Lost in Spring

Today was a tragically beautiful spring day. Tragic, as I had a major history of architecture exam in the middle of it. Doubly tragic, as the pleasant breezes and bird song will dissapear in a few short weeks when the pleasant breeze turns to a furnace blast and the birds spontaneously combust on the wing. But for today, I staked out the secret garden and studied there in the morning, went to class for the test, and dozed there again afterwards in the afternoon. The test went fine although I missed a few dates. I just dont have a head for detached figures like that, and my time is better spent studying the structure itself than trying to drill a meaningless figure into my head. Plus, it was a gorgeous day out, and the trees in the secret garden were in bloom.

The so-called secret garden is one my favorite spaces at ASU. It's a courtyard of an old girls dorm which is now a school for social work. It's built of whitewashed brick and block and two stories tall. The courtyard itself if beautifully proportioned to the two storied building: small enough to feel private, yet large enough to seem to give everyone their own personal space. The surrounding building blocks any noise from outside, and the space is mostly surrounded by wide planters holding a variety of old trees and plants which shade the area. The whole thing is coverd in grass, except for an old concrete landing which has a fireplace set into the side of the building. The "secret" of the secret garden is that there's two rather inconspicuous entrances from the outside, one of which is in a narrow alley between two buildings. One must actually decend a ramp and pass beneath the building to come up into the courtyard. Anyway, spent a bit of time there today, watching the sun on the trees, listening to my music, and watching hummingbirds chase each other.

But on to reality. Tomorrow it's back to cranking out a fully realized design for my pool project, with some minimum requirements to have for monday. Should be a pretty cool building if I can pull it all togather. Saturday night I signed up for a dinner with the College of Design alumni along with 11 other students from the COD. It's a dinner party, so time to break out the Ms. Manners guide.

Also got some exciting news back from my mentor- since he contributed to the college of design certificiation process, they're letting him pick a student for summer internship, and he asked me if I was still interested in working for DWL this summer. I responded enthusiastically that I'd much rather work for them than play russian roulette with the valley design firms. So that should be really cool.