METRO: expected failure, or, 'get your act together, fool.'?

In the Chron today: Commute takes minutes in car but hours on Metro

Who will bring the change? They've had millions, and millions of complaints. What an intimidating job: Here I am, I propose this and this route, that and that new route, but am I willing to risk it-- would I be able to endure all the stones casted upon me? But you know, there has to be some iron-gutted individual out there, who hears all these 200 + comments (look at the article!), and says, Here, these are the changes that must be made.

It's one of the reasons why I wouldn't mind staying in Houston (or at least, continue to ask of its wellbeing)-- to see how much change ten years, or twenty years will bring. Will city-flight be reversed, or strengthen? Will Downtown continue to be a ghost-town after 5 o'clock, Monday thru Friday, and all weekend, on that matter? Will METRO reestablish more time-efficient (and ultimately, fuel-efficient) bus and rail routes?

How nervous they must be...

I only hope they know what they are doing.

044: and from the ashes of inactivity:

Finally a post:



Found here.

I do love Jun Igarashi's work.

Which makes me think: grad school. Is it something I want right now? Do I yearn to expand my knowledge on architecture? It's a question left open ended, and a question my mother often addresses. I don't need it, but does my heart need it?

I think, if I had to go anywhere-- I would like, at the moment, to study for my Masters in Japan.

035: Topography.

It is much harder than I thought it would be.

The Olympic Sculpture Park (Weiss Manfredi), suggested by my professor, to break down and analyze.

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032: Nature walk

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Some pictures I found while in blogs, or were in my computer.

The first, Koen Van Velsen, in Rotterdam:


















The second, a work by Mass Studies, Korean firm:

031: House in Black, Manabu Chiba

Like it said in Rem Koolhaas's little margin glossary in S,M,L,XL:
Avoid: I'm trying my best to avoid the Japanese word void

Simple. Beautiful. Voids.
Why I love Japanese architecture.

027: Process means cold hands, coffee, endless cp, tr, ex, and erase.

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I am in the computer lab.

After a good weekend working on this scheme, a few suggestions from Doug:

1. Medium theatres should be narrower instead of 42 x 39.5'. I've edited them to 32'x 48' instead, and rearranged method of entry/arrangement of seats inside.


2. Escalators: I used some strange template that made them 21.9 degrees rather than 30. Like Jessy said, his Ching mantra, "1.732 times rise!" Instead, I used trigonometry and well, got the same. This changes a lot in my scheme, doubling the work.


3. Less elevators, one more emergency stair.

Main worries:

1. Cohesiveness of the scheme: will it stay intact after these changes? The escalators will change a lot of the plan, since initially, floors were planned according to the 21.9 degree template....


2. Materials: what exactly, and how? What size panels? What do I want to show?


3. And, combining the previous two: Will the experience I planned-- experiencing the city as one floats up the escalators-- be present in the product? Can there be a harmony between harmony and aesthetic intent?


4. Emergency stairs-- I might need more.

Least of my worries/Minor worries:

1. Parking spaces, need at least 5-10 more.


2. Open spaces that serve no particular function-- I should embrace this, no?

Materials:

Transparency: Escalators--> circulation completely clear, connection to city. Hallways--> opaque, separation from city, city lights blur, separation from vertical circulation. Restaurant--> moments of clarity (views), moments of walls (private). Lobby--> daylighting, facing north, no need for shading.

Links:

CAD BLOCK EXCHANGE

BLOCK CREATOR

CAD CORNER



I shall post pictures tomorrow, diagrams, depending on how much I have done.