If you need me I'll be at Senor Tadpoles

Spring Break!

Here is a brief recap of my week:

Monday:
7:00AM wake up and have some cereal
8:00AM in studio
11:30 PM leave studio, come home and go to sleep.

Tuesday:
Same. Although I did go to one other class from 2:30-3:30.

Wednesday:
Oversleep, wake up at 8:00am, go to Cornell Store, go to studio, finish model
10:00AM techniques in visual representation class
11:15AM get out of class early for final accreditation presentation
12:30PM begin review
5:00PM Spring Break... also apparently St. Patrick's Day

GTBKI: Stella's

It's been a while since I've done a "Get to Better Know Ithaca" post.

Anyways...

Wonderland (noun):
a land or place full of wonderful things.

Stella's Cafe is located in the heart of Collegetown and they have an interesting program. Stella's is half coffee shop and half bar/lounge. That does not mean that the owner's attempted some ambitiously cool hybrid where, one might imagine, the coffee shop atmosphere prevails during the week and the lounge atmosphere prevails during the weekend. No, half coffee shop and half lounge means that the owners literally built a wall all of the way down the middle of the property. The left side is characterized by antique wood and the musty atmosphere of a dingy college coffee shop. The right side is sleek, suave and incorporates all of the decorative elements unique to lounges in general (weird wall sconces, bad art, dangling blown glass lighting fixtures).

The two sides are for the most part completely separate. They have different entrances and different employees. One might not even notice that these two shops are really flip sides of the same coin. However, there are several elements that they share. One is the kitchen in the basement. Another is a strange portal in the wall that houses an abstract sculpture. The last and most interesting, is the bathroom.

I really have no idea why the bathroom adopts the character it does. Perhaps the owners wanted it to fit both sides equally well. However, whatever the motivation, the feeling I get when I walk in is really, I imagine, the same as Alice falling into Wonderland.

First of all, in keeping with the strict demarcation of space, both sides of Stella's have their own door. However, these doors only lead into an antechamber where one might actually access the restrooms. So, entering this small room you will see two doors, to the two gender neutral bathrooms and a third door that leads into the other half of the shop.

Once the door you entered closes, you are left to face four identical doors in a dark, entirely blue room. Floor tiles, doors, walls, ceiling are all different shades of navy blue. Furthermore, the ceiling in here, is nearly double the height of either the bar or the coffee shop.

But that is not all, you are not alone. To the side there is always, always a guy sitting on his laptop and as a rule, this guy will do nothing to acknowledge your presence.

The first time I used the facilities at Stella's and I made it through the trip that is that back room, I retreated into one of the bathrooms and nearly forgot where I was and what I had come to do.

Sunday

The longer I go without out a blog post the more intimidated I am by the prospect. So much time has gone by but it seems like so little has happened. To further add to my hesitation, I escaped Rand once last week to attend a lecture outside of the AAP (College of Architecture, Art, and Planning - host of the AAP lecture series which brings/bribes all the bigwig architects out to Ithaca) in which a famous poet told us, in regards to blogging and amateur poetry, "self-expression is terribly overrated." That alone deserves a post but I am forced to delay that discussion at the moment.

I wasn't joking about not having much to report. We have our next deadline on Tuesday at 9:00pm and coursework has been relentless these past two weeks. I am doing fairly well in studio. Well, I am at least pleased, my professor is impossible to read.

There is a accreditation visit by NAAB next week, a big one for the M.Arch 1 program as we are candidates for accreditation but not yet accredited (required to become a license architect in the United States). Next Friday is also Dragon Day and since one of my classes meets during the time and my Thursday classes are both shared with the undergrads, Spring Break starts on Wednesday!

Jean Baudrillard

Last Friday as I was doing my Theory reading I turned the page to see the next subheading to be "Santa Barbara." My excitement took hold of me as I wondered what French sociologist and notable PoMo (last week I learned that in the academy, this is the cool way to refer to post modernity) philosopher, Jean Baudrillard had to say about my beloved city. I just had to share what I read next.

On the aromatic hillsides of Santa Barbara, the villas are all like funeral homes. Between the gardenias and the eucalyptus tree, among the profusion of plant genuses and the monotony of the human species, lies the tragedy of a utopian dream made reality. In the very heartland of wealth and liberation, you always hear the same question: "What are you doing after the orgy?" What do you do when everything is available - sex, flowers, the stereotypes of life and death? This is America's problem and through America, it has become the whole world's problem.

Awesome.

I had been reading about the paradoxes of the Centre Pompidou and the implosion of French culture so I don't know what I expected. We are talking about post modernism here. Still, I could not stop laughing when I saw that the next three sections were devoted to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City. Turns out last spring, Drew, Ryan, Rob and I went on a road trip through hell.

Snow Days

Some classes were canceled today,
Lily Chi's studio met outside.

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This was the scene at Cornell as we left campus for our studio site visit. Glad everyone else was having fun.

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Afterward we went to eat downtown. We spent half of the time taking pictures (each of us had a camera) and half of the time laughing at Armando who has not slept in three days.

