Italy Field Trip Finale

Sorry, my dear readers, but my pictures are not on my laptop yet so all you get is the story for now.

After the field trip for the final review, we went to Italy for a week. However, since our coursework was over, some people went to other places. Slowly, over the space of three or four days, we trickled down to three students, our teacher, and his family. By the time I got back I had lost touch with the group completely.

The first day we took a series of trains to Sienna, stopping in Firenze (aka Florence) on the way to check in to our various hostels. In Sienna we went to the piazza and saw the famous horse races, which are really a very long ceremony that ends with a horse race. Flag bearers and important religious figures paraded around the piazza for several hours before the race started. The piazza (pee-ah-tsah) is in the middle of the track, so once the ceremonies start you can't leave until they're over. The piazza is a large sloped expanse of stone pavers with no shade and no restrooms.

About two-thirds of the way through the marching flags, the girl sitting a few feet behind me tapped my shoulder and asked if I speak English. When I said I do, she pointed to my peer's towel and asked if it was mine. I said I knew the person it belonged to, and asked what she needed it for. She said she was going to be sick if she couldn't pee, and asked if I would hold it around her while she peed into a bottle. I did so, both of us laughing at the situation, and she had a small accident, so she bought the towel from my peer rather than washing it for him. Turns out she just finished her degree in the States, had been living in Sienna for two months, and began filling me in on the historical references that I was missing in the ceremony. We traded watercolor drawings, each of us signing our work and including an e-mail address. What a way to network!

The next two days were spent on Florence, where our instructor has lived twice in his life, where he met his wife, and where he proposed to her. The sentimental value he has for the place made his guidance even better there than in previous cities. Between that and being down to less than ten students, my stress levels were very much gone and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I learned a lot at the same time.

Aside from the magnificent architecture, there was also magnificent shopping. Italy's prices are much cheaper than what we can get in Switzerland, and Florence had a really good street market going on. I got myself a leather-bound sketchbook from which the paper is removable so you can re-use the thing your whole life. The leather is green, and I got a calligraphy pen and green ink to match the leather. All of that together was less than what I paid for lunch at a mediocre restaurant in Switzerland today, and it was real leather.

After Florence was Cinque Terre, a wondrous collection of five cities along some very amazing coastline. We were supposed to go on the 9:50 train, so I got on the one before it in order to check in to my hostel and meet my group on time in Cinque Terre. However, the train before that left at 7:21, so I had a two-hour layover in Pisa instead of getting to Cinque Terre early. Two hours in Pisa when you were supposed to have 20 minutes... What would you do? I saw the leaning tower and the duomo it's associated with. It took 45 minutes to walk across town from the train station, so I didn't risk climbing it for fear of not making the train, but I still got to see it! No pictures though - I had taken the wrong power adapter with me to Italy and my camera battery died in Florence. I thought I was on the same train as the others to Cinque Terre, but I never ran into them. I saw the place by myself, but it was so beautiful it didn't matter. The water was clear enough to see to the bottom and looked blue and turquoise and green depending on the place.

After Cinque Terre I went back to Scudellate, where a handful of us were still left to leave for good. I packed up everything, and the next morning I got on the earliest bus out of Scudellate. I came straight to Lugano, put my baggage in a locker, and explored the town while I waited for check-in time to roll around. It's nice having a hotel instead of a hostel. Tomorrow I go to Germany!

Final Show Field Trip

The 14th of August was our final review, the time when every team presented their work to a jury (also called a panel) of reviewers. These included the two main clients, a very well-known architect in that region, our instructor, the two architects who have been working with our instructor, and a few other individuals of just as high standing. Most of us were highly intimidated. I got to go first.

I had four boards set up with most of my graphics, and gave my presentation with the slide show I posted earlier on this blog. One of the clients was grinning the whole time, the look of excitement spreading across his face with each new idea I presented. My project, as you might have gathered, was based on the idea of creating something which the clients can really use and afford, and will be able to install in a relatively short time frame. Most of my peers presented projects which were not build-able, required extreme measures for completion, and/or would be far too expensive for our client to construct. As such, mine was the favorite of the grinning client. Upon conclusion of feedback, he told me I had an "excellent project," which is not something I have ever been given as feedback at Cal Poly. I was designing for the client, and my design made the client grin, so I feel that I did well. I also agree with the other client's feedback about certain weak points in my design. If you wish to discuss this with me, by all means send me a message on Facebook or call me up after September 2nd when I'm back in the States and we can have a lengthy architectural discussion.

Please do not misunderstand my previous paragraph - my peers did very well, and I feel that the unrealistic approaches they took were acceptable in this academic setting. I chose to be less academic and more realistic because we had real clients who might actually use our designs, and I would be stoked to find out that they built even one of my ideas. I have a notion that they might just install my theater idea because both of them liked it, as did some of the other panelists. It would also be a relatively cheap way to turn an unusable space into something very usable and potentially profitable.

After the review I went with the others to enjoy the last night of the Locarno film festival in pounding rain. We danced on a table that had been abandoned to the downpour outside a large tent-covered music-thumping bar. They were drunk, I was not, and we all had fun. I left early to go to Bellinzona, where I had secured a hostel. They didn't get a place to stay and stayed awake all night in the rain. The next day, back in Scudellate, they slept while I finished up the files I needed to turn in and got my packing done. That night we had a party in the one restaurant in Scudellate, then for some reason (maybe because they had slept all day) people decided to stay awake all night and hang out instead of sleeping or packing, so when I woke up the next morning all ready for our field trip to Italy, they were scrambling around trying to pack for a week in ten minutes.

Crunch Time

Our final review will be on Saturday evening, but we have to print by Friday at the latest, so I am trying to finish everything up by tomorrow in order to print a day early and allow myself to spend some time thinking through my presentation. This is always an important step, but our review is part of Locarno's film festival and our reviewers are international architects, so there is a lot of pressure to do particularly well. Did I mention my teacher put out a regional press release about this today?

