Check out our baby Dumbo at Fiesta Mall. It will be up until next Saturday night.
Feb 22, 2010
Feb 17, 2010
Feb 4, 2010
Geneva, Lausanne, Jungfrau
Yesterday, Saori and I got up early and took the train to Geneva. Our Swiss Pass is only worth using if I'm spending more than $60 a day to get around, so we just bought tickets at the train station at the bottom of the hill and hopped aboard. The train to Geneva from Laussane takes about 40 minutes. On the train, with all the commuters in their black coats, I read about the city cathedral, St. Pierre. It sounded cool so when we left the station, we wandered over in that direction without worrying about what streets we were taking.
We followed our noses across the river to the narrow, winding steets of old town Geneva, up the hill and through tiny cobblestone passages to the church square. The church was nice- for the tourist, a pretty standard European Old Cathedral in the Middle of the City. We went up to the top of the towers, which had some really nice views of Geneva from above, and the old construction was fun to see too.
Unusually, this cathedral had its floors torn up for a major renovation and excavation, and when the floors were replaced, the excavation was saved and opened to the public. Accessible from a side stairway, you head underground and wander around the space below the floor. Huge and complex, the site walks you through the various buildings built on the site of the church from millenia ago. Apparently, around 50 BC when Geneva was a small collection of huts, a famous tribal chieftain was buried on the hill. Over the centuries that followed, his grave monument became more and more elaborate and permantnly built. During the Pax Romana, the Romans developed the town around the monument, and when the early Christians came, they built a small cult of relics church on the same site. Centuries of redevelopment and expansion later, the Cathedral took its final form around 1100 AD. John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Protestant reformation, was based in this cathedral and Geneva became the "Protestant Rome."
So anyway, by the time we were that deep in history, it was getting on in the day so we headed back to Lausanne, where we had lunch and then walked over to the Brut gallery, which is a notable museum as it houses artworks by psychotics, criminals, and psychic mediums. Unfortunately it was closed, so we just walked down to the lakeside at lake Geneva.
Today, we got up even earlier and jumped a train to Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe at above 11,000 feet. This took awhile. We took a train from Laussane to Bern, Bern to Interlaken, walked through Interlaken to get to the other Interlaken station, to Lauterbrunnen, to a ski resort on the mountain, and finally to another small train. The last two trains were really mountain trains, with a cog drive and a toothed track, as we were heading up very very steep slopes. It took us about five hours each way.
Jungfraujoch was very much worth it. Amazing views from "the top of Europe". Although it was bitterly cold with windchill, it was a clear and sunny day. We had lunch up there, wandered around, saw the ice palace, and took the trains back to Lausanne. Long day of riding trains.
We followed our noses across the river to the narrow, winding steets of old town Geneva, up the hill and through tiny cobblestone passages to the church square. The church was nice- for the tourist, a pretty standard European Old Cathedral in the Middle of the City. We went up to the top of the towers, which had some really nice views of Geneva from above, and the old construction was fun to see too.
Unusually, this cathedral had its floors torn up for a major renovation and excavation, and when the floors were replaced, the excavation was saved and opened to the public. Accessible from a side stairway, you head underground and wander around the space below the floor. Huge and complex, the site walks you through the various buildings built on the site of the church from millenia ago. Apparently, around 50 BC when Geneva was a small collection of huts, a famous tribal chieftain was buried on the hill. Over the centuries that followed, his grave monument became more and more elaborate and permantnly built. During the Pax Romana, the Romans developed the town around the monument, and when the early Christians came, they built a small cult of relics church on the same site. Centuries of redevelopment and expansion later, the Cathedral took its final form around 1100 AD. John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Protestant reformation, was based in this cathedral and Geneva became the "Protestant Rome."
So anyway, by the time we were that deep in history, it was getting on in the day so we headed back to Lausanne, where we had lunch and then walked over to the Brut gallery, which is a notable museum as it houses artworks by psychotics, criminals, and psychic mediums. Unfortunately it was closed, so we just walked down to the lakeside at lake Geneva.
Today, we got up even earlier and jumped a train to Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe at above 11,000 feet. This took awhile. We took a train from Laussane to Bern, Bern to Interlaken, walked through Interlaken to get to the other Interlaken station, to Lauterbrunnen, to a ski resort on the mountain, and finally to another small train. The last two trains were really mountain trains, with a cog drive and a toothed track, as we were heading up very very steep slopes. It took us about five hours each way.
Jungfraujoch was very much worth it. Amazing views from "the top of Europe". Although it was bitterly cold with windchill, it was a clear and sunny day. We had lunch up there, wandered around, saw the ice palace, and took the trains back to Lausanne. Long day of riding trains.
Feb 2, 2010
The Long Road to Lausanne
So far, this has been one of the smoothest international travels I've done.
One of my biggest concerns about getting to Switzerland was how Saori was going to fare. If, dear reader, you recall that Saori works saturday from 6 am to 10 pm saturday AND sunday, you can begin to understand the challenge of undertaking an international journey at 6 Am monday morning. Needless to say with the packing, Saori and I got less than three hours of sleep sunday night.
We caught a cab outside our apartment at 6 am, and somehow, we checked in and cleared TSA security before 6:30. So we lingered at the table inside terminal two, enjoying our bagel breakfast. It's been a long time since I was in there- its really a shame such a midcentruy modern classic airport terminal had to be sliced up and partitioned like it was. It's really disgusting to think about all the extra crap that's been shoved in there in since it was built in the early 50s. At any rate, our flight to Washington DC was not full and Saori was able to sleep a little bit on the 4 hour flight over.
In what sounded to me like "Washington Dullest Airport" we ate greasy subs and wandered over to our gate. We had about three hours of layover, so we changed some money to CHF, grabbed coffee, and played cards until it was time to board. Our flight less than 3/4 full, which was really nice since it allowed Saori and I to switch off sleeping laying full out on a row of 3 empty seats.
I dont know if its a recent thing, but United seems to have really amped up thier customer service. It was like going to a nice buisness hotel. Impersonal, but professional, polite, and accomodating. They still made you buy food on the flight to DC, but they were nice about it. I've been on flights where they pretty much whip the peanuts at your head and the stewardesses are engaging in a secret contest to win the coveted "most disgrunted employee" award.
The flight was less than 8 hours long, which in my book is the longest you ever really want to spend on a plane, and we landed in the early morning here in Geneva. Dad met us at the airport and we hopped on a local train to Lausanne.
Names here are confusing. Lausanne is pronounced like "luz ahn" and Luzan is pronounced like "Lucern". It doesn't help that every city in Switzerland has three different pronounciations, depending on the language being spoken.
The city is similar to other European cities I've been to- dense urban fabric, that European city smell of fumes and old cobblestone, centuries old buildings mixed in with euromodern glass and steel, pedestrians all in black, corner pharmacies with green neon crosses. One thing that sets Lausanne apart is its topography- its a city on a generous slope down to Lake Geneve, so the streets and buildings wind thier way uphill. The older architecture too, has a distinctive blend of Swiss, French, and Germanic Gothic.
One of my biggest concerns about getting to Switzerland was how Saori was going to fare. If, dear reader, you recall that Saori works saturday from 6 am to 10 pm saturday AND sunday, you can begin to understand the challenge of undertaking an international journey at 6 Am monday morning. Needless to say with the packing, Saori and I got less than three hours of sleep sunday night.
We caught a cab outside our apartment at 6 am, and somehow, we checked in and cleared TSA security before 6:30. So we lingered at the table inside terminal two, enjoying our bagel breakfast. It's been a long time since I was in there- its really a shame such a midcentruy modern classic airport terminal had to be sliced up and partitioned like it was. It's really disgusting to think about all the extra crap that's been shoved in there in since it was built in the early 50s. At any rate, our flight to Washington DC was not full and Saori was able to sleep a little bit on the 4 hour flight over.
In what sounded to me like "Washington Dullest Airport" we ate greasy subs and wandered over to our gate. We had about three hours of layover, so we changed some money to CHF, grabbed coffee, and played cards until it was time to board. Our flight less than 3/4 full, which was really nice since it allowed Saori and I to switch off sleeping laying full out on a row of 3 empty seats.
I dont know if its a recent thing, but United seems to have really amped up thier customer service. It was like going to a nice buisness hotel. Impersonal, but professional, polite, and accomodating. They still made you buy food on the flight to DC, but they were nice about it. I've been on flights where they pretty much whip the peanuts at your head and the stewardesses are engaging in a secret contest to win the coveted "most disgrunted employee" award.
