Before the Beginning of the Beginning or Sleep Alec Rambles a bit

It's 10:30 pm on a saturday night, and I consider myself lucky to be at home cooking dinner. Saori's still stuck in studio. Me any my partner finally arrived at an idea we both liked and quickly called it a day and took off. It's been a not so much fun studio so far, which I need to work on. I jumped right back into my old studio habits of leaping before thinking. It tends to happen instinctively when the studio instructors throw an impossible task in front of you. I need to have more discipline of taking the time to sit down and plan out what my phases of design are going to be and scheduling them better. Its also difficult with group work where I'm working with a person who has never before been to the US and for whom English is a school subject. There's the challenge of the language barrier on top of the challenge of collaborative design work. However, my partner, Nan, has been very easy to work with, and we've both been working hard to try to really understand each other, which may account for the ease of working with her. Perhaps people working together who speak the same language take too much for granted in their conversations, or don't articulate thier ideas as well. For my part, in this project, I've tried to be pretty open, and to be honest, I haven't really developed my ideas at the right time.

Our first assignment was to form three definitions of what an observatory is and to make 3 models in Rhino expressing these concepts. As it turns out, what they meant by that, was, they wanted you to make three observatory concepts at a very intimate human scale that express experiential qualities in a sequence, to wit, what would your ideal observatory be, your own place to escape to. So when I got up and showed my work it was a bit of swing and a miss. Other people didn't seem to have this same sort of problem.

I've basically been working in studio from 9am-10pm every day since Wednesday, except for an hour-2 hour break each day. Originally, Saori and I intended to ride our bikes to school and back each day, but so far this has only happened once. We are, of course, expected to work through each of the weekends until school actually starts. I'm happy to note that I am getting very involved in the design work, at least to the extent that if I didn't really care about a 2 week pre-semester doesn't-really-count studio, I wouldnt be putting in the hours and the effort.

Anyway, for monday, we're expected to build a quarter scale model, which for my project, will be approximately three feet long. At least this one will be built out of cardboard and chipboard. Less than a week later, we are expected to build another model, this one in basswood, and have a 3' tall basswood base AND a 3D model in Rhino with handrails, stairs, etc. everything one would expect on a quarter scale model. In a quarter scale model, just for perspective, 1" = 4', so a regular door would be 3/4"x1 3/4". It's a pretty large scale to work in.

What else is going on...
We got our futon finally delivered. It was Saori's shift when it arrived. She had her partner over at our place working on the project while she waited, and when the package finally arrived it was about 8o pounds and in a huge box. I'd just had curbside service, but the driver took one look at the two girls and carried it up the stairs for them, which was very nice of him, so wherever you are, sir, you have my regards. I assembled the futon wednesday night, and it looks pretty spiffy for a $115 couch. Not uncomfortable either.

Its a pain that this apartment/duplex is so far from school- it takes about 15 minutes to bike it, but I'm happy that it kind of removed from the school, just like a spacious quiet retreat. It's so nice to walk on wood floors after a long day in studio.

Yesterday, there was an amazing storm at night. We were the last people in the studio and it was incredible to watch from the second floor as the waves of rain thrashed their way across the parking lot, whipped around by winds. Before that, the tornado warning siren sounded, and I followed the national weather service website  advisories until they ended the warning about fifteen minutes later. We drove home in pounding rain and watched the incredible lighting and thunder rattle the house from our dark apartment sitting on our new futon.

Its amazing to me that I'm back in studio. Sitting in reviews, shopping for supplies, sitting at my desk, etc. etc. I need to think more, relax more, work more effectively and efficiently. As Saori pointed out, this is simply studio. Its not even considering the OTHER coursework I'll be doing when the real semester starts. All I know is that I'm already tired. Its going to be a long 2 and a half years.