Week 4

The weeks are flying by, this week we reached the half way point, I cant believe that we already been here for over a month. It is a strange feeling, because on the one hand it feels like yesterday when I was taking my finals back in Moscow and getting ready fore Rome; but on the other hand when I’m thinking back to the first days here in Rome and what I have seen, what I have sketched, what people I have meet and what I have done between then and now it feels like an eternity that I have been here. It is interesting how the perception of time can be so relative to the perspective you’re looking at it.
 After four weeks I can finally say that I start to understand the city. I can check off more and more sites of my to-do-list, but on the other hand that list is getting longer and longer with each day; so it almost seems like a race that I probably won’t win.This last week was a very important one for me. I had my first sketches that I am happy with. I noticed that I finally start developing my own style and carry that one style through all my sketches. Ofcourse there is still a lot to learn for me, and certainly not everything I draw looks amazing all of a sudden. But when I’m browsing through my sketchbook it’s first of all amazing how much we already sketched and then I can see how I became already a little bit better. This is a real motivation boost for me and makes me sketch even more. So although we did a lot of sketching this week I actually went out yesterday and today by myself to sketch for a little bit (and that in 95°F).
But the highlight of last week was definitely the second walking tour of Jeffery Blanchard, he gave us a tour about some of the Baroque churches around the Piazza Quirinale. The tour was manly about Borromini and Bernini; I say “mainly” because the topic was Borromini and Bernini Jeffery always put it into a larger context, so we covered way more then just these two artists. It was a great lecture/walking tour, Jeffery is definitely one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, he knew so much about everything, I was following him the whole 4 and a half hours of the walking tour trying to write down and remember as much as possible. (And that comes from a guy who usually falls asleep 15 min into the lecture).

It was another great week in Rome, I improved my sketching, I made some progress in studio, meet some new people and most importantly Germany advanced with 3 straight wins into the Quarters at the EuroCup so… I really cant complain…., allora arrivederci a la prossima settimana!

3rd Week - Field trip to Amalfi Coast

The highlight of this past week definitely was the first field trip to the Amalfi Coast; we first went to Paestum, then Atrani and Amalfi. In Paestum we saw some of the best-preserved ruins in the world, these greek temples were built more then 2000 years ago and they are still in really good conditions. If you see the temples you can easily imagine how they looked in they glory days. On the other hand it was also interesting to see how such an active place that once was so powerful was taken back by nature and then rediscovered at 1752 (roughly at the same time when also Pompeji and Herkulaneum). The ruins were everywhere and to see them in such good conditions was amazing, it was like walking through an ancient village.

Later that day we continued our trip to Atrani, where we stayed for the next 3 days. It is a 10 min walk from the more famous Amalfi. And the contrast between Amalfi and Atrani was like day and night. Amalfi was super touristy, you could barely move and you mainly heared people speaking anything but Italian. And just a 10 min walk away you are in Atrani and as I just said earlier it is a huge contrast between the two cities. Atrani is a little village and you feel like you are hundreds of miles away from any sort of tourism..., but actually it is within a stone’s throw...The village was built into the hillside so right behind the village there were some pretty challenging hikes. The runs up there actually were pretty hard and my calves were really sore afterwards... but it was worth the pain..., the view from Revello and the other overlook spot were both worth the pain. Here is a photo from our Monday rum with Amalfi in the background.

The Regata on Sunday was the highlight of the fieldtrip, it was a boat race between Amalfi, Pisa, Genova, and Venive; the most successful Maritime city-states back in the days. The race has been really close to the very end, but Amalfi ended up pulling off the win.

Later that night there was a big firework in Amalfi, it was the greatest firework show I have ever seen, it was a 20 min long show and here is the great finale of the show:

2nd week in Rome

The most fascinating part of the second week was definitely the walking tour through the forum romanum and the colosseum. In my 9 years of Latin we learned and translated a lot about the roman culture, the people and their wars; and now I am standing in the roman forum and walked through the colosseum. It was grotesque to think that we were walking through the streets and spaces where history was made all those years ago. It might appear that the Roman Forum is in ruins, but from history and Latin books I know the way it looked like, and even if just one or two columns are left of the building, it is enough to reconstruct the picture in my head. So that experience of retracing the steps of past Romans got a whole new dimension.

