That's INTERN ARCHITECT Perkins, to you

I finally got to take a look at the presentation that my office presented to the ASU graduate students, and I actually was able to pull some of the photos from it. In no particular order:

The website photo of the office. Unfortuantely, some of the people in the photo (including the photographer) are no longer in the firm. However, I was bemused to realize afterwards that the principals tended to congregate at the back, and they pushed the young guns up to the front. 

Me and my coworker, Brad, who actually went to the ASU presentation. It seemed like a lot of the office photos were the two of us. I like these photos: they make me look semi-professional, like I'm some kind of hotshot designer. (I do actually get to do some design work, which is more than I can say for a lot of my peers, but 90% of the time, I'm doing other stuff than designing. But thats true of the profession in general).

Here's Alec again, working on a design charette (quick study) for an ASU residential community. I don't remember why I'm dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. I think I actually wore a sweater to work that day, and it happened to be really hot in the conference room. Anyway, of course the photo is relatively staged. Nobody can un-self-conscientiously present while people are snapping photos. 

I'm not sure why this photo was included. Maybe they were looking for something they could caption: "Collaboration" or "Teamwork" or "Empowering the design of young professionals." Or "Casual Day." I also like this photo since it looks like my desk (its not my desk really) has a huge stack of rolled drawings. It also looks like Brad isn't listening with his headphones on. 

Photos from Arcosanti

snapshots from the last month

new photo page

New Photos on Flickr

http://flickr.com/photos/desertcrow/?saved=1

weekly news highlights

Well, last weekend, Saori, I, Sal, and Joyce drove down to Rio Rico again to enjoy the weekend. Drove down friday night after grabbing a bite of Vietnamese, and got into Rio Rico around 10. It's almost 20 degrees cooler down there, believe it or not, so it is a nice bit of an escape for all of us. This trip, we spent Saturday mostly driving around and visiting old mining encampments in the hills close to the border, poking around old abandoned structures, and taking pictures. There's a small ghost town called Lochiel, literally on the border. Used to be an old international border, but its all fence now. Two countries in one neighborhood. One house is Mexican, the other, American, not 20' away, separated by just a steel car barrier and some fencing. I was surprised by how beautiful it was, rolling hills covered with tall grass, and patches of trees with old windmills and cattle. And in the distance, the INS blimp which tracks people on foot trying to cross the valley.

It's been a busier week at work, we ran into some fire protection issues when we realized that the town in which we were building had ammendments that halved the allowable distance that a fire hose could be used, since apparently their fire fighters can't lug hoses over 100' long up stairs. That caused us no small consternation considering the fact the city refused to give us an exemption or appeal, and that it appeared that we would have to introduce not one but two more stairs, at added expense and would also seriously undermine the floorplans we had laid out. However, we are very close now to a good solution.

This morning I went out to a job site where my cubicle neighbor designed an addition for a public high school. The addition was about six or seven new large classrooms, plus a set of bathrooms. School design is facinating, since the design is so severely constrained by the two factors of cost and durability/vandalism resistance. My coworker is maybe one to two years more experienced than I am now, and he basically worked the entire project from design to construction administration. The result is great, spaces filled with light and color while still constrained to the inherent guidelines of the project and district. I am actually very jealous, not only in his ability as an architect, but his assertiveness to essentially take command of the project through all phases, with no prior buildings to his name, and also the autonomy he was given in the design. I put some photos up on my flickr site.

The other thing I like about Flickr is its geotagging ability, so if you visit my Flickr page, you can click on my map and find an interactive map of where I'm shooting these photos.

Que mas? Today I visited Tay and mom. We hit Havana Cafe for tapas around 2, and then played some games at home before tay went off to grab a nap before work tongiht. Night shift hours may agree with Tay, but I am not a night owl by any stretch of the word.

New Photo website

I've decided to switch over to Flickr for my photo hosting, since they run a much cleaner, easier operation. The downside, of course, is that they don't seem to allow me to run slideshows in my blog or add posted items to Facebook. But thats ok. Check out my photos now and in the future at http://www.flickr.com/photos/desertcrow/

photos with my new old camera

Analog

Photo Surprise

Today, I got my second birthday present from Saori. The first gift, if I forgot to mention, was tickets to the band Muse, live in concert later this month. This by itself was a really cool gift, but I guess she liked the Jan Svankmajer DVD enough to want to get me something else too. She got me one of the 'lomo' cameras, inexpensive but decent cameras for art photography. Mine allows me to actually rewind the film to take photos over existing photos, so you get this really cool and unpredictable layering effect with multiple exposures.

Tomorrow, we will either gain the project entirely, or lose it. I'd say its a 50/50 split.

And finally, some digital photos!



New Stuff

Performance Review and Design Forum

I forgot to mention, last week, I presented my studio "thesis" project at work during the official "Design Forum" they have every month. Basically, during lunch a person presents a place they went, a project they worked on, or something else related to them, completely optional. I took all my work and over two nights compiled it into a powerpoint presentation, which was actually the ideal format for this project, since it was best described by the flythroughs, animations, and videos I took. Most of the firm came down to see it, and it was pretty well recieved. I think I impressed the principals, at least they commended me on my presentation ability. So that was that.

This week, I had my performance review meeting, which wasn't nearly as official as I'd been expecting. I met with two principals I'd worked under, and we talked very informally about my goals, where I ultimately want to end up, how I felt I was doing, and if I needed anything or had any comments or suggestions. Went pretty well, they said they were glad to have me, and they really appreciated my abilities with sketchup.

Work is work, pretty normal. Tuesday, Saori and I met Chase and Tovah at the Phoenix art museum. Tuesday nights are extended until 9 PM and its free all day. After walking around the musuem, we had a big Chinese feast in Tempe. The next day, I met the pair again at the Heard Museum for lunch. The Heard has a really nice small cafe off the main patio, a little effeminine in touch but really good food. I got two hand made tamales with an ancho chili and hominy cream sauce. They went back to Colorado that night.

Here are some photos of my life and where I live


My Public Shoebox

Photo update

Added more photos from my adventues over the last week, including relaxing at the cafe, studio at night, hiking south mountain, and wandering around Tempe Arts Festival. Click the photo to go to the full album.

Photos

Here are some photos I took for my sketching class, combined with a trip to Tucson and miscilaneous of Phoenix. Here's a new slideshow feature I've not tried yet, so we'll see how it works:



My New Old Life

Daily Dose of Photos

by archalec

Here's link to seven shots I took today, including two of how our architecture studio project is shaping up. Follow the thumbnail above to jump to my album. Gorgeous clouds this evening.

Today I finally bought a pair of shorts and a pair of linen pants for the heat and humidity creeping upon Buenos Aires. I'm still looking for the striped blue linen pants popular here.

Tonight will be a late night with a powerpoint presentation due tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM.