after that katie, amy chris and i went to eileen's - YES. eileen's is so great. then starsha charis and richard came too. these obnoxious yonkers kids started making fun of the irish waitress' accent cuz she kicked one out for smoking inside, and as they left, richard jumped up and said "i am just so mad right now." and ran out, and picked up two trashcans and threw them at the cars of these kids as they drove away. he then got in his car and tried to follow them. he was back in 10 minutes though for a burger - it was pretty hilarious/badass.
so i'm almost 100% on columbia. gotta get a money order (for some reason i have no checks) and send that off. i applied for housing yesterday!? i had been feeling for a few days after ithaca that columbia was the right place for me, but i kept trying to convince myself of cornell because when we were there, my mom was really quiet about judging it. so i assumed that she wanted me to go there. so i kept thinking "mom must see something i don't" so i spent a while trying to see how i should go there. but slowly i realized it wasn't gonna happen, so i was dreading telling my parents, since i thought they'd be dissapointed. so last night i called them and i was kind of slowly trying to say that i was going with columbia, and my mom goes "THANK GOD! now i can finally say something! we were on pins and needles that you might choose cornell, but we didn't want to influence your decision!" it was like the biggest miscommunication ever - i thought my mom wanted me to go and she thought i wanted to go, but we both knew i should go to columbia. hah. anyways that's done. i'm so relieved to put that decision behind me. cornell's open house was pretty weird - no one asked questions and in general the admitted students just seemed kind of...blase? i mean on the other hand the kids at columbia's open house acted like they were all on meth or something. i would prefer something more in the middle, but i don't really have another choice! so, here's to decades of debt and three miserable, oppresively anxious, sleep-deprived years!
last night was great - we went to the malthouse as is our wont on thursdays. jiddy showed up so that was funny. at the end of the night we were doing shots of sambuca and that crap is so sugary and greasy, when someone handed me mine, it slipped right out of my hand! oh god it was awful. now everything i own smells like licorice. i guess it could be worse. but seriously, the section of my pants where it got spilled was literally hard by the end of the night - like it had been sprayed with some kind of disgusting clear sealant. hah! so anyways the end of the night was just really great. and then after that katie, amy chris and i went to eileen's - YES. eileen's is so great. then starsha charis and richard came too. these obnoxious yonkers kids started making fun of the irish waitress' accent cuz she kicked one out for smoking inside, and as they left, richard jumped up and said "i am just so mad right now." and ran out, and picked up two trashcans and threw them at the cars of these kids as they drove away. he then got in his car and tried to follow them. he was back in 10 minutes though for a burger - it was pretty hilarious/badass.
so i'm almost 100% on columbia. gotta get a money order (for some reason i have no checks) and send that off. i applied for housing yesterday!? i had been feeling for a few days after ithaca that columbia was the right place for me, but i kept trying to convince myself of cornell because when we were there, my mom was really quiet about judging it. so i assumed that she wanted me to go there. so i kept thinking "mom must see something i don't" so i spent a while trying to see how i should go there. but slowly i realized it wasn't gonna happen, so i was dreading telling my parents, since i thought they'd be dissapointed. so last night i called them and i was kind of slowly trying to say that i was going with columbia, and my mom goes "THANK GOD! now i can finally say something! we were on pins and needles that you might choose cornell, but we didn't want to influence your decision!" it was like the biggest miscommunication ever - i thought my mom wanted me to go and she thought i wanted to go, but we both knew i should go to columbia. hah. anyways that's done. i'm so relieved to put that decision behind me. cornell's open house was pretty weird - no one asked questions and in general the admitted students just seemed kind of...blase? i mean on the other hand the kids at columbia's open house acted like they were all on meth or something. i would prefer something more in the middle, but i don't really have another choice! so, here's to decades of debt and three miserable, oppresively anxious, sleep-deprived years!
