It seems that all of my entries now start with the word sorry. I can’t even begin to explain to you how busy I have become. I spent the weekend at studiofriend Danny’s cabin in Big Bear. It was great and refreshing after 3 weeks of hard work on a project, but it really set me behind on project number two. The cabin has wifi so we were able to get a little work done, but we were up for 48 hours on Monday building a site model and a 3D Model. It is 3:17AM and I just finished two concept models, a programmatic collage and a 40 page reading and written response. And I worked in the woodshop for 6 hours and helped a lot of first years with their projects. And I spent a few hours working on a model in Rhino which will be milled next week. Yesterday when I was driving back from the Sci-arc supply store I saw some people my age-ish sitting in Elysian Park. It seemed like such a nice thing to do, but all I could think was “Who in the world has time to sit in a park?” I truly wish I did, but whenever I do anything that is un-architecture school, I just end up thinking about how much time I am wasting.

Which leads me to this: Sailing has, well, sailed. I cannot justify yacht club dues while I am in school. I was going to try to put aside one weekday evening and one weekend morning to sail, but there is no way that it can happen. Driving to the marina+gearing up a sailboat+sailing+gearing down a sailboat+driving from the marina x twice a week= way too much time away from school. So, sailing has to wait a few years.

But I always need an extracurricular hobby. I have one already in motion and one that I intend to begin this winter. The first one is Wall Street. I have been toying with investment simulators for years (remember the portfauxlio) and I am always up several hundred percent. I think I am a pretty decent trend forecaster and I want to put it to use. I started with a fairly small initial investment that I am going to try to aggressively grow into a larger and larger investment. I don’t plan to reap any profits for awhile, I am just trying to grow the investment.

Extracurricular activity number 2. Did I ever tell you about the time I got smashed on my Vespa by a mini-van? Anyway, I eBayed it the next day. I really want another Vespa. And I really want to learn about engines, a total weakness of mine, and a blemish on my otherwise beautiful masculinity. So, I am going to try to find a salvaged (and straight) Vespa body and build my own from the ground up. Studiomate Danny is going to partake in this activity with me and we are going to buy all of the parts on eBAy (etc..) and even 3D Scan and CNC some for ourselves. I have some autobody and mechanic friends who can help me with the stuff I don’t understand.

The greatest thing about both of these activities is that I can do them from studio. I can lock the Vespa at school and work on it outside the metal shop. I can research and trade stocks form my computer in studio. Life is good. I am not going to divulge my portfolio, but I will say I am watching/buying ADBE, F, GV, SIRI, WFMI, NTGR, GOOG. Word.

(To all those concerned, I am not engulfed in flames. They are in the valley. I am in Hollywood. The only threats to us are North Korean Madmen, Earthquakes, and a slow summer at the Box Office. I did smell smoke at my school today. I’ll let you all know if that catches on fire. One love.)

I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.

Those words from Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer have always meant a lot to me. I don’t think that they have ever been more relevant than they are right now, er, except that I do have resources and hopes. The money thing is interesting. I spent nearly $600 bucks on the plied project (many sheets of $20/sheet bending poplar, 3 large jugs of glue, $100 printing, router bits, etc… It all adds up) and I haven’t even received my student loans yet. I have to believe it will all pay off and I love making and creating.

My morning was spent on the construction site of the East Valley High School in North Hollywood. The design is nothing to write home about, but seeing the construction and the way steel frames go together and the way rooms with different programs are handled during construction i.e. the wall mass of the drama room for soundproofing. An additional delight was seeing the figurative balls of the construction workers. It is incredible to see them climbing somewhat makeshift ladders several stories up with seemingly no fear.

Then I had studio and we were given our new project. I don’t feel like typing too much right now so I won’t go into details. I will just say that I really like it and the first portion of it is group work. I usually despise group projects, but this time I have 100% faith in my partners (a couple of my best studiofriends) and I don;t feel like I have to do all of the workload. Sigh of relief. By next Tuesday, we must have a site analysis consisting of a detailed plan, detailed elevations, detailed sections, Rendered 3D Model, physical model and photo collages. Yeah, by Tuesday.

Studiomate Danny has a Cabin with Wifi in Big Bear, so we are going there to do all of our work. We all need to get away while we have a chance. Aside from our studio work, we also have to watch Alphaville and write an essay about Godards vision of Dystopia. We are gonna do that with beer. Lots of beer.

So yeah. I’m happy. Like totally happy. And it’s kind of weird.

The only thing I am upset about is missing a Rem Koolhaas lecture about Power + Architecture at the Hammer Museum on Sunday.

As soon as the wifi signal in my studio is fixed, I will be able to post on a regular basis. Posts might be sporadic until then.

Here are some images from my project. Briefly Explained:

We chose (randomly, from a hat or something shaped like a hat) a material, a methodology and a case study(ies). We then had to explore the chosen material and document 20 explorations with the object and an exploration in an accompanying book. After the explorations, we had to use the knowledge we had gained from the experiments and construct an object occuppying three cubic feet of space (as always, three cubic feet is kind of a loose number that can extend to, say, 20)

My material was wood composites, my methodology was laminating and my case studies were Alvar Aalto, the Spruce Goose and Renzo Piano. I took the Aalto and Spruce Goose route and began bending and laminating 1/8″ bendable poplar plywood, truly an amazing material. I experimented a lot with simple bending and then went more toward complex form building and splitting and bending a single piece in multiple axes. The final construct is a chair that consists of over 70 linear feet of bendable poplar. It is still drying (I had to build a 2′x8′ “bathtub” to soak the wood in overnight) and there are some cosmetic touch ups that are neccesary, but it is almost finished.

