Spring Term 2010, Week 4 (3rd Year Curriculum)

This week we finally got our site. For those of you who aren't in architecture school, this is essentially like giving a painter a canvas and enough information to develop a painting. Usually this is done sometime during the first two weeks of the term because it is the basis for the term project. Without a site (physical location) to work with, it is impossible to design a building that works well with reality. Knowing what my site is allows me to work with the topography, yearly temperatures, winds, precipitation, local natural disasters, all applicable laws, and a variety of other factors which have a large impact on building design. Needless to say, I am rather frustrated that I only just now got all of this information. I spent about an hour today making a digital model of the existing topography of my site. I am now ready to begin the design process for my term project. On Week Four. Of a ten-week term.

This term I am taking it easy. I completed my architecture engineering sequence last term, and transfered with all of my GE and professional electives complete, so I am able to take only 12-13 units per quarter from now until I graduate, unlike my peers, who usually take 17-20 units. I have studio, the 5-unit core of the architecture program; architectural practice, the 4-unit co-requisite involving a lecture and a lab; and architectural history, the 4-unit bane of an architecture major's existence. The fact that I am only taking 13 units, combined with my incredibly lax studio teacher, has given me way too much free time. I'm going to fill some of it with this blog, which I will continue to use during my summer studying architecture in Switzerland as a way to keep family and friends updated.