First Blood

"Measuring 16" and weighing in at 3 ounces it's the 'cardboard sensation' sketch model!!! And in this corner measuring 6'3" and coming in at a paltry 165lbs....."

Well, you get the idea. My sketch model and I have decided to go head to head in a fight to the finish to figure out the bulk of my semester grade. And after a disappointing* critique of my work, which I agreed with on the grounds that something got lost in the translation from the sketch to a finished model, It seems as if the sketch model has drawn the first blood.[ * disappointing only that it was based on 38hours of work spread out over the past 2 days and a certain cost of materials which is now getting dumped into the recycling bin as we speak.]
Yes it's back to the drawing board for me. Again. Christ. I really needed to take a day to work on papers, laundry, dishes, and a cat which I seem to have recently acquired for a few weeks while my sister is out of town.
So using boxing metaphors still, it's only a minor cut above the eye - and besides I'm bigger than this little model. I'll just squish the fucker under my boot if he tries something like that again.

The 5 [goddamn] Minute Sketch Model

When I create I like to do it quickly. Get it out fast. Not hastily, but realize some form of the idea quickly. It's great for formulating some idea, but Jesus, it haunts you. Here we don't draw all the time so quick sketches take the form of models. Sketch models to be precise. And right now my desk is littered with them. All of these models have a purpose, and fail in achieving what the sketch model has. Every time you try to refine it, improve it, clarify it, etc..., you get something which sucks in comparison. Trying to develop any further - well it sometimes feels like a lost cause. Goddamnsketchmodel. I tell you, Frank Gehry was onto something when he crumples up a sheet of paper, drapes it over a site, and proclaims "I like that! Build that." [it should be noted that I actually don't like his buildings, but he is onto something...]

The Devil is in the Details

One of my professors, David Lieberman, has spent all of our Friday afternoon class time exposing us to what architecture can be. What architects are capable of. With a bit of his own agenda thrown in to the mix we have talked about everything from dense condo developments in Vancouver and Toronto to cooking and food as a system of design that leads to a final result. Frequently we have guests talking about their work and their experiences in the world of architecture. Yesterday, Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt lectured. Some of you may have heard of him as he is an international expert and probably one of the most educated people on the planet on a particular subject to which he has devoted almost 20 years of research. He has written several exhaustive books and even shown his research in court as an expert witness. Van Pelt was an architecture student when he went to the University of Waterloo in '68[?]. There in one of their cultural history classes he was shown the film "Nuit et Brouillard" [a 1955 French documentary short entitled Night and Fog].
There is a particular scene in the movie when a young woman is on a train, you might even describe her as a girl, and the camera zooms in on her face as she talks to the person about to close the door to the train behind her. She's on her way to Auschwitz. Research done by van Pelt into this haunting image of this woman led him to discover several interesting things and started a lifetime of archival and architectural research. Through records and documentation he knows the exact date and time this image was shot since it was the only time the Nazi's allowed this to be filmed. Exhaustive and precise Nazi records of who was on the train that day show the name Jan Van Pelt. His Uncle. So every time he shows this movie he knows somewhere his uncle is stuffed into one of the cars on his way to Auschwitz. His Uncle, like many other never survived Auschwitz.
He started studying Auschwitz a long time ago and looked extensively at its development. He took the Holocaust deniers argument that Auschwitz was never intended as an extermination camp literally and started looking around for evidence. The camp and city of Auschwitz was initially built not for this function, but for other things which I won't get into. However additions and renovations made turned it into a factory for killing.
"Do you need a permit to build a gas chamber in the German province of Upper Silesia? You do. I found it in the city archives. Here's a copy of it." Slide after slide after slide of images of original architectural diagrams taken from the city archives and from the archives of the offices of the architects who designed the gas chambers and crematory complex. Above is one of them.[#9/10 is the gas chamber - #1 is the five crematory ovens].
Looking at various versions and refinements of designs on the slides, van Pelt discussed a certain doorway[between #9 & #7 in the picture]: "Doors in the basement. A set of double doors opening into what was originally designed as a morgue. Nothing special." *next slide* "Here the doorway is intentionally reversed. It opens outwards. Why make such a minor change in a drawing as this. But if you know you are gassing people in the room the inclination of the dead is to run for the door. And there, by the door, they will die. You won't be able to get in. *next slide* [showing a close up of a different drawing of the same doorway - the erased original opening is barely visible] "You can't open the doors if 40 corpses are piled in front of them. So the doors open outwards." *next slide* "Here they have designed a new door. A single hinge, steel door with a small viewing portal. Here's the original receipt for the door they bought for the chamber. Here is the technical drawing of the door from the manufacturer. Why the hell would you buy a door for a morgue that is heavy steel with rubber gaskets around it and a viewing portal? Especially when drawings show a simple double door would have sufficed."
More slides. More drawings of what architecture is capable of. Designing efficient death. Architecture has a way of controlling people. How they travel through a space, how they function in a building. How a building can be catered to them. But thinking, "someone had to actually design this thing" is a horrible thought. Someone spent months pouring over details like this door making sure it was 'perfect'.

The learning curve

Yes it is starting to set in. I think I might know what I'm doing here. It's finally starting to resemble architecture. Finally.
A few weeks back letters were sent out to inform students of a potential low grade at the end of the year. Since this is a masters program grades aren't really given out at regular intervals since the 'right answer' no longer exists. There were two versions of the letter. They became dubbed as 'spicy' and 'mild'. The mild was simply a way of saying "pick it up a notch", and the spicy was a way of saying "this architecture thing might not be for you". I managed to dodge these depressing letters luckily and forage on ahead.
My latest project, based on the 16" tall felt blob pictured last post, is starting to take shape. I'm basing my ideas on a cross section I drew which I've shown above. Ready? Here goes...The interpenetration of the outer skin and how it can weave it's way into various roles: outer skin, inner skin, and structure. Imagine an internal wall that separates you from the clown next door that goes through the perceived outer shell of the building and becomes a part of the outer shell itself. Wait. That sentence barely makes any sense. How about this: Inner walls become outer walls for the next rooms, floors bend and become walls in adjacent rooms. Still Following? It'll be a total beast to construct immaculately for the final presentation in just over 3 weeks, but hopefully rewarding. My bank account awaits the strain of another project! At least I have recently acquired some 'new' tools for the job.

688 Queen Street West.

So, that felt blob I was telling you about? Well It was given a site the other day and this is it. 11 Ft of beautiful Queen Street West frontage and forming an L shape around the TD bank. We have to adapt the schematic ideas as laid out in our felt model, with special attention to the way connections/transitions were made and squeeze them into the site. We can't overhang the bank like this beauty going on downtown, but we can go below grade which is nice. So after building a 1:100 site model [read a 1/1ooth scale 3D rough construction out of mat board of the adjacent buildings] I have to come up with a system for my building to work in this site. There's a house in the back [the red thing through the trees] but we don't have to worry too much about zoning issues just yet; we just can't go any higher than the buildings on the street [ 3 floors]. Oh, and the studio supervisor told us the workload experienced thus far was "just a warm up" to what we are about to experience in the next few weeks.

A typical sight....

As promised last post PICTURES!!! Although this is not my space -thanks for making me so neat mom!- it is a common sight lately as the workload gets ever larger and more demanding. The grey floating blobs are some of the felt projects under construction/contemplation [we have to display them hanging due to the lack of a gravitational force].

Taking a Number

In light of recent events it seems like my system of 'doing it all on my own' has failed me miserably. Whoops. For those who have been caught up in this mess I must apologize for there is no excuse except for my vaulting stubbornness towards rebelling against a lifetime of being the baby in the family and a personal inability to ask for help. Growing up with a father and three mothers is never an ideal situation for someone like me to be in but hey - that's what I've got.
Work is coming along well. We have this crazy felt project which asks us to explore the relationships between a specific set of criteria with regards to a potentially inhabitable structure. We get to completely ignore the basic rules of practicality, feasibility, scale, and even gravity in the initial stages of this project which will eventually round out my studio time this semester. My initial conceptual model is done and pictures of the project and the studio space will be forth coming [AT LAST] in the next few days.
On another note I have managed to avoid the flu which seems to have descended on the studio - my studio instructor Annette is the hardest hit so far as she sneezes and sniffles her way through the day [As if I needed another excuse to try to avoid her] but it has made her more pleasant to be around as she doesn't seem to be as corrosive in her criticism of my work. I had considered the fact that my work had improved lately, but according to my classmates she seems to be warmer overall.