Totally going to start looking for work any day now...

The weather is amazing right now, and it's become a little difficult to work. I don't have any trouble staying inside, as it's really too hot to go out and my basement is nice and cool, but I seem to spend most of my time slacking and surfing the web.

In spite of this, I have been able to finish my portfolio and CV with tons of help from Team and ShortBus. I'm going to attempt to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow and make some calls to find out what format each firm prefers, and they get sent out tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Dazed and Confused

I convocated on Tuesday, and spent yesterday recovering from the sAra beach party that was held Tuesday night. Convocation was a bit of a let-down -- while it was fun to hear AL speak to a crowd of nurses and engineers about her thesis project, there was a lot of sitting and not a lot of interesting parts. I'm glad I went for my parent's and grandparent's sakes, but not really for my own.

The awards ceremony was much the same: I didn't win anything which was a disappointment, but Short Bus cleaned up, as did some of my other friends. Since they have to pay tuition next semester and I don't, I can't get too worked up about it. There's nothing i can do, so why get upset? I've been consoling myself with the idea that being great at school has limited scope as the work world is so different, so the skills that get awards might not be so useful in the real world. At the very least, there is still lots to strive for.

So this week I HAD planned to sent out my portfolio, but the sun and intermittent web access have conspired to reduce my effectiveness. Today I'm going to finish implementing Team's comments on my portfolio and update my resume. I'm having birthday dinner with Doormat (my one reader, apparently. Hi doormat!) and he has said he might be able to work out something with my interweb connection to make it a little more reliable. When that is fixed I won't have any more excuses and so I hope to send my first wave Friday afternoon.

Transition

I've been thinking about shifting the focus of this blog from my thesis to something a little more personal. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1. It's already set up so I can just start posting whatever I want, even if it isn't thesis related
2. No-one I know actually READS it, so it's kind of like writing in a journal that I leave on the bus.

I'm going to think about it for a little while. Putting together my portfolio is horrible, mostly because I unwisely deleted a ton of stuff when I was in Montreal, but also because it reminds me of just how average most of my work is. I suppose Team has a point when he obsessively revises his portfolio, because with a constant reminder of mistakes, how can you do anything but better.

Also horrible? Not leaving my apartment. My rules are that I'm not going to do ANYTHING but portfolio until it's done: that means I can sleep, go on the web, eat and go to the gym, but that's about it. This means I've barely had a conversation since Sunday night and I'm getting squirelly, and that last night I went to bed at 9:00, just so I could stop working. The shame.

Good News, bad news, navel gazing.

Since the point of this blog was to work things out without annoying my friends & neighbours with meandering drivel, I thought I would slap a post together to talk about my portfolio. Also, before I forget, I'm delighted to say that the School of Architecture and Landscape Archtitecture has asked me to put together a submissision for the 2007 Canadian Architect Student Awards of Excellence. Only downside? Putting together the submission.

Okay.

Now I've finished my thesis, the next step is to find a job and to do that I need to put together a portfolio. Usually I just slap stuff together, but since this is a big-girl job, I want to put a lot more thought into it. While I was in the States this weekend I purchased a VERY expensive portfolio case, so now what is in it needs to be of equal quality.

I want to include work from four or five semesters. My first semester is a write-off -- not only is the work jejeune (I love that word), but a computer crash in the middle of my second semster has destroyed the few files that I was able to produce and the work was not adequately photographed. I don't see this as a great loss.

I am definately going to include my thesis project, and will likely devote twice as many pages to it as to my other studios as it was essentially a year long project.

The middle studios are the Power Studio in the beginning of third year, the Comprehensive studio I did with JBass, and the Process studio with Pat. While the Comprehensive and Process studios focused on one building in particular, the Power Studio had relatively little emphasis on the building as final product so the project is not very resolved.

I'm trying to find similarities between the projects so I can use a consistent layout. I have found that aside from an obsession with people-scale in buildings, I produce similar kinds work to represent my projects.

• Diagrammatic Process work. Power studio has puzzle pieces to look at relationships between furniture, Comprehensive studio has a million chipboard models, Process used collage and physical models and Thesis used drawings (and later 3-D models). I produce many similar iterations to chose between for each of my projects. One of the ways to represent this could be to have a side-bar for each of the projects that shows the iterations next to each other. One thing to consider, however is that it doesn't really matter how you get to a project: it's much more important to show the final process. That's a little confusing. What I mean to say is that while I have a brazillion cardboard model images leftover from my comprehensive work, they are not useful in a project because they do not adequately describe my final project. They are significantly different from the puzzle pieces from the power studio which were part of the final presentation.

If I want to look at my obsession with iterations, the puzzle pieces from the Power studio, the louvres from the Comprehensive studio, the articulations from the process studio and the charts from Thesis should suffice.

I could also look at each of those things in terms of human dimensions: while the puzzle pieces may be a stretch, the louvres, articulations and charts are all investigating the relationship of architecture to the human body. I have diagrams for this for the comprehensive and thesis work, but I don't think I represented this properly for the process studio, and I'm going to have to dig to find it for power.

