Miscellany from the weekend

This morning, I got up relatively early, dropped a load of stuff off at Goodwill and hit the grocery store. While I was there, I noticed there was some beer I liked on sale, so I picked up a six pack. Unfortunately, I was a little too early. Arizona has a law that prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sundays between the hours of 2am and 10am, and between 2am and 6am the rest of the time. In fact, the laws are so rigidly enforced that when I got in line at 9:54, I was informed that the register computer would not ring up the purchase until 10am. Maybe bullshit, maybe not. It made me mildly irritated at the state legislature. I think that people of legal age and condition should be able to drink whenever they want, and after heavy restrictions on WHO can drink and WHERE you can drink, it seems unnecessarily nanny-state to say WHEN you can buy alcohol.

For the record, I am going to be moving from one of the more restrictive alcohol states to one of the least alcohol restrictive. For example, Missouri has no open container laws. Also, as long as your driver doesn't partake, the guy riding shotgun is allowed to shotgun along with anyone else in the car. There's an area of Kansas city that lets you wander from bar to bar or liquor store to liquor store clutching whatever booze you choose. In case you were getting concerned, at this point of my life, a real loose night is one where I have more than one beer. And that's only if I'm not working the next day.

Anyway, after dropping the groceries off at my house, I washed my car at the coin operated car wash, which is actually a lot of fun. The foaming brush, the high power rinse which threatens to leap out of your hands. When its dry and hot, its kind of nice.

Watched another stupid movie this afternoon- Mortal Kombat. Or at least part of a stupid movie since it got to the point where the stupidity factor overwhelmed the fun factor. It's got an enjoyable setting and the martial arts is fun, but the wooden acting and dialog is a shade beyond campy. Great theme song though.

Spent a long time this afternoon working on the Perkins-Yamane Design website, which you can see here: www.perkinsyamane.com. I learned the basics of HTML in middle school for a computers class where we had to code basic websites about the solar system. Really really simple stuff. I could show most people how to make a basic website in about fifteen minutes. Actually, if you want to see how I did Saori's and my website, follow the link and click the right handed button, and then click on "view source." As you can see, it's pretty simple stuff. Ok, there is CSS but you don't really need it for a website to work. 99% of what you see on the website is the stuff below
.

I'm still working on it- I'm not happy with the way we're presenting our projects, but its going to take a lot more effort to change it to a logical and internet-ready form. Also, some the links are dead, like our resumes.

Perils of Wii Netflix

Quick- what movie has James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Paul Newman, aaaaaaaand Marcel Marceau?

One of the advantages/disadvantages to instant streaming movies is that it radically lowers the standards of what I will watch. If I have to drive to the rental store and then drive back later to return a movie, odds are I'm going to take my time, peruse the selection, and really figure out I really want to watch. With Netflix it's easier, but there's still decisions to be made online, and then you have to wait a few days. When I can turn on the TV and boom, watch whatever I want, right now, I'm much more open. I'd heard less than flattering things about Mel Brook's Silent Movie, but it seemed right for the moment, and I usually enjoy his stuff. My low expectations were exceeded, I have to say.

I think Mel should have really been a silent movie director. Mom was commenting that his humor is so obvious, it would have worked out well. The concept is pretty clever- Mel plays himself with buddies Dom Deluise and Marty Feldman (Igor, from Young Frankenstein) and they are trying to make a silent movie. They pitch it to the studio head who says (in a placard) "A silent movie?! In this day and age?! Doesn't he know slapstick is dead?". Then he sits down and his chair slides out under the desk with him in it and they crash into the far wall.

Marty Feldman is great to watch. In Young Frankenstein he had to hunchbackedly limp everywhere, but here he's wearing an all-black jumpsuit with white trim, big white tennis shoes and he's got great physical humor in how he moves, walks, and runs.

The plot is pretty simple, after they get the studio to agree to the picture, they have to get some A-list stars to agree to be in it, so they go after Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, and Paul Newman among others. Each star presents a different opportunity for hijinks. There's shades of Chaplin, and Buster Keaton silent movies. It's pretty ridiculous, but a lot of fun. There's a great scene where Mel, Marty, and Dom have a high speed chase after Paul Newman on motorized wheelchairs at the hospital, and he finally breaks free of the hospital grounds via a Great Escape ramp jump. In another scene, the studio head asks Mel to invite the famous mime Marcel Marceau to be in the film. The scene cuts to a phone in a Paris apartment with the curtains billowing in the light breeze in the background. Marcel Marceau struggles to enter the room against the wind and fights his way across in an imaginable manner. The big joke- how is the mime going to have a phone conversation? Mel asks Marcel to be in the movie. Marcel says "No," and hangs up. 

The Sound of Music

Friday, Saori took the day off and I was off for Recession Friday, so we hit the town after sleepy morning of bacon and eggs. It's been a few months since we last got a Jamba Juice, so we grabbed some drinks and headed to Scottsdale. There's something about Jamba that makes it feel like a public pool. There's the lightly chlorinated smell, the smell of plastic and bare concrete floors and bright colors, and calisthenics, and the people there are all getting grass shots and boosters like we've returned to the days of sanitariums.

Anyway, we went searching for the Musical Instrument Museum, a new, ambitious institution built on the edge of Scottsdale just south of the 101 off Tatum. The building feels massive- large volumes clad in sandstone, with a central spline (curvy linear shape) clad in copper panels. As far as I can tell, the museum was the brainchild of none other than the CEO of Target, and Target bore the majority of the funding for the endeavor, as well as providing their architect who designed the museum. However, apart from one large logo on the donor wall, the museum attempts to keep itself relatively non-commercial. (although there are special exhibits which blur to advertisements for Steinway, Sennheiser, and Fender among others). The place is big, clean, and cold, so bring something long sleeved if you go.

Thousands of instruments, grouped according to nationality, with video screens for each country playing loops of clips of various musical works. When you enter, you are given headphones and an audioguide type clip on. However, the audioguide is automatic- whenever you approach a screen with a musical performance on it, the player fades in the soundtrack to that player, so there's no fiddling or punching in numbers, which is kind of a "why didn't museums do this sooner" kind of feature.

All the countries of the world kind of wash over you after awhile, even if not all the countries have videos and even if you don't stop for all the videos. I got kind of numb to it all after about two hours. It would have been nice to have some kind of interlude built into the gallery setting. The other thing is that many countries don't necessarily have a national musical tradition, or share musical traditions with the neighboring nations. I'm thinking of the display for Monaco and Lichtenstein, both of which are essentially city-sized countries, where they showed almost token German brass or French strings.

After visiting the country galleries, we wandered downstairs to some more popular exhibits, a gallery of musical paraphernalia owned by various musical stars. One of John Lennon's pianos upon which he composed "Imagine", a few Carlos Santana guitars, a drum from the Beijing Olympics opening,  Jake Shimabukuro's ukelele, and various instruments owned by Bob Dylan, etc.

By far, the highlight of the museum was the "experience" gallery. This was a largish room lined with musical instruments meant for the public to touch and play. There was a theremin in the corner, guitars, tons of drums and xylophones from around the world, harps, rattles, taiko drums, an 8' metal gong ( "Please only one hit per guest" ). It was a lot of noisy fun. Best to experience on a slow day so there are fewer people making noise. The small guitars were impressive in how they were built very cheaply and ruggedly with very soft strings, but still managed to give a convincing sound when played. For me, it was almost worth the $15 admission to just play around in there.

I talked briefly to the two supervisors watching the room and commented that they probably needed to stock serious amounts of painkillers. They told me that today was really not bad, the worst was when a load of 20 elementary students came in, each apparently after the goal of making the most noise possible. Fortunately, they only have to work four hour shifts.