In order to keep to my schedule, I finished up my slide show yesterday and am finalizing my boards today. Each group will give a slide show presentation, then move to a different location to receive criticism from international architects. The presentation boards are meant to serve as a reminder about the slide show and to provide images to point to in order to clarify questions and answers.

I need a break from designing layouts, so I decided to post my presentation slides here. Writing a blog discussing them will help me mentally prepare for my presentation, or at least that's the logic behind this bout of procrastination.

Some basic context: The Rivellino is what's left of a fortress designed by Leonardo da Vinci. It is cavelike on the inside, and looks like nothing more than a stone retaining wall on the outside. The entrance is at the same level as the courtyard which serves both the Liberty Building and the Vernacular Building. The Vernacular building currently has limited galleries and a lot of unused space. The Liberty building currently has apartments and a few shops. The clients essentially want us to turn these buildings into a sort of cultural exchange center based on art without the influence of political correctness.

(These are the program needs as presented by the clients. I have further expanded these needs to develop a more specific list of spaces.)

(This level is shared by both buildings.)

The Dark Room is what it seems, a place for developing photographs. It is, as is appropriate, connected to the Skills Lab, the most versatile student space in the complex. This space is characterized by resistant materials, storage, a plethora of workspace, and drains in the floor. It is meant to be used by students to explore new media, and to teach any skills the resident teachers wish to impart. This can include flameworking; extraction of essential oils and their use in perfumes, soaps, candles, and culinary creations; stained glass windows; and anything else a teacher wishes to teach. The Versatile Education Room is a swing room, to be used for lectures, student presentations, and other educational purposes as needed.

Faculty apartments are located in the Vernacular Building and accessible via a tiny alley that runs between the Vernacular and Liberty buildings, giving resident faculty and their families the most private entrance on site. Their apartments are arranged in such a way that the bedrooms are on the far left in this image, which happens to be below street level and is therefore very quiet. The rest of the Vernacular Building is reserved for public uses. Galleries centered around a snack bar create the central area for public displays outside of the Rivellino.

(This slide gives an overview of the layout of the Liberty Building.)

Student housing takes up the top three stories of the Liberty Building. When asked about summer heat and winter cold, current residents have no problems with the exception of those living on the top story. These people suffer in the summer heat. Therefore, this design moves the main living spaces below the top story, which is reserved for all "wet" living needs. Laundry, showers, toilets, and vanity space for fifty students take up this top story.

The floor below the wet floor is reserved for quiet, private living. Capsules such as those found in Japanese capsule hotels replace bunk beds, allowing extreme privacy in a group living situation as well as condensing sleeping space to one floor instead of two.

Below the sleeping floor is the community floor. Here, residents will find a large kitchen and a common room with enough seating for more than the 50 students. Also on this level, separated by a wall, is one of three design studios.

Sleeping capsules will be stacked three high, and due to the walls can be placed right next to each other (unlike bunk beds). This allows sleeping space to be greatly condensed. A small number of capsules will be made like the one pictured on the top right of the stack of six. These capsules allow claustrophobic individuals to sacrifice privacy and quietness for the sake of an open environment. The television included with this unit does not have speakers; only headphones will work, keeping the capsule's environment from infringing on the surrounding area.

Each capsule has a 4cm rim shelf. At the back of each hangs a desk panel which will lift flush with the rim shelf to create a temporary private workspace. Light switches located by the door and above the desk control the overhead lighting system. A second switch above the desk controls smaller lights above the desk itself to prevent annoying shadows from the main light system located behind the resident's head when seated at the desk. Television sets with their own DVD players rest in the top corners of each unit. These are placed by the door hinge on normal capsules, but are moved to the back corner on open units to prevent head injuries. Windows in the doors allow views, with curtains to maintain privacy.

There are two more floors between the three student hosing floors and the combined courtyard level. The floor directly below housing is actually at street level on the non-courtyard side of the building due to the steep slope of the site. On this floor are the only two public spaces above the courtyard level. One is a cafe, with a street entrance, and the other is a student shop, also with a street entrance. This shop is meant to be used to sell student-made products, such as those derived from the skills lab. The culinary classroom is on this floor due to convenience of proximity to the cafe.

Below this floor, and directly above the courtyard level, is the rest of the studio space. Two more studios provide the rest of the workspaces needed for all 50 students. A small room with steps becomes a discussion/presentation/crit room. The steps allow students to sit and see over one another, or else a speaker to be above the group.

Workspaces are made of wood, as were da Vinci's devices, and suspended from the ceiling. Heights are adjustable to allow students to create their own personal perfect working environment. For the same reason, each comes with its own four adjustable lamps, controlled by four individual switches. Ten power outlets ensure that no student will be unable to work due to a lack of outlet availability (yes, this was a huge issue at the ostello, and all we had to plug in were laptops, unlike a normal studio situation which includes glue guns and other equipment).

Vertical circulation outside of the Vernacular building is provided by spiral people movers. Each floor has its own pair. The steps rotate up one column, move through the floor, rotate down the next column, then move through the floor to the first column. These are, essentially, spiral escalators. This enticing form of transportation is also the main way to get in to the galleries in the Vernacular Building. They take visitors up to the juice bar, through which they can access the galleries.

On the wall of the Liberty Building facing the Vernacular Building, there is a pole system meant to increase the versatility of display options. Threaded bases between floors accept caps or poles as needed. Poles have threaded posts on one end, threaded holes on the other. This allows multiple poles to be attached, or caps to be placed on the ends. These poles are made of metal for strength but are encased in wood in honor of da Vinci's creations. Each one has several hatches which allow access to metal ringlets anchored into the hollow metal pole interior. In this way poles can be used for hanging sculptures, paintings, performers, or anything else. There are two types of caps in this system; those with holes and those without. Holed capes allow the producer of any exhibition or event to pipe something through the cap, such as aromas produced in the skills lab, confetti, or anything else.

(Sorry for the lack of context - this presentation will be happening within the Rivellino and I didn't want to be redundant.)

