Best Day Trip Ever

Today was IMMENSELY better than yesterday! Today, we had a day trip to Camogli and Portofino, two beautiful cities right on the Mediterranean. The day started out with the stress of not having a developed project, but I prayed that God would open my eyes throughout the day and allow me to see the aspects of design that are around me – and that’s just what He did! I’ve kind of gotten the reputation of designing with “natural elements.” How I did that, I have no freaking idea. Nothing that I’ve ever done for class follows this rule, but I have the reputation nonetheless. The more I think about it though, the more I think that it suits me. That’s what I was focused on during today’s adventure – how to utilize nature in designs in an expressive and interesting way.

We started out with a train ride to Camogli – a small ocean-front town that was an old fishing village that sprouted into a town. From there, we took a boat to a small monastery village. The boat ride was amazing! It was the first time that I’d seen this part of the country – mountains so close to the water. Buildings all along the mountainside. Quite beautiful. We made a stop before getting off at a small dock that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. As we pulled up, we were faced with the giant of the mountain – a massive rock face that had rockslide preventive fencing stretched over it. The fencing made it seem like the mountain was a giant ready to burst out of its bond at any moment, but the strength of a woven steel net hindered his escape. As we circled the mountain, the major thing that I noticed was that a lot of the structures built on the mountain were made of the same material of the mountain – a stone tower set perched atop one of the rock outcroppings. I thought that this was really cool – architecture that spring forth from the land. Really powerful statement.

When we got to the monastery, the first thing that we noticed was how clear and blue the water was. I’ve never seen water like that –you could see the smooth, rocky bottom well out from the shoreline. The beach around the area was defined with the same smooth, dark rocks instead of sand. There was just something about the waves coming in and making that clear division between the dry rocks and shiny wet rocks that I thought was amazing.

 

 

One of the main things that I focused on during our surprisingly non-architectural day trip was the usage of and joinery between different materials, notably between the cool, dark color of the rocks and the warm, soft color of wood (chairs, boardwalks, etc.) When I started looking for things like this, they seemed to crowd around me, each vying for a chance to be seen. We were in an area that natural materials were virtually the only form of construction and design, so I found almost every aspect of the trip to be rejuvenating to both the Boy Scout and the “natural architect” within me.
I also noticed that the treatment of pathways and plants seemed to coincide easily – the pathways were largely defined with some form of rock paving (flagstone, cobblestone, etc), but plants were also generally a part of the equation. At one point, I spied a stairwell leading down beside an old defensive wall of the city with plants reaching up from the ground and sprouting out of the wall to create a natural tunnel that served to diffuse the light and provide a natural form of shade for those who would need it.

Our last leg of the trip was by foot – a hike over the mountain from the monastery to Portofino. This was my favorite part of the day (and probably my favorite part of the semester so far)! We started out at sea level, literally, and climbed up about 1,500 feet; all the while with the ocean in full view and serving as a map of our altitude progress. Our end destination was the town of Portofino, a harbor town that exists in a small, protective cove created by the mountains. Back to sea level we go. I’ve always loved hiking through the woods. There is just something about being out in the wilderness that I love. None of the worries from studio, or work, or life in general can filter through the mass of trees to find me there. Nothing matters anymore – nothing except enjoying the stunning landscape that God has given us.

All in all, this trip was EXACTLY what I needed after yesterday’s review, especially our hike, which I had been looking forward to the entire week. It gave me a chance to back up and look at what I was doing; to see what went wrong and focus on how to fix them; to look at the usage of materials and how people had formed the natural landscape to fit their individual use. By the end of the day, I had already sketched out a MUCH better rendition of our project in my head that uses our basic ideas, but focuses on natural materials and concepts. I think that this is my thing, my element; where I can go to clear my head after a long week of worries. Can’t wait to get back home to the old familiar trails with my friends – and maybe a few new routes with a few new faces.

 

A presto,

 

-Tyler

The First Review is a Doozy

Today’s review. How can I express my disappointment about today’s review?

