Concrete blocks, Well House, etc

Here's a more text update on things that are going on. For studio, each section is designing and building a structure (approx. 12'x12') that will serve a purpose on Penn State's Center for Sustainability. My section is designing what we call a "Well House," which will house at least two water canisters that are used for gardening. This is all well and good, but our professor wants the walls to be made out of concrete blocks. And yes, it will be the students' job to design and ultimately make these blocks ourselves. Here are my two preliminary proposed block ideas:

We then collaborated as a section to pick out the best designs based on function or aesthetics. I placed both of mine in the aesthetic category. We knocked out half of our total blocks, and both of mine managed to make it through that round. Then, we grouped similar blocks together to make five groups, and we have small groups developing each of those ideas further. There will eventually be one block design that will make up the entire Well House.


For VisCom, we've gone over PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign, and now we are doing a quick segment about PowerPoint. Here's my InDesign assignment:

The assignment was to describe our last studio project with visuals and text.

VisCom update

So, here's what we just recently did in digital VisCom. I guess this would be for portfolios maybe. VisCom ties in with studio a bit more this semester.

Can't upload more than 5MB unless I want to pay

So, the e-portfolio site I've been using doesn't allow me to upload any single file that's over 5MB. Only a couple of my portfolio files (except ones pre-Penn State) are below the limit. So, this marks the end of my usage of weebly.com... Apparently there's some sort of thing that Mac provides that's better. I'm not exactly sure. Anyways, I can upload them to this site at least. Here are the final drawings for VisCom, followed by an extra from a while ago:

So, the assignment was to choose any building (had to be approved by the prof) and do a study on it by examining existing plans and pictures of it. I chose a house called the Villa Shodan, designed by Le Corbusier. It's located in Ahmedabad, India. I was browsing through greatbuildings.com and I came across the image that I reproduced as a drawing on the upper part of this page. What struck me about it was the amount of 90 degree corners and how it seemed so structural, yet I was still pretty confused as to what was inside and what was outside just by looking at the plans, and that piqued my interest.

The plans here might confuse you at first, and I was no exception even after an hour of flipping through the plans and sections. I shaded the parts of the second and third floors that were open to below. There's also a diagram of the grid of rectangular posts that I picked up on quickly during my reproduction of the plans.

Here's the elevation and section of the Villa Shodan. If you look at the plan, the elevation is of the facade on the right side. I tried to shade where it seemed like the walls receded back, to give a sense of order and depth to it. For the section, I noted where it cut through each of the plans. There's also a diagram where every vertical support can be seen.

Here's a little shadow study assignment that also was for VisCom, but due a few weeks ago. Thought I'd just put this in here as well.

Uffizi done

It was due at 5:30 yesterday, and I think I did a solid job with it.

Unfortunately, the image is a little bit blurry, but you can make it out pretty well. I purposely didn't render the left side, and you can see the Palazzo Vecchio way in the back. The plan of the Uffizi and Palazzo is lightly penciled in also.

By the way, grades were given back for studio. I've got an A so far! I'm at a 92%, so I need to keep that up. 

Hanging out, art museum, switching studio professors

It's about now when I'm really feeling like a regular college student. Since things are slowed down at the moment in studio and VisCom (our projects for that are due Thursday), I've played soccer right outside Stuckeman, the architecture building, a couple times in the past few days, which is much more than usual. Also, I'm going to finally get a haircut and probably throw a football around with a couple people later. For studio yesterday, we took a "backstage" tour of the Palmer Art Museum right on campus of the offices and how things work. Then, we were able to check out their graphite exhibit, which was incredible. I wish I remembered to get pictures because some of the things really were awesome. Also, we are switching up professors. The architecture students are split up into four sections, and there is a professor for each, and we are going to have each one by the end of the year.

VisCom starting up again

So, over the past week, everyone has pretty much put VisCom work in the back of their mind because of all the studio things we had to do. Basically we have to do a relatively large one-point perspective for Tuesday. It shouldn't be much of a problem because we are going to get our Halloween costume project for studio tomorrow, and usually the first phase of projects is light. Crits yesterday went pretty well; not much was said about mine, unfortunately. There won't be any new pictures for a while it seems. I'll find more about the next studio project tomorrow.

Done

So, for the past few days I've been working pretty hard getting things done. Here's the evidence:

Elevation and Entrance plan with shading.

Campus plan with the added path.

A completely new one that shows the inside of the windowed wall (a Sbarro pizza eating area):

Elevation/section with more brick showing and it shows more than the last one.

There still is VisCom to do, but that's for Thursday. I have my crit tomorrow for studio, so I'm going to dress nice for that. But as for now, I'm going to relax a little (yes, just a little).