So, let's say that for every studio there should be one or more diagrams showing how this design relates to the human body. (archigeek pauses to write this down in her moleskin, deploring her lack of internet at home) There are existing diagrams like this for my first vertical studio as well that investigated existenzminimum (w/Jwo) which might be worth including.

What else do each of my studios have?

• Repetitive elements. Is this true? It's linked to the human-scale thing if it is. Power has a giant axo of the cage-thing that supports services, Comprehensive has the obessesively repeating louvres, Process has the glass panels on the inside elevation, Thesis has the material study and detailed ground plane. Does the JWo studio have this? It has the buckminister fuller dome, which I suppose counts. I guess I should draft up a CAD version of this, and then I can use the louvres, cage, glass panels, ground plane and dome CAD work as a grey-scale line drawing as an underlay for the pages from each studio.

So (archigeek reaches for her moleskin) each studio needs to have a line drawing of this small & repetitive element.

What else?

• Perspectives. I like 'em, you like 'em, everybody likes a good perspective. They describe a lot and are pretty. Including these is a no-brainer. I should have enough good ones that I can show two for each project.

• Models. Each project has at least ONE model. Some have two. Whenever there are two models, one shows material details and human scale while the other shows the extent of the project and some site. Power, Process and Thesis have two models. Comprehensive and JWo are the exception: JWo has a detail modeled and rendered in Maya, which should be adequate. Also the JWo maya model is scaled to the hand: it shows connections. This is understandable given the size of the project, but it doesn't fit properly. Comprehensive is a little tougher. I did produce a detail model but it was really ugly and I'm not sure if I want to include it.

This needs more thought (how many posts have I ended like that?) but I'm going to let it percolate while I hit yoga. I may find some answers there or at least a clear path to a cohesive design strategy for this damn portfolio.

Thesis COMPLETED!

I haven't been writing very much lately, because as I said in my recent post, most of the stuff that I need to work out had been worked out and it was just a matter of production. I thought that I would do one final post to tie up loose ends in case anyone runs accross this.

I presented my thesis in the downtown studio at 3:30. I was one of the last people to go, which meant that I missed almost everyone's... not because I wasn't there, but because I couldn't sit still. I got downtown at about 10:10, just in time to see ELeben's presentation. Although JWo said that her perspectives were 'too humerous' and he couldn't consider them (since when is an Ewok NOT appropriate for a render of a farm?) I enjoyed her presentation and was glad it went well.

The other one I paid attention to was KS's. She was happy with her presentation as well. Her boards looked great and she spoke very well for having worked on her model all night. I was sorry but unsurprised when she didn't come out drinking with us Saturday night.

I was able to pin up my boards at lunch, so Team and I took our time to make sure everything was square. Although the sectional model was a smidge too close to the site plan everything else worked quite well: I showed the 2-D matrix of interpretable sections, the 3-D matrix of ambiguous spatial conditions, some diagrams of the site, the model that I made after mid-term, a site plan, small medium and large focus diagrams of the site and details, three perspectives and a sectional model of the site. It wasn't a lot of information on the boards, but I was happy with it and thought it was enough: it explained what I wanted to say without too many distractions. I was also really happy that Team worked out a way to bolt the models to the wall so they could be part of the presentation boards instead of sitting on a table.

I wrote out cue cards before I went down in the morning, so the presentation was mostly a matter of reading them: not too much ad libbing because I wanted to be precise about what I was saying. They were great because I was able to consider exactly what words said what I meant so there would be less confusion. There was about one card for every powerpoint slide.

I was happy with my presentation and felt I described everything, although I haven't mastered endings yet and there was a HORRIBLE silence after I finished up. It took about a minute for anyone to speak and I was a little concerned. Luckily, when they did talk they said:

"mature"
"successful"
"from the first class you have always loved to draw"
"congratulations"

It was the best crit I have ever had.

There were a couple of quibbles: JBass said that he wasn't convinced I had placed the ambiguous spatial conditions optimally and someone else had questions about the materials, but I was delighted with how my presentation went. I've got my fingers crossed for a thesis award. I've always felt really average at the school so it was nice to get a little validation.

I was also very happy that I was able to thank everyone properly. Team, ShortBus, Mr. Clean and the Vegan were all amazing, and Coach Scap was an unexpected addition. Team Fun ended up being huge: last Thursday I had 7 people building my final sectional model and while I was extremely stressed, they did a great job.

This week I've moved out of my desk at school, written my thesis book, cleaned house and tried to get used to spare time again. It feels weird and I miss having the single focus, but it was great to play soccer in the sun yesterday (even though I now have funny tan lines from my shin guards.)

Next task: find a job. This means putting together my portfolio... blech.

Bedtime stories

Once upon a time, Archigeek decided to go to grad school...

Thesis Advisor M has suggested I put together a narrative of my project to keep track of what is and isn't important to show for the presentation. I think it will be a good way to focus my efforts on what is really important and cut down on my distraction (I'd like to point out that I stopped writing in the middle of that sentence to go check out some web sites )
So how does my project start?