The flight was less than 8 hours long, which in my book is the longest you ever really want to spend on a plane, and we landed in the early morning here in Geneva. Dad met us at the airport and we hopped on a local train to Lausanne.
Names here are confusing. Lausanne is pronounced like "luz ahn" and Luzan is pronounced like "Lucern". It doesn't help that every city in Switzerland has three different pronounciations, depending on the language being spoken.
The city is similar to other European cities I've been to- dense urban fabric, that European city smell of fumes and old cobblestone, centuries old buildings mixed in with euromodern glass and steel, pedestrians all in black, corner pharmacies with green neon crosses. One thing that sets Lausanne apart is its topography- its a city on a generous slope down to Lake Geneve, so the streets and buildings wind thier way uphill. The older architecture too, has a distinctive blend of Swiss, French, and Germanic Gothic.
Jan 20, 2010
My Speech for the Future Cities panel discussion
First, I am honored to be sitting on this panel with such admirable and influential members of the community, so thank you for having me. With my relatively short time in the profession, I cannot claim to speak for the entire architectural community, especially as there are many different perceptions of what makes sustainable design. I'm going to speak more from my own experiences in working and traveling, and what I've learned from others.
In talking about materials and the sustainable cities of the future, I'd like to briefly speak about the relationship between materials and building as a whole, the power of the three Rs, and lastly, on the culture of sustainable design.
If the search for sustainability has taught us anything, it the relatedness and interconnectedness of all aspects of a building. It's very difficult to look at sustainable materials by themselves because they are part of a much larger system, from the site hydrology and microclimate to the design, structure, and building systems. Sustainable materials are only as sustainable as the system they are a part of. For example, rammed earth is a really cool material, especially in the summertime, but it needs to be carefully designed working closely with the structural and civil engineer, because as a material it is extremely sensitive to settling. If a neighbor is growing bamboo next door, there's a possibility the irrigation water could cause the dirt to swell and crack the walls open.
That sustainable design is holistic is particularly exciting to me, since knowing a little bit about a lot is one of things I really enjoy about architecture. To have a holistic building, you need to have everyone on the design team, including the client and the contractor, working together at the same time. Building Information Modeling, or BIM, is helping make some of this possible, where the different members of the design team can quickly react to each others changes.This facilitates experimentation to find the ideal sustainable design. This also suggests that the role of the sustainable architect is shifting from project coordinator to project collaborator.
I'm sure everyone here has heard of the three Rs- Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Individually, they are good ideas for pursuing sustainability. But if you look at them as a hierarchy, the three Rs become a much more powerful guide to sustainable design.
Let's take printer paper as an example. At our architecture office, we go through tons of the stuff. Over the years we have switched over to recycled paper, using higher percentages of recycled content until today, we are using paper that is 100% recycled, and we recycle nearly all of it. And thats great! But, recycling paper takes material and energy. You have to transport it, process it, and transform it into new paper to be sold and transported back to our office. Or (flip paper over), I can just use the back side of it.
This is why reuse is stronger than recycle. The back of this sheet is just as blank as recycled paper, but without the energy costs. But it still takes paper to begin with.
The only thing better than reusing paper is using less paper, or not using paper at all. Do you need to print that email or website? Can we send PDFs instead of big rolls of paper drawings? For every sheet you don't use, there's all the energy and environmental impact that is avoided. That's why reduce is the strongest R of all, and results in the greatest savings of material and energy. Now, what if this sheet of paper were a building?
Reduce is the easiest concept, most difficult to do. Take a big step back and ask, does this need to be a hermetically sealed, enclosed, air conditioned space? How much architecture and engineering does a place really need to satisfy its function? In Phoenix especially, where we have fantastic weather, simply using shade, fans, and lighter weight clothing, we can comfortably use our indoor-outdoor spaces most of the year. This is a photo from Richard and Bauer's ISTB building at ASU, where the common spaces and corridors between the various labs and offices are actually outdoor spaces. Shade, outdoor fans, and water evaporation cool the space enough to make it a pleasant place to be even in the middle of the summer.
Reducing architecture takes flexibility from the owners and a lot of creativity from the design team. But as everything is connected, you have to look at the implications of reduction. Instead of reading off a sheet of paper, I could be using a laptop computer. But how sustainable is that laptop? How many sheets of paper is it worth?
Reuse is a little easier. People reuse buildings all the time- its a lot cheaper to retrofit and renovate an existing building than to start from scratch. It's not always easier, which is why most buildings get reused with the same function- houses become houses, offices become offices, and restaurants are replaced by restaurants. However, there are cases where what a building needs to do and what the existing building is are very different. In these moments, the architect has a real challenge and a real opportunity to shine. Demolishing a building produces a lot of waste, and then there is the additional drain of resources and energy in creating a new building. If he or she can keep the existing building, its a huge conservation of material, time, and energy. This building is was a historic mansion in Sao Paolo Brazil, that was converted to a museum of modern art. Not only does the building adapt well to its the new function, but the historic design of the original brick walls are also part of the artwork.
How we reuse buildings is vital to our future cities: the majority of buildings you see today will be around and in use in the year 2050. Another way of looking at that- we will need to meet the needs of a larger society in whatever climatic, energy, or material challenges may come using the buildings we have today. Reuse raises some interesting questions- when is it more sustainable to use more durable materials instead of rapidly renewable ones? I think this is a huge question because it involves expected lifespans of a buildings and communities, predictions on how the use will change over time, and the environmental costs of production compared to the cost of recycling and rebuilding. Is it more sustainable to build a house of bricks or to build and rebuild a house of straw?
When it comes to recycling, I look for minimal processing. What materials take the least amount of energy to make them usable again. The best example I can think of is Christie Tenyke's spiral at Steele Indian School Park, where old concrete slabs were simply broken up and stacked to create landscape retaining walls. There's even a name for the material- urbanite.
There are many products now on the market that claim to have significant portions of recycled content. Usually they are more expensive, which makes me think, what additional energy and material is being spent to make them recycled? What are the environmental costs to recycle this material compared to using virgin material? An example of a good recycled material is steel; in fact, most of the steel used in building frames is recycled. Its relatively easy to recycle and it feeds right back into the production process.
I would last like to touch on the responsibility the architect has in promoting sustainable culture. Architecture is a reflection of culture, but it flows both ways- the design of this library is partially a reflection of the city of Phoenix, but simultaneously shapes the city. Similarly, the pink stucco suburbs define the valley as much as they are defined by the valley. Architects can specify LED lighting and waterless urinals to force users to use less energy and water, and its a good place to start. However, I believe that true sustainability with a fundamental return to the three Rs, is going to take a a cultural revolution on an individual level, and the combined collaboration of the people who define the city.
Jan 10, 2010
Well, we're winding down the application process with only one more application to go. To be honest, I'm glad there's only one left, because now I'm lost that great momentum that pushed us through so many applications, essays, and portfolios. Basically, its down to finsihing the application form and a 300 word statement of purpose for Washington University. Shorter essays are harder since I need to convey my professional goals, academic interests, and why Wash U in particular would be a good fit for me. I've got a lot written so far, but I may go back to scratch to write this one, or at least the first draft and just pull in elements from other histories and statements.
A reader asked why I had bad experiences with the expanded LEED program. I'll explain. LEED is run by GBCI, or the Green Build Credentialling Institute. LEED standards and requirements change over time, ostensibly to keep abrest of the cutting edge green methodologies, data, and materials, but often times it feels like a Microsoft operating system release: In consistant need of upgrades. When LEED was first launched, from what I have heard from the earliest adapters, the test to become LEED accredited was laughably easy and relatively cheap. It's not the only green standard out there, and I have a sneaking suspicion that this move was simply to get people on board as quickly and massively as possible. Remember betamax? Anyway, maybe its an unfair comparison.
At any rate, over time, the test became harder, more expensive, and it became harder to make LEED certified buildings. Up until last year, to become LEED accredited, all one had to do was to pay $300 and pass a test. The test, if you remember my test preparation, dear reader, was a doosy. Not comperable to an ARE, but still a real tiresome bitch to pass since it involved the memorization of a lot of data and figures which had no purpose being memorized.