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
hurry boy it's waiting there for you
is toto the greatest? 'africa -' yes.
so we drank some wine at the advanced painting show, and then i come home to get my drawing stuff to take to katie's room where everyone is, but then i sat down cuz i wanted to listen to toto. so then i started up maya, and then after 20 minutes i started to feel sleepy. uh oh. so of course the only choice was go to bed or keep drinking. luckily i have a few beers in the fridge from last weekend. so now i really am kind of drunk, maybe too much so, but anyways it's making for hilarious work in maya. especially in light of this article about stoner architects.
because the model i am building in maya right now is MADE ONLY OF STAIRS!
haHHAHAHahahha!
so we drank some wine at the advanced painting show, and then i come home to get my drawing stuff to take to katie's room where everyone is, but then i sat down cuz i wanted to listen to toto. so then i started up maya, and then after 20 minutes i started to feel sleepy. uh oh. so of course the only choice was go to bed or keep drinking. luckily i have a few beers in the fridge from last weekend. so now i really am kind of drunk, maybe too much so, but anyways it's making for hilarious work in maya. especially in light of this article about stoner architects.
because the model i am building in maya right now is MADE ONLY OF STAIRS!
haHHAHAHahahha!
Sunday, April 8, 2007
heimdalsgate
ahh, there's nothing like a cold beer after a stressful day. haa.
i'm so into the new of montreal album. "i spent the winter on the verge of a nervous breakdown while living in norway/i felt the darkness of the black metal bands/but being such a fawn of a man i didn't burn down any old churches/just slept way too much"
hah! these lyrics could describe my last yr - except replace norway with denmark. or germany. i was so happy and so sad at the same time. especially in denmark. in berlin i was just sort of bitter. although i had the best time ever.
anyways, things are weird/good here. subverting all my exiety into hypochondria. or is it? ah, that's why it's so hard. anyways today was good. amy txted at 11.30, waking me up from a bizarre 'quest' dream. in it, i was travelling to get to my family, in a car, through the midwest. i was stopped somewhere, some new urbanist town, trying to find my hotel room. i put all my things in a random room and went in search of the main building to get a key. everywhere there were people, families, enjoying refreshments at these little new-urbanist kiosks. like pretzels and beer and stuff. the hotel was broken up into several small buildings, each was this strangely small fachwerkhause. when i came out of the lobby it was pouring, and i had to run as fast as i could to my room. but i was also being chased by something. i think it had a lot to do with the hotel i had to stay at in ft. lauderdale when my flight to phila got cancelled over spring break. did i ever write about it?
i was rerouted from atlanta to ft. lauderdale, and had to take a 45 dollar cab ride to this tiny hotel, where i had to pay in cash...then, five hours later, i got back in a shuttle and drove back to the airport. and they had lost my baggage so i had nothing but the clothes on my back, and three books. anyways we drove back to the airport in the dark morning, and past all the big 80-story art deco hotels on the shore. they all had these palm-tree-edged grass lawns in their front yards - and in front of one, someone had just flipped their car upside down. the police weren't there yet, and the body was laying right next to the upside down car door, covered by a blanket. it was something out of a david lynch film. well that was my first dead body ever. then we passed the ambulance going in the opposite direction. anyways i think that's what my dream had to do with. it went on forever, it seemed like. so then we went to brunch, and amy's friend from home lily was there, she was so cool.
sarah s. called me during brunch and said she was having a photoshop 911, so i went over there for a while to help, then came home and cleaned cuz my mom is coming tomorrow and i assume i'll show her my room? then sarah borrowed kate wood's car and i went with her to CVS. it was nice.
since then i've been researching grad schools. my mom is flying in from dallas tomorrow and we're driving up to ithaca. i'm more nervous about this open house than columbia's. this one i know much less what to expect.
the phantom of undone work is haunting me right now...a month left and i haven't written any more of my thesis since january. should i even admit that? yikes.
i'm so into the new of montreal album. "i spent the winter on the verge of a nervous breakdown while living in norway/i felt the darkness of the black metal bands/but being such a fawn of a man i didn't burn down any old churches/just slept way too much"
hah! these lyrics could describe my last yr - except replace norway with denmark. or germany. i was so happy and so sad at the same time. especially in denmark. in berlin i was just sort of bitter. although i had the best time ever.
anyways, things are weird/good here. subverting all my exiety into hypochondria. or is it? ah, that's why it's so hard. anyways today was good. amy txted at 11.30, waking me up from a bizarre 'quest' dream. in it, i was travelling to get to my family, in a car, through the midwest. i was stopped somewhere, some new urbanist town, trying to find my hotel room. i put all my things in a random room and went in search of the main building to get a key. everywhere there were people, families, enjoying refreshments at these little new-urbanist kiosks. like pretzels and beer and stuff. the hotel was broken up into several small buildings, each was this strangely small fachwerkhause. when i came out of the lobby it was pouring, and i had to run as fast as i could to my room. but i was also being chased by something. i think it had a lot to do with the hotel i had to stay at in ft. lauderdale when my flight to phila got cancelled over spring break. did i ever write about it?
