project1:solar_cube

Bovill loves Beret's sweet foamcore skills.

Given: reliance on passive solar heating principles based on assigned climate (often referred to by some as "the climactic condition"); within a 20' cube & 10' cube, provide a comfortable living environment for 4 students to cook, eat, sleep, study, and play beer pong; must be ADA accessible; must consume as much non-biodegradable carcinogenic rash-inducing modeling material as possible; abate self-made hazardous condition by wrapping with multi-ply rag board imported direct from the endangered rainforest of the designer's choice (optional, and only for future documentation purposes).

just a couple of interesting models that came up in my process (i.e. last four hours before deadline) not involving foam core...





a quick taste of other fine work:

>farzam
>david
>anita bui-yu chen

LED Throwies

From the latest post by NI9E:
LED Trowies (video), the first project from the Graffiti Research Lab at Eyebeam OpenLab. Don't forget to make your own.

Big Ace Birthday Parti

Happy Birthday to the Gadget Man, who may or may not be celebrating his Someteenth Birthday. Dinner, arranged by his lovely bride (who also adorns his secret-decoder wedding band), was superb. Andrea played the role of Italian matriarch and made sure everyone's plates were constantly full. I for one enjoyed most dishes of the green or orange variety, while most in attendance were impressed with Fivasaur's table manners and Matt's renewed efforts to capture Oliver's running record of "Accident Free Days", currently set at an impressive 8.

Studio 1B should also celebrate our first entire-crew-out-together-not-at-Falling-water fiesta. Hopefully we can do it again before our 3.5 years is over. I propose that in the future we should arrange a u-shaped seating arrangement, so that we can have more across-the-table conversation, and witness how Shawna takes every bite while smiling (sort of nice, sort of gross).

Fierce Architects Home From Hot Climates

I've never heard of a Nobel Prize for architecture, but the closest equivalent I imagine would be the Gold Medal presented by the AIA and the AAF. This weekend, the National Building Museum hosted festivities to celebrate the recipient of this year's award, Antoine Predock. His name will join the list of past award winners, including Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. But Predock is not the stereotypical Architect, hunched over his desk, fighting off the encircling world with his Mayline and charcoal fingers (not that Corb was grumpy, though he was nuts). Rather than a Howard Roark, Predock seems far removed from the Ayn Rand model, instead projecting an image much closer to a typical Tom Robbins protagonist, with the 1951 Vincent Black Shadow and Shao-Lin street cred to back it up.

Attending his lecture this past Saturday was quite a trip. Predock was asked to talk about himself and his work, which, like a good architect, he did at great length. Rather than tedium or self-indulgence, the man's wily character and enthusiasm peddled a collaborative experience in what he called "the ride" of every project. He described his buildings in terms of form and mass, light, and the completion or integration of a building within its particular location. His work spans a dramatic range in scale, from single-family residences to enormous Chinese cultural centers, digging into mounds, completing ridge lines, and building mountains made of jade.Not to bore us with discussion of the functionality or programmatic devices of his work, which must be so succesful as to be transparent, Predock preferred describing the sun, the bedrock, and the mist as if they were members of his charrette team. Not surprisingly, he declared clay to be his primary drawing medium.

Predock is a pretty funny dude. Emboldened by the award, he said he felt that he was just getting started again. Saturday sounded like he was just getting warmed up (he's 69). Referring to his effort to exist culturally untethered, he says, "I like to fish in the Pacific because there are fewer Euro-centric fish than in the Atlantic". When asked how DC can reignite "exciting architecture" in the City, he suggested hiring him. On the spot he proposed a new structure for the mammoth hall of the Building Museum, a building within a building. "It will be a submarine... in an ocean of air." But still, his work was sweet, and his presentation drawings, in the words of Burt Dickson, the Judge Dredd of all things sublime, "awesome." Check him out.

AIA Gold Medal Winners, 2006 & 2046.

The Brewmaster's Crisis

In the shadow of the fenced-off government icons of Washington, D.C., The Brewmaster's Castle sits as one the city's most precious secrets. A stunning Victorian mansion from the turn of the century, it's claim to be the oldest and most intact example of Victorian style in America seems self-evident. It's corner site lends itself to a charming bend in plan, while the decor of the interior reaches past molding and cornice to the full height of its fourteen-foot ceilings. This house owns the "Wow" on first impression, and quickly develops into an essential piece of Washingtonian and American history.

This building needs a rally. According to the grandson of the original owner, the Museum's foundation is short $250,000 to fend off foreclosure... by February 15. Share the links, spread the word, and show some love.

Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam...

For Ma & Pop. I have a feeling "Thirty One" will rock twice as much as "Fifteen and one-half". Happy Anniversary.

Hello World

This was my January: Modeling the Idea of Perception.






More to come. This blog stuff is easy.

intro

I have finally caved in. Obviously it was just a matter of time, viciously fending off inspiration after inspiration. But I broke down, found blogger.com, and started running (all during class time when I should have been building cardboard models).

The straw that broke this Camel's back came when I realized just how practical this outlet can be. I had seen dozens of blogs with political bends, artistic endeavors, and loud cyber hollering. But to me, the most intriguing use was from a couple simple travel blogs, where wandering students published their photos and journals as they traveled Europe for all their family and friends to share.

Given my own plans for this summer, I found this to be a great way to stay in touch with home and stimulate the viewers' own memories and ideas (there is a place to post). I soon recalled, however, my favorite book of the past six months, "The Last Undiscovered Place", which reminded that the most exotic destination to write home about may be exactly where you are every day.

And so, here we go. I hope to share more of DC, more of the infamous Studio, maybe even spark discussion, or newer versions of the blog, or who knows. Perhaps, just as people with new digital cameras often find themselves taking more pictures, the thought of posting may make me more aware of what's around me. Ultimately, I hope to scale down the distance among us all; instead of reaching out to touch someone, perhaps it may just draw us all in. It is an experiment and will evolve. Feel welcome, visit often, and participate.