Today, to become LEED accredited, you have to pay a few hundred to take an easier test, and then pay another few hundred to take a harder test. That's the change from LEED AP to LEED AP+. Then, to keep your title, you have to pay a biannual fee of $50, which turns out to be small change in comparison to your "credentialling maintainence" hours. Essentially, one is required to spend a number of hours every two years, in perscribed areas of sustainable design and ONLY in officially designated ways. The credentialing maintenence program has been compared to AIA's. Except without the benefit. Understand, the ONLY two benefits of becoming a LEED AP+ is 1) you can get your project an extra point towards LEED and you can put the additional letters on your title. That's it. One point, and the buisiness card recognition that you spent about a hundred hours and a several hundred dollars.
I dont like the direction LEED is taking. Cradle to Cradle is a neat idea, but the founder, who didn't even invent the phrase, whose namesake book was ghostwritten, strikes me a profiteering charlatan, and LEED v3 awards several points for the use of Cradle to cradle "certified" products. You pay for a certificate which involves paying for other certificates. How thick does the shit have to stack before it begins to smell?
The GBC deliberately overstaturated the market with LEED APs. How can they make money if everyone is astar bellied sneech LEED AP? You make a platnum card. LEED v3. LEED AP BD+C. No one but no one is going to get it. It's a collossal, expensive, pain in the ass designation with minimal payback or benefit.
Am I going for it? Yes. I owe it to my company who paid for my orignal LEED test, who sent me to greenbuild (guess who you pay to go to greenbuild?) which really made it even possible for me to get the accrediation with the hours I racked up at greenbuild. My collegue Brad isn't going to go for it, even though he created classes in passing the LEED test at work. Without somehow paying money to the GBCI, its impossible for him to get the number of hours. Is it a load of crap? Mostly. Are there alternatives to LEED? Yes! I'm not against green and sustainable design, I'm against companies whose stated priority is green, but actual priority is the other kind of green.
A reader asked why I had bad experiences with the expanded LEED program. I'll explain. LEED is run by GBCI, or the Green Build Credentialling Institute. LEED standards and requirements change over time, ostensibly to keep abrest of the cutting edge green methodologies, data, and materials, but often times it feels like a Microsoft operating system release: In consistant need of upgrades. When LEED was first launched, from what I have heard from the earliest adapters, the test to become LEED accredited was laughably easy and relatively cheap. It's not the only green standard out there, and I have a sneaking suspicion that this move was simply to get people on board as quickly and massively as possible. Remember betamax? Anyway, maybe its an unfair comparison.
At any rate, over time, the test became harder, more expensive, and it became harder to make LEED certified buildings. Up until last year, to become LEED accredited, all one had to do was to pay $300 and pass a test. The test, if you remember my test preparation, dear reader, was a doosy. Not comperable to an ARE, but still a real tiresome bitch to pass since it involved the memorization of a lot of data and figures which had no purpose being memorized.
Today, to become LEED accredited, you have to pay a few hundred to take an easier test, and then pay another few hundred to take a harder test. That's the change from LEED AP to LEED AP+. Then, to keep your title, you have to pay a biannual fee of $50, which turns out to be small change in comparison to your "credentialling maintainence" hours. Essentially, one is required to spend a number of hours every two years, in perscribed areas of sustainable design and ONLY in officially designated ways. The credentialing maintenence program has been compared to AIA's. Except without the benefit. Understand, the ONLY two benefits of becoming a LEED AP+ is 1) you can get your project an extra point towards LEED and you can put the additional letters on your title. That's it. One point, and the buisiness card recognition that you spent about a hundred hours and a several hundred dollars.
I dont like the direction LEED is taking. Cradle to Cradle is a neat idea, but the founder, who didn't even invent the phrase, whose namesake book was ghostwritten, strikes me a profiteering charlatan, and LEED v3 awards several points for the use of Cradle to cradle "certified" products. You pay for a certificate which involves paying for other certificates. How thick does the shit have to stack before it begins to smell?
The GBC deliberately overstaturated the market with LEED APs. How can they make money if everyone is a
Am I going for it? Yes. I owe it to my company who paid for my orignal LEED test, who sent me to greenbuild (guess who you pay to go to greenbuild?) which really made it even possible for me to get the accrediation with the hours I racked up at greenbuild. My collegue Brad isn't going to go for it, even though he created classes in passing the LEED test at work. Without somehow paying money to the GBCI, its impossible for him to get the number of hours. Is it a load of crap? Mostly. Are there alternatives to LEED? Yes! I'm not against green and sustainable design, I'm against companies whose stated priority is green, but actual priority is the other kind of green.
Jan 1, 2010
2009 was not one of the best years of my life, but considering how uncannily, unbelievably fortunate I have been for my entire life, this isn't saying much. 2009 was still a very good year:
I stayed employed at a good job, doing the things I was educated and trained to do.
I got my act together and applied to five graduate schools- University of Utah, UC Berkeley, Rice, Washington University in St. Louis, and Yale.
I became LEED accredited and transitioned to the LEED AP BD+C bullshit credential.
I began my IDP internship program.
I had another wonderful year of living with Saori.
I learned the basics of acoustic guitar.
I watched the first building I've ever really helped design start construction.
I saw StarWars in Concert, and took Saori to Disneyland.
We took some road trips.
I had a lot of good time with family.
It was not a monumental year- we lived in the same place, doing more or less the same things, but it was still a good year.
I stayed employed at a good job, doing the things I was educated and trained to do.
I got my act together and applied to five graduate schools- University of Utah, UC Berkeley, Rice, Washington University in St. Louis, and Yale.
I became LEED accredited and transitioned to the LEED AP BD+C bullshit credential.
I began my IDP internship program.
I had another wonderful year of living with Saori.
I learned the basics of acoustic guitar.
I watched the first building I've ever really helped design start construction.
I saw StarWars in Concert, and took Saori to Disneyland.
We took some road trips.
I had a lot of good time with family.
It was not a monumental year- we lived in the same place, doing more or less the same things, but it was still a good year.
Dec 22, 2009
Graduate School
As some of you may be aware, Saori and I are applying to graduate schools to finish our academic education in architecture. It's been a long time coming. Last year, I began the application process, originally intending to apply for fall 2009. That fell through, in part over my internal conflict as to what type of school to apply to, in part because I started late enough in the year that I told myself that I didn't have enough time to put together a good enough application package.
Speaking of which, there's a lot of components, and while there is some overlap in what college require, most of them have unique and specific applicaiton parts. Mom was telling me about her experience with applying to Law School was a lot more simple. You signed up on a central clearinghouse for law school applications, and filled out a form, and the system took care of the rest. WIth architecture, these are the standard application materials:
GRE scores- some schools impose a minimum, other schools are more lax about it. Some schools don't even require it.
Transcripts- most schools require official copies to be sent directly to them from the undergraduate university. Berkeley required you send a copy AND also to scan and upload an official copy.
Portfolio- this one is the standard. Every architecture graduate school requires a portfolio of work, and only one school I'm applying to has a digital submission. Every other school requires you have your portfolio printed and bound, and shipped direct. Length seems to vary widely. I started with around 30 pages and whittled it down to 25 including a table of contents/coversheet. Some I've seen online had as many as 60 pages, and some fewer than ten. I tried to keep the page count down to showcase the best projects while also showing a wide range of project types, scale, and representations.
Application- Most schools have switched over to online forms. These vary in complexity and depth. Berkeley's is a nightmare to figure out as theres no linear progression from page to page, and the applicaiton menu lists additional items and forms not required by the application. It takes many visits just to understand the layout and what to complete. Yale School of Architecture was incredibly simple and straightforward. Utah's application asks for your drivers licence and where your parents live. Most of the applications ask about work and educational history, ethnicity, grade reports, etc. Actually, I was surprised how often forms asked for information reported on standard forms you have to send in anyway, like official transcripts and GRE scores.
Statement of Purpose- This one is tricky. Every school wants to hear about your personal background, and your academic and professional interests. Sometimes they ask for three letters to express this, sometimes one or two, so it takes some carefull disection and stitching to get the essays ready to go. According to one academian, reviewers only look at the first paragraph anyway. By the "first paragraph" standard, I think I've got a pretty good short paper.
Speaking of which, there's a lot of components, and while there is some overlap in what college require, most of them have unique and specific applicaiton parts. Mom was telling me about her experience with applying to Law School was a lot more simple. You signed up on a central clearinghouse for law school applications, and filled out a form, and the system took care of the rest. WIth architecture, these are the standard application materials:
GRE scores- some schools impose a minimum, other schools are more lax about it. Some schools don't even require it.