The Women of Revit

Here's an interesting rendering I did a while ago:

From Revit goodies

This is one the medical science rooms in the building I've been working on. I wanted to show a human figure to compare the feel and scale of the space, so I loaded an "RPC Female," put her by the sink, and rendered the image. Something about the scene is kind of evocative. Is she lost in a memory? Is she mentally preparing herself for her first day of class? Is she tranfixed by some unspeakable act just out of view? With a half-dozen characters and a complex building model, I could write and illustrate a novel. 

Who was this person? Why was she dressed this way? She looks like a grown up version of Anne of Green Gables. RPC stands for Rich Photorealistic Content, licensed in this case, by Archvision. Or maybe we bought her. Packages of a dozen RPC people start at around $400. Well worth it for Revit, in my opinion. Interestingly, this RPC woman, I can't remember her filename so let's call her Anne, is not a 3d polygon. When I look at this in a non-rendered state, she's a cardboard cutout. What is really interesting is that when the rendering rays shoot through her or by her, she tells the rays how to react depending on the ambient light, other light sources, etc, so in the final rendering as you can see here, if you look at her sleeve or cheek, the light is falling from the right direction, and you can't see it here, but she does cast a shadow.*

The way they get these RPC people is that they photograph real people. They do it from numerous angles and use specialized software so that when you place one of these people in your model, they look correct and in perspective and shaded correctly from any view. If you browse the website offerings, its kind of surreal and amusing. From "College Students Vol.1": 

Sixteen young adults representing a variety of ethnic backgrounds make up this very popular collection. From carrying books and backpacks to just hanging out, these RPCs will add great variety and interest to any scene of any campus.

The company also offers a middle east collection ("in modest clothing"), a ("terrific-looking") African-American offering, a parks and rec group ("Everybody's kung fu fighting at the local park."), and even a collection of traveling Asians ("The world is a very big place and people from every corner of the world can be found everywhere.")

I think we can all learn a good lesson from that last line. 

*Interestingly, however, they don't reflect. You can't see her reflection in the glossy tile behind her, although you can see the reflection of sunlight on the floor. They're kind of like vampires. It's especially eerie in the bathrooms, when they're standing by a mirror that doesn't reflect them. Actually, Revits current rendering engine won't trace the rays more than two bounces for mirrors. So a mirror reflecting a mirror only shows darkness. There's also a slightly errie sense from rendering an image standing in front of a mirror. The photorealistic image makes you feel like you're standing there, but the mirror only reflects the wall behind you. 

Shorts

Every two weeks, there is a group of people at the office who attempt to go to lunch together. The largest I've ever seen this group involved eight people, or a significant portion of the office. Recently, however, its usually been down to two or three others besides me. Today, we went to Maize's cafe on central and sat outside to eat. Sitting in the shade, with the misters, and the dry desert breeze, it was so hard to head back to the office that we ended up extending our lunch by an hour.

Every day that Saori comes home and tells me about her day, I am reminded of how lucky I am to not only have her, but that we are both relatively young and healthy, we can still run and swim and travel, and that our minds are still our own, relatively untouched by the slow decay of time. It is a constant reminder of the fragility of life, and of the limited duration of time we have it. Every day is a bonus track.

Others are not so fortunate in life. I picked up a large book on the state of the public health around the world, and its pretty interesting but chilling stuff. I was mostly surprised to learn that the vast majority of our increased life expectancy occurred because of changes and innovations before the 20th century, before modern medicine, antibiotics, and vaccinations. Clean water distribution, sanitary sewer systems, pure foods, education, smaller families. All of these urban and cultural achievements as societies advanced and developed vastly increased life span. However, many places in the world still have not reached this point.

This is emphasized in a quote by an AIDS researcher who at a banquet, raised his glass of water and said, essentially, that if HIV could be cured by a simple glass of clean water, it would still be impossible to eradicate HIV in the world because as a global community, we still can't provide it.

Welcome, reader

I'm always curious at who is looking at my website, so I'd like to thank you for being here. Your visit will show up in Google Analytics and will tell me what city you're in, how you found my website, how long you stayed, and what keywords directed you to my website.

I can tell you that most likely you are one of four people- a long time reader in Boulder, Colorado, an ardent blogger in Mesa, or an occasional visitor from Ahwatukee or southern California. Most the visits I get are pretty random and scattered from across the globe. There is someone or several people in India who have used my blog to research how to get from Lausanne to Junfraujoch in Switzerland, hello there, if you directed here since I added the phrase.

There's a lot of interest in the legacy of Cable Rosenberg and his mansion in Gilbert, which I wrote about several years ago, and there's a lot of people who simply hit the "Next Blog" button at the top of the page to land at my blog by chance.

I'm at about ten visits a day right now. I don't have the regular readership I had when I was posting before from Buenos Aires or ASU, so it must be a sign of the death of of blogging media with the rise of micro-blogging, and have nothing to do with the quality of the posts.

My Personal Path to Anime Nerd-dom

Disclaimer: If I said that this post was "not required reading," that might suggest that my typical posts are generally high quality, insightful, relevant, and meaningful windows into my life. We both know that this is not the case. However, this post may not even interest even the most casual reader as it pertains to how I got into anime.

Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: Mark Twain was known for deliberately degrading his works in short prefaces with the intent of deliberately raising the reader's awareness that it was, in fact, an important and meaningful work. In case there was any confusion, I am no Mark Twain.

When I was really really young, my dad for some reason had a copy of Vampire Hunter D, a feature length anime (can you guess the plot?) and I thought that was some pretty cool stuff. The look and tone was worlds apart from the serial cartoons I liked to watch at the time, like "Conan The Barbarian."

I started off wanting to get into anime while I was living in Singapore and Beijing in middle school years, but I just couldn't do it. It was exotic, colorful, and eye catching, and profoundly boring. Pretty much until high school, I could only classify anime in to the "Sailor Moon" type and the "DragonBall-Z" type, and neither one held ANY interest at all to me. I kind of liked the hint of a larger story behind DragonBall-Z, and my little brother loved to watch it for reasons beyond me. The typical episode was a good guy flying in the air with the bad guy and they spend the entire episode powering up and threatening each other. So I lost interest in anime for awhile. 

In high school, Miyazaki's Spirited Away was released in the US and we all went to go see at the movies. That was a pretty amazing movie- Miyazaki makes the kinds of animated movies that Disney wishes they could make. For me, his movies broke the idea that an animated movie could not be a serious piece of cinematography, and I thought that if other animated movies from Japan were half as good as Miyazaki's works, then it would be well worth pursuing. In college, I was introduced by my dorm mates to some of his other works, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro. The latter is a kid's movie, but it had a kind of transportive sweetness to it regardless.

Two years into college and I still dismissed other anime movies and definitely the anime serials, which to me, signaled a hopeless decent into nerd-dom. Yes, I am a nerd, but at least I wasn't one of those nerds. My roommate was really excited about the series Golden Boy, and tried to get me into it as well. It was kind of entertaining, but the series was pretty much an excuse to get as close to hentai as possible. In its own way, it was sillier than Dragonball-Z. As anime became more mainstream, there was more of it and a wider variety of it on TV. While anime series such as Gundam Wing were getting favorable reviews, I could not and still can't get over the idea of someone flying a sophisticated space plane and then transforming it into a karate-chopping robot getting into fisticuffs. I scoffed at anime series. I was a nerd, but I wasn't one of those nerds.

I don't know how or why I first saw Ghost in the Shell, but my days of sticking with Studio Ghibli were over. It was a dark, gritty cyberpunk cop movie, with phenomenal visuals but also a great story and characters. I'd never thought of anime that could deal seriously with politics or philosophy. Definitely not a movie for children. I started branching out, looking for other serious anime in the Zia's anime section.