 

This afternoon, we had our first “pin up,” which is a time that all of the professors come and every student “pins up” their work on the wall and presents their ideas to the class + professors. In a traditional sense, these are designed to make sure that we are progressing like we should – checkpoints along the way of the project, if you will. I went into today’s pin up with mixed emotions – I had all of my work done, as my partner and I had decided upon, and most of my ideas were engrained within my memory well enough for me to explain them to people who didn’t understand as well as I did. My partner had stayed up late the night before, with the majority of the class who were putting together last minute things, but I went to bed early. #1 because I’d been working virtually all day on my part of the project while my partner worked on other things. #2 because I didn’t see the point in staying up half the night for a simple pin up. In the morning, however, I felt bad – like I’d left her out to dry. But, it was over and done, so nothing I could do about that one. That morning, I also realized that we hadn’t collaborated about how the presentation was going to be formatted – at all. It is a fair assessment to say that my partner and I don’t communicate as well as we should. So I was stressed about this for the morning – I knew my part, but as far as her part, I didn’t know what she wanted to say or even what her general ideas toward our project were. O crap. Going into a presentation without a clear idea of what the heck is going on. Setting myself up for a loss already…

So we sit through a couple presentations and decide that it’s our turn to go. I start out with our diagrams – why we did what we did. Basically, our project is inspired from a pine cone – the shape and characteristics of the object. We looked at how the lobes terrace and overlap each other and used the circular shape of the cone to organize the park space of our design. That’s the basic outlay that I nailed during the pin up – it’s the details that I botched. I just couldn’t seem to explain why how the overlapping of the terraces was going to be a good thing. I tried to explain it by referencing the “human scale” (which seemed right at the time, but I now know that I used the term horribly backwards!). I felt like I had the words, but they just wouldn’t come out right. Sensing this situation, I just imploded. Crap. In the middle of a review, and I can’t explain my ideas. Crap. The rest of the review matched suit. And to boot, at the end, after the professors are done offering suggestions and the floor is opened up to the class, both my partner and I stare awkwardly at our project board, not at the class – aka, we imploded. Crap. Now we look like we are hiding from explaining our project. Now our lack of communication as a group is pretty dang obvious. Crap…

The one thing that I do like about reviews, though, is that it gives you a chance to literally sit back and look at the work of your classmates and what the professors have to say about them. It’s a good way to get feedback about your project without the pressure of standing up in front of everybody; albeit an indirect way that involves more work on your part in sifting through to the relevant information. I learned a lot about architecture in general and made a lot of mental changes to our project just from listening to what the professors had to say about other people’s project – and what they would inevitably bring up in the final review if I didn’t address them in my project now.

Interesting day, interesting day indeed.

 

A presto,

 

Tyler

History repeats itself...

We designed ourselves into a hole. Literally. Our project was flowing right along. We had some suggestions from professors and had sifted through most of them to refine our design – the driving factor being to reduce the symmetry of place (apparently a classical style thing that is soooo 100 years ago). One of our professors made the comment that we shouldn’t necessarily follow the design factors from the classical period (symmetry included). He thinks, instead that we should try to be more organic and forward thinking. So that’s what we did. We made the mistake, however, of assumption. We came to the point that we felt that digging into the ground was the solution to our design problems. At the time, this made sense – we were going to tunnel under a very busy street to assist in pedestrian safety, but the tunnel was quite deep; therefore, make the grade closer to that of the tunnel. No assumptions up to that point – it’s all valid. The assuming came in the fact that neither of us considered how to buffer between the existing grade level and the new grade level (we assumed that the side of the hole was going to be just a vertical wall with railing around it, which is NOT the way to design a space). We focused more on the general shape of the area that we wanted to create in plan view – never looking at the design in section. Problem. The funny thing is, last semester my partner and I ran into the EXACT same problem – we were tunneling under a railroad track to help pedestrian flow and didn’t consider HOW to go from exiting grade to new grade until very late in the project – not until AFTER our project had earned the unfortunate nickname “the pit.” Yeah, pretty bad. After that fun review, we decided upon a set of stairs on one end that terraced down into the new space and, after we broke off for the individual final project, I decided to make amphitheater seating to blend the ground planes. In this project, I think that we are just going to backtrack a lot and go back to not creating another pit. Simple enough, right?

On another note, I have started to find my discipline (hard to believe I lost it, right?). I’ve decided that having coffee and fococcia bread every morning for breakfast is absolutely awful for me, so I bought some orange juice and crackers that I spread honey on. Between the honey and an apple, I’m probably getting more energy than I was from the coffee (and it’s natural). Also, trying to drink more water to stay hydrated. I’ve started to work out again. And that’s saying something out here – we don’t have access to a gym. I got an app the other day that has different exercises for every muscle group, including “body only” exercises, which I am confined to at the moment. I’ve done pushups every day now for the past week. My goal there is to be able to do 100 in a row by the end of the semester. Today, I went with a group of people and we went running up the hill a little ways. Started small, but at least we started running. I think that running a little a couple times a week will help keep your legs strong and heart healthy. Also, don’t wanna work out just your upper body because then you’ll look like an upside-down triangle, and nobody wants that. I work every day on things for different classes – although this is nothing new for me, I like to do this so that the info keeps fresh in my mind and I keep moving forward. I’ve been reading a little bit in the Bible and doing a devotional every day – recently started a plan about “unquestionable character.” So far so good.
My hope with all of this is that I will become a well-rounded individual, at least better-rounded by the end of the semester – find a balance between my mind, body, and spirit; or something like that. Also, I want to be a good example to everyone here. It’s been interesting to observe how some people’s conduct has changed with the new-found independence; interesting to say the least. I’ll let you know how that one goes.

