GOOSE

thursday night corey and i hit it up the celebrated rock-a-belly deli. i must say that the place was pretty cool, i instantly knew why it was the architecture hangout spot. vodka tonic was the choice, and a good one i might add. this was the best way to give an end to a very stressfull week. I turned 21 in the middle of charette and i really couldn't celebrate it the way i should have. even when i was done with studio our first programming test was still on the list. not that it matters because i definetly failed the sucker.

i'm affraid that now that i'm 21 i'll spend all the little money i have at the bars. drinks are expensive, but are also delicious. man, i really think that the money i had saved for europe will all be gone before i even leave for europe. all because of those damned bars... and those damned delicious drinks...

today our studio completed phase one of our project. reviews were held in Seaton Hall 103 at 1:30 in the PM.

Project: Aviation Institute of Research
Location: Manhattan KS
Critics:
1. Michael McNamara
2. Don Watts
3. Jim Jones

to tell you the truth, i had never witnessed such a worthless review. the event took place as follows:

1:30
yawn

1:35
cookie time

1:55
professor Jones suggest that Laura should drop all her previously chosen materials and use limestone instead.

2:13
professor Jones tells Ju to add a "windsock" to her design.

2:30
cookie time

2:45
Jim Jones Sucks

3:00
McNamara Says "i'm the mayor!" and proceeds to break a peice off of Christy's model. (this is the first thing he has said all afternoon)

3:01
Jones tells yet another student to replace their material palette with limestone.

3:15:00
Watts finally shows up and joins the review.

3:15:10
Watts busts out the laser pointer

3:15:20
Don Watts Sucks

3:20
Jones refers to the Beach Museum as a "great builing!"

4:23
Jones tells a third student to make their building from limestone. (somebody please shoot me)

"No"

pretty good stuff.

Saturday night was a night of dance. Evan and Corey hosted the first techno dance party of the semester at their appartment, the third story of an old house located at 9th and moro. it was my job to put together a set of adrenaline packed dance songs, and let me tell you-- it was a good set. along with the all the hors d'ouvres was a good selction wine floating around, it was a pretty damn good time. a group of us went at it all the way from around 10:30 to about 2:00 in the a.m. if you ask me, that's a pretty good workout!

right as the night seemed to be headed to an end, adriana and i decided to crash the mexican independence party held at the "mexican house." man, those girls really know how to put a party together... they had a really big car garage pimped out with flags from all the south and central american countries, and to top it all off they had a mexican flag that measured at least 10' x 20'. with the exception of the flags and a stereo system, there was nothing else in the space except for lots and lots of people dancing. that shit was funny, i definetly made the biggest attempt to dance to the salsa, and cumbia that was playing but next to everybody i looked like just another amateur. we left at around 4 in the a.m. i bet the party went on for at least another 2 hours. there was not much i could do, i was tired and i had to get up for work really early in the morning so that i could cook some breakfast for those kappa girls. the night was lots of fun. nothing like techno and salsa the same night.

this semester i will be designing the Aviation Institute of Research.

Located in the beautiful Manhattan KS, this library is composed of a public library, a private research center for scholars and it will also be displaying a 1956 Cessna skyhawk 172. you'll be hearing lots about this project later on, so keep your eyes open.

above are some renders i did the other night. beware that i am only in the beginning stages, so the images are not so good and i am positive the "ramp" deal is getting trashed. take a look at them and tell me what you think.

"An Honest Mistake" By The Bravery

i am hooked on their new cd, and i think this video is pretty sweet. hope you like.

today charlie and I visited our beloved Chipotle restaurant. my choice was to battle the great steak burrito. grilled steak chunks, black beans, mexican-style rice, half mild salsa (mainly tomato, onion, and cilantro), half hot salsa (mainly cayenne chile pepper, habanero pepper, red chile pepper, fire, devil dust and salt), sour cream and lettuce. a complicated burrito for a complicated mind. one medium soft drink is necessary to prevent my lips and tongue from converting into a ultra-hot fire torch. i prefer to grab some lemon slices and squeeze the juice as needed during the meal. it is also my tradition to frequently utilize a fork while using the tortilla as some sort of bowl. i first concentrate on the inner part of the element and then attack the outer skin. this maneuver is repeated about 4.5 times before the burrito comes upon its defeat. i love to battle against this great traditional mexican dish that is the burrito. it is delish...







victory is mine this time...

....people look at my house and say that they think it is very beautiful but how can I live like that. To me the thinking is all the wrong way round. The whole point is that this is how I live, so this is what my house needs to be like. The architecture is the physical expression of a way of being: the form does not follow a particular fashion, it follows a particular life. The life my sort of architecture follows is not one which feels right for everybody. I am passionate about my work, but I am not out to make converts. The only universal measure is whether space feels comfortable and right to the people who use it. Minimalism - or, as Donald Judd preferred to put it, the simple expression of complex thought - is but one valid response of an aesthetically diverse society, answering the needs of particular individuals and provoking debate in society at large about how we choose to live and how we expect architecture to support these choices.
- john pawson

this was taken from the essay titled minimalism published in 2004 by The Guardian. this interesting article talks about how minimalism should not be thought about as a style, but instead it should be thought about as a way of thinking about space. pawson says that minimalism is not "an architecture of self-denial" or some sort of meaningless space full of absence. he argues that (and i strongly agree) minimalist architecture is one that is absolutely defined by the contents of its space and the intensity by which the space is experienced.

i have defended this idea in some of my own designs. one time one of my classmates was examining my project and as he looked at my model, he began to list all the elements that he noticed were missing. he seemed amazed at how i had successfully designed this building with all these elements missing. he was obviously looking at it the wrong way. why ask what is missing. one should focus on what is present. not so far as to question what is essential. i believe the idea is to focus on what has been so carefully chosen to occupy a space. so i think the question is not what is essential? but what is essential to the essence of the space?

so there it is, my first blog. with any luck you'll see new posts now and then. until next time...