Saori introduced me to even more anime. She's never been the "sailor moon" type, so she had some good directors in mind. Stuff that was harder to find in Phoenix because it wasn't the usual "Dragonball-Z" or "Gundam Wing" exports. Satoshi Kon's bizzare and trippy Paprika. Old school classics Akira, and Metropolis. Radical, new forms of the genre like Tekkonkinkreet, which uses a form of animation like no other movie I've seen. We ended up watching most of the Studio Ghibli films including Grave of the Fireflies, a profoundly moving movie which Roger Ebert described as one of the most important war movies of all time.

And then she got me the Cowboy Bebop series. This is some of the best anime you will ever see, hands down. Done in style reminiscent of the old Johnny Quest tv series, with great music, well-developed interesting characters. The episodes were by turns comic, action-packed, horrific, and bittersweet. The characters are complex and evolving, and the ultimate arc of the story is tragic, but extremely compelling.

At this point, I had Netflix, which offered streaming episodes of the anime series Ghost in the Shell so I found myself glued to the computer screen, watching episode after episode. When I got my Wii disc and was able to stream anime series to my flatscreen TV, that was it. Now I've got six different anime series lined up in my instant queue, and I've succumbed to utter nerd-dom.

Still havn't been been to a con though. Or descended to the level of cosplay. I'm not one of those nerds.

LAZ-R-BOY

During the industry slowdown of the summertime, product representatives and industry people looking for business start making the rounds to various architect’s offices to give “lunch’n’learn” presentations. Sometimes you can get industry continuing education credits for attending these lunches, sometimes not. Generally speaking, if it’s a CE credit, they’re about half as interesting since the rep’s aren’t supposed to include any manufacturer specific info or samples into the presentation. They bring food too, usually sandwiches, which is also a big draw since it means I can save my lunch money. Anyway, today’s lunch presentation was given by a metal panel manufacturer/installer, and at the end of the presentation they showed off their laser capabilities.

 

When I came into the conference room, they had set up what looked like a large laser level. Actually, it was a laser scanner. Whereas a laser leveler maybe runs you a few hundred dollars for a really good one, a Leica laser scanner runs close to a hundred THOUSAND dollars. And that doesn’t even include the price of the software you need to interpret the data. At it’s heart a laser scanner is really a very accurate distance reader. The laser revolves like a wheel and the whole assembly rotates around allowing the laser to touch every surface, taking thousands of measurements every minute down to a millimeter of accuracy from a distance that can vary from several hundred feet to several miles, depending on what is being scanned. The end product is a 3D cloud of points which be processed into wireframes or left as is for points.

 

As an architect, I can see three really great uses for this technology, fabrication, as-builts, and existing conditions. If the building you are designing is going up and has kind of an odd shape, before the contractors install a metal panel skin which has 1/16” tolerances, the scan would provide the manufacturer with an entirely reliable set of dimensions to work off of to ensure the skin goes on fitting perfectly. As-builts, or the drawings you hand to the owner at the end (remember that the story you set out to tell is never quite the same story you get at the end), would be perfect use of the laser scan since it would tell you exactly where everything is, plumbing, piping, structural elements, the works. And if I was going into an existing building for renovation, or retrofit or even gutting the place to start over, an accurate drawing of what is actually already there would be invaluable.

How Not to Relax

After bicycling 27 miles yesterday, I thought I would take Sunday off to just kick back, relax, and get up at 7 AM to go pour concrete at the farm.

A friend of mine, Jaime, who runs Everlasting Marks invited me out to see the pour, hoping that by playing on my interest in building construction to get some additional help. I accepted, and met her out there. Usually, I spend my entire time trying to keep kids focused on building tire walls and not killing each other with sledge hammers, but this time I didn't need to play leader. A small group of girl scouts and a few of their leaders/moms were out there, and everything was under control. They had adopted a few sections of wall and have been coming out every weekend to build it. These were some of the most industrious 13 year olds I've seen in awhile. They spent four hours mixing finish plaster and stuccoing around the cans and bottles, and then carefully wiping all the bottle and can ends clean.

While this was going on, I and another team lead put the formwork around the rebar sticking out of the foundation of what will become the next seven wall sections. Two contractors, Jim and Don from Hunter Contracting came out and braced the column formwork after leveling them. They come out from time to time to help with the more technical stuff like major foundation pours and installing and tying rebar.

After the girl scouts and the contractors went home around noon, a mom and her daughter stayed behind with Jaime and I to pour the columns. To be honest, I hate pouring concrete. It's messy, you end up inhaling or eating concrete dust, and surprise surprise it's really heavy stuff. I am not an upper body strength kind of guy, so hauling buckets of freshly mixed concrete and pouring them into the tops of columns by lifting them above head height was a bit of a challenge. How could I complain though? I'd volunteered for this, and besides, the 13 year old daughter was throwing 60 pound bags into the cement mixer.

It took about an hour to mix and pour the seven columns, and by the end, I was wiped, filthy, sweaty, bloody, with my hands full of cuts and splinters and irritated by the wet stucco and concrete. Vinegar will dilute the harmful effects of wet concrete, but its not much fun putting it on open wounds.

Leaving Home

It occurs to me, that for someone who has lived on three continents and who has seen more countries than he has seen years of life, that I've only ever left home once before. When I was about twelve, we moved to Singapore after living in Arizona for my entire memory. After a year in Singapore, we spent two years living in Beijing. During that time, for a school assignment for all us expat kids, we had to write about our "home of heart." I'd always thought of Arizona that way, even though my family was with me where I was traveling, and I had no relatives, (but close friends) there.

We went back to Arizona, to a completely different part of the city, but it still felt like home. The smell of the desert perhaps. I graduated from high school, and went to ASU. Although I was living on campus, out of my parent's house, the physical separation from my parents house was simply a reflection of my growing independence. If I had been living at home, I don't think I would have felt any differently. Of course I loved and continue to love my family, but I was already beginning to spin my own course. I was ready to go, and besides, we were all still together in Phoenix. When they left for other parts, I missed them, but I was the one who stayed at "home."

The world rolls on and gradually we all spun our separate paths. They've all come back to Phoenix in one way or another, but we're all different people than who we were. Arizona has stayed the same, at least in the ways that make it meaningful to me, and it seems like the most stable thing in this world.

But Phoenix has changed. I've changed. It seems to me that this is the right time to leave, or to risk standing forever at the desert's edge. I'll miss it, but you have to leave home sometime.

Bike riding

Last weekend, I bicycled down to Tempe from my home in Phoenix, basically following the path I used to take to get to work when I was living in Tempe. Without an exercise regimen more strenuous than walking the ten minutes to work and back every day, the ride took a lot out of me. It should also be noted that I was wearing jeans and sandals and I was not carrying water. At the time, I hadn't planned to go to Tempe, I was just stir crazy and wanted to go for a ride, and then the idea occurred to me. That time, I took the light rail back from Mill Ave. It's about nine miles if you follow the canals from Mill avenue in Tempe to uptown Phoneix.

Today, with a little more preparation, I decided to venture a bit further and pursue a more ambitious route, a loop, to be specific, with the idea that if I got too tired, I could hop a bus back to the neighborhood. I ended up in a full loop.  Oak street across the midtown and over the 51, then a long path along one of the canals, which runs diagonally southwest to Tempe. In Tempe, I crossed under Priest dr and wound up back on the surface streets at Mill avenue just north of Tempe Town Canal. Following the north shore path, it brought me northwest, and then joined the Scottsdale greenbelt which took me farther north. At Indian school, I hopped off the Greenbelt and headed west on the surface streets, through the heart of old town Scottsdale. At Goldwater, I jumped back on the canal for an extreme long and boring stretch, against the wind I might add, all the way to 40th st where I picked up Camelback heading west. At 32nd st, I decided I'd earned a break and grabbed a small gelato. I continued to follow camelback all the way to central avenue, where I turned south and biked all the way past Thomas to get back to my apartment. Overall distance, 27 miles, in about four hours including my breaks. My new tires held up pretty well.

