Eric's Metamorphosis

And now the FINAL product. After four months of toil and labor, this is what I ended up with. Like I said in the first post, it is somewhat of a disappointment to me, but then again, I believed in it, even if the jury members didn’t. The big complaint they took and ran with for the majority of my critique was that I had too much unprogrammed circulation, or rather, that my hallways were too wide. As you’ll see below I designed a proprietary window system that could have actually functioned. My materials on my renderings were higher quality that the vast majority of other projects I saw. In truth, I worked really hard, and all they chose to talk about was the size of my hallways. That said, here are some images from the final result:

As with each semester, we have many reviews of varying gravity throughout the four or so months. Some as informal as a classmate looking at another’s computer screen and giving critiques or the professor glancing over printed documents for any glaring incoherencies or as formal as 3 to 5 professionals from the community sitting in, listening to a presentation by the students and then letting loose with 15-20 minutes of comments, critiques and suggestions. The formal jury can be both enlightening and devastating. Sometimes several months have been dedicated to a design and to have a group of strangers attack your heart and soul, emotions run high.

My mid-review was a mediocre experience, and in all honesty, my design wasn’t anything extraordinary. However, any feeling of devastation was quickly channeled into desire for improvement and a rush of inspiration.

The most exciting part of the semester was our class trip to Portland and Seattle. Many memories were made and great friendships formed. Instead of explaining the trip, I’ll just post my favorite pictures of the 4-day experience.

The next step in the Culinary Institute design process was to create a mobile kitchen. I was teamed up with my classmate and fellow three-plus grad student, Chris. He spearheaded the design and I consulted and did the graphics. We decided on an açaí na tigela stand, which is a popular smoothie-like treat where I lived in Northeastern Brazil. It was partly chose because of the beauty of its tree and we liked purple for the overall color scheme. Here’s an early rendering of the design:

Parti drawings were always being created. The definition of a project’s “Parti” is always being argued, but it’s a basic idea that can always be referred back to, giving the project a clear focus. Here are a few of my initial drawings:

I won’t waste time apologizing for not posting this entire semester. Instead, I’ll get down to business. Overall, it was a bittersweet semester. I made some great friends with several undergrad classmates. My grades were decent. My studio, however, was ultimately disappointing, if I can be completely honest.

A lot was learned, but the ultimate product didn’t really translate my excitement and desires well. It is my strong belief that the design process from A to Z shouldn’t be limited or stifled by outside forces like professors when a student already has a sense of process. My tendency is to jump in and look at possible materials first thing. Then think about basic building forms (or shapes). Unfortunately, being forced into a method of design I’m not comfortable with, my building lacked clarity and TLC.

The assignment was very exciting in the beginning. We were to design a 30,000 square foot culinary institute for either downtown Portland or Seattle. First off, we studied both Portland and Seattle on a macro level:

This is a diagram representing the street grids of Portland on the left and Seattle on the right. It was a collaborative effort between my classmates and me. Several more can be found at a website I created for that portion of the project at http://sanssoucidesign.com/pdx/ We studied things like climate, public transportation, traffic, and other details of the city to conjure up inspiration later on in the design process.

We then looked at the immediate neighborhood around our chosen site. My site was located in the Pearl District of downtown Portland. The following graphic shows building forms (or shapes if you don’t subscribe to the pretentious vocabulary we become injected with). Although abstract, the geometries give a “sense” of the surrounding area, allowing us to design a more appropriate building for that neighborhood:

I made specific promises to myself to update this space with my more important happenings of the past few months over a lengthy three week holiday break. As with many other goals for my time off, it didn’t happen. Typically the first week of school is low key, so I’ll make amens then.

Much love,
Eric

Fall break is next week and I will give a full digest of architectural happenings then. That is after I clear my thought-cicles. In less than a half hour, my Environmental Controls class will present, in small groups, our personal “Thermal Oasis”. This is a place where we feel in harmony with ourselves, and we must explain the architectural and thermal elements that make it so. Here is mine:

Hastens Bed

Comedian, actor, and musician Jamie Foxx once flowed, “Baby, if we leave the club, won’t be nothing but good lovin’, cause I got a warm bed.” The notion of the warm bed is cliché and familiar enough that it may be unabashedly used for the seduction of some potential lover met in a club. A combination of the implication that Foxx and the woman aren’t familiar with each other, understood via references in the song, and the calmative and tranquilizing hint of his intentions for the night, suggest that the warm bed enchants the masses who have experienced it.