i was rerouted from atlanta to ft. lauderdale, and had to take a 45 dollar cab ride to this tiny hotel, where i had to pay in cash...then, five hours later, i got back in a shuttle and drove back to the airport. and they had lost my baggage so i had nothing but the clothes on my back, and three books. anyways we drove back to the airport in the dark morning, and past all the big 80-story art deco hotels on the shore. they all had these palm-tree-edged grass lawns in their front yards - and in front of one, someone had just flipped their car upside down. the police weren't there yet, and the body was laying right next to the upside down car door, covered by a blanket. it was something out of a david lynch film. well that was my first dead body ever. then we passed the ambulance going in the opposite direction. anyways i think that's what my dream had to do with. it went on forever, it seemed like. so then we went to brunch, and amy's friend from home lily was there, she was so cool.
sarah s. called me during brunch and said she was having a photoshop 911, so i went over there for a while to help, then came home and cleaned cuz my mom is coming tomorrow and i assume i'll show her my room? then sarah borrowed kate wood's car and i went with her to CVS. it was nice.
since then i've been researching grad schools. my mom is flying in from dallas tomorrow and we're driving up to ithaca. i'm more nervous about this open house than columbia's. this one i know much less what to expect.
the phantom of undone work is haunting me right now...a month left and i haven't written any more of my thesis since january. should i even admit that? yikes.
Friday, April 6, 2007
"i spent the winter on the verge of a nervous breakdown while living in norway"
i'll begin with this delightful post (entitled "bonkers in yonkers") from curbed.com about the ridiculous new will alsop project in yonkers:
and here's a little excerpt:
The hulking 80,000-square-foot power plant will lose its two smokestacks and gain a large residential tower. A third of the 400 units will be luxury condos and the rest rentals, with some reserved for low-income residents... The $250 million project also calls for adding a contemporary art museum, located in a former switch-house, and a new apartment structure, nicknamed the “magic tower,” with a boxy upper portion balanced on tentacle-like stilts.
Seriously, Will Alsop, where have you been all our lives? Your Google Image Search results alone have won you our eternal devotion.
haaaaaaaa! i love when curbed gets all... funny.
so what an intense few days.
re: columbia open house
i feel like i'm a pregnant woman, having bizarre mood swings every 10 minutes about this shit. and then of course today forte drops the bomb: "you know, you could defer and apply to the other top schools next yr!" its like OHHHH NOOOOOOO!!! in a way i know he's right, i didn't apply to yale/harvard/princeton because my portfolio wasn't ready back in december, and those schools might be better matches for me, but i have spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME, sweat, tears, and money on this to just let it all come to nothing. i am beginning my m.arch in four months. that's the story.
the columbia open house was pretty enlightening, but also very confusing. the dean, mark wigley, is awesome, and after talking to him a bit i can see how he's changing columbia from the stuffy robert a.m. stern environment into something more engaging. the big kicker is: columbia's facilities SUCK!!! actually worse than suck. you're paying 35,000 dollars a year to share a computer and desk with someone else? geez. walking through the studios, they're just so awfully cramped and depressing - not the good kind of messy, the miserable kind of messy. all the kids just had these looks on their faces like "dear god please let this moment pass!" one guy i talked to told me how to build his model he had to put a piece of plywood on a garbage can in the hall and build it out there. on the other hand:
did i look like that in studio last yr? i'm sure - sleeping under a desk and only drinking 7-11 espresso and gummi bears for 3 days, it doesn't matter if you're working in a suite at the four seasons - right? and what really matters in those situations is who's sitting around you.
speaking of the people - i was incredibly surprised by how cool they all were. i met so many nice people - what?? i thought everyone at this school was supposed to be a jerk! no. the first guy i met was so cool, he's coming to cu to do AAD, graduated from cornell two years ago and has been working for kohn pedersen fox since then, and has been in dallas working on their new 50-story tower next to the W hotel, right by our house! and he wants to go back to school so he has time to 'think.'! awesome!
i also met this girl who's been working at GM designing cars in detroit - they recruited her one night in her studio at u of i or somewhere. mysterious.