 

A presto,

 -Tyler

UPDATE!

So the rest of this week was kind of dry, but here's a few things to keep you up to date:

-Our project is coming right along - ideas finally becoming more concrete. We have a midterm review on Wednesday, but I think that we are pretty much ready for it.

-I'm starting to develop my own "style" of architecture. Haven't presented any of it yet, so we'll see how that one goes.

-On Tuesday, we are going to "Pirate...something." I can't remember the name, just that it has Pirate in it and that we are going to go swimming. Also, on that note, we have parrots in our garden...no joke. They are small and green and annoying.

-I bought some orange juice the other day.

-I'm doing pushups in the mornings because I was starting to lose my chest and that made me sad. So far so good.

-Time is starting to "woosh" on me. For those of you who have stayed up working and lost two night worth of sleep in a row, you know what I'm talking about. Really, though, the days are starting to run together.

That's pretty much the extents of my life right now, consider yourself in the know.

A presto,


-Tyler

The day that Denver went down

I forgot to write about the meal that we went to Sunday night at “The 3 Black Birds,” which was in Italian, of course. Everyone got all dressed up for it and we had a bit of a prom moment outside in the garden before leaving. Once we got to the restaurant, however, the story took a turn for the better. Way better. We got there and the wine was already on the table – some sort of white wine that wasn’t too dry, really not bad. It didn’t hurt that we basically had all the wine we could drink, heck yes! The first course (haha never had to say that before) was some kind of fococcia bread with cheese and a chick pea based bread that were both delicious! Second course consisted of a tortellini with white sauce and noodles with pesto. The tortellini was probably my favorite of the entire meal! Main dish = fish (which was, again, amazing; and I’m not even a fish person!).  And then, to top it all off, for dessert, “half cold” ice cream! It was coffee flavor and just a little melty. And let’s not forget, during the course of all of this, the waitress keeps the wine coming! I didn’t drink too much, did pretty good I think. All-in-all, not too shabby.

As for Tuesday, I woke up and remembered that I had some kind of crazy dream. I dreamt that I went home and my dad had the bright idea that our next family trip was going to be in Poland. Then I woke up and fell back asleep to another dream that had something to do with the Hoover Dam. We were walking along a small stream talking about how beavers make their dams and with what kind of trees and then all of a sudden, whoever it was that was walking with me turned and said, “And that’s one that the beaver’s didn’t make,” as he pointed toward the Hoover Dam in the distance. Whatever. I was afraid that today would be one of those days that I wouldn’t be able to wake up – wouldn’t be functioning at 100%. Luckily, I was wrong on this one.

Tuesday, we went for our first day trip, this one on a tour of the city of Genova. My job this semester is as the “day travel assistant,” so today was my first go at it. Basically, my job was to carry around the 500 Euro that Silvia had given me the day before and track our spending of it; on bus tickets, train tickets, museum fares, and what have you. Our teacher was not our usual Professor Bruhns, but was Gulietta, whom we had met before. The only thing that I remember about her is that she told us that we “wouldn’t like her” because she “talks a lot, is fast paced, and smokes a lot.” I initially thought that she was crazy, but after our first hour of listening to her go on and on about the general history of the city, she pretty much hit the nail on the head with her first comment. She gave us all these names of kings and queens that I really had no care for and her fast paced, long winded story quickly lost my attention. I did, however, like the view that she had given us for the back story – overlooking the entire historical center and harbor. From there, we went on down the hill and made a few stops at various piazzas, Cathedrals, and points of interest. I got a few sketches of the areas, but mainly focused on analysis of the “personal bubble” that everyone has by watching how people interact with each other and estimating the distances between them. I found that people have several different “personal bubbles” depending on who they are with. For instance, if they are with someone that they love, their personal bubble (measured from the center line of their head to the center line of the other person’s head) I have estimated at 12”. If they are with family or close friends, the bubble exists at around 30”, and if they are around people that they don’t know (and have room enough to keep their space) the bubble extends to around 48”; this all as best I can tell. I’ve thought about this a lot over the course of the past few months, and I think that it can be useful in designing different spaces. Designing a mall, for example, I would be more inclined to use a unit square of around 48” (based on individual space in a public setting), while at home, using a unit of 30” (based on individual space in a family setting). Whether that is a good idea or not is up for debate, but as for now, I think that it is a pretty good one.