Here's the map of the route.

The Bell's toll

Since we first visited Arcosanti, Saori and I have both been itching to get a bell. The problem is they're really expensive. The bells are pretty much the only kind of commerce supporting Arcosanti apart from the workshops, and I wanted to contribute in my own way. Plus, the bells are really cool.

Today, since Saori decided to take the day off from work, and we were in Scottsdale anyway, I decided to go check out Cosanti to look for a bell. Since the last time leaving Arcosanti without a bell, it's been in the back of my mind as something to get before we leave Phoenix. Additionally, with the promise of some money for hanging mom's new chandelier. (Darn, now I have to do it), I decided I could spend a little money to get a nice bell.

Cosanti was where Paolo Soleri got started, really. It was the prototype for Arcosanti. There are sharp contrasts between the two places. Apparently, Paolo lives in Cosanti, and we actually saw the old Italian, wearing "geezer shades" and a white undershirt talking to visitors. Cosanti has a very crafted feel to it. There is much more attention paid to experimentation with concrete textures and forms, and the whole place feels a lot lighter and more intimate than the epic and far more industrial Arcosanti. On the flip side of this, Cosanti is also the breadwinner and nerve center of the entire Arcosanti/Cosanti axis. Cosanti is a lot more heavily commercial, with bells and prices hanging everywhere, and a very elaborate showroom with many "special assemblies" and "cause bells" (increase the price by an order of magnitude). Quality of the bell wise, where there is something special about being at Arcosanti, I didn't see any bells that immediately struck me as "got to have it" that were less than a grand. Cosanti, geared more for commercial craft production than Arcosanti, seemed to have a lot better bells overall.

We both wanted a bell, and we both cared about it as a piece of artwork as well as a reminder of our time in AZ and Arcosanti (otherwise, why spend so much for a bell?) so followed an epic and amicable round of looking at all of the bells in the complex at least three times, trying to establish 1) which bells we liked the most individually, and  2) where we could find common ground. After an hour or so of wandering, ringing the bells, and looking at various bells, we finally got it down to about five bells in the runnings and finally whittled it down to two bells, the one Saori really liked and the one I really liked. In the end, we ran out of time since the store was closing, and Saori graciously acquiesced to my bell since while she liked my bell, I didn't like hers.

I'm sure the staff has never seen such lengthy negotiation over a bell under $100 before. At any rate, I'm really excited about the bell. Here it is, from a fuzzy shot from my laptop ---->

On Tires, a bit about the website, a two paragraph rant on the oil spill followed by a slightly paranoid exhortation

My bike tires are shot. Four years of sitting in Phoenix sunshine, countless miles over less than ideal surface conditions have taken their toll. I've got pretty big wheels so I needed to go to the bike shop to find tires, and I was directed to the $47 tires that are so primo, they went all the way around. I asked if they had anything cheaper and picked up the $14.

I've always been happy that I've learned the basics of bike maintenance. I know its nothing to brag about, but I can change my own flat tires and adjust the derailer. It's a nice feeling to occasionally get my hands dirty from the rust and oil and street gunk that's accumulated on my bike. It's not such a nice feeling to have my attention directed to my sandaled feet by a bite and the sight of dozens of ants swarming over them. I need to remember to not stand on an ant hill while working.

I've made more revisions to the website. Still a work in progress, but its a step further than the holding page. Check it out here, at www.perkinsyamane.com. Pretty basic stuff actually. One of the trickier things was putting the links on the side with the main stuff in the middle.

The gulf oil spill thing is slimy, disgusting, and revolting. And that's just the business and political maneuvering. Up until a few days ago, BP and the US government were telling everyone that the spill was just releasing 5,000 barrels of oil a day. When they put the second small tube in to siphon what some estimates say are a fifth of the total, that pipeline is siphoning off 5,000 barrels of oil a day. BP has admitted that their estimates may be slightly off. They don't want the world to know how much damage they have caused. I can understand that, if the police pulled you over for speeding, and asked you to report on what speed you were going, unscrupulous people are going to lie, or say, "Gee, officer, I don't know."

I think BP is probably doing everything they can to stop the gusher. It's been nothing but a PR and financial nightmare for them. At the same token, I've heard rumors that BP is the laughingstock of the refining world for their lax approach to safety and security. It was their contractor, after all. The oil runs deeper too. The US government is also partly to blame for allowing the industry to largely self-regulate, and for giving carte-blanche sign off (categorical exclusions) to the Deepwater Horizon rig, and many others, because BP told the department that it was a "low-risk" endeavor. It's time to put a bright spotlight on the department of mineral management, as they are way way to cozy to the industry. Shame on the political machine as well, which is defending BP, clamping down and covering up reports emerging from the spill, and in general supporting BP more than their own constituents. In congress today, Republicans argued against a higher cap that would have made BP liable for up to $10 billion in damages. This is still less than BP's profits from last year. Not that the money would be able to repair the damage.

Don't trust the government, and don't trust business. Work with them, work for them, and while we need their systems and they need us, keep an eye on them and hold them to account.

Decay in Perforated Pastry Units

The donuts in my office appear to be radioactive. The box they come in must be brightly and garishly colored as a warning, and the pastry units themselves have highly unstable non-Euclidean torsion topography. Experimental study has revealed that these donuts appear to have a half-life of approximately three hours. When 24 units arrive, a quantitative survey approximately three hours later reveals only 12 in the box. T+six hours later, there are only six donuts remaining. When less than a donut remains, an odd phenomena occurs where the unit begins to lose percentages of its own mass. Eventually, the formerly full box of “hot” donuts has decayed to a pile of glazed crumbs.

 

Exposure to these donuts has immediate physiological and psychological effects. Without proper shielding provided by the cardboard box, close proximity results in gastric convulsions and increased salivation. Short term exposure to donuts results in mild euphoria, followed by torpor. Long term or severe exposure to donuts can have devastating effects including decreased stamina, sluggishness, and weight gain.

 

Current studies are being undertaken on alternatives to find a more stable perforated pastry, such a bagel, with a half-life nearly five times as long as a donut, but so far there has been little success in extracting as much energy as a donut provides. Calls for increased yogurt funding have been dismissed as an even less productive alternative than the bagels.

Sustainability II

x

x

How does one act in a sustainable way? 
It is all about asking questions and making decisions based on those answers. To ask the right questions, however, there are six key ideas to keep in mind.

1. Almost everything around you is designed. From the tiniest iPod, to crops, economies, infrastructure, houses, and cities are all designed and shaped by people's decisions. Anything can be changed, and you have incredible power in your decision making.
2. Everything has a life-cycle. Food is grown, cities are built and razed, the iPod purchased from BestBuy gets tossed in a few years. What resources went into that thing? How much energy did it take to make it? Where did it come from and where will it go?
3. Sustainability stems from behavior. If you drive a Prius to work every day, it's less sustainable than driving a SUV to work once a week. How a thing is used, and how often, are key to understanding somethings sustainability. Work your way up to sustainability by baby steps if you need to, but what will have the greatest effect on sustainability is the major decisions you will make. Where you live and work, how you choose to live; forget the aluminum water bottle and fair trade hemp bag. Lifestyle determines sustainability. 
4. Everything in the natural and man-made world is deeply and tightly interconnected. As a human being, we are part of countless cycles, both man-made and natural. The ecosystems of the world link together and connect to the various economic, political, and social system. Fertilizer used to enhance a crop cycle which ties into an economic cycle washes into the oceans via the water cycle and alters the biochemistry of the local ocean ecosystem, which kills the shrimp, which decimates the local economy, ad infinitum. Our small world is tightly bound. Nothing is autonomous, which brings me to
5. Every decision has a cost. There's a cartoon from the 90's about an ecologically minded person who has goes crazy when asked "paper or plastic" at the grocery store*. Making sustainable decisions is difficult because many complex factors are in play. It is really up to the individual to decide which has the least impact on the future environment. Recycled paint or low VOC. Tough call.