anyways the whole thing is that columbia clearly is better connections/better jobs while cornell is better facitities/education. now for a humanities situation, obviously the right choice is the school with a better education. however, in an m.arch program the focus is on preparing for your career afterwards, and your professors are more critics of what you do in studio than anything. so i really have to be careful here - this isn't choosing between small liberal arts colleges where the emphasis is on building a humanities foundation, this is about choosing a school that's gonna guide me towards the best place afterwards.
i'm terrified that the day before the deadline next week i'm gonna have a panic attack and defer for a year. but the truth is i will regret that so bad it's not even imaginable.
in other news (believe me there is not much happening with me right now except this stuff), jarett/starsh/emma's play is this weekend and i am looking forward to seeing it. we went to the bar last night and everyone there gave it very very good reviews. the bar was so weird - it was so crowded and all with freshman - how did they get served? hey, if you can get it, mazel tov!
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
and now for something very superficial
waaawaoooo as borat would say (dead joke, anyone?) i am so nervous. tomorrow is columbia's admitted students open house and boy i feel like it's my first day of 6th gradee! i am posting 5,000 posts a day to the archinect thread about the open house. everyone wants to meet for drinks after it ends - oh my god! am i cool enough? what should i wear? should i play the cool card and not be myself, or be myself and run the risk of being mocked???
when in reality, judging from the prospective open house in the fall, i know that 65% of the people in that room tomorrow are going to be wearing literally the same exact outfit i am, no matter what i put on. and 100% of the people in that room will be wearing some variation on this ensemble:
as a sidenote, i almost chose the following picture for this joke:
but upon closer inspection it made me feel... funny. isnt it really weirdly, subtly sexual??
anyways, i'm excited to see what this open house is like tomorrow. not excited about going to the city, but hey, i get to miss pre calc! (read: braces, social studies)
when in reality, judging from the prospective open house in the fall, i know that 65% of the people in that room tomorrow are going to be wearing literally the same exact outfit i am, no matter what i put on. and 100% of the people in that room will be wearing some variation on this ensemble:
as a sidenote, i almost chose the following picture for this joke:
but upon closer inspection it made me feel... funny. isnt it really weirdly, subtly sexual??
anyways, i'm excited to see what this open house is like tomorrow. not excited about going to the city, but hey, i get to miss pre calc! (read: braces, social studies)
Monday, April 2, 2007
montanita
my god i am getting nowhere with this museum design. woolfson emailed this morning to say he was out sick, so ive been in the lab since 930 trying to get somewhere, and amazingly i have nothing - though i did get an easter package from my mom and a huge, crazy-looking abstract from columbia.
anyways it's 4thirty and nothing has changed in my design. i have tried johnny clegg, sufjan, even ratatat's "classics," which always makes me work. ive finished another model of marshall field. yet i cannot get anything done on this damn thing that's due tomorrow. i just don't know what the fuck this thing is even supposed to be. i can't stand the collection, i can barely stand the building we're supposed to put it in...ugh. i was actually closer to a good design the second day in. this guy we're building it for, v. margolin, looked at all the pictures of fancy new yuppie-ish museums and loved them, but in our first review he criticized us for not taking a more theoretical, critical approach to his museum. it's like guy, you told us you like modern! you told us you liked raw stone and track lighting! this is our compromise. geez i just feel really frustrated right now.
i had too much fun with the concept graphic design and now i cant do any more, its like im stuck in this.
well i published this post but i already feel a little calmer after having written it. so ill talk it out some more.
what i'm confused about is that i really really like the twin ramp cyclones that right now are anchoring the entire concept. like i cant get over them - or more specifically i can't put anything else together around them. like they're this black hole which i know is going to stay but which is debilitating the rest of the design. it's almost like these two towers are oppressing the rest of the design because they command so much attention. they create a vacuum. so then my instinct is to say, well let's play that up and make the rest of the building as dark and minimal as possible. but then you're left with a design which draws way too many comparisons to the twin towers light memorial.
interjection: oh man this lady who teaches the photoshop workshop at night just came in and is being sooooo mean to eli, who runs the maclab. like being a jerk about stuff that clearly isn't his fault. then she started screaching about "where's the controller for the projector? the controller???" and i was like "it's right in front of you, here" and gave it to her and she didn't even crack a smile or say anything. and then she was like "i think the administration would be VERY interested to know that i cant even send my files to my students, i dont WANT to put them on my website, name the solutions for me if there are any" its like whooooa this is your problem. UGH i hate listening to this. poor eli.