I have to say that I have never been more impressed by the work of my class as a whole, there was truly something remarkable to observe in every gallery. I will try to compile some images of their work and post them here as well.

Project One: Plied

Have I ever told you how time cosuming architecture school is? I haven’t slept much in the past couple of weeks, and combined with ingesting sawdust for 12 hours/day, I am exhausted. And I am sick. But the review was yesterday and I managed to not passout during my critique. It went well, the critics all really liked my presentation. I will post more about life later, but here is an image of my presentation. The chair (which is still clamped and drying back in its form shell) is the product of three weeks of experimenting with bent plywood. It is made from over 70 linear feet of 1/8″ Poplar laminated to create 5 layers. To give you an idea of how long this takes, the forms alone took 30+ hours to construct.

My work is from the “Plied” wall left.

To anyone who has tried telephoning me in the past few days, my phone is completely dead. It passed in my sleep, it was two years old. I have a new phone on the way and I will also have a new phone number. Anyone who had my old phone number can either call the old one and my recorded voice will tell you the new one; or you can email me and I will type the number into the body of an email and send it to you.

If you don’t currently have my phone number and would like to, then I will need the following things:

• Resume
• In European, that is pronounced CV
• Photograph, preferably Black & White w/ soft lighting. Clothing optional, shoes mandatory.
• An essay entitled “Why I Should Be Able To Phone You” written in the third person and be 300 words or less. It should include at least one use of the term oral sex.
• $18
• 3 References, with at least one of them being someone you have slept with.

My staff will filter the applications and funnel the worthy applicants to me, as well as return my funnel which I have been looking for, for like 2 years now.

A sample of what goes on in an architecture studio:

Hello. It’s me again. I am trying to get back into the habit of regular posting, meaning like 5x/day of course. It’s harder to write when I don’t have the luxurious surroundings of a Microtel. Ah, those were the days. Both of them.

I am really busy right now, which is scary because I don’t even have that much work (relatively speaking). This first project is totally mellow and pretty easy and kind of fun. I won’t go into the specifics because that is what my other blog is for. I’m not too busy with work, I just have a really full schedule and I am not sure how easy it is going to be to pull it off this semester. We’ll see.

The thing that is currently weighing on me is this bloody (2 person) group Powerpoint presentation. Have I mentioned that I fucking totally hate Powerpoint? I really don’t even like slideshows, and I definitely don’t enjoy making them. I should mention a couple of things. I can create rather complex NURBS models; I can figure out difficult UCS controls in a 3D environment; I can rapid prototype/mill/laser cut these models and hold the aluminum version in my hand; I can figure out html, I can generally use/fix anything in computerland; but I can’t fucking figure out how to make little bulleted blocks of text pop up in Powerpoint at the appropriate time. I don’t know if it is that I just don’t want to know, maybe it is. I just really wish that PP would be shunned from the MS Office clique and never be on my computer again. And I don’t like working with a partner. But I do really like the class, once this presentation is done. Today I had to read some Marx for the class and it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from John Kenneth Galbraith:

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.

Brilliant, huh? So what else. I went to a lecture by William McDonough (AKA The Man Who Is Going To Save The World). It was interesting. Today I had a six hour class and half of it was at GCC, so I sat in traffic for a bit on my way back to my school. Then I went to my job in the woodshop and watched to make sure that freshmen didn’t lose any important appendages. And I worked on a wooden form for 6 fucking hours. I am covered in glue and sawdust. Rule#1: Don’t wear expensive clothing/loafers that you really, really like to architecture school. Then I read some more and watched glue dry.

Tomorrow I have 2 classes and then I might try to take the evening off, although that probably won’t happen. Saturday morning I am going to the Renzo Piano exhibit at LACMA, I am pretty sure that I am the only Angeleno who hasn’t been. I betcha Brad Pitt has been. He thinks that architecture is totally bitchin’.

After LACMA I am going to try to go to the Yacht Club and get some sailing in for a couple of hours. Then back to studio to do some work. I probably won’t re-emerge until Monday. There is a lot to do, and I am doing what boring people refer to boringly as getting in the swing of things.

I will end with this: Girls, keep getting tipsy and having conversations about me. My ego sends its regards. Maybe if you are lucky I will pencil you in for an evening of bouncing around happily on top of me.

This is the perfect example of why I think our society is going down the toilet.

And a smart/funny show like Arrested Development is on constant life support.

If anyone I know watches Todd Bridges or Kristy Swanson (whoever the fuck she is) ice skate, I swear to fucking god I will never talk to you again and probably renounce every minute we ever spent together- unless you are totally hot and we made love. I’m still gonna talk about that.

Who would have thought that I would ever be excited by a knot. All of my spare time is spent trying to learn to tie these very involved knots.

I am up to my earholes in bent plywood. The workload is getting in gear and I still feel like I am in neutral. I am surrounded by plywood experiments that I don’t remember doing. Add to that, A Materials & Methods presentation that is supposed to be a (2-person) group assignment and I haven’t seen my partner in 5 days and it doesn’t matter because I am too much of a dictator to work in groups anyway; and add to that I have trigonometry and I am so fucking lost and it’s only the first chapter, I am really bad at math, like, really; and add to that several chapters of reading for World Architecture, and add to that a complex model generated in Rhino that I have to have rapid prototyped by Thursday; add these up and it = more work than is humanly possible. This is what architecture school is like. It’s only the 2nd week and I already feel behind.

I just wanna go sailing.