Making sustainable decisions, especially the ones that count the most, is tough, and few people living in first world conditions can really claim to be truly sustainable in the zero-impact way. However, I think it is important to make these decisions now from both an ethical and a pragmatic point of view. There's an old Calvin and Hobbes comic that shows Calvin sneaking up on Hobbes with a water balloon. Without turning around, Hobbes asks Calvin what he would do if it was his last day on Earth. Without waiting for a response, Hobbes follows up with the question to the effect of, by doing something different, it might not be Calvin's last day on Earth. Calvin ditches the water balloon. 

*So, paper or plastic? Paper comes from trees, a renewable resource. Plastic comes from oil, a non-renewable resource. It probably takes less energy to make paper than to refine and process oil into plastic. Paper will decompose a lot more quickly than a plastic bag, but then I usually throw paper bags away after getting my groceries home, although I could recycle them. Plastic bags on the other hand, I use them for trash bags, AND they keep me from using even more plastic in the form of the plastic trash bag they're replacing. It's a hard call. I might switch to paper if they could design a paper bag that had the grocery-carrying strength of a plastic bag and handles. 

Sustainability I

Definition, via Merriam-Webster:

Pronunciation: \sə-ˈstā-nə-bəl\

Function: adjective

Date: circa 1727

1 : capable of being sustained
2 a : of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged

A relatively simple definition with complex terms. Another way to understand sustainability is as not stealing from the future.

Personal standpoint- I believe that theft in general is wrong, stealing from your future self; stupid, and stealing from your children; neglectful to abusive. I consider myself a "people first" kind of person who values quality of life for all mankind. Trees aren't people, and neither are animals. You will never see me chaining myself to a tree or fighting for whale's rights. However, both trees and whales are vital in this incredibly interrelated world, and if I fight for them, I fight for the role they play in sustaining mankind. We need the Earth and it's resources, but we can't continue to use them in the way we have been. Either we can radically change our approach, or we will have change forced upon us. When I talk about sustainability, I am talking about sustaining the human race.

Joint Strike Fighter

One of the nice things about Netflix via Wii is that I can sit down and have access to a variety of great blockbuster entertainment. So I streamed a NOVA presents. This one was actually pretty interesting, as it followed the Joint Strike Fighter program, at least from design development to prototype. Two teams, same amount of money, same specifications. It sounds like "Junkyard Wars" but instead of five hundred dollars, each team received around $700 million, and instead of a week, each team were given two years. Still an incredible feat, with a lot more on the line. It was a facinating show to watch, as NOVA cameras were given simultaneous access to the two camps of Lockheed's Skunk Works and Boeing's Phantom Works (coincidently separated by only a few miles in the same stretch of isolated california desert). 

In a sense, watching the competition unfold, I was struck by some of the same similarities in architectural competitions, or I suppose, any competition where corporations battle for high-stakes contracts. Packed meetings with harried engineers and designers, long shifts and working weekends. And of course, one has to wonder about the scale of the politicking and behind the scenes maneuvering and deals being made. It would be nice if competitions could be won and lost on the merits of design and on the terms of the competition alone, but I'd be naive to say that relationships and negotiations don't enter into it. One can hope, at any rate, for a more balanced competition considering that it is the US government who was the arbiter, responsible to the people. 

The film makers struck me as slightly biased against Lockheed, whom they twice associated with "arrogance," although they did catch the design leader on the record with a very arrogant stance towards the competition (although who knows if was just that day or just that person). It could also be a slight attempt to portray the Boeing team as scrappy underdog, with the knowledge in editing that it was going to lose the competition. 

In the end, both teams turned out a spectacular product. Boeing might have taken the dance if they'd come up with their design sooner, or if Lockheed had turned out a less sexy final product. It really comes back down to architecture school pin ups, where one guy with a great design finds it too late in the game to change his model, and the guy with the basswood takes the highest praise. I do feel for the Boeing team, however, who sacrificed a lot to get a pretty phenomenal vehicle to do some amazing things. The design team I'm on, we may call ourselves sucessful in 'winning' the competition to get our building designed, but the day it opens, my building will not hover off the ground or reach supersonic speeds. 

new website

I mentioned kicking around the idea for a website, and when Saori approached me about setting up a joint website, we decided to go ahead and build one. We purchased a domain and hosting through GreenGeeks.com, a more environmentally friendly hosting service that powers their servers through wind power credits in California. We’re still working on the design, but the first place holder page is up and running and can be viewed at www.perkinsyamane.com. Eventually, we’ll put our various design work, resumes, and contact info up there.

dumbphone for me

Today I looked at cell phones as mine is getting a little long in the tooth. It's been awhile since I've been cell shopping and I was stunned at how 80% of the phones on display were smartphones. Of course, a smartphone requires a data plan, which ranges from $20-$30 a month ON TOP of the regular service plan costs.
Telecom people must be rejoicing as much as the studios are dancing over the 3D cash cows. Look: I spend 90% of my time in a place with high speed wifi that I can access for free. Wifi runs about a hundred times faster than any existing cell network. Yet none of these alleged smartphones let you tap local wifi networks because it's much more profitable for them to sell you narrow bandwidth slow service. They can charge a lot more for tanker trucks instead of a pipeline.
I appreciate the fact that it is that 10% of the time when you may need your wireless 3g or Edge network the most, but don't charge us for it the other 90% of the time.
Compared to cell phone telecoms in Europe, and south America, American telecoms are holding Americans hostage with arbitrary two year commitments. I predict in a year it will be impossible to get a plan that does not include data.

U-Haul out Ur Wallet

After doing more research, it looks like my options for moving are expensive and more expensive. My Prius is not recommended to pull a trailer, and Saori's car can only pull a small trailer, not nearly big enough for all the furniture/boxes we have. 

ABF offers a curb to curb trailer service where you fill up or partly fill up one of their big trailers, and they take drive it for you to your destination. This would run us from $1700 to $1100 depending on how much of a discount I can negotiate. (Student discounts, taking the stuff to their service center for loading, etc.) I'm not a huge fan of the price, but not having to drive a giant truck or trailer would make the move a lot easier in many many ways, including not needing a 3rd person to drive one of our cars.

The other option I've been looking at is a U Haul truck. The 10' mini mover or the 14' mover run right around a grand. What I hadn't budgeted before was the egregious gas milege these trucks get. The 10' mover gets around 15 mpg, and if gas is $2.50, (a hopeful estimate) fuel costs alone will run around $300. Add in $100 insurance and we're looking at $1350 to $1450. U Haul doesn't offer student discounts, by the way. 

Still looking into other furniture shipping services.

Tucson interlude

Thursday afternoon, I thought it might be fun to go visit my friend Cassie in Tucson, so after I got off work, Saori and I packed a quick trip bag and made a dash for the border. The drive from Phoenix to Tucson is so barren, mind-bogglingly flat, and endless that it really only compares to the first hour of the road to Flagstaff from Phoenix. We got to Tucson around nine, and stopped for a bite at Jack in the Box. I got a grilled cheese with turkey and sun-dried tomato sauce, which was pretty good. A little pricey for just a sandwich, but better quality ingredients I suppose.Anyway, we parked at Cassie's house and she picked us up and took us to her friend's  house for game night.

She had told me earlier about game night; apparently a group of her friends get together and play board games. I thought, hey that sounds like fun, Saori and I are totally up for that. Monopoly, Sorry, Scrabble, yeah. Turns out not those kind of board games. Cassie led us up to an apartment block that looked like it had come from the 1960's-1970's, with high plaster ceilings and great block walls. The apartment belonged to a French graduate student, and there were about a dozen people there, apparently a mix of "Ramblers" (the UofA hiking club) and bioscience/optical science graduate students, with heavy overlap between the groups.

