cosmic alignment

There are only 4 people in my program and in a conversation on Monday we found out that we all celebrate our birthdays within 13 days of each other! Mine is first on Sept 12 and the last is Sept 25. We were all equally shocked to find this out. I'm curious if this is some sort of anomaly or if there is a lean in architecture towards late summer/early fall star signs.

It's very weird and also our studio prof's birthday is only a week later.

peace.

And the cupcakes were good too!

out at the Village

Yesterday for my birthday I drove out to the Mennonite Heritage Village:

http://www.mennoniteheritagevillage.com/

Picture a smaller, less funded, less attended version of Fort Edmonton Park. I did have a good time although I probably got bitten by more mosquitoes out there than I have in my whole life! In the full-swing of the summer they probably have a few people wandering around as interpreters, but yesterday there were none and there were only a handful of visitors as well. Most of the visitors were Mennonite. There are many very well kept buildings and a huge beautiful windmill that is equipped with a fully functioning flour grinding stone. The mechanisms for making the flour mill work are impressive and it looked like everything was handmade inside. You'll have to take my word or visit it yourself because the photos won't do the mill justice. I would say that the Windmill is worth the price of admission for sure.

Also I spent some of the day driving around the country south of Winnipeg. It's very lovely!

Tomorrow is secret field trip day at school. Later I will safety pin the $20 I have to bring to the inside of my pocket for safe keeping. I am currently charging my camera battery and emptying my photo card to make room for copious amounts of photos as per the prof's instructions. And so it begins.

peace.

just before beyond the pale

I had an orientation day at school today. I met my main prof and also the new student in our group. Mike had already taken a course that allowed him to skip the course I took last week. Now there are 5 of us in the group. It seems like a good group, but we all have very different backgrounds and possibly expectations of the courses ahead of us.

We found out approximately where our studio will be - 4th floor of the arch2 building. I will spend all my time between 4th floor arch2, room 214 in JAR and some basement room in arch2 for the drawing course.

Next Monday when my classes start for reals we are going on a class field trip. We will get there by car and are to bring $20 in cash and our digital cameras to an as yet undisclosed location.

I hope it's the Manitoba Legislature!

peace.

Manitoba/free mason legislature

Check out these links - apparently there are some interesting going on with the architecture in the Manitoba legislature building. Enjoy these links until I have a chance to get over there, take some photos, and make a full report!

peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqO52erTdqk

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51905851@N00/292352009/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41364744@N00/3658397629/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gillesroy/226875049/

Pointalism

At various points throughout my week I've had a chance to wandering around the campus, particularly the buildings that I'll be in. My two buildings: JAR - John A. Russell, and Architecture 2. They are very nice, older buildings. I think they might be from the 60s. JAR has the architecture/fine arts library that I will be using very heavily. My classmates and I met the librarian who gave us a tour and explained the less obvious aspects of the library: New collections are kept on a particular shelf for one week - until the following Thursday - then they are put into general circulation. Apparently there is a lot of competition for books loans in my faculty. Arch2 has a CADlab and large scale print room with a large scale scanner for use. The guy there suggested I don't wait until the end of term to do my scanning, because it gets backed up. Mental note: where else can I get scanning done? Riley's? must check...

Arch2 also has a collection of material samples.... the room has a name, but I don't recall it. There are carpet, paint, tile, wallpaper, anything samples and books. At the back of the room is 'the cage' which holds overstock that is free to use on projects if we need. I have found out more about my school from walking around and talking to people than I could have imagined.

This weekend will be a much photographed walking tour of the city... I one a large portfolio due in 2 weeks. and so it begins!

peace.

there's a lot more math...

I'm being taught Structural Concepts by an engineer - of course there'll be math!

I feel at a bit rusty at all the sin/cos/tan type equations.  In my head I was thinking, "it's so much easier to solve these in autocad," and then the prof said, "if you have autocad this is a lot easier to do."

The good news is that I brought my HP 48 with me to the peg, the bad news is I had to recover my memory when I turned it on.  I hope I didn't lose my games, but judging by the fact that my 'var' menu is empty, I won't get my hopes up.

Everyday I think I'm on the verge of getting a new phone number.  I just have to make it happen.  Stay tuned.

peace.

green brain

I have homework!

I have to think of some ways that embodied energy in a project can be reduced and  and sustainability and efficiency can be increased - green baby!

I also have a list of material 'E' values that i have to google.  'E' is a measurement of elasticity in a material.  He actually told us to google a of bunch today.  Learning has become so high tech!

Also there are many notes to be typed...  and sketches to be sketched.

peace