Today was a rather interesting day. We had history class this morning and it wasn’t so bad. Talked about the Berlin Monuments and Nazi Architecture, at least at the part that I was there. I blogged about how the Nazi party established a new culture through architecture in just a few years and it took 50+ years to undo this and reestablish a new culture of architecture for the city of Berlin. Kind of crazy. We took a little coffee break half way through, so we all filed down the stairwell and swooped down upon the coffee and foccocia. I leaned over and told Denver that if we just stopped class here, that’d be fine with me. Not five minutes later, he is cutting some bread and slices his finger. Oops. At first, we just think that it is a small cut, so he goes to wash off the blood and someone gets a first aid kit with band-aids. The only problem was that it didn’t stop bleeding. We took him into the kitchen where they had more first aid stuff and he is leaning on the sink and suddenly begins to faint! So the villa staff lay him down and prop up his feet so that the blood in his legs will return to his torso and one of the staff tells me to make him some sugar water. Silvia, the villa administrator, calls and finds a pharmacy that is open and we take a taxi over to get some “sterile strips” and have his blood pressure checked, and it was 104/52 – pretty low. So for lunch Cristina, the cook, makes sure that he has some form of meat to replenish his blood iron. The staff did an excellent job with the situation – they knew what to do and did so quickly. As for why he fainted, I think that it was because he is so tall and lanky, plus the sight of the blood and knowledge that it wasn’t stopping. The sugar water, I learned was to get his blood sugar back up – another reason why he fainted.

And all of this went on during the second half of class – which I missed and it’s fine with me.

In studio, we kept chugging along with our proposal. We had the history teacher for our desk crit and he said that our project had good ideas, but was too symmetrical, too “beaux arts” as he called it. Apparently this was the style form 100 years ago – everything symmetrical and in line. He doesn’t think that we should follow this in today’s world. I will agree that it’s more interesting if it isn’t perfectly symmetrical, but the project starts to get pretty complicated (and not to mention expensive!) pretty fast when you deviate from that. We decided, though to make our tunnel under the road follow the pattern of the sun rather than go straight across the road following the existing axial line. This way, the plants that will be inside the tunnel will have substantial light to grow and make the space less dreary; at least that’s the hope.

 A presto,

 -Tyler

The Pine Cone: The Ave. to Success?

Yesterday was a sleep in day, heck yes! The Commodores really hit the nail on the head with their song “Easy (like Sunday morning).” A few people went down to a local church and listened in on the service. I think that I will do that next week just to experience it. But as for now, the sleep is well appreciated.

I got a lot of work done on our studio project yesterday afternoon. My partner was sick with a sinus infection, so I took some design liberties on the project (…insert evil laugh here…). I thought more about the pine cone inspiration that she seemed to take to immediately. I know it sounds a bit absurd to take architectural inspiration from something like a pine cone, but I am starting to see the value in the simplicity of the idea. Apparently, as I learned today, simple concepts like this one are the ones that tend to win architectural competitions. Having the simple form of a pine cone gives us something to fall back throughout our design process – as someone so elegantly put it today, we can simply ask, “what would the pine cone do?” I know, this design stuff still sounds strange to me too, but I’m starting to get used to it.

So there I was, pine cone idea floating around in my head, analyzing every part of the object. What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The design that I came up with, though, was well received by both my partner and our reviewer today. (When I figure out how to scan stuff into my computer, I’ll include sketches so that this all makes more sense).

Big event for yesterday – we found peanut butter! We have all been searching for the delicacy since we arrived. Although it cost around $5 for a small jar, it was well received. I didn’t get any though. I have nutella and Ritz crackers. I don’t think that I can handle any more good-ness at one time.
Fast-forward to this afternoon’s studio class, where we had our first official “desk crit.” This is where the teacher comes around to your desk to see what kind of progress you have made and to offer a few design suggestions to consider in order to further develop your ideas. The reviewer that we had today was EXTREMELY practical. He suggested that my partner and I focus more on the scale of the site and the elements that we planned to add to it. I have found it difficult to grasp the scale of objects here because all of the measurements are in metric units, and I am used to working with the English Imperial system. He also suggested that we start thinking about materiality – what different kinds of materials to use to denote specific programs. For instance, wooden “boardwalks” may become the material that denotes pedestrian traffic for our project; this in contrast to cobble streets. In regards to this, I decided that I would try a more natural selection of materials – use a natural stone similar to that at the existing site, wooden beams, grass, etc. I think that this will inform a more natural style of architecture – one focused on nature and how my designs can integrate with the site. I think that this style would fit well with my background – Eagle Scout, landscaper, general outdoorsman. Maybe this will become my “style” of architecture as I move forward in the world of architecture and design.

