ARCHCLUB trip 2009

We've begun plans for this year's Architecture Club trip at school to visit Philadelphia, PA. Among the possible destinations in/near: Vanna Venturi house - Robert Venturi Guild house - Rovert Venturi Esherick house - Louis Kahn Fisher house - Louis Kahn Richards Medical Research - Louis Kahn PA Academy of Art - Frank Furness Also a walking tour by the Center for Architecture. More details to follow. ARKTEK

NCSBDC 2009 Update

We had an opportunity to visit the site of this year's NC Sustainable Building Design Competition last Saturday and found it quite helpful. The insight into the needs of the people who'll be living in the multi-family residential building, as well as the requirements of the development/maintainance company, forced me to re-assess the progress my team and I had made. This week has seen good progress with us taking the best points of our different individual schemes and meshing those into a cohesive approach while taking into account the information we learned from the site visit which will help us modify our ideas to conform more to what the developer and clients needs are. About seven or eight weeks remain. ARKTEK

Local Anniversary Getaway

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I've mentioned the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, NC before, and I have visited on a few occassions: once with a class field trip for a tour of the hotel and once for a kick-off meeting of the local USGBC chapter.

My wife and I stayed there this past weekend as a joint Christmas gift from my parents (they kept the kids for us too)/Anniversary getaway (our 10th).

We had a great time; enjoyed the hotel and the food from the whole weekend (Fourth Street Filling Station in Winston-Salem for dinner Friday night, Solaris in Greensboro for a drink and an appetizer Saturday evening, then on to Print Works Bistro for dinner. Brunch Sunday morning at McCoul's.)

I have a few more photos in the Set from the Proximity on my Flickr page--added to the existing set from the class field trip.

NCSBDC 2009

(click to enlarge--we are to be designing for the lot to the right) [source]


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Today in our Design Project class we turned in our individual design solutions for the North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition 2009. More can be found out about the project here on the competition website. The basic challenge is this:

Design a two-story, multi-family, residential building to meet the needs of CASA (Community Alternatives for Supportive Abodes), a local organization created in 1992 that provides supportive housing for individuals with mental illness, developmental disabilities, or substance abuse disorders. The approximately 6,000 square foot building will include nine individual apartments and an indoor community space for meetings and gatherings. The building shall be designed to high energy efficiency standards (approximately equivalent to LEED Platinum) and include sustainable design elements in the categories of indoor environmental quality, water efficiency, material selection, hazard mitigation, community preservation, and affordability. The project should also include universal accessibility and be within HUD design standards.

The next stage of the process will be for the four members of my team to get together and hash out a plan and a strategy that works for all of us from the four widely different proposals we presented in class today.

Once that is established we will develop our design to meet or exceed several sets of standards and benchmarks on which the project will ultimately be evaluated.

This will no doubt be a more intense competition for us than last year's was, as we are probably much more capable now as to some of the issues and design problems we will be facing. We know what we are up against this time. Last year we were in a little over our heads and just did what we could to keep our heads above water.

Last year's team decided to split up into two, so I have two new teammates returning from last year's competition.

I'll try to keep updating our progression throughout the semester.

Christmas ArchiGIFTS

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Stair Porn (blog)

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I was looking online for an image of a certain staircase I'd seen in dwell magazine--in this Walter Gropius house although dwell did not publish all of the print images on their website. Anyway, I Google-image-searched for Gropius stairs and found this blog: Stair Porn.

Final Renderings of the House for a Composer

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Just finished the fall semester; one more to go.

These are some of the renderings of the semester-long project in my Presentations class for which this retreat was designed. Other images, including presentation drawings done my hand can be seen here.

New Archinect T-Shirts

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Great new hatch pattern t-shirts available from Archinect.
(Christmas wish-list items)

new sketchBOOK

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I just ordered this new sketchbook from the filmmakers of archiCULTURE. It combines two things to look forward to: a film about architecture school and a new Moleskine sketchbook.

I have blogged about this film before but wanted to mention it again as I know they are still seeking funding while in post-production. Read this synopsis below and then click the link above to visit their site to find out more about the film.

Archiculture is a feature length documentary that examines contemporary issues surrounding the realm of architecture through the perspective of university students during their final thesis semester. The film follows the protagonists through the evolution of their respective senior thesis projects and the internal and external conflicts each student faces during this intense year-long process. Interviews with family, friends, significant others, industry professionals, architects, and design professors are woven throughout the film to create a story that builds an intimate connection between the characters and the audience. The emotional storyline will reveal a breadth of experiences ranging from the 4AM deadline dash, to the fulfilling sensation of graduation. The film provides viewers with an in-depth look into the creative yet competitive process of architectural education while also depicting current issues such as the role of architecture in society, the disproportion of gender and race within the profession, and environmentally conscious design. The story is structured in a way that chronologically follows the students’ development of their theses and continually builds suspense as the final critique looms. The film concludes at the students’ final thesis presentation as they find themselves on the brink of their adult and professional lives, and the closure of their adolescence.

AutoCAD|Photoshop

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This elevation rendering was produced by printing an AutoCAD drawing to PDF, then opening PDF in Photoshop, and applying color, texture, images and scale figures.

The enlarged image (full size=11x17) is probably a little bit big (you think?). Lesson learned: not every image has to be done HUGE.