This anchor ring system is designed to provide a versatile but non-invasive infrastructure for the Rivellino. Rings are approximately 10cm across and anchored periodically along the ceiling near the walls. These allow almost anything to be hung from them, be it lighting, a system for hanging paintings, or something else. Anything attached is easily removed, and in this way the Rivellino can undergo vast changes which are easily "reset."

One of the problems with the Rivellino is that walking in it means walking across dirt and mud, and it is very uneven and potentially dangerous. To mitigate this, the client has a plywood catwalk in part of it, and they wanted to put in more. Musicians who put on concerts there, however, are greatly opposed to this because the earthen floor and stone walls have perfect acoustics. The system I propose, therefore, is essentially a compact-dirt raised sandbox system. Earth from the Rivellino itself (which we cannot remove thanks to the City) will be packed into raised platforms. This retains both the flatness and control of the catwalk and the acoustics of the earth.

(Context: This is part of the Rivellino. Where the wood risers are shown, there is currently a ladder in order for people to descend the approximate two meters to that level, and another taller ladder to descend to the next level which is labeled as "Stage" and "Staging Area.")

This design takes a currently unusable space and gives it a purpose that meets the client's needs. Risers are designed to allow level entry from the corridor. The space below becomes the stage. The fact that visitors are looking down a cliff edge means that the foreground of the stage is not visible to most of the audience, making it the perfect pit area.

(Views of the theater.)

The overhead beam in the top left picture is already existing. It is in the perfect location for the anchor ring system to allow for temporary additions of curtains, lighting, or any other equipment that might be desired.

As you can see from the bottom two pictures, entry from the corridor is indeed level. No more dangerous ladders!

Finishing up the Liberty Building

The modeling process is going slower than I had anticipated. The floor plans aren't all the same after all, and some of them (especially the roof plan) are lacking dimensions. The plans I'm working from aren't printed to scale and don't have a graphic scale printed on them, so I can't accurately measure anything from the drawings.

In order to model the building, I must first draw each of the floor plans digitally. This gives me a basis to work from. I can extrude (extend into the third dimension) any face on a floor plan, thereby giving heights to walls.

(one of the completed floor plans)

As I model each level of the building, I am able to stack the levels vertically to form the overall building. This gives me the overall picture of what is going on, especially for the exterior.

(top four stories of the six-story Liberty Building)

Now that I have a model, I can select portions of it to work with. I can move floors away from each other in order to focus my attention on one of them, or I can place a section through the building which will allow me to work on how the levels interact as opposed to looking at one level at a time.

(The blue frame is the section that I drew after separating out two stories of the building. The program shows only what is beyond the section frame, allowing me to cut a piece out of the model in order to work with it easier.)

Understanding the Liberty Building

Before I can redesign a building, it is important that I understand what already exists, and why. It was easy to do this with the cavelike Rivellino, which is rather straightforward. It was also easy to do this with the more complex Vernacular Building, which is currently set up for a variety of purposes, most notably gallery space. This ease of understanding is a result of the drawings we were given and the fact that we were able to walk through these buildings on two separate occasions.

The Liberty building, however, is the most complex of the three structures and we weren't able to do a walk-through. People live in this building, so it is harder for us to tour. The drawings we were given are floor plans labeled in Italian and marked with dimensions in the metric system. It is a very confusing building for us to understand, and each group has its own way of figuring it out.

(floor plan of the fourth floor of the Liberty Building)

I have decided to do my analysis by making a digital model of the floor plans. This will give me a strong understanding of how the building functions and how the spaces relate to each other, while also providing a digital model for future use.

(the start of my model)

It turns out that the plans are really rather straightforward, and once I get one level complete, copying it will accurately produce most of the others. The finished model will allow me to cut a section through any part in order to understand it better, and I can move walls around to where I wish to place them in my new design.

Model making is always a rather brainless process, digital or not. I am using my spare brainpower to work on the exteriors while I model. This sort of semi-conscious design-while-producing-something-else method usually works very well for me. We'll see what sort of awesomeness my subconscious ends up randomly spitting out at me this time.

The Fruits of Procrastination

Yesterday I had a one-on-one crit with my teacher, who says my work is solid so far and has clarified for me which part of my project I really need to work on most. It is refreshing to have a teacher who can easily verbalize what I need to work on.

Today I took the YouTube clip by Harry Potter Puppet Pals called "The Mysterious Ticking Noise" and made a new song based on the extended field trip. I recommend that you watch the clip before listening to the song if you've never seen it.

This link will take you to a site where you can listen to the song I made. Enjoy!

I have finished the design for the Rivellino, the cavelike fortress thought to have been designed by da Vinci. I am almost finished with the Vernacular Building (gallery spaces, faculty housing, etc.), which only leaves the Liberty Building (student housing, classrooms, cafe, etc.) and final production (making my presentation drawings and models). I have two weeks to finish all of this, so it is a very good thing I was working on it enough during the field trip to get all the massing figured out. Right now I am focusing on visual vocabulary, especially for the exterior facades. I will let function drive most of the interior vocabulary, but the outside can be almost anything and still be functional; I want to, for the first time, create a beautiful exterior facade. My designs are typically interior-oriented, creating pleasant, functional spaces inside a building with a rather boring exterior. It's time for me to do something with the outsides of my buildings.

(sketch drawing of the black box theater in the Rivellino)

The drawing above shows part of the catacombs in the Rivellino (ree-veh-lee-noh, stress the "ll"). The area in yellow is so far below the white corridor that there is currently a ladder in place for visitors who want to check it out. Another ladder allows visitors to move from the yellow space down to the pink/read/green/blue level. My design as shown here puts risers in the yellow space so people will walk straight onto the middle of the risers and will take steps up or down. The pink/red area below becomes a stage, and the green/blue space becomes the staging area. In this way, a previously unusable area becomes the black box theater the clients asked for, which frees up square footage in another building to add a small culinary school to my proposal.