Saori introduced us to everyone and we got started playing a new game, Settlers of Catan. This is a German-style board game, a trading and strategy game. You start with one piece on the board, and you have access to the resources your piece straddles. The object is get 10 points, generally the more pieces you have on the board, the more points you get. Anyway, you can learn the rules pretty quickly, and I was actually surprised how quickly I got into it. In fact, I won the game, although it was pretty close. Afterwards, the group dispersed and Saori and I crashed at Cassie's house.

In the morning, we packed up our stuff and headed out to Bobo's, my favorite breakfast place in Arizona. Yes, more than Matt's Big Breakfast or OverEasy, or even Harlow's Cafe, although they're all really good. Bobo's is well-worn and dingy, the epitome of a cheap-eats place. However, on this weekday morning at 9 am, they were packed solid. The three of us had to wait to get bar seats. The food they serve is delicious and cheap. I got buttermilk pancake, delicious, fluffy, and larger than the plate. One pancake and you're pretty much set, although then you'd miss the best link sausage. It's a loud place, with people constantly moving around, two cooks working the stoves and the wait staff running around carrying food and coffees. If I owned a restaurant, I'd sell sophisticated food at night, Bobo's food in the morning.

After breakfast, Cassie walked us over to where she works/studies as a graduate student. She took us up into their relatively new biological sciences building and showed us around. I was curious to see it as it has a similar program (function, elements) to the project I helped design in Illinois. Here are some comparisons:

A Few Facts about the Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch Building

• Size: 177,000 square feet
• Occupants: 350+ researchers (faculty, research staff, and students) from many UA departments within multiple colleges
• Architects: Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership
• Contractor: Gilbane Inc.
• Total construction cost: $61,500,000 / $289 per square foot.
• Sixty-five percent of the cost of the building is mechanical, electrical and plumbing

Alec Misses a Good Opportunity to Practice Networking

One of the other ecologically minded members of my office tapped me on my shoulder this afternoon and asked me if I had any plans for tonight. Apparently there was some kind of green event that she had signed up for / had been signed up for, that involved some speakers talking about sustainability. Drinks and "power networking" followed by a panel discussion. Saori is working tonight, so I thought, sure, why not. I can always learn something new about sustainability. My coworker didn't really know much about the event, not even who it was hosting it, or why it should cost non members of the IFDA (International Furnishings and Design Assoc.) $60 to go. In retrospect it seemed oddly convenient that her daughter should be sick so that she needed someone to take her spot. 

At any rate, I took her up on the offer, left work an hour earlier than usual, classed up my professional attire by putting on socks, and drove out to Scottdale. I got there about midway into the "power networking" and to be honest, I should have driven slower. Didn't see anyone I recognized from industry. A few architects, not many, mostly custom home builder types. The predominant group were older interior designers. For the most part, these middle-aged women all had very elaborately styled hairdos, heavy makeup, and very distinctive (read: chunky, colored, odd) eyewear. The uniformity made me wonder if it was a kind of professional standard. 

I was not exactly a "power networker." To be perfectly honest, I network like a cat taking a bath. I'm minimally sociable, and I have to constantly reiterate to myself the advantages of networking in order to engage with strangers in a professional setting. This is not a good state to be in as an architect, and I was not really in the mood to practice tonight. Plus, it was a cash bar. You'd think that with a limited number of people attending and a $60 event fee, that they'd at the very least throw in a cheap glass of wine. No such luck. I bought a beer and wandered into the auditorium.

What the $60 DID get me, remember this is a conference on sustainability, is one of those cheap nylon woven tote bags that feel like a greased paper towel, filled with product information for "sustainable" paint and furniture. Oh, I also got a pen and a few notepads with manufacturer's logos all over it. Additionally, we were each handed, as this "Going Green" event, a stapled printout of one of the presentations, single sided.

I quickly realized that I was at an event directed to the interior designers who had heard some stuff about this "green movement" in design and who wanted to learn more, or at least, where they could buy it. While some of you may sense a slightly deprecatory tone, I do have to give them credit for coming out to learn about it, and for making the investment in time and money to do so in an unfavorable (read: starvation) market. 

The speakers at least were interesting. One was a venerable (read: nevermind...) architect with a firm to his name, who was an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright, and in the work this architect showed, you could almost see some of it under the heavy FLW style. At least he went through his images quickly and described them generally, not making the mistake of many architects who attempt to describe the entity of the creative process for each piece. He had some interesting points that I happened to agree with, namely that while technology defines our lives now, behavior will define our lives in the future. (LEDs vs turning off the lights). There was talk about green building codes and the city, which probably went over a lot of people's heads, on sustainable paint, on getting LEED certified and what that meant (I was the only LEED AP in attendance apparently) , and on furniture. 

One big difference about these interior designers, as the older architect was going through his images, I could hear constant murmuring "oooh!"s and "ahhh!"s and quiet "Fabulous!"s and "How Gorgeous!"s. It was all I could do to keep a straight face. 

The furniture guy kind of irked me with his presentation. He's a local furniture/upholster company, but he kept hammering in the whole "local" thing. In big picture sustainability, this is important to remember,  9 times out of 10, HOW something is made and WHAT is its made of has more impact on the environment than WHERE it comes from. If you're comparing apples to apples, then yes, there's a less environmental impact of sourcing your granite slab from Colorado instead of say, Italy. However, if you're looking at different products, it's a lot more sustainable to ship doors of reclaimed barn wood from Pennsylvania, than solid core doors made from local pine at the corner mill worker. 

In the Q and A section, the two main questions the audience focused on was "how do I justify this to my client", "why does green cost more," and "where can I find a list of green products." The first two are pretty good questions, the third is just ignorant, bordering on inane. However, the panel did a good job of explaining that it is the designer's responsibility to determine the greenness of the product. There is no list. What makes a product sustainable is different for each application, although questions about what it is made of, how it it made, what are its harmful direct and indirect byproducts, etc are a good place to start, and reps for truly sustainable products will be able to give you good answers on all of these questions. 

My question: what am I supposed to do with this stupid tote bag?

Why so low?

Every morning, I load webpage that gives me my email, my calender, the latest facebook updates, the front page of BBC news and the front page of my local newspaper. I also see the latest postings from BLDGBLOG and ArchDaily. The former provides interesting perspectives of architecture and planning across numerous disciplines, and the latter provides numerous daily postings of new cutting edge architecture from around the world. (We call it "architecture porn"- all of the buildings are shot by professionals with the intent to make them look sexy, and it looks like it's never been touched or inhabited by real people. No clutter, no knicknacks, no loose paper, no fingerprints on the glass or the immaculate white walls, none of the dirt or clutter that people bring to real spaces.)

I was on this website when I read about a new resort in Bali, Indonesia, that has some very, very attractive spaces. Where beautiful textured architecture  meets sparkling blue water and pristine locations, its hard for me not to drool a little. When I see cool spaces, my first response is, can I get there? I went to the resort website and looked for a room. Here's what I got back:

I saw the $700 rate per night first, right above the "Why are our rates so low?" sign. I suppose for a room normally the price of a macbook pro, $700 is kind of a steal of a deal. Why are the rates so low?

Housing Wants

We’re looking for a place to stay in St. Louis. We don’t care if its an apartment, house, condo, townhome, or duplex, although I’m drawing the line at houses that used to be on wheels. Our ideal place is $800 a month or less, 1-2 bedrooms, washing machine, within 5 miles of campus, and over 700 square feet.

 It looks like the real kicker is going to be the washing machine. Unlike Phoenix, which was mostly built in the last twenty years, it looks like most of the residences in St.Louis were built in St.Louis’ boom years, from around the 1920s-40’s, I’m assuming at a time when people just didn’t have laundry machines. I haven’t had a personal washing machine since living with my parents, over seven years ago, but where architecture graduate school is concerned where we have absolutely no time, having to take laundry out to be washed at the laundromat is going to be a real killer. So we’ll weigh that pretty heavily.