For me, it’s not the laying down at night that charms me, which is probably undervalued. It’s the experience of a morning, typically on the weekends, and typically in the cooler months that constitute my thermal oasis. This involves a combination of things to make for a perfect warm bed experience. My face, as it remains uncovered, stays chilled, especially my nose. I can almost feel the cold draft rolling down from my inefficient windows. But for this moment, that’s just fine.

A down comforter on top and a feather bed under the fitted sheet are ideal for this situation. Running my hand over the sheets and subconsciously noting their appropriate thread count and the benefits of quality fabric softener and washing methods, my opiate receptors are engaged. While supreme comfort and tactile bliss are important, the surrounding elements are ideal in large part for their heat conduction. The natural materials – feathers and cotton – allow my swaddled self to breath, yet still retaining warmth that radiates back on my skin. I will often fish around my bed, eyes closed, for a new pillow. Fully chilled by the cold air and producing an ephemeral, yet delightful sensation with the heat of my face, the frigid pillow helps regulate my facial temperature.

These thermal properties, of course, are only part of the experience. My occasional ability to wake up sans alarm clock and with my body’s own volition is wonderful. With my translucent eyelids, I notice the effulgently gratifying light, peering between my blinds and reflecting infinitely on the white walls, ceiling, and duvet. And so the furious act of coming to is pacified. The global luminescence makes the room feel lighter, almost seeming to give the air more oxygen.

This is my thermal oasis. While it can only realistically last a few minutes, its effects will last all day. The sense of being coddled by my bed, like a good hug or a meaningful kiss, has a transitive power to induce day-long emotional inebriation.

It’s no secret that Pink Martini is my favorite music group of all time. When they broke with tradition and performed in Los Angeles instead of Portland on my birthday (New Years Eve), at first I was really mad, but then attempted to get a plane ticket to LA for the performance. I ended up just having to listen to it on NPR, however. Their 4th studio album, Splendor in the Grass, will be released next month, along with a live performance album with the Oregon Symphony next spring. This morning they performed on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, performing several songs from the new album, and I’m enchanted. You can listen here:

For those who know me, it’s no secret that I’m interested in politics. Although I claim no expertise, there is a concerted effort on my part to develop my opinions in a reasonable time frame and from reliable sources all while doing my best to avoid a dogmatic approach to issues we face. Of course in architecture, a lot of what we learn passes through an imaginary filter of theoretical interpretations because, let’s face it, no one has enough time to consider each and every fact/opinion out there. The same goes with my political leanings. One of my filters is that if a substantial amount of ignorant, yet loud and mentally tweaked out people rally together over a single issue and start comparing such disparate things as a man who attempted to wipe out a race of people and a man with whom they disagree on certain political issues who has not attempted nor succeeded in killing several million people, then their position is probably not for me. The same tribe of screamers that said “support our president or get out of the country because it’s un-American to challenge him” have so quickly switched to the repetitions that the president, himself, is un-American (either in the form of citizenship or on a basis of going against the principles that America was built on). The following video brought all this to my mind. People calling for Glenn Beck to be president (a man of deplorable scruples all for the sake of ratings, willing to exploit his viewers and bastardize the media) or claiming that Obama’s name “in its content” means anti-Christ make me that much more proud of my president and pushes me that much further in my appreciation of leftist ideals.

Another great set last night for three groups at Urban Lounge here in Salt Lake. I took my camera this time, which ended up being a somewhat enthralling experiment in lighting. With my ISO jacked up as high as it goes (1600), my aperture between f/2.8 and f/5.6 and letting the camera decide shutter speed, I got some interesting shots. Flash was used sparingly to keep the mood of the venue so grain is king in most of the pictures.