Extended Field Trip, Part II - Second Five Days

Day 6 - Off to Bern

On Day 6 I went to the wrong city - Bern. If I had been there in the morning, I could have gone to the Klee museum and met up with my group in the afternoon in Basel as planned. However, I didn't realize that the two events were in two different cities. I couldn't get to Bern any earlier than 4:00, which was after the 1:00 meeting time in Basel. It wasn't until I got to the bus stop and saw that route 55 did not exist that I realized I was in the wrong place. Long story short, I laid down at my hostel in Bern at 6:00 to take a nap before seeing the city on my own. I woke up around 9 or 10, so I just ate something and went to bed.

(My makeshift water bottle, map of Switzerland, and breakfast. That is one half of a roll that costs only 70 cents and has therefore been a staple in my diet for this trip.)

Day 7 - Basel

Finally, two days later, I was back with the group on the morning of Day Seven in Basel. I might have felt upset about missing two days of activities, but everyone was grumpy and exhausted because Locarno (evening of day 5) had been full due to a huge concert, so my group had slept on trains or not at all, and none of them seemed to have recovered yet. So, I am actually glad I missed out and didn't have to be a part of sleep deprivation and frustrated grumpiness.

Day Seven was essentially a walk around Basel to a variety of sculptures and buildings. Some of them were very interesting to me, namely some mechanical fountains in a square of water, but most of the rest were (to me) rather boring.

(Each of these has mechanical moving parts and a fountain of some sort.)

After seeing a few such things, we went to an art museum which really was pretty cool. The architect used a glass ceiling, which is a basic no-no for art museums because direct light will ruin most artwork. However, he employed enough louvers and other diffusion methods so that no direct light penetrates; just a cool glow that perfectly lights the art without ruining it. Very well done.

(museum)

After the museum we saw what I found to be an ugly building, though I took lots of pictures along with everybody else. Then we were dismissed to do what we would with the rest of the day. I went back to Bern, got groceries for dinner, changed into my swimsuit, then met some of my group at the train station. The four of us went back to my hostel, where the other three changed and left their bags in my room. We went to the river, where there was a water park with a variety of pools. The river moves faster than any river I've swam before, and I would not have gotten in except that there are rails that go out into the water so you can grab on in order to get out. We walked upstream to some steps, jumped into the freezing cold water, and were immediately swept down the stream and away from the heat of the day. It was the most fun I'd had since arriving in Switzerland, only topped by something at the end of this field trip.

When the park closed, we went back to my hostel and changed. The others grabbed their bags and we walked the student whose hostel was in Basel back to the station. Then we parted ways for dinner, and I made myself a feast of stir-fried potatoes, onions, red bell pepper, and radishes. I found some Minnesotans playing cards and joined them while I ate. Then I brought two of them with me to find my other two friends, who were playing chess on a giant board paved into the walk.

Day 8 - Kunsthaus and Vals check-in

We saw the Kunsthaus, probably the only glass building I've seen that I actually like. As the sun changes, so does the gradient across the skin of overlapping panels, and it's really quite beautiful.

(The Kunsthaus is actually a museum.)

After the Kunsthaus, we went to the thermal baths at Vals and checked in to our rooms. I swam in the various pools until the baths closed, then listened to live jazz while eating dinner (zucchini pannini).

(The grass beyond the fence is on the roof of the bathhouse. This is part of the view from the lobby and cafe areas.)

Day 9 - Vals

The next day I spent about five hours in the water, four of them in the sound chamber. I sang to my boyfriend as it was a special day for us, and the echoes made my voice beautiful, covering any flaws. Three separate people asked me if I was a professional singer. I left when I got hungry, ate, and took a nap. When I got up, it was almost time for jazz to start again, so I went and got another sandwich. When I was about to leave to get changed for the midnight swim, some of my peers came in and one of them wanted to dance with me, so of course I did. We were having so much fun that two more of my group came up and asked me to teach them. I did so. I danced with each of them, but most memorable is the dance with the one who has dancing experience, even if it wasn't this sort of dancing. We were both grinning and laughing for the whole dance. It was so much fun!

After dancing, I went to the midnight swim, something that only happens on certain days. Silence is mandatory, which gives it a peacefulness lacking during the day. It was very romantic, which was perfect for my special day with my boyfriend despite being away, and I briefly waded into the ice room (the bath with VERY cold water) in honor of him being at the beach.

Day 10 - Home Again

(by path to chapel)

Yesterday (Day 10) we had a second wonderful breakfast at Vals before heading out. We went to see a chapel that I never got to see. I have lost enough weight here that my strength has begun to wane with it, and I fell behind while climbing the mountain. When my pulse began to pound in my ears and my breath became ragged, I chose to sit until my rhythms were back to normal instead of pushing through something that could be dangerous. When I stood back up, of course, everyone was out of sight. I climbed up to the last place I'd seen someone, and everyone was out of sight. There was no trail. There were fences all around. The path they had taken dead-ended in a three-sided square of fencing. I had no idea which fence they had jumped or where they had gone, so I climbed back down to the train station about half a mile away. I was tired of being abandoned, and decided to take the next train back instead of waiting for two hours for their return. I took a train, a bus, another train, and another bus and ended in Muggio, five kilometers away from Scudellate, and began the hourlong walk uphill, feeling guilty that I liked the idea of having the ostello to myself for an hour before the others walked up from the last bus to Muggio. They, however, paid someone to drive them up and arrived only two minutes after I did.

Today

Today has been a work day. I did laundry, finished a floor plan for part of my project (I am now working by myself instead of with a group), and found out that we are supposed to be taking a bus to Muggio in a few hours. Odd to make 23 people spend almost 2 hours going there and back rather than our teacher coming to our classroom. We'll see what happens when I get there.

Extended Field Trip, Part I - First Five Days

(France - still using glass insulators and uninsulated wires.)