Snowstorms and Models

So last night began the snowstorm of the year. I'll take some more pictures later but walking home last night the snow was so thick on the buildings that I got as far as the doorstep of the WRONG house. The best part is that I did not even notice until I struggled to get my camera out and take a picture. As I was framing the shot I noticed some bushes that were not there before, then a tree. I looked further to the left to see my house.

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Here is my model in its stored state. This picture was taken from my studio, looking at the hallway, into the studio across from ours.

This is why model is pluralized in the title.
And here is the unveiling.

The Poached Egg After the Raw

Today marked the completion of my second studio project, the P.E. or "Poached Egg." This project was a direct corollary to our first project, "the RAW" where we analyzed an existing structure in terms of its generative aspects and overall goal.

The above image is Deborah's and my RAW drawing of Carleton University's School of Architecture. We observed that the building is generated around an internal city grid with two main streets, side streets and alleyways. Offices and seminar rooms have addresses on the streets but more importantly, attached to the "armature" of the street system, were spaces we called "thresholds." In the Carleton University, the threshold spaces were places that allowed for multiple levels of commitment to an activity taking place in the building. The overall effect of this, we observed, was to encourage the interaction, improvisation, and cooperation that are key to the pedagogy of an architectural school.

The P.E. project was then to take the thesis we observed (threshold spaces) and make an installation in Rand Hall that worked on a 1:1 scale (human interaction) and an 1:x scale (modeling the building). Basically it has to transform our understanding of the site we chose as well as working as a 1ft equals whatever (1in, 1/2in, etc.) model of the building. It is hard to understand and even harder to design.

Deb and I went through several iterations and finally decided on a model that slid out from the wall (the street) and unfolded in planes (threshold spaces) to create a threshold space for our studio.There were some challenges to working in pairs that we had encountered during the RAW project, however, by this point Deborah and I began to just sync. Last Saturday we were in the woodshop taking turns drilling and holding screws when Deborah remarked that we were like "figure skaters." I inquired if we couldn't be something cooler, less emasculating, like synchronized swimmers. She suggested the ultimate in cool, synchronized divers and despite the sarcastic nature of my question, I had to agree she was on to something.

So team metaphor in place we built this Murphy bench and, at our review today, blew some minds when we pulled our model out of the wall, transformed it into a bench, sat down and gave the rest of our presentation from a newly created space in the building.

Snowboards and Dolls

So last Saturday I had to opportunity to go snowboarding with my arch. buddies. About twenty miles outside of Ithaca is a resort called Greek Peak. I was just beyond stoked because I love snowboarding and had not been in at least two years and as an added bonus: we were going at night.

The resort is not too bad for what it is. Examining the hills surrounding Greek Peak, one can guess that "Peak" is a little bit of a stretch. But hey, their transformation of a hill into a mountain is commendable.


This is me inside the lodge cafeteria. What was interesting about this place was that nothing inside could grant the viewer the slightest insight into what era you are in. There was a wooden sign that said "Greek Peak, celebrating 50 years" but gave no clue as to when such an anniversary did occur. Even the Pepsi machine had the old logo.

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Unfortunately the weekend had to end and while none of us regretted taking the time off, it was definitely time to get back to studio.

That is Deborah, my partner for the past few weeks. She has been remarkably patient with my desires to go home and sleep at night. For that I am oh so grateful. We work pretty well together, always laughing and sometimes, even matching!

Our current project is an installation in Rand using the architectural theses we observed in our last project. This is our proposal for a wall that pulls out into a bench. The structure is a model of Carleton University and also a functional threshold space for our studio. It completely folds up and slides into the studio partition. (The props we quickly hid when our studio prof came in)

Semester Goal Seven

One of my goals this semester is to use this blog share some information about architecture. This is partially to show that I am capable of blogging about more than just quotidian experiences, partially to showcase my new-found knowledge on the subject, and partially to counteract the large gaps in our country's educational system.

I am trying really hard to become the antithesis of the architectural ego so please do not think I am doing this boastfully. It just turns out that most people have a very limited knowledge of the field. Coming to Cornell I was aware of maybe five architects. I am willing to wager, that if you thought about it you would not be able to name more than three and those three are probably Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, and that guy who did the curvy buildings Spain.

First of all Frank Lloyd Wright has only come up in discussion once at Cornell, and that was as a real life analogue for Howard Roark. From what I can tell Wright is to architecture as Kinkade is to painting. This is not necessarily mean their art is bad, but both were tremendously egotistic and were the first to say that they are the best at what they do. It has been noted that if you called Wright the best American architect, he would have taken offense at the addition of the qualifier "American."

Frank Gehry garners mixed feelings from architects. The general consensus is that Bilbao was a huge success of form but he is far too successful to be liked now. As for Gaudi, well he fits nicely into a lecture about surrealism in architecture so we will keep him.

Anyways, all this is to say that I would like to share some of the things I have been learning with you and you can look forward to that.

Note on the title:
This is one of multiple semester goals. Its placement at number seven does not neccesarily mean there are six that precede it. It is just that this goal is lower on the list than some of the others and a great maxim of my friends is that if you are going to choose a random number, it should always be seven.

Snow Pictures