This thesis began with an interest in details and ambiguity. I wondered if there was some kind of mechanism with which designers could indicate possible uses of a space without being specific so there were lots of possibilities. After looking at the work of Vernor Panton and some others, I decided that the best way to do this was by using small-scale interventions. That way the whole space wouldn't be affected, just portions of it.

Since I decided I wanted to start with the small scale and was interested in Panton, I went to Architectural Graphic Standards to look at how small small-scale is. When I was there, I noticed that there is some overlap in the measurements for certain things, and since a surface that is a table can also act as a seat is ambiguous, I started to overlay different examples of humans using furniture to produce a surface or section that could do a couple of things at once.

I found this productive, so chose 13 Graphic Standards that I felt addressed a variety of conditions and crossed them with each other to produce a huge number of ambiguous spatial conditions. Some of these were more successful than others, so I picked a representation of the best ones to work with further.

While the sections were interesting, they weren't yet spatial, so I decided I wanted to see what would happen if I combined them in a different way. While the ambiguous spatial conditions were interesting, their use was still limited to what I could imagine. But part of my idea of articulated space is that the architect needs to provide for uses that she can't imagine: the sections didn't address this.

I decided to go into Maya and created 3-D versions of combinations of sections. Each example took two sections and lofted between them. This meant that there were spaces that weren't one thing or another, and the use wasn't regulated by me because the shape was a byproduct of this process. I pursued this with all the sections and created a matrix of 45+ different chunks of habitable space.

When I started to assemble these, I realized that I had to apply some outside influences to arrange them. I had already picked a site that I thought would be productive because the use fluctuates significantly during the day and would vary according to measurable influences, so I began to diagram all the things that influence the site and might influence the placement of the ambiguous spatial conditions.

I spent a week diagramming everything I could think of that varied according to time: daylight access to site, program requirements, pedestrian movement, pedestrian speed. I laid them all out on a single map and realised that it would be possible to insert specific programmatic uses at certain points with the remainder of the site either ambiguous spatial condition that was not linked to program (the midpoint between two sections), or flat space that could be used as a pathway or have a relationship to the sections.

I looked at the solar access to the site and decided to place all the program in the north west corner to minimize shade cast into the site. I looked at the average speeds for paths across the site and decided that the less travelled areas were the best place to add the sections. I decided that the entry to the underground bus loop should have a habitable roof that could also function as a stage, and decided that the rest of the ambiguous spatial articulations should be arranged with the same form.

The end result of this is a ground plane that, at certain moments, undulates to create folds that can be used in ways defined by the original Architectural Graphic Standards.

The end.

Getting personal

When I started this blog, I decided I didn't want to talk about how I felt about thesis and the process because I was going to let people know about it and noone wanted to hear me complain. But I don't know anyone that reads it, and I've had my final committee meeting, so I thought I would blow off a little steam with the understanding that yes, I do love my project and I'm very fond of the School of Architecture, my professors, and the other students.

So in no particular order, a list of questions.

Why do my friends come to sit at my desk and complain about how much work they have to do? And that they can't wait until it's over? I have to produce a thesis project, and I have three weeks of hell to go through. Have they not noticed that I'm at school all the time?

Why does drinking coffee make my stomach decide to suceed? It's apparently trying to abdicate from my abdomen in an intensely painful way.

Why didn't I wear a sweater, or at the very least a long sleeved shirt today? It's freezing.

Why does stress make me hurt my feet so it's hard to walk? Am I trying to prevent myself from leaving my apartment, or possibly even my bed?

Why doesn't complaining about this make me feel better?

Do people actually believe I'm relaxed? And how is saying 'You'll be fine: you're Archigeek!' supposed to reassure me? That's the problem. I'm Archigeek. And she doesn't know what she is doing.

Why is this so unpleasant? I swore I would try to enjoy this thesis as much as possible because it's likely it will be my last real design project. But here I am, moaning and groaning.

What is the best way to deal with someone saying 'I miss being a student. You're so lucky: these days I rarely get home before 7 at night' ? Can it involve some slapping?

Will I ever lose these circles under my eyes? Are the wrinkles I've noticed for the first time this semester permanent?

Why is facebook so addictive, and why won't my friends do more things so it can take up more time?

Did I waste as much time this weekend as I think I did? Was what I was doing instead of homework actually a waste of time? Can I claim that martini drinking as brainstorming time? When am I going to drink my next martini?

Is not going to yoga giving me more time to work on my project, or just making me less focused?

Why can't I start the project that is due April 20th? Do I want to fail?

Why do all my muscles hurt?

Is Team Fun actually going to be fun? Are Team, the DBA, Short Bus, Mr. Clean and The Vegan going to want me dead? Am I going to want them dead? Is there going to be a murder/suicide in the studio, leaving the concrete floors awash with blood?

Can I do this?

This would be an excellent time to delurk, if you feel so inclined.