Weekend with the architects

Friday I couldn't focus on anything- my mind was elsewhere all day. I did catch Eddie Jones lecturing a group of mostly interior students. He displayed a bunch of his works and talked about it, which is the best way to begin to understand where the architect was coming from- hearing the architect himself describing it. Eddie Jones is probably second only to Will Bruder in terms of recognizability in Phoenix. His clients are extremely high end, so he does a lot of houses for people who want thier house to really stand out and be "architectural". So they throw vast sums of money at him and he comes up with some really interesting houses involving zinc titanium cladding, stacked glass, etc. He also designed the Lattie Coor building for ASU. Got some good points about design from him too.

Around 7 o clock, I was hungry and frustrated from such an unproductive day, so I went home and split a pizza with Ben. I asked a friend of mine who usualy knows where the parties were what she was up to, and she told me to come over and go to First Fridays. First Friday's is an extremely local event in downtown phoenix the first friday of every month starting around 7 and lasting until around 10. There's an artist community down there in the old urban neighborhoods, and they all open thier galleries to the public. These galleries range from the downstairs of thier houses to professional architect's office spaces. In addition, there are garage bands which play, tons of craft vendors selling thier art on the side, street performers, and even a band playing from the back of a moving pickup truck. There was also this kid, looked about 10 years old, playing the drum section live from recorded songs. He was playing a full set, in his socks, from this stoop of an old house, and he was literally rocking out. And he was amazing. This kid has a future as a studio musician for sure. So anyway, Molly and the rest of the group drive down there and we meet a few people from my studio while we're down there. There's always tons of people and the galleries are always packed. Everyone who even thinks about art, fashion, and design is down there. Matrons wearing original jewellry, moms pushing strollers, hipsters, punks, rebellious artists, graphic designers, and anyone and everyone who picks out stylish glasses. So that's a cool time. Anyway, afterwards I come back home and crash.

Today I went into studio early again and got a lot of work done in a short amount of time, bringing my floorplan into CAD. It was another phenomenally beautiful day. Around five, I got ready for the college of design alumni dinner party. There was an email circulated asking for 12 college of design students who wanted to go to dinner with the alums. I jumped on it. Anyway, after gettng the confirmation invite, a student organized a carpool so I said sure and took three students in my van. It was a strange feeling, driving students who were all older than me in a minivan no less. There was only one girl I knew that came, a crazy double masters in arch and planning that I always see in the library. There was a friend of hers in planning, an older landscape student, a few industrial designers, and an extremely nervous looking freshman.

Anyway, the house was way out in south mountain foothills in a gated community, one of the architect's houses, so it was like a nice community of scottsdale. The whole thing was very informal, with eveyone getting tagged by nametags at the beginning. We mingled and chatted for awhile and I talked to my old friend Michelle, the one I met as a senior in HS who organized that first masonry challenge thing. She;s got her own firm now and I got her advice on licensure, grad school, etc. One thing I heard from one of the dinner guests was that graduate programs you need to apply in the fall of your senior year- in other words, when I'd be in Argentina. I need to cooroborate this, but it may mean that I need to get the ball well on its way this summer. The house was very nice, and there were these two tiny white fluffly dogs which were constantly running around underfoot, and an electric koi which swam slow circles in the pool. There were appetisers, beer, wine, and then they served dinner buffet style and we all sat down at a series of tables outside. Dinner was this delicious chicken and vegitables and they served home made green tea ice cream for dessert, which was interesting but tasty. Most of the architects were really young, like people who graduated in the last five years or so. I sat across from this young couple who were recently married. The wife graduated from the bachelor program last year at ASU and was AIAS president while I was a member. Her husband looked a bit older, but he was in the first gradating class of desert mountain and knew John Prather really well. He is actually getting ready to teach an AP english class of his own and we talked a bit about what worked in Prather's class and I recommended Bourges and Neuromancer as summer reading.

It's very strange, I was probably one of the more gregarious students there. Maybe because I knew Michelle from before, or just because I have more experiance with dinner parties I was able to converse much more easily than the other students. Anyway, when I looked over and saw a really quiet and awkward table of students sitting with a landscape architect, I slid over and started some conversation and then realized they were all aching to get back to studio. It was almost 10 by this point, and we are working students, so I got up and we started the process of thanking everyone and last minute pictures were taken.

Dropped everyone off back at school and now I'm at home, enjoying a glass of chardonnay, (not nearly as good as the stuff at the house). I'll probably head to bed soon, as I want to get up early to see the start of the ironman triathalon at tempe town lake. The race starts with the athletes throwing themseves in the water for the 2 mile swim.