anyways, as i was writing, this design is stuck. i mean on the one hand, maybe no one will even notice the 9/11 light tower thing, and plus i mean this design in many ways is related to the event. on the other hand, the most important aspect of this design's success, ironically, is not the actual design but how the renderings look. so maybe i should go with this initial idea, and just concentrate on making the rendering as badass-looking as possible, because honestly i feel like when people in a non-educational setting judge renderings it's not the pragmatic but the romantic appearance of the image that matters. okay. so here i go.
anyways it's 4thirty and nothing has changed in my design. i have tried johnny clegg, sufjan, even ratatat's "classics," which always makes me work. ive finished another model of marshall field. yet i cannot get anything done on this damn thing that's due tomorrow. i just don't know what the fuck this thing is even supposed to be. i can't stand the collection, i can barely stand the building we're supposed to put it in...ugh. i was actually closer to a good design the second day in. this guy we're building it for, v. margolin, looked at all the pictures of fancy new yuppie-ish museums and loved them, but in our first review he criticized us for not taking a more theoretical, critical approach to his museum. it's like guy, you told us you like modern! you told us you liked raw stone and track lighting! this is our compromise. geez i just feel really frustrated right now.
i had too much fun with the concept graphic design and now i cant do any more, its like im stuck in this.
well i published this post but i already feel a little calmer after having written it. so ill talk it out some more.
what i'm confused about is that i really really like the twin ramp cyclones that right now are anchoring the entire concept. like i cant get over them - or more specifically i can't put anything else together around them. like they're this black hole which i know is going to stay but which is debilitating the rest of the design. it's almost like these two towers are oppressing the rest of the design because they command so much attention. they create a vacuum. so then my instinct is to say, well let's play that up and make the rest of the building as dark and minimal as possible. but then you're left with a design which draws way too many comparisons to the twin towers light memorial.
interjection: oh man this lady who teaches the photoshop workshop at night just came in and is being sooooo mean to eli, who runs the maclab. like being a jerk about stuff that clearly isn't his fault. then she started screaching about "where's the controller for the projector? the controller???" and i was like "it's right in front of you, here" and gave it to her and she didn't even crack a smile or say anything. and then she was like "i think the administration would be VERY interested to know that i cant even send my files to my students, i dont WANT to put them on my website, name the solutions for me if there are any" its like whooooa this is your problem. UGH i hate listening to this. poor eli.
anyways, as i was writing, this design is stuck. i mean on the one hand, maybe no one will even notice the 9/11 light tower thing, and plus i mean this design in many ways is related to the event. on the other hand, the most important aspect of this design's success, ironically, is not the actual design but how the renderings look. so maybe i should go with this initial idea, and just concentrate on making the rendering as badass-looking as possible, because honestly i feel like when people in a non-educational setting judge renderings it's not the pragmatic but the romantic appearance of the image that matters. okay. so here i go.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
and the ghost of carl, he approached my window
well girl's night out went great. the boys were trying to rub their boys night out in our faces and we prevailed and actually might have surpassed them. they were not happy campers on the train home. and they all dressed in matching sports jackets. i have been feeling very wacky lately i think because i have been watching so much scrubs. it's as if i am finally letting my true personality out. actually i think i might embarrass my friends with these antics but they're stuck with me now.
anyways we went to dinner at risotteria in the east village where you can get gluten-free italian (jiddy has celiac's disease and i may have it too), so i had a gluten free beer, panini, and cupcake! it was so delicious. i spent most of the night trying to 'judge' ny which i could tell pissed jiddy off. then we went over to decibel which is this good sake bar but there was a 30 minute wait, so instead we went to KGB bar. which supposedly is in an old KGB hangout. but in my experience every large western city has one of these red-painted daily-worker-plastered places that claims to be an ex-KGB hangout. then again, never underestimate the reaches of a secret police force. my most memorable fake-commie-hangout-bar was in krakow, propaganda (duh) where this guy tried to drug our cider. what a weird place - depressing.
so we had some drinks and did some shots of sambuca, which was nice and reminded me of copenhagen. good stories were told - i told my trelleborg arch program initiation story which always puts me in a good mood.