Today's options were to hike over a mile up a steep valley to see a chapel, or to go with those who wanted a "nature day" to see a glacier. Either one would have been pretty cool, but either one required me to carry all of my things with me as there are no lockers at the respective train stations. I packed lightly for this field trip; all of my things fit into one backpack, including my purse and day bag. However, it's still fairly heavy, and even when I am not laden down I have trouble keeping up with my group. This made the hike very much unappealing due to the fact that I would probably only have about 10 minutes to observe/enjoy the chapel before turning around to head back down. Also, those who chose to go to the glacier instead are the fittest of our group, bikers and backpackers who keep their bodies in pristine condition through everyday routine. Keeping up with such bodies of steel really is a rather daunting idea to me, and asking the whole group to slow down for my sake would just be rude. Therefore, I decided to return to Scudellate today since the town where we will all meet tonight is near here. This makes today my first rest day in 3 weeks (much needed), and allows me a chance to update this blog and shower in a real shower (which I did first). The itinerary made the first day of the trip a travel day, indicating to meet up first thing in the morning the next day in Zurich. I, along with most of my group, decided to take the 7am bus from Scudellate instead of spending money on a hostel that night.

Day 1 - Zurich

(Every city seems to have a lake - this one is Zurich's.)

We spent the first day in Zurich, where we "rented" bikes for free and toured the city. With a 20-franc deposit, you can check out a bike for the day and get your deposit back in full when you return your bike by the end of the day. It's really quite wonderful.

(part of our bike tour)

I had to check in to my hostel between 3:00 and 3:30, so I missed the first thing the group saw. As I was riding my bike towards the side of town where my group was checking out said building, I passed a trio playing music. Knowing I wasn't going to make it down there before they turned around to come back, I stopped to listen. Two of them had instruments, the third was watching. I clapped at the end of the song, and asked the third if he plays music. He's a pianist, and it's rather difficult to bring a piano to a lake-side walk. I said he should be dancing if he's not making music, and he said, "Well then would you dance with me?" I asked him what style of dance he knows. It's amazing how much fun it can be to dance with someone who doesn't know how.

My group caught up to me while I was dancing with this young man from Zurich. Some of them took pictures, so don't worry friends and family, you'll be able to see them at some point. I'm curious as to how they turned out; the only pictures I have of myself dancing are part of a photo shoot with my boyfriend, quite different.

After we turned the bikes in, I went with my teacher and three other students to find a famous (in some circles) hole-in-the-wall cafe where ideas and inspiration have been discussed throughout history. It was, like all the rest of this trip, hot enough to make you sweat even inside. We had an interesting conversation, those three students being three of those in my group for whom I have a decidedly strong sense of respect. After the cafe, we turned in our bikes, went to a grocery store, and went our separate ways. I ate at my hostel, made friends with a man from Australia, and met a woman who was born in Mendrisio, which is between Scudellate (where we live) and Lucarno (our project site), and who goes to school in California.

Day 2 - Dying Lion of Lucerne

(The dying lion of Lucerne was carved in memory of those from Lucerne fallen in an historic battle to save a king, who narrowly escaped during the slaughter.)

(Mark Twain saw this and called it something like the most moving and most saddening piece of stone he'd ever seen.)

I met the group at the train station at 8am in order to go to Lucerne, half the country away from Zurich. There we found a lot of interesting things, including an intervention that was done on a train station, and therefore relates to our design project. Then half the group went to a different city to see a museum, which I skipped because it would have cost me over 60 Swiss Francs (over $50) each way for the train, plus the cost of entry to a museum. Instead, I stayed in Lucerne long enough to see the famous Dying Lion of Lucerne, then went back to Zurich, where I had booked 4 nights at my hostel, seeing as our teacher made Zurich the central hub of this part of our field trip.

(my first semi-successful watercolor)

In Zurich I went to the Coop, which is a chain of grocery stores in Switzerland with relatively good prices. I found peanut butter for my first time in Switzerland, bought a jar, and have been snacking on it since, hoping it will stop me from continuing the weight loss I've been experiencing since my arrival. When I went back to the hostel, I found kindred spirits in two young men from New York state. They had just finished high school and are touring Europe before starting complicated majors at impressive universities. It is interesting to me that, despite being such an intuition-based person, I have more in common with engineering majors than I do with architecture majors. Hanging out with this pair was just as refreshing as spending an evening with my friends from back home. Much needed, much enjoyed.

That night there was a pretty great live band playing in the courtyard below the hostel, so I taught one of the pair how to blues right there in the hostel before we went down to dance in the courtyard. Two very drunk girls soon joined us, followed by a hunk without a shirt. They don't exactly dance the same way I do...

Day 3 - Rolex Building and Jazz Festival

(Rolex Building)

The next morning we met at the train station again, this time heading to the opposite side of the country, the very western end, to see the Rolex building. It is a polytechnic school, and is one of those buildings that makes me point and say to my teachers, "See?! I told you it's build-able!" The Rolex building is built like a curved plane. Picture a piece of paper with large round holes in it. Now imagine pushing up parts of that paper so that it touches the ground in some places, but not others. That is the Rolex building. It slopes gently up off the ground to go smoothly over people's heads and back down to the other side. The holes are spaced so that natural light reaches all areas. The outdoor space under the building is the perfect temperature in the summer, which is truly saying something in this climate. This is the sort of thing I would design, and be immediately told that it's impractical, un-build-able, a waste of my time; Ishould move on to realistic things. I think, after seeing this and other buildings on this trip, that perhaps my designs are not all that unrealistic, and that going away from designs I believe in could have contributed to the recent death of my passion for architecture.

("Shiny Shoes," live in a public park)

When we left the Rolex building, we then headed to a nearby town where there is a jazz festival. Live music in the park, more in a large room in an even larger hotel. The band in the park was very fun to watch. I felt that I had been momentarily moved to a prior era, and was thoroughly enjoying myself. Each song began to sound like the last, and I had no one to dance with, so when my teacher and one other student decided to head for the indoor jazz, I went with them.

I heard a woman make her voice sound like a jazz horn.