With that in mind it was very sad for me to see how thousands of tourists are channeled through those spaces. A place that once was the center of public life in Rome, used for triumphal processions and elections, venue for public speeches, criminal trials, gladiatorial matches, and now it is a tourist attraction. Back in the days it was the most celebrated meeting place in the world and today? Well today it is maybe not the most celebrated meeting place in the world, but it definitely is the most celebrated meeting place in history!

It is incredible how Romans were able to build structures that still stand these days; that makes me think, what do people look at in another 2000 years? Are they looking at our buildings that we build now? Or are the buildings and structures we build now long forgotten by then… Maybe it is a good thing that our built environment has changed; maybe it even had to change; I personally think it had to have changed, architecture always has to adapt to peoples lifestyle and our lifestyle clearly has changed toward the Roman time. But when I am seeing all these incredibly carefully designed buildings, structures or spaces I am wondering if we couldn’t incorporate more of that in to today’s architecture.

So that is something I want to get out of this summer, studying the history and trying to incorporate what I learned into my design. At the beginning of the week we went to the Piazza Fornese right across the Ponte Sisto, and I did this little axonometric:

Week 1 - "Patria est, ubicumque est bene"

“Home is where you feel comfortable”… Well if Cicero is right with that quote then I can definitely consider Rome as home… It is now the third time that I am in this beautiful city, but this time it was a little different: the last times I just came here as a tourist, didn’t stay longer than a week or so. The city appeared to me intimidating with all his history and all his sights, I didn’t really know where to get start. This time I came prepared and not as a tourist; this time I actually become a citizen of this beautiful city. (At least I will try my best to do so) The first week was kind of busy, we had classes every day, and I already feel like we already learned so much, although we probably barely scratched the surface…, especially since it is probably impossible to define what Rome is, but exactly that is what makes it such an incredible place to study. I can already feel my improvement in sketching and in Italian. In sketching we had some hard sketching sessions, hard because we’re in Rome and there are a million vanishing points in every perspective. But you grow with every challenge right? And so I already did I think. Last Friday we sketched Piazza di Spagna (the "Spanish Steps) it's a very challenging subject, I picked a spot on the steps and sketched for half an hour. The result of that sketching session is this perspective, a little traffic analysis and a pretty bad sunburn on my neck…

Today all of us went to the Pantheon for Pentecost (some of us got up earlier some later...) but all of us made it to the mass and the rose petals raining from the oculus. It was an incredible experience, it was a grotesque atmosphere toward the end of the mass, more and more people entered the Pantheon and it got very crowded, suddenly thousands of cameras and iPhones were wondering around, and this was still DURING there was a mass going on. Every once in a while a Italian security said “no camera! NO CAMERA!!” but there were just to many and there were just over-challenged… But it was definitely as I said earlier an amazing experience, definitely worth getting up and not sleeping in.

Of course just like everyone else that I just complained about also I took some pictures, but this picture not even close does justice to the beauty of that event.

Boise Fire Station #5: 2012 ICMA Competition [presentation board]

SPEED is a main factor in this the main factor in this design. The fire station glorifies the horizontal forces, the panoramic mountains, the nearby highway, the speed of the fire trucks and the Concrete Masonry Units. The apparatus bay is the heart of the fire station and with the tilted arrangement it is present from every angle of the building (except the dorm rooms).

Just one custom cut CMU block is needed. With clever rotating that one custom block is enough to build every occurring corner in the building.

Boise Fire Station #5: 2012 ICMA Competition [drawings]

main perspective

exploded Axonometric with floor plan

facade close up

wall corner detail

interior perspective

connection detail

exterior perspective

section perspective

Long Span Structure [presentation board]

The tennis facility “Top Spin” is designed for people to not just play tennis, it’s a place to meet, watch, hang out and socialize, its designed for tennis, its designed for tennis to be not just a sport, but a lifestyle.

The layout is arranged so that the clubhouse with the lounge, pro shop and lockers form the entrance and once you entered the site you get the overwhelming view over the all the courts.

The outdoor courts are arranged to create spaces between the courts, for people to meet off the court. The courts are dropped down, like an arena, so that the players are not distracted by people wondering around the facility.

The indoor courts are served with a separate locker room on the south-east side of the building (that also serves the PEB building), so the indoor courts become their own facility in the winter.

The indoor courts are covered by a steel structure with kalwall openings that let diffused light in, so that there are no awkward shadows on the courts. The structure continues throughout the east, south and west walls and becomes a glass façade on the north side to let secondary light in and connect the indoor facility with the outdoor facility.