The closest thing we've seen so far is this one. 

Where the streets have no pavement

Last night, I was invited to dinner with one of Saori’s business associates, who in interested in having Saori do some design work for her. Saori’s client is a very interesting woman, supposedly the only Japanese speaking lawyer in the valley, who also runs a yoga studio and has a masters degree in Anthropology from Stanford.  They also happen to live in the middle of nowhere, actually in the County beyond any city limit. It took me about 45 minutes to get out there, only because traffic was light and my foot was heavy.

 

I’d gotten directions from Saori who was already there. This place is so far out of town, I lost cell phone reception, then the radio reception got bad, and then it became a dirt road. I had a crude map and a number, but when street intersections are named by spray-painted cardboard, you can never be quite sure. I drove into the yard of a likely ranch house. The yard was actually on the side of the house, such that you have to open a gate and walk into a another yard to get to the front door. This fringe of civilization is typically inhabited by people who shoot trespassers first and ask questions later. A large spool of barbed wire resting nearby a pickup truck did not reassure me that I was at the home of a yoga instructor.

 

I guessed right. The lawyer and her husband were wonderful people. Very charming and hospitable, and they were thrilled I’d brought some wine with me. We ate a great Indian dinner and chatted for several hours. Apparently, this Japanese woman and her Bangladeshi husband raise more than a few eyebrows out here. During the 2004 election, they put out a John Kerry sign on their property. The sign was stolen, and someone slashed their tires. But they are very close to nature out here. You could hear the coyotes howling and playing during dinner, and apparently the barbed wire was put up to keep the free-ranging cattle from eating their trees.

Penthouse view

Unfortunately, this will be a mechanical penthouse, but I really like the open pavillion feel at this moment of construction. On the flip side, I'm glad this is a more 'worthy' building than luxury condos, because you really can see this building from quite a ways off. Actually, per local code, it was categorized as a "high rise" despite the fact that it has only five floors (plus this penthouse). The high floor to floor is due to the huge amount of ductwork and piping that serve the building.

Dude, I should totally start a webpage

I've been kicking around the idea of making a website. The idea is that when I am in graduate school, I'm going to be meeting a lot of people and making a lot of contacts, both professionally, personally, and academically (and a fusion of all of the above), and I think it would be useful for someone who has my business card to have a website to go to that tells them "ok, so this is what Alec is about." Specifically, potential future employers and design / social collaborators. It would have:

• Professional work
• Student work
• Competitions
• Nonprofit work
• Resume
• and maybe even a link to my blog hidden somewhere in the site for people who really read every little detail on every page.

One issue is domain name. I can get www.aperk.us.but I'd really prefer a .com domain. I could go with studioap.net or apworks.net as well. I can get a domain for two years for about $7 a month. And that's with a premium 'eco' provider who run their servers on wind power.

One of the problems with working in the field of design is that your website needs to look and feel designed. No one is going to hire you for serious design work if your website looks like crap. This is an example of how my classmates are representing themselves on the net: http://www.patrick-riddle.com/ This is my aunt and uncle's website: http://scheerandscheer.com/. One's a little more flashy, ones a little more simple, but they're both really slick. I think if I create a site, I'm going to go for few elements and clean design with the hope that it will be read as "minimalsist" instead of "didn't want to shell out the bucks for a professional webpage designer." 

Thinking about that now, what kind of statement does THAT make? Please spend money on me to do design work for you, but when I needed a professional designer for a different trade, I cheaped out on a DIY website. This would bear closer inspection. Hell, talking about starting a website is like talking about starting a band.

More Fun with Revit

Last week, I was working on VCT (vinyl tile) patterns and I wanted to show the client what the pattern would look like in a real space within the building as opposed to a 4x4 grid of the typical pattern. So I figured out a pretty easy way to create a pattern and load it as a material to render. I've been having some fun with this. I started with a blank wall segment in photoshop 4" wide by 12" high, so I could set up a 1" grid to lay out tile. With that grid, I brought in various colors, or you can also bring in images, and then saved the whole thing to a materials folder as a JPEG.

In Revit, I created a new material and loaded the image for it, and set the image to be 2' typical (so that each tile is 6") and added a bump pattern that would give a tile and grout texture for that same scale. With this basic set up, it was now possible to play around with various tile pattens because all I had to do was save over the old tile JPG with the new one, and Revit would render the scene with the updated pattern.

Ole!

[Updated: later this afternoon]

For those of you not familiar with computer modeling, this is not a photograph, nor an edited photograph. This is a rendering, a completely computer-generated image. It took about an hour to 'build' the model of the bathrooms in 3D, two years of nudging walls and sinks and counters around, 20 minutes to set up the rendering parameters, ten minutes to make a festive tile pattern, and about five minutes to actually render.

Precast!

I designed the precast units based on the neighboring building’s, so I can’t claim credit for designing them, although I pretty much had my hand in every aspect of revising their design for this building. It’s really exciting to me, but also a bit scary; if I screwed up somewhere, there’s much more money at stake here than invested in my graduate school education. What if the panels don’t fit? What if the client hates how they look when they go on? Longer term, how will the precast joints hold up? Another thing they don’t tell you about in architecture school.

Laptops for architects

I got my first laptop when I graduated high school, a Dell Inspiron, which worked out great. It cost a grand or better, but it came with the latest and fastest hardware available. It lasted through four years of architecture school, running some of the most graphics intensive programs this side of CG video editing. Functionally, it held up great despite my dragging it back and forth to studio on a daily basis and several trips around the world. When it finally crapped out from internal power issues, I was ready for another Dell.

The second laptop I purchased about two years ago in expectation that it would go with me to graduate school. It set me back about $1500, but the specifications I got on it still make it school appropriate. I picked up a precision M4300, upgraded the processor to an intel core 2 duo T9300, and upgraded the graphics processor to a 512MB Nvidia Quadro FX. I'd say its still a top of the line machine. 

I found a good page which describes and explains the ideal configurations for computers for architecture here.

The Pastoral Life

This afternoon, I made the long trek out to Superstition Farms for a thank-you event hosted by Everlasting Marks. I got there early and helped set up a little bit, taping up posters of the various groups who have contributed to the organization. Fundraising by a sponsored hiking group, labor and designs from various groups including Dobson High and a chapter of Girl Scouts, team leads, like me, who put in a little time now and then to show volunteers how to build and how not to bodily harm each other with the tools. It was nice, there was cake and fresh ice cream provided by the local farm coop Udder Delights, and at the end, the farmer whose family farm we were building on gave us a hayride tour.

Some interesting bits the farmer told us on the tour:

• United Dairymen of Arizona (the cooperative of which they are a member) is the fifth largest business in Arizona. (I'm having trouble believing this one, considering all the major aerospace/defense contractors out here. Maybe he meant local.)
• Each of their cows produced approximately 4 gallons of milk a day, although some cows produce up to 15. 
• These cows are milked three times a day, every day. 
• He seemed very defense of dairy farming where the treatment of cows were concerned. He pointed out how the corrals and shade structures all had numerous fans and mister systems while the farm vehicles lacked air conditioning. He defended the practice of taking the calf from its mother as greatly reducing the calf mortality rate. It really made me wonder if he got lots of people on the tour who accused him of animal cruelty. In turn, it made me wonder how any of those people have a leg to stand on, considering cattle have been genetically engineered (domesticated and bred) for thousands of years to have very particular characteristics. Yes, we need to treat all creatures in a humane way, but I would imagine the life of the of a locally owned dairy cow to be pretty pastoral. 

