WELCOME TO TETSLOG 3.1

Congratulations, you have found the tetslog, a blog containing the ranting and raving of a third year architecture student at the GSD. If nothing else, you can check on the links that I have found for your amusement, or you can just ponder the strangeness that is theTets.

Tetslog Archives:

Spring 2006
Fall 2005
Summer 2005
Spring 2005
Fall 2004
Spring 2004

 

March 13, 2007

I actually wrote this entry on the 4th, but never got around to posting it, so it's a little outdated. I've been quite busy this past week since this entry and I anticipate further business as I prepare for a presentation this coming Monday.

March 4, 2007
quote of the day:
. . . it's only people who believe in an afterlife who drive like that. Atheists make much better drivers.

-Brian Eno

it's been three years now since I started the tetslog. I've threatened to improve and enhance the interface, but alas you've stuck through with the baby blue. Thanks.

It's scary to think in less than three months I'll be done with school. FOREVER! I don't know about other people, but I'm pretty excited to start a new phase in my life; I just have to slog through this last semester.

Work wise, I'm hoping to stick around Boston for another year and get to explore more of the city. This time not as a messenger but as part of the office crowd that I always yelled as they crossed the road between intersections without looking. . . those days are over. I think.

The road bike I used while a messenger is in the long drawn out process of being overhauled into a rugged all-weather fixed-gear bike. Which, in a strange ironic twist probably makes it more useful as a bike for courier work, but no, I'm going to use it to commute between work and home; wherever that might be. My new S-works road bike, to which I have yet to come up with a nickname, has just been outfitted with Ultegra 6600 ten speed components, a marked improvement over the older 105 components that I originally installed on it. The shifters and derailleurs are nearly new, but work flawlessly. I can't WAIT for the weather to warm up just a bit more. Then I'll be able to really test it out.

 

February 21, 2007

I have a hellishly busy schedule this week and yet here I am working blogging on the tetslog. . . that's worthy of a masters degree in procrastination if I do say so myself (or at least an honorary degree in addition to this dumb architecture degree I end up with after four years) Perhaps you're wondering what it is that fills my day? Here's a brief and insightful look at what I do now that I'm fully immersed in THESIS:

I start my day around 8-8.30 depending on how many times I allow myself to hit the snooze button. On days like today, when it's not only garbage day but also work in the Visual Resources Department at 9 am-day, I usually get up a little earlier in order to put the trash out. I did that this morning, only to realize that because of that strange holiday we had on Monday, the garbage pickup schedule is behind by a day. (If you ask me, it doesn't make much sense; won't shifting the schedule back one day just make them have to work on a Saturday or do they not have Friday garbage pickup?)

Wednesdays are also nice because it's macaroni and cheese day, guaranteeing a good lunch. After lunch, the day is pretty much down hill from there. Thursdays and Fridays I lead discussion sections for the Japanese architecture course. This involves lots of reading and preparations for the inevitably inane questions that will prohibit them from fully realizing the concept behind the section topics. Tomorrow's section will be on carpentry and the role of the master carpenter versus an architect. It's a similar dialogue with the how we often viewed medieval masons and their ability to construct cathedrals and such without our current understanding of the design process. I find this discussion particularly interesting because it questions a designer's role in the construction of buildings; it begins to question the necessity for architects when so much of what current architecture seems to entail is the ability to assign a kit a parts to create a whole. The master carpenter, like the master mason, knew from years of construction and building, the formulation of the entire building beginning with the treatment and selection of timbers to the proportion of the layout without resorting to any set of plans or construction documents.

Tomorrow, I am particularly busy as I continue to prepare for section while also assembling a presentation about my Honduras studio project from last year, all the while working on my thesis project. All I can say is, I've drawn a lot of different auditoriums. . .

I guess that wasn't particularly insightful, but thats my day nonetheless. On a happier note, working as a TF has its economic advantages, particularly when I lead two sections. I am banking on it as I continue to build up my road bike with better parts, the most recent acquisition being a set of new shifters, deraileurs, brakes and seat post. Now if only my schedule and the weather would cooperate I might actually get to enjoy my new toys.

 

February 5, 2007

Well, it finally got cold here in Boston; the strangely temperate weather we've had for most of the fall and early part of winter was replaced by frigid winds blowing the temperature down to a mere 10 degrees at night, and a deceptively chilly 26 during the day. Thankfully, I'm settling back into a studio space at school, so all my work is centralized. I no longer need to worry about shuttling back and forth between school and home to find a book or drawing or whatever; it's all at my desk again. What a relief.

I think this is my first entry for the new year, so a very belated Happy New Years to everyone who read the tetslog! This year began busily and hectically with many trip to the west coast within a short one month span, but things are getting back to normal as the school semester begins. Classes officially started last Wednesday, but seeing as I'm not taking any classes this spring, I'm not technically obligated to be anywhere at any given time. Thesis is th`e only class I'm taking this spring; my last and final semester here at the GSD. It's kind of scary to think about, so I won't dwell on it too much, but this is it; after this semester I no longer have classes and I'll have to start paying my loans back. . . yikes.

This past week has been spent finishing, printing and binding my thesis prep. document; a large and unwieldy 110 page dissertation on what I will attempt to focus on for this next semester in designing a concert hall for Walla Walla. In a nutshell, the document focuses on the various architectural notions of music and architecture, the importance of understanding acoustics and the difficulty in placing large architectural works in small, rural communities such as Walla Walla. It also discusses my research into concert hall typologies as well as my investigation into potential site location. Check it out if you desire, but it's a big pdf file, so it may take a while to download.

I don't know how to start the design quite yet, so I will continue to refine the programming of the building, which I believe is an essential aspect of developing a framework for a successful building of this magnitude and scale in setting such as Walla Walla. The need for a variety of appropriate uses beyond just the concert hall will determine the success and viability of the overall proposal.

I shall also stay busy with working for a professor in the History of Art and Architecture department here at Harvard, who is teaching a course on Japanese Architecture. Once again, I will be leading, hopefully, two discussion sections for this undergraduate course. I'm excited to have this opportunity again not just for the added pay check, but also because I think I'll further my understanding and knowledge of Japanese architecture in general. After this semester, I will have studied under the expertise of four separate professors teaching about Japanese architecture and urbanism here at the GSD and Harvard which is certainly something I never imagined happening when I left the University of Idaho.