The Nocturnal Grocery Store

In my aimless hunger, I have formulated a new building type: the sleepless grocery store, open from midnight to six in the morning. Seven-eleven neon lights, fresh vegetables down to your meats. Pancake batter, no problem!

At least 24 hours. Please, city, pop one of these open. I bet I am not the only one that wants to cook in the middle of the night, then fails to notice the lack of groceries. Never lacking creativity! Just material!

Yes, it has been a long hiatus. This blog seems no longer mine. I have ignored it like a damned, annoying puppy. It is now my senior year of undergraduate architecture school. I feel completely different, but very much enlightened. Maybe I will tell you my dreams and nightmares as this semester unfolds.

Calatrava loves cute animals.

I love how online bloggers called it the "Spiny thing."

Cute isn't it?

Summer?

I
was
so
sick
of
the
site
of the
sunrise
every
morning
of
charrette.

Sight, I mean.

I'll post more "architecturally" later. I'll post in retrospect, in hopefulness, in poorness (no job yet!)... but alas, other assignments must be completed to finish off this semester.

Desk, currently

You haven't seen it in a while.

More and More

"Almost without realizing it, we have absorbed into our lives the first generation of expendables... foodbags, paper tissues, polythene wrappers, ballpens, E.P.s...so many things about which we don't have to think. We throw them away almost as soon as we acquire them.

Also with us are the items that are bigger and last longer, but are nevertheless planned for obsolescence...the motor car,...and its unit-built garage.

Now the second generation is upon us-- paper furniture is a reality in the Sates, paper sheets are a reality in British hospital beds, the Greater London Council is putting up limited-life-span houses."

-Peter Cook, Archigram 3

Trellis

Treating the trellis as a producer of shadows + a gathering space + vine climbing structure, rather than just a vine climbing structure.

I want to look like SANAA...

Yes, I haven't written in a long while. So far, partnered project has developed so much! It amazes me how little arguments we have. And when we do, it actually makes the project better than before, simply because arguments only clarify the purpose, the concept, and the idea.

Our professor was in our last review, and before Michael and I even spoke, he laughed. "Gosh, I gotta know why you two are working together."

After the presentation, which went well, we approached him and asked him about his snickering. He declared (after some pushing on our part) that both Michael and I work so differently, that it was confusing why we worked so well. Michael, he says, starts with one, fat graphic idea, and I start with the pieces, and put them together. Doug spoke so much truth, and it only teaches me how we are all in close observance. Perhaps because its only 25 of us, but even then, without a doubt, he knows us after one semester, like the back of his hand.

So for our final review, I joked to Michael that we should look sharp, yet hip, like SANAA. He shakes his head, despite his admiration for SANAA, and says it would be obnoxious, to dress up so 'professionally.'

Well. It's still a thought.

Truth?

Someone posts on a blog, in response to a parade of exterior shots of a new housing development somewhere in Madrid:

"October 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
horrible!
architecture because of architecture, not because of living…
bad bad bad"

How right this person is.

And I bet, there's so many buildings out there that are architecture for the sake of architecture.

Buildings without people are nothing, but pieces of concrete and joints, or steel and bolts. But. That's. It.

Make it work.