Again, when I figure out how the scanner works, I’ll add some sketches and such that will hopefully help a lot of this make more sense. Until then,

A presto.

 -Tyler

We Happened Upon a Fort...

So I’ve decided to start posting every other day or so rather than trying to write a daily post. Studio is beginning to start up, so my life is about to get pretty repetitive and boring and I won’t have as much time to write. It can be quite time consuming…

Yesterday morning, we had another Italian lesson bright and early. O joy. I’m glad that our prof. is interesting because I could get really tired of that class otherwise. I think that she is a good teacher – she understands that we just need to know the basics to get by during our stay. After that class, we had our first “Italian Rationalism” class. Sounds fun right? Yeah…we just had a 30 minute class and the guy almost put half the class to sleep. Can’t wait to sit through a three hour course on rationalism in Italy on a Friday morning…

The good thing about Friday, or should I say the extra special thing about Friday, is that we only have class until 12:30. Later on in the semester, this will be valuable time, as we can have that extra time to travel – go ahead and get to the place and have all day Saturday and Sunday to be there, then come back on Monday morning – no class until 2:00 on Monday, heck yes! Today, we went and got our cell phones. Cost 20 Euro. The basic call-and-text phone without a camera. It is pretty lightweight and small-ish, but funny to go back to the basics.

The rest of the day was pretty chill. Didn’t do too much. Worked on the project a little bit and just hung out in the villa. Slow night, but that’s ok – it was a slow night in Italy instead of Clemson.
This morning, got up and went to diagram some on the site before Italian class. Kind of interesting to see the place in the day vs. the night. In the morning, all of the people with a ‘lot of life experience’ are out getting their exercise and several people are taking their dog for the morning walk. At night, however, the same place is littered with teenagers hanging out under the cover of darkness. Some of the streets here are a bit questionable during the day, not to mention after dark.

After lunch, which was simply leftovers from this week, a big group of people left for the beach. Denver and I, along with two of our other friends, decided to go to the top of the chair lift again and check out a field that one of the professors said was up there for public use. We get to the top of the chair lift and start walking up the hill, where the supposed field is awaiting our arrival. Instead, we find a large defensive fort from the medieval ages that has currently been overtaken by a restaurant (…see what I did there…?). Further up hill, we begin walking along the ridge and find a scenic overlook. The wind is gently curling over the mountain, pushing the clouds along the ridge, slowly beginning to reveal another fort further up the mountain. Really cool sight. We don’t find this next fort on today’s adventure, but decide that it is worth looking further into later in the semester.
It still surprises me how similar the foliage is to what I am used to at home. On our excursion today, I spied the Italian version of the white oak, black birch, black locust, and hydrangea. It is really helpful to me to be able to identify some form of life that surrounds me. Even something as simple as the plant life has really helped me feel more at home.

After dinner, which, again, was leftovers, I started diagramming our site more in depth. This time, I was looking at the scale of each terrace as it related to the human figure. For instance, let’s assume that the average human is around 6’ tall (just to make the numbers easy). We compare this to each vertical stretch of space. With the first terrace being 15 meters (around 50’), this vertical is roughly equivalent to the height of 8 people standing on each other’s head (50/6 ~ 8). This is a strange but helpful way to look at vertical spaces. The more people the space can fit, the bigger the space will feel (in general), and the more public the space becomes. The tighter the space to the human scale, though, the less comfortable the space becomes, and people will naturally tend to move away from these and toward the more open spaces. Architects play on this to move people through the spaces that we design in particular ways so that the people who visit the site can experience what the space has to offer to the fullest – direct people toward the “good” and away from the “bad.” But what is “good” and what is “bad?” That is where architecture comes to play. The “good” may be a view, a feeling, mood, action, location, etc – it is up to the architect to define and act upon this. Maybe that’s why we have to go to school for 6 years to draw lines and shapes on the computer for a living.

 A presto.

 -Tyler