Transcripts- most schools require official copies to be sent directly to them from the undergraduate university. Berkeley required you send a copy AND also to scan and upload an official copy.
Portfolio- this one is the standard. Every architecture graduate school requires a portfolio of work, and only one school I'm applying to has a digital submission. Every other school requires you have your portfolio printed and bound, and shipped direct. Length seems to vary widely. I started with around 30 pages and whittled it down to 25 including a table of contents/coversheet. Some I've seen online had as many as 60 pages, and some fewer than ten. I tried to keep the page count down to showcase the best projects while also showing a wide range of project types, scale, and representations.
Application- Most schools have switched over to online forms. These vary in complexity and depth. Berkeley's is a nightmare to figure out as theres no linear progression from page to page, and the applicaiton menu lists additional items and forms not required by the application. It takes many visits just to understand the layout and what to complete. Yale School of Architecture was incredibly simple and straightforward. Utah's application asks for your drivers licence and where your parents live. Most of the applications ask about work and educational history, ethnicity, grade reports, etc. Actually, I was surprised how often forms asked for information reported on standard forms you have to send in anyway, like official transcripts and GRE scores.
Statement of Purpose- This one is tricky. Every school wants to hear about your personal background, and your academic and professional interests. Sometimes they ask for three letters to express this, sometimes one or two, so it takes some carefull disection and stitching to get the essays ready to go. According to one academian, reviewers only look at the first paragraph anyway. By the "first paragraph" standard, I think I've got a pretty good short paper.
Oct 14, 2009
a night in jail
This blog post is posted out of sequence- it was actually written on Janurary 10th of 2014.
One night sitting with dad and Tay in his house in Houston a few weeks back, he told us this remarkable story about being jailed in the UAE.
He was living in Switzerland and making occasional business trips to the middle east in his position as a manager for Honeywell. One day, after a long flight into Dubai, he was passing through customs and immigration.
"Larry Perkins?"
Yes.
"You lived here on [such and such date]?"
Yes, that sounds about right.
"Come with me, please."
The customs officer led him to a secondary screening room where he had to surrender his passport and was held for several hours. Occasionally, various officers would come out, ask him a question or two, and refuse to answer any of his questions.
Finally, two police officers arrived, and formally arrested him without stating the charges. He was taken from the airport to the Dubai jail without an inkling of what he had done to incur the wrath of the middle eastern state.
He did however, have his cell phone, and through various calls to his office while waiting in different holding rooms, began to piece together what happened.
My father had continued to live in Abu Dhabi for a few months after he and my mother divorced. They had been living in an unbelievably huge 15th floor apartment with 14' ceilings, marble floors, and probably around 4000 square feet of living space including a maid's room. The rent on this place was astronomical, but it was heavily subsidized by Honeywell.
Dad moved to Switzerland with a few months still left on the official lease. The company had moved him to his new position, and dad had given responsibility of the apartment over to the Abu Dhabi office, so he thought that they would take care of the apartment. Actually, Honeywell stopped paying the rent on the apartment, either through a deliberate cost-cutting measure or sheer negligence.
The unpaid rent accumulated and the landlord attempted to collect from whoever it could to no avail, so the landlord sold the debt. The landlord sold the debt the UAE police, who apparently supplement their department's income as debt collectors. Besides, who you gonna call? Dad comes back to town, his name is flagged a criminal debtor in the government system, and they arrest him.
In Dubai, dad's thrown in the giant holding cell with all the other recently arrested people in Dubai. Apparently its a representational demographic: there's lots of foreigners and a few national Emirati. The other people in the cell try to help him, giving him advice on meals and where to sleep and how the system of the jail works.
In the course of his work, dad works with a lot of highly placed Emiratis. Honeywell gets in touch with him: don't pull those strings, he's warned. The company is in the middle of a very high-level, high-stakes business negotiation, and it could get awkward if dad starts trying to work on some officials to get him out of jail. Just hush and don't make a fuss, they tell him.
Dad convinces his jailors that some huge mistake has been made. They move him from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, and he is given a somewhat nicer jail cell. In Abu Dhabi, he meets with one of the jail negotiators. Just pay up 20,000 dihrams, he is told, and we'll consider the debt paid and let you go. In cash.
Dad's not in the habit of carrying large sums of money in cash and his carry-on isn't stuffed with the six grand. He calls up some other associates and friends in Abu Dhabi and they pool their resources to come up with the cash. That afternoon, the jailor comes back to dad, and says, Ok, you're paid, you can go, and dad walks free.
The Honeywell did eventually reimburse everyone for the money they'd raised to get dad out of jail. The purpose of business, after all, is business. If you have to burn a few people along the way, so be it. Dad was laid off a few years later, and had to fight hard to get Honeywell to move him back to US and not just abandon him in Europe like an old paperback.
It is also a reminder of some of the privileges we enjoy as Americans, and a reminder that the vast majority of the world still languishes under draconian, autocratic, and arbitrary judicial systems. I have been to the UAE several times and I see no reason to ever return.
One night sitting with dad and Tay in his house in Houston a few weeks back, he told us this remarkable story about being jailed in the UAE.
He was living in Switzerland and making occasional business trips to the middle east in his position as a manager for Honeywell. One day, after a long flight into Dubai, he was passing through customs and immigration.
"Larry Perkins?"
Yes.
"You lived here on [such and such date]?"
Yes, that sounds about right.
"Come with me, please."
The customs officer led him to a secondary screening room where he had to surrender his passport and was held for several hours. Occasionally, various officers would come out, ask him a question or two, and refuse to answer any of his questions.
Finally, two police officers arrived, and formally arrested him without stating the charges. He was taken from the airport to the Dubai jail without an inkling of what he had done to incur the wrath of the middle eastern state.
He did however, have his cell phone, and through various calls to his office while waiting in different holding rooms, began to piece together what happened.
My father had continued to live in Abu Dhabi for a few months after he and my mother divorced. They had been living in an unbelievably huge 15th floor apartment with 14' ceilings, marble floors, and probably around 4000 square feet of living space including a maid's room. The rent on this place was astronomical, but it was heavily subsidized by Honeywell.
Dad moved to Switzerland with a few months still left on the official lease. The company had moved him to his new position, and dad had given responsibility of the apartment over to the Abu Dhabi office, so he thought that they would take care of the apartment. Actually, Honeywell stopped paying the rent on the apartment, either through a deliberate cost-cutting measure or sheer negligence.
The unpaid rent accumulated and the landlord attempted to collect from whoever it could to no avail, so the landlord sold the debt. The landlord sold the debt the UAE police, who apparently supplement their department's income as debt collectors. Besides, who you gonna call? Dad comes back to town, his name is flagged a criminal debtor in the government system, and they arrest him.
In Dubai, dad's thrown in the giant holding cell with all the other recently arrested people in Dubai. Apparently its a representational demographic: there's lots of foreigners and a few national Emirati. The other people in the cell try to help him, giving him advice on meals and where to sleep and how the system of the jail works.
In the course of his work, dad works with a lot of highly placed Emiratis. Honeywell gets in touch with him: don't pull those strings, he's warned. The company is in the middle of a very high-level, high-stakes business negotiation, and it could get awkward if dad starts trying to work on some officials to get him out of jail. Just hush and don't make a fuss, they tell him.
Dad convinces his jailors that some huge mistake has been made. They move him from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, and he is given a somewhat nicer jail cell. In Abu Dhabi, he meets with one of the jail negotiators. Just pay up 20,000 dihrams, he is told, and we'll consider the debt paid and let you go. In cash.
Dad's not in the habit of carrying large sums of money in cash and his carry-on isn't stuffed with the six grand. He calls up some other associates and friends in Abu Dhabi and they pool their resources to come up with the cash. That afternoon, the jailor comes back to dad, and says, Ok, you're paid, you can go, and dad walks free.
The Honeywell did eventually reimburse everyone for the money they'd raised to get dad out of jail. The purpose of business, after all, is business. If you have to burn a few people along the way, so be it. Dad was laid off a few years later, and had to fight hard to get Honeywell to move him back to US and not just abandon him in Europe like an old paperback.
It is also a reminder of some of the privileges we enjoy as Americans, and a reminder that the vast majority of the world still languishes under draconian, autocratic, and arbitrary judicial systems. I have been to the UAE several times and I see no reason to ever return.