Dreary couple days

For the past couple days, the weather has been rainy/cloudy and in the 50's-low 60's. Pants and long sleeve weather has come and it really feels like fall now.

Here are a couple things for VisCom that I had finished a couple days ago. We've been working on perspectives based on plans and elevations:

These didn't take me that long to do, but I still have a ton of things to do for ARCH 131s by Friday 7:00 p.m. The in-class essay for art history went well because we could use a notecard and basically write the essay before we came to class, and paste the essay on the notecard. Also I'm going to have to really study for the mapping test tomorrow, although I'm not worried about it really.

All at once

So, things have been going pretty quietly for a couple days. I had a couple tests yesterday for GEOG 122 and ART H 201. The geography one was a bit difficult, but the art history one was really easy. The second part of the art history test is an essay due Monday. Also due Monday is my woodshop pencil box, but I'm almost done with that. For VisCom due Tuesday, we were assigned to make perfect perspectives of a home off of the plan and elevations. I'm almost done with that; I just have to trace the final part of it, so no worries there.

And on top of those I have to still do my ARCH 131s things, which is modifying my assigned door and/or the area around it. My plan is to make another door which leads to the Sbarro on the other side of the wall. It will be made of glass, and also I'm going to add a few tables in the outside eating area around my door. To make it more accessible, I will also make an additional path to the eating area because right now it's too hidden from everyone else.

Iowa State football game today! Me and everyone else in my suite don't have tickets so we're probably going to eat some place on College Avenue that has a T.V, which is fine.

Next phase

So, for arch 131s, we've started a new phase of our assignment. The students are to "intervene" on their site and change things around the way they see fit. Once we have our ideas and all, we're supposed to do all our drafts over again showing the changes. Here are a few pictures of what my site/door actually look like:

So, the topmost picture is of my perspective drawing I put up earlier, and the middle picture is of the other perspective drawing I put up. The bottom one is just a nice shot with my door hidden behind some draping plants.

I'm still in what I call the brainstorming phase of the assignment; all these ideas are coming and going and actually visiting the site helped me realize what I can and can't do. I'll probably visit tomorrow as well, even for a little bit. My sketch book is really being used right now as I have filled seven pages in the past two days of just rough sketches and some notes.

For VisCom, I finally finished my temple drawings and here they are:

The upper is the axonometric (axon), and it has a section cut 1/3 the way up the columns, so it shows the naos (inside room) and where each of the columns are placed but still retaining all the correct dimensions. Note: these aren't perspectives because they don't have vanishing points, so they still keep their proportions except when it comes to irregular angles such as the roof on the isometric (bottom). The difference between axon and iso is that axon typically keeps right angles at right angles, and iso widens that angle, to give it the illusion of being more of a perspective. Look closely at the nearest bottom corner and you can tell the difference in angles.

Although it's been a while and these got considerably smudged (a brief photoshop editing session couldn't even make it look nice). The reason for what look like smudges on my other things is because the only table that's low enough for me to take photos on is really marked up. Monday is going to be my section's first trip to the wood shop! I'm excited because I really enjoyed the class in high school.

Break

So, there's going to be a nice break for me for the weekend as far as I know. Friday is just some more presentations for arch 131s, and I just have to trace the VisCom axon temple onto vellum and I'm done until Tuesday. It almost feels like I'm going to have too much free time this weekend! Still, I should really study the material for my other classes, so that will fill in the time I normally would be in studio. By the end of tomorrow, I should have pictures of my VisCom temple.

Crit and stuff

So, the crit went well actually. I got all my things done in good time and I dressed nicely. We (section 3) were paired with section 4, who were under a different professor with a different project. About half of all of us went today, and the other half will be going on Friday.
A couple highlights of the crit: My windows in the entrance plan were complimented because I did the details correctly. My perspectives were also noted as being well done. My line weights were pretty good; probably should have made them heavier overall a little bit, but they were visible to the people sitting near the back. The next phase of the project will be introduced to us on Friday after the others present, and our professor isn't letting any hints out until then.

I'm now focusing on my VisCom temple axon/isometric drawings. I got them both done on trace paper, and I just started putting the iso on vellum. They'll both be finished by 5:30 tomorrow; hopefully I can get pictures of them before I turn them in. I can also get a shot of my temple elevations and plan, which I did in the first week here. One of the people in studio also had the idea of putting their things up on their dorm wall like posters. I'm contemplating doing this because it adds some character to my side of the room.

Ahead of the pack?

Some more updates to my ARCH 131s and VisCom classes: I am almost finished with the axonometric draft of the Temple of Portunus on trace for VisCom, Which means I'm about 3/8 finished with my things to do for that class by Thursday (the isometric on trace will be 3/8, and putting them on vellum paper will take up the last 1/4).

