Early start today – 7:30 here we go. Again thanks Denver for
getting me up. I don’t know what’s up – am I still jet lagging or have I just
not gotten enough sleep for the past few days? Either way, had an apple and
coffee for breakfast in the sunroom, which reaches out into the villa garden
space. What a way to start the day!
Italian lessons. O joy. Today we went over verb conjugation
and more vocab – it was a bit more practical because we began learning how to
say phrases like, “I’m American, not German,” “I’m from Travelers Rest, that’s
near Greenville,” and “I study architecture.” So far, there are a lot of
similarities between Spanish, which I have had several semesters of, and
Italian, which I have had 2 days of. It’s not too hard to understand it if I
can see it, so I came up with a system by which I take what the teacher is
saying and picture the words in my head. This way, I can see them and it helps
me to understand the conjugations and follow what she’s saying. Also, today I
noticed that my fear of speaking up in class has resurfaced, even though I know
literally everyone in the class. I don’t know why, but as we were going around
saying something even as simple as “My name is Mario” (my new Italian name!), I
got nervous for no foreseeable reason. After a few rounds of this, I decided
that this is ridiculous and that it is ok for me to make mistakes – that is,
after all, what I’m here for; I don’t know Italian, I am learning Italian. So I
made a mistake after that and it was fine. No big deal. We had a new professor come in today, or at least one that I’ve never met before, who is our history teacher. That guy goes really fast – and this is an “I can’t even remember his name” fast. His lecture took us on a journey into the future. We did a brief and…you guessed it…quick intro for the entire semester. I think that I’m going to like this class. Some of the buildings that we are going to study are some that we’ve seen before, but that was through American eyes. We now have the privilege of seeing through the eyes of a native Italian. This, I think, will provide us with some helpful insight into the design and structure of these buildings, or at least that’s my hope. As well, I have recently given strong consideration to going into the historical preservation side of architecture. One of the biggest problems that I have with these projects at school is that I have to make these spaces up from scratch, and, frankly, that scares me to death. I don’t know why, but continually try to understand this fear so that I may one day overcome it. This being said, I feel that historic preservation would be right up my alley, so to speak. I would have a starting point already established in the form of the existing building. I have been around construction my entire life and have come to understand the basics of what makes up the structure of the home. I am very practical and, from my landscaping ventures, I have learned that I like to make things look better. In addition, I was talking with our professor over lunch one day and he informed me that there is a big demand for this; as my dad has informed me of as well. So boom. Career.
After a filling lunch, studio begins. It took me to about
the point that the professor hands out the syllabus to start getting nervous.
Here comes the fear of “real architecture” again. Strange, because I was
totally fine the month before I got here and was working with my dad – I was
doing “real architecture” and it turned out fine – my designs looked good, made
sense for the clients (whom I met with on a regular basis) and stuck to the
budget, at least in a relative sense. Now, in the face of this school project,
which in the grand scheme of things may be a little less important that what I
was doing with my dad (which would actually shape people’s lives), the fear
resurfaces. About half way through, however, the fear subsides a bit as the
ideas begin to trickle forth.
To fill the rest of studio time, we took a trip to the site – a small park in the
apex of a turn just a few minutes’ walk down the hill. The site is separated
into three distinct terraces. The first is street level that has a large set of
about 50 stairs leading up to the next terrace. From the top of the stairs, one
can see down the street all the way to the sea. Quite a view. At this point,
everyone must play Frogger and cross a road that is quite busy. If you win the
game and don’t get squashed, you end up in a tiny little park with a few trees
and a playground. O joy. Around this is a set of apartments that part around a
pathway that leads up again, probably about the same distance straight up. This
pathway was an old roadbed that the people used to use to travel up the
mountain with donkeys and carts. The history
and growth of Genova is quite interesting in itself. As far as the project
goes, it is a paired project, and my partner is a girl that I haven’t done much
collaborating with at all, so right from the start, I can’t shake the thought
that this’ll be interesting. We continue with a stroll through the Genova hills
to see a few more examples of how to approach the design. This was a long walk,
so fast forward to after dinner...
So after dinner, my partner and I got together and began
collaborating about the design solution to the problem – being that the park
sucks. I start out by presenting an idea, that, predictably, is the practical
thing – we need an elevator to lift handicap residents from the parking garage
(which is relocated with an entrance at the first terrace, effectively creating
a need to move residents from terrace one to two with some sort of ease). The
rest of my idea follows in practicality – narrow the roads around the
apartments to allow people to come in and park if they’re handicapped, allowing
for a slightly larger park; use the rainwater to help keep the park alive; use
the elevator shaft as a “design opportunity.” Pretty basic, but simple enough
that it could actually be done; to a certain extent. My partner, on the other
hand, saw a pine cone at the site and decided that the lobes of the pinecones
were like terraces, and that the terraces could hold fields where sports could
be played (I found out that there is no field in Genova from an earlier conversation
with a local architect), and we would get people across the road by having the
last terrace reach under (no more Frogger) and, o yeah, we are suspending the fields
from the sheer face of the first terrace. O my God, my head is still spinning an
hour and a half later! This is so far out of the way that I design and so far outside
of what I do that I can’t understand how she got to where she did – and so
quickly. We decided real quick that she is the artsy one and that I am the
technical, diagramming one. Maybe, and a strong maybe, I could have gotten to a
similar conclusion, but it would have taken me days of deliberation and
analysis. O my God! I am so overwhelmed
right now. Sure, I think that the idea is solid. But at this point, when I say “the
idea,” I mean “her idea.” I literally added two things to the design. Two minor
things at that. She doesn’t consider things like sun and wind patterns until later,
sometimes so late that the project is already completed, but that’s where I
usually start. So we decided that we would go to the site tomorrow and check a
few things out. I could diagram a few things, but what does it matter at this
point – the design is already developed a pretty good ways. Like I said before,
this will definitely be interesting. To make matters worse, at this point, I am seriously thinking that I should have done engineering – I’m not really artsy/designy, I’m really practical and always
focus on careful analysis. BUT, maybe there’s a lack of this in the field of
architecture and I could use this to my advantage – like in historical
preservation, yes! Pretty long and interesting day. Hopefully tomorrow will yield a similar amount of observation and learning.
A presto,
No comments:
Post a Comment