Sep 16, 2009
Sep 3, 2009
Worst Case Scenario
I recently read a paper published by the World Wildlife Fund, which discussed the current status and direction of the "green" movement. It was really disturbing. Basically, it said that the current approach of marketers of "small steps," like swapping out your incandescents for compact florescents, effectively adds up to not much.
1) Because most people will only go "green" if it doesn't inconvenience them too much
2) The small steps rarely progress to larger steps
3) There's a rebound effect, e.g. people leave thier lights on all the time since the bulb uses less energy. Or people buying more and disposing of more recycled products than they would have with non-recycled products
Fundamentally, the kinds of change that people are going to need to make in their lifestyles if there is to be any attempt at combat climate change, or to react to the collapse of life as we currently enjoy it, is so radical that we need a different mindset other than consumerism. We can't buy green ourselves out of this mess.
1) Because most people will only go "green" if it doesn't inconvenience them too much
2) The small steps rarely progress to larger steps
3) There's a rebound effect, e.g. people leave thier lights on all the time since the bulb uses less energy. Or people buying more and disposing of more recycled products than they would have with non-recycled products
Fundamentally, the kinds of change that people are going to need to make in their lifestyles if there is to be any attempt at combat climate change, or to react to the collapse of life as we currently enjoy it, is so radical that we need a different mindset other than consumerism. We can't buy green ourselves out of this mess.
Aug 27, 2009
Hives, Guitars, Saori, Canalscape
Let's see.... what's been going on lately....
Hives: I had an odd outbreak of hives about two weeks ago. I'd never had hives before, so I had no idea what was wrong with me. When I woke up, I had big angry wheals on my legs and arms. No other symptoms to speak of. I'd eaten some prepared roe from Japan the night before, so that's what I assumed set me off, although with a food allergy, it seemed like it should have struck me immediately after eating, although I didn't really react until the next morning. At any rate, I went to a TakeHealth clinic at a Walgreens, was saw immediately by a PA who diagnosed it as an allergic reaction and sent me home with some perscription steroids and directed me to aisle 1 to pick up some Wal-Dryl. A bit surreal. Anyway, that cleared my hives up after about a week. However, my hives have returned a bit over the two weeks, more irritating than serious, but patches of red itchy skin and small clusters of bumps that form and dissimilar. I really really really hope I'm not developing an allergy to cats. Or an autoimmune disease. Anyway, I've scheduled another visit to the doc (an actual MD this time) to try to figure this out.
Guitars: Among Saori's other musical instruments, she had a guitar that she never played. Apparently she got the guitar from a friend of hers who went back to Japan and understandably didn't want to lug the thing along. He got the guitar because he was taking a class in Scottsdale on guitar making, and he apparently bought a guitar for the express purpose of disassembling and re-assembling it. Saori got the guitar and it hung in our closet for awhile until I started playing around with it, and in one misguided attempt to tune it, I snapped a string, which were pretty old by that point anyhow. Anyway, I was driving around one saturday, when almost on a whim, I stopped in at Ziggy's music, a old brick music store on 3rd st and Osborne. I wanted to get the guitar fixed/ restrung whatever, and I saw a sign for guitar lessons. My weekends have been painfully free (see Saori's item below) so I went in thinking, what the hell, I've always wanted to play guitar.
Ziggy's music is a great little shop with accordions everywhere and guitars on the wall. Apparently, its one of the last places in Arizona where they can fix accordians. The few customers browse instruments, but mostly chat with Dionne, the woman behind the counter. Under the counter, more accordians, dusty CDs of music, and few black cats which prowl around the store. There's an old rack with "Guitar for beginners" from 20-50 years ago, along with boxes of guitar magazines. In a small room in the back, I see a guy playing an accordian.
I ask about lessons, and Dionne directs me to another gentleman, Raul. Raul looks strikingly like a laid back version of William Shatner, but he takes me back to his tiny office where there is room for just himself, and an empty chair for me. We sit down and talk about what I want out of lessons (the basics, to start with), when's a good time (30 minutes on Saturday works for me), and the cost (pay a month's lessons in advance, and its $15 a session. Fantastic cut rate), and I go ahead and commit to come in later the day for my first lesson.
I return early, bringing the guitar. Dionne helps me pick some new strings, cleans, and restrings my guitar for me while I take my lesson. The basics, you know, this-is-how-you-hold-a-guitar, this-is-how-you-hold-a-pick, and a few chords to start. C, Dm, Am, Em, F, G7.
I also get to pick out a guitar pick, which makes me kind of excited. For some reason it hammers in the point, I'm going to be a guitar player. I ask what kind to get, and Dionne asks Raul if I should get the $300 pick or the $400 pick. Raul suggests a medium pick, which ends up $0.25.
After the lesson, Dionne prods him into tuning my newly restrung guitar for me, and he does so, admonishing me to practice at least 30 minutes a day. And I have been. Saori's gotten into it too and we take turns playing, (it helps that she's very musically gifted and knows a lot more chords). She can actually play recognizable songs. At this point, I'm still struggling to connect the chords, but the callouses forming on my left fingertips indicate I'm closer to my goal.
Saori's new job: Saori got a new job, which is fantastic. She really likes the people she works with, the long hours go by quickly, the amount of time she spends running around and lifting makes the time go by, but she's also noticed shes slowly losing weight and gaining more muscle. Best of all, the people she works with and her coworkers adore her. She was going to be nominated as a company wide award winner except she didn't qualify for the short amount of time she'd been working. The major bummer of the job is the hours. She works very early in the morning to very late at night on both Saturday and Sunday, so I've been really missing her on the weekends. It's been hard as the weekends don't really feel like weekends without her. I know what she must have felt, the long months where I was at work and she at home during her job search.
Canalscape:
I got involved in a valley-wide design competition called Canalscape through some co-workers. Saori was also invited to join, and we made up a team of five (technically six) designers. The competition was to design a development at the intersection of a canal and a street that would 1) attract developers and 2) celebrate the canals of Phoenix. The driving force behind Canalscape is Nan Ellin, a woman who has spent years working with ASU and city officials to make more of the canals of Phoenix. To be fair, Phoenix's canals are seen as ugly, stinking, filthy infrastructure and we should be doing more to celebrate the near miracle of the water that makes the city exist. However, Nan's track seems to be "lets make Phoenix Venice, or Amsterdam." Last time I checked, California had not fallen off the map and flooded everything west of Apache Junction. We are in the middle of a desert, and to tell you the truth, Venice's canals ARE as bad as streets. Filthy and also ignored as much as possible, the canals of phoenix should aspire to more. I'll post a photo of the board we entered to the competition sometime. We didn't win, although we'll be in the newspaper this sunday (I think).
Hives: I had an odd outbreak of hives about two weeks ago. I'd never had hives before, so I had no idea what was wrong with me. When I woke up, I had big angry wheals on my legs and arms. No other symptoms to speak of. I'd eaten some prepared roe from Japan the night before, so that's what I assumed set me off, although with a food allergy, it seemed like it should have struck me immediately after eating, although I didn't really react until the next morning. At any rate, I went to a TakeHealth clinic at a Walgreens, was saw immediately by a PA who diagnosed it as an allergic reaction and sent me home with some perscription steroids and directed me to aisle 1 to pick up some Wal-Dryl. A bit surreal. Anyway, that cleared my hives up after about a week. However, my hives have returned a bit over the two weeks, more irritating than serious, but patches of red itchy skin and small clusters of bumps that form and dissimilar. I really really really hope I'm not developing an allergy to cats. Or an autoimmune disease. Anyway, I've scheduled another visit to the doc (an actual MD this time) to try to figure this out.
Guitars: Among Saori's other musical instruments, she had a guitar that she never played. Apparently she got the guitar from a friend of hers who went back to Japan and understandably didn't want to lug the thing along. He got the guitar because he was taking a class in Scottsdale on guitar making, and he apparently bought a guitar for the express purpose of disassembling and re-assembling it. Saori got the guitar and it hung in our closet for awhile until I started playing around with it, and in one misguided attempt to tune it, I snapped a string, which were pretty old by that point anyhow. Anyway, I was driving around one saturday, when almost on a whim, I stopped in at Ziggy's music, a old brick music store on 3rd st and Osborne. I wanted to get the guitar fixed/ restrung whatever, and I saw a sign for guitar lessons. My weekends have been painfully free (see Saori's item below) so I went in thinking, what the hell, I've always wanted to play guitar.