That moment alone was enough to make me feel that the 3 hours of trains back to my hostel were worth it. She had the most amazing female voice I've ever heard in jazz. I didn't get to stay long, because I wanted to make it to the Coop in Zurich by the time it closed at 10, but what I did hear will stay with me forever, and that is priceless.

I doubt I shall ever again travel without a dancer. Call-out to my boyfriend: You are coming with me next time.

I missed the Coup by five minutes because the train was 15 minutes late, something unheard of in Switzerland. It was due to a power outage in the main Zurich station. Prior to this, the latest train I've ridden in Switzerland was two minutes late, and I've been riding trains nearly every day, often more than once. Luckily I had back-up food with me, and didn't starve, but I sure had a big breakfast the next day.

Day 4 - The Day of One Building

(garden in Ronchamp, France)

Yup, you guessed it - we really did spend an entire day on one building. This one was in France, so our Swiss passes only got us to the border. I spent 48 Swiss Francs and 15 Euros (total is about $70 or so) in train tickets just to get from the border to this place and back to Switzerland again. Not happy, but glad to see one of my favorite buildings from architecture history: the chapel at Ronchamp.

We met in Zurich at 8am, and got to Ronchamp at about 1:30. This is due to multiple hour-long waits for trains at various connecting stations. We all missed Swiss efficiency that day.

We spent roughly and hour or a little less hiking up to the chapel, where we would have five hours. Yes, five. To look at one building. Most people took a nap or two, including myself. This time delay was due to the train schedule; there was no way to get back sooner. I feel, however, that our time could have been put to very good use had our teacher used an hour or two of this time for another watercolor lesson, something which is part of our curriculum and far less annoying than taking a third nap in the same afternoon when no one is ill. I did not, unfortunately, get this idea until I had already walked most of the way back down to the town, where I spent over an hour looking for a grocery store, finding one, getting some food, and walking back to the train station. It was a fabulous hour. I got to see gargoyles in person for the first time, which I love in a way similar to arrow slits in castles. I found a beautiful stream, a gorgeous bridge, and some very cheap food. Food in France seems to be much cheaper than here. I got a 1.5 liters of apple juice for 70 cents in Euros (about a dollar), something which would have cost a good 2 or 3 francs (or dollars) in Switzerland. The smart ones did grocery shopping at the last stop in France on the way back.

(Oh yeah!)

Day 5 - Today

I've already told you how and why I ended up at the ostello. What I didn't tell you is that, while writing this blog, I missed the last bus of the day to get out of here. I knew what time the last bus was, I saved what I had written to post later, and I was all packed up and ready to go right at 6:35 like the bus driver had said through a woman who knew English. Either she misunderstood my question, he misunderstood her, or she miscalculated the time (they use "military" time here) when she translated to English. There was no bus at 6:35, and the locals say there are no more today, and that even if I walk to Muggio there won't be another bus to Chiasso. That means I'll miss the Opening Day party at the Peter Greenway exhibit in the museum where our site is. I was looking forward to this more than anything except the baths at Vals. Good thing I haven't booked a place yet in Lucarno, or I'd be out the money.

Miscellaneous Annoyances (don't read if you don't like to read sound-offs)

I've been loathing it here lately. I've loved every moment I've spent on my own, but this group is driving me nuts. Some of them get all annoyed and frustrated at me when I look for those who fell behind to make sure they don't get lost, which isn't very fair to me. A few nights ago when we were sleeping in one of the buildings at our project site, some of them were so drunk that they woke me up and stole my mattress from under me. I ended up sleeping on a blanket on the floor in the attic (3 or 4 stories up) just so their loudly obnoxious drunkenness wouldn't keep me awake. Last night was the first full night's sleep I've had since the Loudest Ones have started their spree of late-night "parties" two weeks ago and last night there was a crashing thunder storm. The Loudest Ones were in a different city last night or they (not the thunder) would have kept me awake. They are so obnoxious that locals are constantly shushing them and shaking their heads. I feel like I've moved in to a co-ed frat house, and anyone who knows anything about me also knows that such a thing is equivalent to torture for me.

Thank goodness for the few others here.

Never travel in a group of 23 people you don't know very well unless you really don't care about how things will pan out.

Tomorrow I leave on a 8 to 11 day field trip depending on how many days I decide to spend in Vals, where it costs approximately $125 per night but includes admission to the world-famous thermal baths. I don't understand our teacher's approach budgeting. He seems to think we will only need to spend $1,000 on this 10-day trip. The two nights he proposes in Vals will cost 25% of that budget, and that percentage doesn't even include lunches or dinners, which will be very expensive in that area. Did I mention that he had us buy 200-dollar passes for 8 days on the Italian rail system when we really only would have spent no more than $20 each of those days, usually more like $8? Oh, and that he said they work on the fast trains, which actually cost an additional 18 euros ($20-$25) each time? This is frustrating to me to no end. I don't mind being flexible and that we never get itineraries until the day of, and I can deal with him being on average 20 minutes to 2 hours late, but being given false information that costs me money...

I am very glad that it is already the start of Week 3. There are only 6 weeks left, counting this one, and then I can be done with these people. I have no idea if our professor is a good teacher, since we have really only had two class sessions so far. I can't remember a time in my life that compares even remotely to the volume of frustration that continuously threatens to consume my heart and mind here.

4-Day Field Trip

I wrote this blog, copied it so I wouldn't lose it, and forgot to paste it somewhere before re-using the copy function. Now to re-write...

Day 1: Friday - Milan

We left for Milan early Friday morning. When we got there I got to see my first castle. I liked the one in Verona better, but that's probably because in Verona I got to walk along the battlements, unlike the castle in Milano. (Milano is Italian for Milan and we seem to use them interchangeably in our group.) We also saw an amazing cathedral, the first man-made construct of my experience to make me feel awe. Nothing else has come close. Pictures do not do it justice.

