Thurspocalypse

Well the Thurspocalypse came and went with mixed results.

At 8:30AM we had our presentation for advanced building systems. The night before, I'd roughly assembled the final board based on the "minimum of 2'x3' " size that was given to us. I made it closer to 3' x 5' since that really, that size is quite small. Around 2 AM, I called it a night since I was really sleep deprived and I wanted to get some rest for today's presentations. The last thing I sleepily mumbled to Dew on my way out was "if you don't get around to fixing the boards, don't worry about it- I think its good enough to print."

Cut to 6:30AM this morning, when I awoke in a panic. What the hell was I thinking? Those boards weren't ready to go! Why did I tell Dew that it was good? We're going to fail as a group and its going to be my fault. I skipped breakfast, dressed, and went straight to school intending to spend the hour or so before the pin up to fix the boards and add some things to make it at least presentable.

Dew was already there. He'd slept there that night. He sleepily held up the printed, finished board. Looked great. This has been my semester to really let people down. Especially since for this project I've been not doing that much for the group, which is the main reason I'd volunteered to take lead on the board. Balls.

Anyway, I'd heard rumors that the final format would be informal- our work pinned up, we'd wander around and look at each other's work, responding to questions and criticism from the two guest critics. To try to get through 16 formal reviews in less than two hours would be crazy.

Guess what we ended up doing? Formal reviews. Drag-the-chairs-up, everyone-in-the-group-talks, questions-and-comments kind of reviews. The commentary and question time alone for our project took ten minutes.

I think we disappointed our professor with our representation. He was really really excited about our project because it was like nothing else that had ever been presented or pushed into the real world of fitting in mechanical systems and structural systems. After we explained our project, he got up and with dramatic body language explained it again. But he was unhappy with our boards. To be fair, we didn't do a really good job of making it clear the linkages between our sections, elevations, renderings, and plans. But this project is really hard to document.

Seriously, the formal genesis of this project was modeling what happens to static-charged hair in 3D, none of the walls were straight, and most of them rose and fell off the landscape. We actually spent the first three sessions with our professor just trying to convey the building form. We got very high marks conceptually, (or at least I assume so) and probably so-so marks for our project itself. If I had to give our group a grade for the semester, I'd say a solid A- (especially after our fantastic Burj Dubai project). We'll see.

Before the presentations were over, I had to go immediately to my last urban books class.

Oh! I made a hardcover book! First in my life! It's kind of fun, actually.

Anyway, the urban book class was presenting the final books (although actually, none of them were in "final" form, although all of them were bound and worked pretty well as books). The instructors put out sparkling apple juice and some baked goodies for us to have a small party before looking at our books. That was kind of nice.

After books, I went straight home and took a 45 minute power nap before getting up, changing into nicer clothes and heading back to school. I met my community development group at 3 at the library to go over our presentation one last time in the hour before class.  The presentation itself was anticlimactic. Not that many students showed up, and neither did our actual clients. If I didn't speak that well, overall it went well, people responded really well to my renderings, plans, and video fly-through. I do admire the experience that the social work and business students have in getting up and speaking to groups. We talk in studio reviews, but its to a very specific audience with a very specific goal. So I think we'll be in pretty good shape for that class. Tonight I'll finish up my contributions to the paper and just get it the hell done so I can focus on studio the next four days.

If you noticed, dear reader, that I missed eating anything other than a few baked goodies today, so did my stomach, so I went to Chipotle after the presentation and gave it something to digest.