Ziggy's music is a great little shop with accordions everywhere and guitars on the wall. Apparently, its one of the last places in Arizona where they can fix accordians. The few customers browse instruments, but mostly chat with Dionne, the woman behind the counter. Under the counter, more accordians, dusty CDs of music, and few black cats which prowl around the store. There's an old rack with "Guitar for beginners" from 20-50 years ago, along with boxes of guitar magazines. In a small room in the back, I see a guy playing an accordian.
I ask about lessons, and Dionne directs me to another gentleman, Raul. Raul looks strikingly like a laid back version of William Shatner, but he takes me back to his tiny office where there is room for just himself, and an empty chair for me. We sit down and talk about what I want out of lessons (the basics, to start with), when's a good time (30 minutes on Saturday works for me), and the cost (pay a month's lessons in advance, and its $15 a session. Fantastic cut rate), and I go ahead and commit to come in later the day for my first lesson.
I return early, bringing the guitar. Dionne helps me pick some new strings, cleans, and restrings my guitar for me while I take my lesson. The basics, you know, this-is-how-you-hold-a-guitar, this-is-how-you-hold-a-pick, and a few chords to start. C, Dm, Am, Em, F, G7.
I also get to pick out a guitar pick, which makes me kind of excited. For some reason it hammers in the point, I'm going to be a guitar player. I ask what kind to get, and Dionne asks Raul if I should get the $300 pick or the $400 pick. Raul suggests a medium pick, which ends up $0.25.
After the lesson, Dionne prods him into tuning my newly restrung guitar for me, and he does so, admonishing me to practice at least 30 minutes a day. And I have been. Saori's gotten into it too and we take turns playing, (it helps that she's very musically gifted and knows a lot more chords). She can actually play recognizable songs. At this point, I'm still struggling to connect the chords, but the callouses forming on my left fingertips indicate I'm closer to my goal.
Saori's new job: Saori got a new job, which is fantastic. She really likes the people she works with, the long hours go by quickly, the amount of time she spends running around and lifting makes the time go by, but she's also noticed shes slowly losing weight and gaining more muscle. Best of all, the people she works with and her coworkers adore her. She was going to be nominated as a company wide award winner except she didn't qualify for the short amount of time she'd been working. The major bummer of the job is the hours. She works very early in the morning to very late at night on both Saturday and Sunday, so I've been really missing her on the weekends. It's been hard as the weekends don't really feel like weekends without her. I know what she must have felt, the long months where I was at work and she at home during her job search.
Canalscape:
I got involved in a valley-wide design competition called Canalscape through some co-workers. Saori was also invited to join, and we made up a team of five (technically six) designers. The competition was to design a development at the intersection of a canal and a street that would 1) attract developers and 2) celebrate the canals of Phoenix. The driving force behind Canalscape is Nan Ellin, a woman who has spent years working with ASU and city officials to make more of the canals of Phoenix. To be fair, Phoenix's canals are seen as ugly, stinking, filthy infrastructure and we should be doing more to celebrate the near miracle of the water that makes the city exist. However, Nan's track seems to be "lets make Phoenix Venice, or Amsterdam." Last time I checked, California had not fallen off the map and flooded everything west of Apache Junction. We are in the middle of a desert, and to tell you the truth, Venice's canals ARE as bad as streets. Filthy and also ignored as much as possible, the canals of phoenix should aspire to more. I'll post a photo of the board we entered to the competition sometime. We didn't win, although we'll be in the newspaper this sunday (I think).
May 2, 2009
LEED AP
It took awhile, but I passed the LEED AP test last thursday, so I can now officially call myself a LEED Accredited Professional. What does this mean?
1) I can add it to my business card, except for the fact that we just got issued new business cards with the company logo change, so it probably won't get changed unless I get title promotion or I run out of cards. Both a long way off.
2) I can work on LEED projects in the office, along with the other dozen or so LEED AP's already working in the firm.
3) It adds marketing appeal to my resume, and I can say I was officially working sustainably since I was 24.
4) With my LEED AP card, I get a 10% discount at Whole Foods. No, not really. There isn't even a LEED AP card. They mail you a certificate.
5) As a LEED AP, if I work on a LEED project, the project gets to add a point if there's no other LEED AP's already working on it.
6) One of my inital reasons to get accredited was to stay ahead of the curve of my peers, to keep myself abreast of the current trends in architecture. By the time I took the test, a large percentage of my graduating class were already LEED AP. I suppose, ultimately, that its a good thing.
That's about it. There were other advantages to the accrediation, such as it serves as a good course the relationships between client, architect, contractor, and consultant. Its also a general course in "sustainab;e" design for a variety of different fields- you have to study stormwater management (civil enginnering), lighting, building automation systems, landscaping, plumbing, finish materials, basically every aspect of designing and building a building.
I studied for about six weeks, a little bit at a time at first, steadily ramping up the intensity until the very end. I read the book, make a spreadsheet of all the credits, made flashcards, and took numerous practice exams. Saori helped me a lot in this as she was constantly studying as well, and we got to argue and quiz each other on LEED minutae, of which there are thousands. Incidently, Saori passed the test as well.
The other incentive to take the test is that they just changed over to LEED 3.0, which involves TWO tests to reach the LEED AP level, and is supposed to be a lot harder, so there was a big rush as the opportunity to take the test ends in May. At any rate, I'm glad to have it over with.
1) I can add it to my business card, except for the fact that we just got issued new business cards with the company logo change, so it probably won't get changed unless I get title promotion or I run out of cards. Both a long way off.
2) I can work on LEED projects in the office, along with the other dozen or so LEED AP's already working in the firm.
3) It adds marketing appeal to my resume, and I can say I was officially working sustainably since I was 24.
4) With my LEED AP card, I get a 10% discount at Whole Foods. No, not really. There isn't even a LEED AP card. They mail you a certificate.
5) As a LEED AP, if I work on a LEED project, the project gets to add a point if there's no other LEED AP's already working on it.
6) One of my inital reasons to get accredited was to stay ahead of the curve of my peers, to keep myself abreast of the current trends in architecture. By the time I took the test, a large percentage of my graduating class were already LEED AP. I suppose, ultimately, that its a good thing.
That's about it. There were other advantages to the accrediation, such as it serves as a good course the relationships between client, architect, contractor, and consultant. Its also a general course in "sustainab;e" design for a variety of different fields- you have to study stormwater management (civil enginnering), lighting, building automation systems, landscaping, plumbing, finish materials, basically every aspect of designing and building a building.
I studied for about six weeks, a little bit at a time at first, steadily ramping up the intensity until the very end. I read the book, make a spreadsheet of all the credits, made flashcards, and took numerous practice exams. Saori helped me a lot in this as she was constantly studying as well, and we got to argue and quiz each other on LEED minutae, of which there are thousands. Incidently, Saori passed the test as well.
The other incentive to take the test is that they just changed over to LEED 3.0, which involves TWO tests to reach the LEED AP level, and is supposed to be a lot harder, so there was a big rush as the opportunity to take the test ends in May. At any rate, I'm glad to have it over with.
Mar 27, 2009
Mar 13, 2009
Went to Build it Green convention and Expo today at the convention center downtown. A few good speakers, a lot of stuff I've already heard, mostly directed at developers. Didn't see too many architecture types out there. The first lecture was so-so. The second was interesting, more focused on green lab design, which is right up our alley. Its a shame we're really not incorporating any of the sustainable elements into this project. At least I'm getting better at understanding what we could do, and the technologies and techniques at the forefront of lab design.
Anyway, the third speaker was really good. A professor from Thunderbird School of Management, recently published in Harvard Business Journal, talking about the business side of sustainability. An odd lecture, he talked about the sweep of human history from hunter-gathers to agricultural societies to industrial, and the trade-offs we've made along the way. He used a stock portfolio analogy to describe the levels of productivity in these stages. Hunter-gathers, when the fish stocks are down, there are still deer to hunt = diversified. Agrarian states, which specialized in five grains, and three major animals to domesticate, specialized, and so stability was replaced by feasts followed by famine. Industrial societies specialized further, and so all the prehistoric knowledge of how to exist in the natural world diminished to practically nothing.