wearing my longhorns shirt is now a bittersweet experience. the one place i actually wanted to go rejected me! probably because my math scores are so low i couldn't even tell them to my family, and there are three college level courses (college calculus, physics I and II) that i'd have to take between now and the fall to even be able to enroll. but still . everyone says i wouldn't be happy there as a theorist because it's more engineering than anything, but i don't care. anyways now it really is between cornell and columbia. i wanted to get out of ny but it looks like i've got another 3-4 years here.
here i am in the library trying to write an introduction to my marshall field project. this whole thing has turned more into a case study of how to get people to speak candidly about their surroundings - i've interviewed people, and even put up one of those 'free online surveys' which was sort of a shot in the dark, but actually turned out great. i asked a few basic questions like "have you had problems with MF?" and "are you a music student?" because i am envisioning the presentation as a much more statistics-oriented affair with many koolhassian charts and 3D maps. which is another way of saying, i want my design to be rooted in statistical analysis of basic programmatic data about the school and the site. i'm not sure what i'd think if i was asked to answer these questions, but whatever. more and more i want to find out how to bring institutional arch back to the people - i.e. the end of starchitecture. it's a collaborative process so it shouldn't be viewed as anything else. i want people to reengage with their environments. that's how i arrived at the question-asking approach - wanting this design to be founded somewhere other than my own ridiculous imagination.
i found this thread with FIFTY NINE pages on archinect called "m.arch 2007 applicants commiserate here!" which would have been an incredible resource five months ago. they've all been having panic attacks and stuff just like me, but they all had each other! well now i am posting and hopefully will find some others trying to decide between these schools - painfully, some of the people on the site who didn't get into columbia were accepted to UT austin! WHYYYY
anyways we went to dinner at risotteria in the east village where you can get gluten-free italian (jiddy has celiac's disease and i may have it too), so i had a gluten free beer, panini, and cupcake! it was so delicious. i spent most of the night trying to 'judge' ny which i could tell pissed jiddy off. then we went over to decibel which is this good sake bar but there was a 30 minute wait, so instead we went to KGB bar. which supposedly is in an old KGB hangout. but in my experience every large western city has one of these red-painted daily-worker-plastered places that claims to be an ex-KGB hangout. then again, never underestimate the reaches of a secret police force. my most memorable fake-commie-hangout-bar was in krakow, propaganda (duh) where this guy tried to drug our cider. what a weird place - depressing.
so we had some drinks and did some shots of sambuca, which was nice and reminded me of copenhagen. good stories were told - i told my trelleborg arch program initiation story which always puts me in a good mood.
wearing my longhorns shirt is now a bittersweet experience. the one place i actually wanted to go rejected me! probably because my math scores are so low i couldn't even tell them to my family, and there are three college level courses (college calculus, physics I and II) that i'd have to take between now and the fall to even be able to enroll. but still . everyone says i wouldn't be happy there as a theorist because it's more engineering than anything, but i don't care. anyways now it really is between cornell and columbia. i wanted to get out of ny but it looks like i've got another 3-4 years here.
here i am in the library trying to write an introduction to my marshall field project. this whole thing has turned more into a case study of how to get people to speak candidly about their surroundings - i've interviewed people, and even put up one of those 'free online surveys' which was sort of a shot in the dark, but actually turned out great. i asked a few basic questions like "have you had problems with MF?" and "are you a music student?" because i am envisioning the presentation as a much more statistics-oriented affair with many koolhassian charts and 3D maps. which is another way of saying, i want my design to be rooted in statistical analysis of basic programmatic data about the school and the site. i'm not sure what i'd think if i was asked to answer these questions, but whatever. more and more i want to find out how to bring institutional arch back to the people - i.e. the end of starchitecture. it's a collaborative process so it shouldn't be viewed as anything else. i want people to reengage with their environments. that's how i arrived at the question-asking approach - wanting this design to be founded somewhere other than my own ridiculous imagination.
i found this thread with FIFTY NINE pages on archinect called "m.arch 2007 applicants commiserate here!" which would have been an incredible resource five months ago. they've all been having panic attacks and stuff just like me, but they all had each other! well now i am posting and hopefully will find some others trying to decide between these schools - painfully, some of the people on the site who didn't get into columbia were accepted to UT austin! WHYYYY
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