Photos from Arcosanti

The Sky People

Several years ago, mom took us all white water rafting for mother's day. We stayed the night exploring Globe and Miami to the east of Phoenix, and it was a lot of fun. It set a standard of a more "adventuresome" mother's day. I thought it would be fun to take mom to see Arcosanti, since Saori and I both thought it was a really pretty, interesting place. If you spend the night as a tourist, there's two options- a series of minimalist but comfortable rooms at the base of the mesa, or the sky suite, which is the sweetest suite in the arcology. I booked it a week in advance for a Thursday night. $100, but you get two bedrooms and a kitchen and a phenomenal 270 view of the surrounding high desert. Arcosanti feels like you're at an artist colony on mars. It's a bit communal, a bit removed from civilization, definately a do-it-yourself kind of settlement. In short, not exactly the BestWestern. But the people who enjoy chain motels are probably not the Arcosanti type anyway. (not to deter potential visitors- there's plenty of hot water in the showers, you can drink the water, the towels and washcloths are laid out for guests on the beds, and the people there are all very laid back and accommodating).

Mom and Tay met us at my apartment and we drove up to Chino Bandito for lunch. After stuffing ourselves, we picked up some more road snacks and beer and drove out. Arcosanti is about an hour and a half from the center of Phoenix, not too far beyond that point where you pass the last saguaro on the long hill up to the plateau, and all of a sudden you emerge into desert grasslands. We took the Cordes Junction exit and followed a dirt track to the complex. While mom and Tay checked out the bronze bells for sale, we checked in and got directions to the special parking for the Sky Suite. To get to it, you leave the nice visitor parking and drive around to the construction entrance, where you find your way to the marked spot right outside the main vault.

We dropped our stuff off at the suite and wandered around, hiking over to the camp, and generally trying to figure out which roofs and spaces were open to the public. This is tricky as Arcosanti is very open and the definition between common space and private space is nearly defined by convention alone. With all the various terraces, accessible roofs, gardens, and seating everywhere, mom kept remarking that she kept seeing great places to enjoy a glass of wine, so we wandered back to the room to open a bottle.

We sat outside on the roof terrace outside the sky suite and enjoyed our wine, until we moved up on top of a higher roof where I unfortunately broke a wineglass. This rooftop was only accessible by running up a concave slope like a half-pipe, and when I arrested my motion by grabbing the lip at the top where everyone was seated, including my empty wine glass, my eyeglasses flew out of my pocket and hit the glass, breaking it.

Dinner was a buffet in the bottom level of sunny tower perched on the mesa edge, and afterwards, we watched the sunset from the roof of the massive vaults. Later, we sat inside on the giant wooden window ledge in the sitting room of the Sky Suite, playing cards. Much later, we sat watching the incredible array of stars visible from the clear desert. Even at this distance, Phoenix lit the southern horizon like a distant yellow dawn.

Cardinal rulemaker

Apparently, not many people write about the cardinal rule of architecture, although Corbu did write five cardinal rules of architecture.

Click this link to google the phrase: cardinal rule of architecture.

Is this blog still at the top of the list?

Rules of architecture

Three rules of architecture I try to keep in mind while working:

1)       Ask the right people the right questions.

2)       Ask why at least three times.

3)       Question everything.

 

Of course, the cardinal rule of architects is: Beware of public transportation. Antonio Gaudi was struck down and killed by a Barcelona streetcar, and the great modernist Louis Kahn died in the bathroom of a New York Subway. Ok, maybe that’s not the cardinal rule, but it’s still something to keep in mind.

 

The real cardinal rule of architecture is protect the building inhabitants. It strikes me as somewhat odd that in four years of education, this point is never mentioned, even in passing. I’m not talking so much about ADA or even fall height requirements, I’m talking about if the building catches fire, can you get everyone out? If there’s an earthquake, will the building collapse? Basic catastrophe mitigation. All else follows.

The Eyjafjallajokukull

This arose from an office debate over the correct pronunciation. Yes, I know I spelled "foreigners" wrong.

Topping out

The 'topping out' ceremony for the building I'm working on occurred a few weeks ago. This is one of the significant public milestones in the creation of a building, along with ground breaking. Topping out is a celebration of placing the last beam in place, and usually indicates the full height of the building, hence the etymology. As a part of the tradition, people sign the beam, which is painted white, and it is craned up into place with an American flag on one end and a Christmas tree on the other. It's from an old Scandinavian pagan custom of appeasing the local spirits.

We didn't really have a ground breaking, because due to the demolition of an older building on the same site, we had a giant hole in the ground already.

You can read more about the ceremony here. Click the image for larger.

number crunching

This image represents the posted annual tutition and program fees for some schools with architecture programs. ASU is shown at an in-state cost, UC Berkeley as out of state. The red line indicates what my tuition responsibility will be after a generous scholarship from the school, which is represented by the light blue.

This chart does not factor in living expenses, which would make schools such as Pratt, AA, Berkeley, and Columbia correspondingly much higher in comparison to Washington U.

When I applied to graduate schools, I made a conscious decision not to look at them based on costs. This has been a mixed blessing in that it let me focus purely on the other aspects of the school  like quality of the program, focus, etc. However, in retrospect, I'm realizing now that I will be attending a graduate school that's more expensive than AA London, Harvard, or Yale.

The Storyteller

As you may know, I've spent the better part of three years working on designing and coordinating a rather large building in Illinois. The fact that this building is material and now fully sized is a bit odd for me to think about, considering I've never even seen it.

If you think about architects as storytellers, its not too far off the mark. The craft of an architect is to describe a building, or in other words, to tell its story. It's a work of fiction that emerges into reality and begins to change how the story is told.

A client comes to us with a particular genre in genre in mind, and maybe a little bit about each of the major characters, and asks us to make a complete story. We do our research, brainstorm, read other stories that have been written about the same characters or genres, flesh out the characters a little more, and come up with a general storyline. If the client likes it, we start to rough out the tale. It can be a lot of writing. Some are short stories that can be written in a few weeks. Others, such as the tale I am writing, are sweeping epics that can take many writers many years of work.

At the very end of a lot of writing and revisions, we have a complete story filled with details. Some of the details are very boring, and so you don't spend so much time on them. Others hold the whole plot together so you can spend a lot of time working on these tiny details that can change the entire outcome of the story.

When the story is more or less done, you give it to a Reader. Not a reader like you or I, but a Reader more like a military strategist or a banker, who can read your story and tell you how many trees your dark forest needs, or if the palace dungeon is big enough for the dragon. Here it gets stranger, for the Reader takes the story and reads it to the Villagers. The Villagers come from all over and have many trades and roles, and they proceed to coax the story to life, using their own brand of magic different from the magic of the Storyteller or the Reader. More strangely, as the story unfolds in real life, it is not quite the same as you remember writing it.  Sometimes the Villagers interrupt the Reader and tell him, or her, "no, no, it isn't like that at all!" and often times there are subtle differences. Sometimes the dark knight fights with an axe instead of a sword, sometimes its raining in the real world when it was snowing in the story, but the major plot points remain: the black knight always wins.

The Villagers also ask many questions about your story, details you forgot to include, or what never even occurred to you- what color was the fallen squire's shield? Was that distant castle made of limestone or marble? Was the the great tower a hundred and seven or a hundred and seventeen feet tall? Just how deep is that cave? Most oddly, the story itself begins to play a role in its own telling. The monster whom you originally wrote to devour only children appears in person and tells you that really, he prefers maidens. While inventing regal colors of the elvish infantry, you're constantly dodging their stray arrows.

The storyteller spins the tale while the Reader reads, and the whole time the Villagers rush about, pushing and pulling and prodding the story to life. At the end, all stop work together, and the story is has turned to a history of an event which is real.

This is partly why architecture has such an attraction to me- there's something so potent and surreal and nearly magical about the process of calling something into existence which was formerly in your mind. Not ever having been to the site of where my story is being told, seeing photos and talking to construction workers is a bit like Tolkien getting letters from the Hobbits.