He made some other interesting points, but basically it came down to industry, in order to survive, must adopt the same rules which allowed the biosphere to exist since the advent of life on this planet. Namely, a radical simplification in the number of materials we use, which ties into his second rule, that everything must become cyclical, a value cycle instead of a value chain, where the consumer returns the product at the end of its commercial use to the producer who breaks it down and re-fabricates it. Lastly of course, is that these transformations must ultimately use solar power to do so. The lion dies and becomes food for the grass, the antelope eat the grass, the lions eat the antelope, etc. Circle of life as industrial model.
So that was fun. The expo was kind of slow. Mostly products for homeowners and developers. We got some silly putty, some recycled pencils and office supplies. And a green tote.
Anyway, the third speaker was really good. A professor from Thunderbird School of Management, recently published in Harvard Business Journal, talking about the business side of sustainability. An odd lecture, he talked about the sweep of human history from hunter-gathers to agricultural societies to industrial, and the trade-offs we've made along the way. He used a stock portfolio analogy to describe the levels of productivity in these stages. Hunter-gathers, when the fish stocks are down, there are still deer to hunt = diversified. Agrarian states, which specialized in five grains, and three major animals to domesticate, specialized, and so stability was replaced by feasts followed by famine. Industrial societies specialized further, and so all the prehistoric knowledge of how to exist in the natural world diminished to practically nothing.
He made some other interesting points, but basically it came down to industry, in order to survive, must adopt the same rules which allowed the biosphere to exist since the advent of life on this planet. Namely, a radical simplification in the number of materials we use, which ties into his second rule, that everything must become cyclical, a value cycle instead of a value chain, where the consumer returns the product at the end of its commercial use to the producer who breaks it down and re-fabricates it. Lastly of course, is that these transformations must ultimately use solar power to do so. The lion dies and becomes food for the grass, the antelope eat the grass, the lions eat the antelope, etc. Circle of life as industrial model.
So that was fun. The expo was kind of slow. Mostly products for homeowners and developers. We got some silly putty, some recycled pencils and office supplies. And a green tote.
Mar 3, 2009
Mar 1, 2009
Patios, Malls, and LEED
Here are a few of the things I've been up to lately:
Saori and I cleaned out the patio yesterday and went to world market where we picked up a bunch of small colored glass cubes for candles, and another hanging moroccan lantern to go with the lanterns I picked up in Abu Dhabi. At night, with all the candles, its very nice and relaxing, s we've been spending our evenings outside enjoying the light.
Today, we drove around, went to Buffalo exchange and PV mall. Paradise Valley Mall was pretty nice as I recall back ten years ago when I lived in Phoenix. Since I've been gone, its gone downhill, probably with Fashion Square and Kierland Commons taking the wind from its sails. It feels tired and weary, weakly fighting, even with a few higher end fashion stores. Fiesta Mall actually had more energy and vitality to it, and feels like its socially climbing. Metrocenter is hitting the bottom of the barrel with many storefronts vacant.
Work: a few bugs in the system. Basically our computer program makes work very easy and occationally very hard for us. Today and yesterday (saturday and sunday) I spent two hours a day working to fix a major glitch.
Revit is great but when things go bad things go real bad, especaially for our model. If you designed a cube in CAD software, you would draw a bunch of boxes on different sheets to show the different plans and sections. If you designed a cube in Revit, you create a 3D cube and the program slices and interprets it for you. If you screw up one drawing in CAD, you've only screwed up one sheet. If you screw up part of the cube, the error propegates itself through all the interpretations of the model on all the sheets.
The latest thing is that Revit lost all the dimentions between things and gridlines, which means we now have many hours of work ahead of us to make sure things tie back to the gridlines.
LEED accredation- I'm sure many of you have heard about "green" or "sustainable" buildings. In the United States, building construction and use is second only to industrial manufacturing in terms of energy and resource use. In an effort to set an industry standard of sustainability, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) set up a system of quantifying how green a building is based on a point system, called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). There are four levels of LEED certification, Platinum, Gold, Silver, and certified, depending on how many points your building gets. Some points are very easy to get. If you are building on a site that used to have a building, you get a point because you're not despoiling new land, for example. LEED is actually pretty broadly encompasing- there are credits for making buildings that are easily accessible to bus or mass transportation routes, credits for improving air quality, efficiant water systems, etc etc. The tricky bit is where credits work against each other.
For example, there are a lot of credits based on reducing energy use, which is great. But there are also credits associated with indoor air quality. To improve air quality, you need to move more air around more frequently, which uses more energy. So you have find an appropriate balance.
Anyway, you also get a point if the project has a LEED accredited architect/designer associated with it. LEED accredited people can be anyone who passes the LEED test, a large portion of which is basic knowlege of how to use the LEED system. So it is a little self-serving. But with a lot of interest in green design and construction, individuals, universities, and municipalities have been pushed to mandate percentages of new buildings that have to be LEED certified. So, Saori and I are going to take the test and become certified to 1) increase our marketability, 2) so we can put LEED AP at the end of our buisness cards, 3) because sustainabilty and green design will become more of an issue in the future and not less so, and 4) because they're going to make the test harder later in the year.
Enough LEED for now.
Saori and I cleaned out the patio yesterday and went to world market where we picked up a bunch of small colored glass cubes for candles, and another hanging moroccan lantern to go with the lanterns I picked up in Abu Dhabi. At night, with all the candles, its very nice and relaxing, s we've been spending our evenings outside enjoying the light.
Today, we drove around, went to Buffalo exchange and PV mall. Paradise Valley Mall was pretty nice as I recall back ten years ago when I lived in Phoenix. Since I've been gone, its gone downhill, probably with Fashion Square and Kierland Commons taking the wind from its sails. It feels tired and weary, weakly fighting, even with a few higher end fashion stores. Fiesta Mall actually had more energy and vitality to it, and feels like its socially climbing. Metrocenter is hitting the bottom of the barrel with many storefronts vacant.
Work: a few bugs in the system. Basically our computer program makes work very easy and occationally very hard for us. Today and yesterday (saturday and sunday) I spent two hours a day working to fix a major glitch.
Revit is great but when things go bad things go real bad, especaially for our model. If you designed a cube in CAD software, you would draw a bunch of boxes on different sheets to show the different plans and sections. If you designed a cube in Revit, you create a 3D cube and the program slices and interprets it for you. If you screw up one drawing in CAD, you've only screwed up one sheet. If you screw up part of the cube, the error propegates itself through all the interpretations of the model on all the sheets.
The latest thing is that Revit lost all the dimentions between things and gridlines, which means we now have many hours of work ahead of us to make sure things tie back to the gridlines.
LEED accredation- I'm sure many of you have heard about "green" or "sustainable" buildings. In the United States, building construction and use is second only to industrial manufacturing in terms of energy and resource use. In an effort to set an industry standard of sustainability, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) set up a system of quantifying how green a building is based on a point system, called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). There are four levels of LEED certification, Platinum, Gold, Silver, and certified, depending on how many points your building gets. Some points are very easy to get. If you are building on a site that used to have a building, you get a point because you're not despoiling new land, for example. LEED is actually pretty broadly encompasing- there are credits for making buildings that are easily accessible to bus or mass transportation routes, credits for improving air quality, efficiant water systems, etc etc. The tricky bit is where credits work against each other.
For example, there are a lot of credits based on reducing energy use, which is great. But there are also credits associated with indoor air quality. To improve air quality, you need to move more air around more frequently, which uses more energy. So you have find an appropriate balance.
Anyway, you also get a point if the project has a LEED accredited architect/designer associated with it. LEED accredited people can be anyone who passes the LEED test, a large portion of which is basic knowlege of how to use the LEED system. So it is a little self-serving. But with a lot of interest in green design and construction, individuals, universities, and municipalities have been pushed to mandate percentages of new buildings that have to be LEED certified. So, Saori and I are going to take the test and become certified to 1) increase our marketability, 2) so we can put LEED AP at the end of our buisness cards, 3) because sustainabilty and green design will become more of an issue in the future and not less so, and 4) because they're going to make the test harder later in the year.
Enough LEED for now.
Feb 19, 2009
merged images
Merged images from personal photos along themes- Arizona, Green, Japan, Architecture, etc.
Feb 15, 2009
Busy weekend
It's been a busy weekend. The rundown, counting back from
Thursday night, we met up with Mike and Ryan at the George and Dragon in central Phoenix. They were both classmates of mine and both working for the same small architecture firm. They both live downtown, which makes me start to wonder who else graduated from architecture school is living downtown. Ryan got married to a very nice woman, and it no longer feels strange to be hanging out with married couples my age. They've got enough work in their office to keep them employed at least for now, which is good to hear. We had a few drinks, and took the light rail home. George and Dragon is a nice place, a little expensive, long-standing British pub and a lot of the wait staff is either British or faking it well. Very good fish and chips.