ARCH 131s is going pretty well also; I'm just about finished with the final drafts for one of my elevations and my door plan. Pictures will be posted the next time I give an update. An estimate for how many hours I spent in studio today: 6.5 hours. That includes class time, though.

I haven't really mentioned anything about any of my other classes: ART H 201 "Ancient-Medieval Architecture," GEOG 122 "The American Scene," and GEOG 160 "Mapping our Changing World." Art history has a slide quiz on 30 monuments on the 25th, so I definitely have some studying to do for that.
For GEOG 122, we were just assigned a one page compare/contrast between the early French and Spanish settlement of America which shouldn't be too tough. That's due Friday during class.
GEOG 160 has a map projections worksheet assigned to the students; I don't know when it's supposed to be due exactly.

So, all in all, I feel like I'm a little ahead in my arch classes, but I have a bunch of work to do for my others.

Lots of work

First of all, I would like to let out my relief of getting my first grades in VisCom today! I got two A-'s, which is on the higher end of grades in the class. I don't think anyone received an A either.

So I started working on my axonometric for VisCom (the temple is called "Temple of Portunus"). Basically, an axonometric drawing is a perspective with no vanishing points. The 90 degree angles are kept at 90 degrees and almost all lengths are kept proportional to the original. Here's an example:

And here's a picture of the Temple of Portunus:

The stairs on the temple were difficult to do, but after a couple tries I managed to get them right. That's as far as I got tonight because there was a house meeting.

The meeting pretty much told the residents in special living for arts and architecture that each person had to to at least two things whether they be volunteer work, attending social events, etc. Since I already participated in a tie-dyeing event as well as donating blood, I already have all the credits I need for this semester.

Relaxing before some more work

Well, after the pin-up today in studio, I felt a little more comfortable as to where I was in the project. Basically I just have to redo the perspectives on bigger paper and trace the drafts onto vellum with a few tweaks to lineweight, detail, etc. This is due in one week on Wednesday, but I want to get a jump on it so I won't feel too pressured to spend long hours in studio. A couple things I want to get before I start on vellum: an eraser pouch for getting rid of annoying smudges, a sort of dry-cleaning material for my desk because it's getting covered in graphite, and a sort of spray-fix. I feel that I will be afraid to use the spray-fix, so that's a maybe.

For VisCom tomorrow, we're going to get our temples back so we can start working on making axonometric and isometric drawings of them. The axon will be drawn with a cut three feet up the columns, so it's like a plan projected upward. The iso will include the entire temple. Not sure as to when those will be due, but I'll take one thing at a time.

An interesting fact I discovered is that six people changed out of architecture already. Three of which never showed up to class in the first place. The other three were in my section, which is strange because I think we have one of the least demanding professors of all four sections. It seems logical that when people sign up for architecture as their major, they know what they are getting into since it's notoriously demanding in terms of time spent in the studio. Oh well, I just know that I'm set on becoming an architect; the work so far I could define as fun, even. I joked when commenting on a friend's Facebook: "It's a requirement for true arch students to be obsessed with studio. It's our way of life; sooner or later we wont be able to function without a daily 5+ hour studio session even if we don't get anything done"

Another thing of importance: I joined the Penn State American Institue of Architecture Students today! This will be a great way to get involved in the architecture community as well as make friends who share similar goals with me.

Second post for the day

Blood donating went well although it took thirty minutes longer than I had anticipated; if it was fifteen minutes longer, I would have been late to Visual Communication (ARCH 121; VisCom). VisCom consisted of a three hour lecture mainly about contour lines and poché. The good news is that I accomplished all the things on my to-do list for today. I left the studio at about 10:15, which is the latest I've stayed there so far.

I know I'll be having quite a busy day tomorrow as well, especially 11:00-2:30 because I have to finish up my campus plan for ARCH 131s at 1"=40' and complete a site plan around my door at 1/8"=1'. Everyone's at about the same stage as well in terms of percent of things completed, even those who were away for the weekend. Though, their drafts are generally less detailed than the others' drafts.

Numero Uno

Alright, so today's going to be another busy day. Classes start later Tuesdays and Thursdays though, so it's not so bad. I did some shopping, and I'm going to donate blood for the first time. I'm actually a bit excited because I want to know what blood type I am, and I'm sure they would be able to give me that info.

So that'll take up a half hour approximately; after that, I'll be paying the studio a visit to work on my site plan/door plan for my ARCH 131s (studio) class. Each student in my section (section 3) has been assigned a specific door in the HUB, and we're to make measurements and a couple perspective sketches as well. I've made a couple elevation drafts, and one of them is combined with a section. Also, I have two perspective sketches done. My temple for ARCH 121 (VisCom) was finished yesterday. The people who left for Labor Day weekend have a lot of catching up to do.