(castle in Milano)

(cathedral in Milano)

(cathedral in Milano)

That night was the Great Hotel Hunt. One of my peers booked a hostel for the 23 of us. Two rooms for six, one room for 11. She and two others decided to go there early instead of watching the World Cup match with the rest of us, who had somehow divided into two main groups, the first of which (mine) left early enough to get to the hostel by the 11:00 check-in time. I went with that group because they were realistic about the time it would take and because one of them has a GPS phone. We made it to the hostel about 5 minutes before check-in only to find that our journey had just begun. There was "a problem with the room" for 11. We would have to go across town to the hotel owned by his brother, a 3-star hotel close to the center of town instead of the 2-star hostel in the sketchy outskirts. The owner drove the three girls who had been waiting there plus one of the guys (for safety we sent a male with them) to the hotel in his own car. We thought we were supposed to wait there to get our own rides from him, but it soon became apparent that the hotel was so far away that this would be beyond impractical. The other half of our group joined us around midnight, which means that if this mix-up hadn't happened, they wouldn't have been able to check in. Good thing some Russian heroine addict decided to throw a fit, destroy his room, and get the cops called on him. No joke. Sometimes a "problem with the room" really is a problem with the room.

Long story short, we found our last two group members as we were walking to the tram station and found got to our hotel two trams later around 2 in the morning. I had to share a double-sized bed with someone, which I thoroughly disliked considering the fact that I am not close to anyone in my group, but sleeping back-to-back on our respective edges of the bed made it a lot less uncomfortable.

Day 2: Saturday - Verona

The next day we left big, scary Milan (you are correct: I don't like that city, and not because of the hotel mix-up) for cute, quaint little Verona. Getting lost in Verona means you might be walking an extra fifteen minutes. Not bad at all. We found a place to stay when we got there, and ended up finding a great set of apartments right next to the arena for a price comparable to the hostels in Italy. Verona is not as hot as the other cities, the prices are a little better, and it has a quaint atmosphere, something I thoroughly enjoy.

The first thing we saw after checking in was the castle. There is a bridge from the castle over the river that flows next to it. It has arrow slits along its walls just as the top of the castle boasts its own. Arrow slits are thin and tall from the attacker's view. They widen as they go inward, allowing the defender to have quite a range of views and angles without exposing his body to his attackers' arrows.

(castle in Verona)

(arrow slit in bridge connected to castle in Verona)

After the castle we had some free time, during which I attempted to go back to the apartment to take a nap considering the fact that I'd had only a few hours of sleep due to the Great Hotel Hunt and had an opera to see that night. Instead I missed the turn and wound up sight-seeing as I passed magnificent cathedrals. No pictures, sorry folks, my camera card was full. I got a new one in Venice, 4G instead of 2. I also stopped into the one non-overpriced store I'd seen and got myself a sundress to wear the next day to Venice, where it would be just as hot as Milan and I didn't want to suffocate in my jeans. I found one that doesn't wrinkle so it's easy to pack.

That night I went to the arena, where I got to see the first part of Aida. I was very tired and was planning on ducking out at intermission, but it started raining so they paused the opera after the first act to see what would happen with the weather. When they announced that they would mop up the stage and continue, and I couldn't keep my eyes from dropping, I decided to leave then instead of waiting. I went back to the apartment and somehow managed to have a room to myself despite the fact that we needed two people per room in order to have one person per bed. I think there might have been less sexual tension in the group in the morning.

Day 3: Sunday - Venice

Sunday morning was a train to Venice, a water bus to the hostello region, and checking in to the hostel one of my peers and I had booked for the group. He found it, I paid for it, and the group paid me back. It's a sneaky way around the conversion fees: as an online payment, it wasn't subject to foreign transaction fees, and my peers paid me back in Swiss Francs and Euros, so I didn't need to pay the $5 to withdraw money from my bank account in those currencies.

(A pavilion at a piazza in southern Venice.)

Our first stop was the piazza (pee-ah-tzah), where there were various music pavilions that made me wish even more desperately for my boyfriend's company. Dancing with him to sweet accordion/violin melodies in a famous piazza in Venice would have been just perfect.

Day 4: Monday - Misc.

Monday morning we took a train to a small town where a famous architect had done a famous tomb project which I really enjoyed seeing. Then we were free to do what we would as long as we got back to the ostello for Tuesday afternoon. I decided to go back to Venice. I'm cutting this short because everyone else just got here, and if I don't post this now the pictures won't load. Long story short I spent the night there in a hostel, made some friends, and met someone who might be famous but I can't tell.

(evening in Venice)

Day 6

This weekend we will be going to Italy. Tomorrow night we stay in Milan, Saturday night in Verona, and Sunday/Monday nights in Venice. I haven't decided yet if I want to spend half of Monday in Venice and take the trains back that day, or stay that night and take the 6:00AM train back Tuesday in order to make it to classes on time. Most of my fellow students are choosing the second option because they want to go clubbing in Venice. That doesn't appeal to me, so I am seriously considering saving the hostel money and coming back Monday.

I won't be bringing my laptop and I won't be paying $8/minute for the internet, so there won't be any more updates until Monday night (my time) at the earliest, and that's assuming that I come back on Monday.

Ciao!

Day 5 - Design Charette

Today was rather uneventful. We started off with a late morning meeting around 10:00 to discuss what we will be doing now that our teacher has finally arrived. A charette is a quick sketch design process wherein designers come up with lots of ideas quickly, pick one, and develop it enough to be communicated. I started by tracing the plan of the courtyard and cavelike fortress cellar so that I'd have a base point:

I am getting a cold and spent most of the day asleep, so I don't really have anything else to report for today. I am video documenting most of what we do, though, so it should be easy to show you a lot more when I get back.

Some students went into town this afternoon to get supplies. I asked one of them to get me some hydrogen peroxide if he could find any. I bit my lip really badly during turbulence on the plane, and it's only getting worse. It's not infected yet, and I want to keep it that way. I didn't tell him why I wanted it, though, so he came back with a spray-on disinfectant that you can't use in your mouth. One of the other students here has his first responder, though, and suggested what I should have thought of: boil some water and make a salt water rinse. It'll probably be better than hydrogen peroxide would have been anyhow.