Friday afternoon, we met a coworker of mine for lunch and he talked about working as an architect in his many years of working in AZ, which was mostly for Saori's benefit, but I enjoyed sitting in too. That evening, we went to mom's house to play bananagrams for a few hours, and left around 9 for Fiesta Mall.
For the past month, I've been part of a CANstruction committee at work. CANstruction was an event which is organized nationally by a design marking firm as raising awareness for local design, engineering, and construction firms and also to raise hunger awareness. Basically, firms compete to design large sculptures or scenes out of canned foods which are then donated to local food banks. This year, there were about a dozen firms participating in the valley, and ours raised about $5000 for cans. The committee, which was huge this year, voted to use Wall-E as a sculptural figure; not my first pick, but oh well, its for a good cause. We purchased a lot of cans and spent about a week working a few hours a day on a practice build, basically figuring out how we were going to lay it out and build it up. Last wednesday, we took it all down and loaded all the cases of cans into a truck and sent it to the food bank. The food bank, in turn, put all the cans on pallets, wrapped them, and shipped them to Fiesta Mall in Mesa for the event.
Friday, Saori and I arrived around 10 PM and jumped into canstruction. We worked for about four hours, stacking cans of butter beans, black beans, kidney beans, and baby potatoes. I was responsible for making the cubes of trash that Wall-E makes, so I make about five or six of them. Wall-E's body was created out of cans of spam ( rectangular AND yellow) so we had a spamular Wall-E. This entire project, the "Spam" song from monty python kept playing in my head. We taped together spagetti to form the treads and used coffee and large cans of beans for the wheels. The head was created from potted hams and two serendipitously black salmon cans. We piled random cans all around him to create a "trash" heap. It was pretty effective. While the entries from this year are better than last years, I think we still are in pretty good shape for most of the prizes. We went home extremely tired around 2:30 in the morning.
Saturday, I woke up late to discover Saori had already gotten me flowers, coffee, and made me breakfast. How have I deserved such a wonderful woman? She also prepared chocolate moouse and home made lava cake. After a liesurely breakfast, we went out shopping in Scottsdale, where we browsed American Apparel and laughed at the bleach blond, lamborgini lifestyles of the rich and tasteless who inhabit Skanksdale, sorry, Scottsdale.
I was white enough to walk to a nearby Urban Outfitters where I stumbled across a really cool jacket, marked way way down from $150, and Saori picked up a few nice things too.
We drove from Ghetto to ghetto, Scottsdale to Metrocenter, where we had great dinner at Fajitas. The last time I was there, if memory serves, I was 13 years old. After dinner, we spent the evening at Castles n' Coasters, playing a round of mini-golf and riding the rides. It was surprisingly fun, except for the numbly terrifying free-fall ride where its all you can do not to wet yourself as you drop twenty stories in about three seconds. But other than that, it was a blast.
Sunday, I made omeletes for breakfast and we hung out at home until we met Sal for coffee and he and Saori went to talk to a client. I wandered around downtown which was packed with pedestrians and sports fans who are all here for the NBA All-Star game tonight.
Now, I'm just relaxing on the couch with Saori and Suki, enjoying a warm and peaceful sunday night.
Thursday night, we met up with Mike and Ryan at the George and Dragon in central Phoenix. They were both classmates of mine and both working for the same small architecture firm. They both live downtown, which makes me start to wonder who else graduated from architecture school is living downtown. Ryan got married to a very nice woman, and it no longer feels strange to be hanging out with married couples my age. They've got enough work in their office to keep them employed at least for now, which is good to hear. We had a few drinks, and took the light rail home. George and Dragon is a nice place, a little expensive, long-standing British pub and a lot of the wait staff is either British or faking it well. Very good fish and chips.
Friday afternoon, we met a coworker of mine for lunch and he talked about working as an architect in his many years of working in AZ, which was mostly for Saori's benefit, but I enjoyed sitting in too. That evening, we went to mom's house to play bananagrams for a few hours, and left around 9 for Fiesta Mall.
For the past month, I've been part of a CANstruction committee at work. CANstruction was an event which is organized nationally by a design marking firm as raising awareness for local design, engineering, and construction firms and also to raise hunger awareness. Basically, firms compete to design large sculptures or scenes out of canned foods which are then donated to local food banks. This year, there were about a dozen firms participating in the valley, and ours raised about $5000 for cans. The committee, which was huge this year, voted to use Wall-E as a sculptural figure; not my first pick, but oh well, its for a good cause. We purchased a lot of cans and spent about a week working a few hours a day on a practice build, basically figuring out how we were going to lay it out and build it up. Last wednesday, we took it all down and loaded all the cases of cans into a truck and sent it to the food bank. The food bank, in turn, put all the cans on pallets, wrapped them, and shipped them to Fiesta Mall in Mesa for the event.
Friday, Saori and I arrived around 10 PM and jumped into canstruction. We worked for about four hours, stacking cans of butter beans, black beans, kidney beans, and baby potatoes. I was responsible for making the cubes of trash that Wall-E makes, so I make about five or six of them. Wall-E's body was created out of cans of spam ( rectangular AND yellow) so we had a spamular Wall-E. This entire project, the "Spam" song from monty python kept playing in my head. We taped together spagetti to form the treads and used coffee and large cans of beans for the wheels. The head was created from potted hams and two serendipitously black salmon cans. We piled random cans all around him to create a "trash" heap. It was pretty effective. While the entries from this year are better than last years, I think we still are in pretty good shape for most of the prizes. We went home extremely tired around 2:30 in the morning.
Saturday, I woke up late to discover Saori had already gotten me flowers, coffee, and made me breakfast. How have I deserved such a wonderful woman? She also prepared chocolate moouse and home made lava cake. After a liesurely breakfast, we went out shopping in Scottsdale, where we browsed American Apparel and laughed at the bleach blond, lamborgini lifestyles of the rich and tasteless who inhabit Skanksdale, sorry, Scottsdale.
I was white enough to walk to a nearby Urban Outfitters where I stumbled across a really cool jacket, marked way way down from $150, and Saori picked up a few nice things too.
We drove from Ghetto to ghetto, Scottsdale to Metrocenter, where we had great dinner at Fajitas. The last time I was there, if memory serves, I was 13 years old. After dinner, we spent the evening at Castles n' Coasters, playing a round of mini-golf and riding the rides. It was surprisingly fun, except for the numbly terrifying free-fall ride where its all you can do not to wet yourself as you drop twenty stories in about three seconds. But other than that, it was a blast.
Sunday, I made omeletes for breakfast and we hung out at home until we met Sal for coffee and he and Saori went to talk to a client. I wandered around downtown which was packed with pedestrians and sports fans who are all here for the NBA All-Star game tonight.
Now, I'm just relaxing on the couch with Saori and Suki, enjoying a warm and peaceful sunday night.
Jan 24, 2009
Phoenix Street Rail
Looks like I need to do a bit more research... or does it say something about me when I'm quick to jump to certain conclusions.
The story about Phoenix Street rail is a bit more complicated, as it turns out. Apparently there were actually two fires which burned the old rail cars, and it apparently the rails and infrastructure for the system were falling apart. This was all taking place amidst a time when people were getting away from the rail as it was no longer affordable, or riding a private bus line which ran through the city. Business, politics, and economics. So the decision was made to switch to busses and several companies were bought out and created. Goodyear probably just saw a golden opportunity and jumped on it.
Given Arizona stingy past, I should be happy that this city has had public transportation at all.
Speaking of which, light rail was packed this morning, which is a very good sign, hopefully someone is paying attention.
The story about Phoenix Street rail is a bit more complicated, as it turns out. Apparently there were actually two fires which burned the old rail cars, and it apparently the rails and infrastructure for the system were falling apart. This was all taking place amidst a time when people were getting away from the rail as it was no longer affordable, or riding a private bus line which ran through the city. Business, politics, and economics. So the decision was made to switch to busses and several companies were bought out and created. Goodyear probably just saw a golden opportunity and jumped on it.
Given Arizona stingy past, I should be happy that this city has had public transportation at all.
Speaking of which, light rail was packed this morning, which is a very good sign, hopefully someone is paying attention.
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