The Sandlot Team

Change is constantly occuring but I tend to overlook it because of its incrimintal nature. However, when I returned from nearly seven months abroad, I was surprised by all the changes in Tempe. There are three high-rise projects either under development or in construction right in the mill avenue area. Stores and cafes I used to frequent have moved on or closed to make room, and everything on Mill is a little more slick than it used to be. Tempe is upscaling its downtown to be a kind of rival art/shopping district to Scottsdale. I have really mixed feeling about this. On the one hand, I love cities and increasing urban density is ok by me especially by the mixed use plan. I have nothing against polishing a city, taking a little more care with its landscaping, and a little more pleasant to be in. Hopefully, it will also raise the quality of ASU with it.

On the other hand, I worry about Tempe becoming just like scottsdale stylized, everything high gloss, tinted glass with spider connections, rusty steel accents, brushed aluminum, and concrete. Nothing wrong with these materials, but they are just used in such a bland and faceless way, like any major international airport. I have a hard time identiftying that kind of slick sleekness with the student's Tempe, and I forsee the same kind of sharp division as happens in Boulder Colorado, with a definate "Upscale" and "College" area. I've been here less than four years and I already miss the old mill avenue. Call me a hippie, call me nostalgic, call me whatever, but I'll prefer a changing hands bookstore instead of a borders in that context. I love Borders bookstores anywhere else, but they are so bland and so easily insertable into any place. I guess I'm really afraid that Tempe instead of being a college town with its unique feeling (and problems) will become another faceless thing.

Today was an interesting day. I secured a place to live within walking distance to campus. It's actually a little cheaper than the place I used to live and the guy is ok with suki so I'll probably start moving in this friday and saturday. The guy is nice, quiet, third year architecture student, and the place is pretty unfurnished so I can unleash my hardwood furnature and make the place a little more homey.

Today, instead of going to the studio you were assigned to at the specific time, they had everyone meet on the bridge togather. In true ASU college of design form, there was no email notification or other official notification of this at all. I heard about from a group of friends, who heard it from a guy, who heard it... Ad absurdium. They do some things really well here but communication is not one of them.

Anyway, at this meeting, we were presented with six teachers who gave short pitches for what their studios were going to be about. We were then given ten minutes to decide what we wanted to do for our last semester. Two of the studios focused mainly on landscape design, as we are combined with landscape students for this semester.

My first pick was the urban infill studio with professor Munier, because I like his ideas on the urban condition and his rejection of the "new urbanism" movement.

Second pick was more experimetnal- a studio which focused on the Chicano community and thier role and spaces (especially as the majority minority) in the city of phoenix, and how to tie those communities closer togather.

Third pick was a studio which seemed very vauge and theorertical, but seemed to offer the opportuntiy for me to finally come to terms with defining Phoenix and trying to figure out why its such a failure as a city, and why I regard it as a failure. Really, it was a negative decision, that I'd rather take it over the other three studios offered.

We submitted our votes and they took awhile to tally them up before they posted them. I was in my third choice studio. Interestingly, every other architecture student in the class ALSO listed the class as thier third choice. It would seem that if you listed the studio at all, you ended up in the class.

Anyway, most of us (apart from the landscape students) were pretty depressed about the whole situation and the first meeting did little to console us. Our studio is being taught by a woman who holds two masters degrees in architecture and landscape architecture, and she seems to be intensely theoretical. As for the studio itself, there is no real program. Its the same kind of broad situation as Buenos Aires, except we don't have a broad problem, we don't have a site, and we don't have a Claudio. Basically, she told us that we could use this studio to do whatever we wanted to do in other studios but never could. My understanding of the class is that we pick a problem or area or situation, document it (DIAGRAMS!W00T!), and propose insertions of various scales. It's about as unfocused as possible, with the only real limitation being the size of Phoenix.

Sitting there, I realized that I was developing an extremely bad attitude about the whole thing which would be fatal for the studio and any chance of me getting anything out of it. I forced myself to think positively. On the one hand, I'd rather be in this studio than three others ( although knowing what I know now, I would have reshuffled my choices a bit), this studio is vauge enough for me to really focus on a problem of my chosing, and its also good experiance for graduate classes.

Our assignment for friday- think about places in the city that you might want to focus on, places that seem "dead" ( I considered bringing in a road atlas of phoenix), strange, or exceptionally lively. I really want to look forward to this semester, just like our design behavior teacher really wants the class of 250 to be "interactive".

Oh, latest news from the minor front- I got a response back from the Textiles in Interior Design class professor. She told me that there were three prerequisites (none I've taken) but she might be able to make an exception for me, depending on if I made a good case for myself. So I need to write her an email about why I am enthusiastic about taking a class I don't really want to take.

Fortunately, I may be able to moot the whole thing since I realized that I never got design credit for something I should have, which would allow me to forget the whole thing, provided I can convince the advising staff to accept it for the minor- which shouldn't be too difficult. Stay posted for more details.