One day I'll write a blog and there won't be any medical problems involved....

Day 4 - Site Visit and Heat Stroke

Today we went to Locarno and visited the site where our project will be built. I feel odd typing this blog because while I was there I got heat stroke and hallucinated that I was writing today's blog. It makes me feel that I am doing something I have already done, but I know I haven't.

It was between one and two hours to get to Locarno, which houses the site for which we will be designing a cultural center. The castle (from the 10th century) that was there was destructed in order to use the stone for the foundations of the surrounding buildings after the castle was no longer necessary. The fortress was built in 15o7 and still exists. It is said to have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci, but this is also being debated.

When we got to the fortress, we had about an hour before we were supposed to meet with people, so I walked back to a department store we had passed in order to pick up a watch since I didn't bring mine as I was accustomed to using the cell phone I don't have here. The woman in that department didn't speak English, but she knew the phrase, "not water resistant," so we communicated well enough for her to point me away from the cheap watches I was looking at towards the more expensive water-resistant section. I went with the cheap one anyway, and after I bought it I saw that it says "water resistant" on the back of the battery. Cheap here is not the same as cheap in the states. I like this watch and will (hopefully) wear it for years to come. If I keep the receipt and will ever be back here again, it came with a 1-year warranty.

(Fr. 12.- or $13.50 for the cheapest watch I've ever seen in this country)

When I got back, everyone was standing in the sun on top of the fortress listening to the owners talk about the history of the place. I got very uncomfortable very quickly after joining them, and was reminded strongly of summers back home in Bakersfield. My thoughts kept refocusing themselves on the heat until the only thing I could think of was that. Eventually I noticed that my thoughts were also extremely sluggish. I decided I would need to walk away from the group and get to the shade for my own health, but then I heard one of them say, "...just to wrap this up, ..." so I stayed in the sun for I-don't-know-how-long until they were done talking, two presenters later. When we walked through the shade and I didn't feel any better, my very sluggish brain finally started to realize that something might be really wrong. When we walked up the hill and inside the slightly cooler building and I still didn't feel any better, the thought began to finally be a real one. When we walked up the stairs and I sat in one of the two chairs and I didn't realize that my knee was touching the person sitting next to me until he stood up and walked away, I finally decided that yes, my brain is not functioning and I need help. I don't know how long I was sitting there; I think I was slipping in and out of consciousness. It was sometime during this that I thought I was writing in this blog. As my group descended the stairs, I caught Jeffrey's eye. He's one of the architects who lives here in Ticino (tee-chee-noh). He could tell something was wrong and asked if I felt sick. I nodded and said, "heat stroke," thankful that he seemed to understand the term and I didn't have to try to think well enough to explain in different words. I said that I needed water. He told me to sit and wait, and came back shortly with a cup of cold apple juice. I was skeptical at first, thinking it was beer and not wanting a migraine, but grateful when I found out what it was. While my group went on a trek in the heat to see something some of them report as unimpressive, I sat in a chair in what I believe is the only mechanically cooled room in the building. There were beds and a shower, both of which I was offered by the owner if it would make me feel better. I just wanted to sit and take off my shoes to cool down faster, so that is what I did. I am very humbled by the caring nature of the people here. They made sure that I was comfortable and took very good care of me, and this is not out of character for what I have seen of the Swiss in Tichino (the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland).

Soon after I had recovered, the group returned from their walk and we sat in a courtyard area while the owners made us rissoto (ree-zoh-toh) and socialized with each other, the architects with our group, and the students. They brought out red and white wines and shared with all who wanted it, keeping the small cups full. Lunch was absolutely delicious, and I have a video clip of the explanation they gave us of the recipe, so I will try to make it when I get back. The majority of my class got a little tipsy, half were a little more than tipsy, and a few were really quite drunk. Quietly drunk, but still drunk. If they didn't understand wine and how little it really takes, they do now. When I politely turned down a glass of white wine, the man offering it joked that he should fetch me the vodka instead.

(The building on the right is the main public building. The stone wall is part of the fortress. The pole in the middle is actually a sculpture made of stacked 10-cent Swiss Franc pieces held together with pressure and no glue.)

After lunch we got a tour of the earthworks under the fortress, part of which has become a concert and exhibition space. The acoustics are perfect for such a use.

(The main exhibition space in the fortress includes a catwalk, projection screen, and reflective panels. This was a short artistic video documenting the construction of the sculpture in the previous photo.)

After the tour we went inside to discuss the project and what they (our clients) want us to design. Our site includes part of the fortress and three surrounding buildings, one of which is built right on top of the fortress. We have permission to change anything we want to except the curved facade of one building and the walls of the fortress itself. For some reason the earth in the earthworks is protected; if we want to grade the earth in the interior, we can move the dirt around but not remove any. The project turns out to not really be a cultural center in the sense I've designed before, but rather an international place for all forms of art, art students, and art exhibitions. There will be classroom space, places for students to live, places for exhibitions, etc. The best part is this: Locarno will be the site of an international art festival in 2015, and this center will be one of the pavilions. This means that any ideas we come up with could potentially be part of this festival. This is the first opportunity I have had to work on something that could end up built, or that could end up the basis of whatever design does get built. I am now, for the first time, excited about the architecture and not just for learning Italian!

Speaking of Italian, I had a wonderful experience on the way back to the train station from the project site. We had half an hour to make a 10-minute walk, so most of us stopped in to the department store on the way. Some needed towels, some just wanted to shop. I decided to get myself a wallet that's the right size for Swiss Francs and fits in my pocket. I didn't speak any English the entire time and I understood all of the Italian that was spoken to me! Granted, it was very simple, but I understood all of it right away without having to translate into English first. That means I'm learning Italian correctly instead of categorizing it against English inside my brain. Thrilled!

Even now that dinner is over at the ostello, Enrico (en-ree-coh), one of the architects with the group, checked with me to be sure I am feeling okay now. The people here really do care. It is beyond refreshing to see that a place like this exists.