Day 3 - First Full Day at the Ostello

(a bee collecting pollen early this morning)

Today was extremely tiring, but definitely worth it. I woke up of my body's accord around 6:00, took a shower and a walk, and had some free time before breakfast, which started at 8:00. It was refreshing to have the shower room to myself (gym style; six shower heads with no divider) and to see the town with no one else awake.

(one example of the hairpin turns typical of this place; the yellow building on the right behind the stone building is the top of the ostello)

Breakfast was an interesting concoction made of mixing yogurt, granola, and chopped fruit. It looked highly unappealing, but I was highly hungry, so I tried it anyways and found it to be better than tolerable, though not by much. As I ate, the flavors grew on me. Most of my classmates loved it.

Our teacher still has not arrived, so the three architects working with our teacher have taken charge of the students for the time being. The time between breakfast and lunch was spent arranging the tables in the workspace into a working layout and researching cultural centers, seeing as that is this term's project.

After lunch we went back to Chiasso (kee-ah-tsoh) in order to buy regional transit passes. These passes allow us to take any train or bus in the region for free, meaning that although they are quite expensive we will be saving a lot of money with them. Chiasso is the closest city, and it costs several francs to get there, so we'll be doing a lot of traveling for every day business, let alone our Friday field trips.

(a photo booth for passport pictures; we used this for our regional pass photos)

In Chiasso we stopped at a bank, bought our passes, and took a short tour lead by the architects with our group. A free tour by locals. You can't beat that! We took a bus to a neighboring town, where we visited a school of architecture and saw some final models of graduating students. Then we went to a town square where one of the World Cup matches was showing. There was a grocery store there, where we gratefully went to get snacks and things we'd forgotten to pack. I got shampoo, cookies, and some things I can't spell correctly (snacks). I'm not accustomed to this three meals a day thing - I like to snack all day and end up eating four or five small meals. Mostly it's the scheduled meals I'm unaccustomed to. My system might adjust eventually, but for now I need snacks to kill the hunger ache!

(a topographic model made from layered pieces of thin, hand-cut cardboard)

When we got back to Muggio (moo-joh), the little town we take a bus to in order to take a shuttle back to Scudellate (skoo-deh-lah-teh), I picked some large clover flowers and made two circle chains. When we got back to the ostello I gave them to the very nice woman who makes our food and helps out in some other ways.

Dinner was delicious. Now some of us are watching the next World Cup match and I am taking advantage of the lack of internet users to try to upload a video in hopes that there is more bandwidth available. If you can play a video of the scenery here, then it worked. If you can't, then I don't think I can upload videos here.

Day 2 - Scudellate (skoo-deh-lat-teh)

To get here today, we took a train from Lugano (loo-gah-no) to Chiasso (kee-ah-so), then a bus from Chiasso to Muggio (moo-joh). Looking at the map below, it may seem rather indirect, but because Muggio is up in the mountains, this was actually the most direct route available.

(dark blue = train; light blue = bus)

When we arrived in Muggio, we had about an hour and a half to wait before the next shuttle came to take us up to Scudellate, a tiny little town of about 30 people at the end of a string of tiny little towns. Here is a map showing some of the switchbacks to get up to Scudellate; the driver had to make K-turns at some of the hairpins:

While we waited for the shuttle, we had lunch at the only restaurant open on Sundays. It is run by a very nice woman who speaks almost all European languages and who helped us with our Italian. The place is so small that they serve on dish per day of the week; Sunday's dish is gnocchi, the same meal I had for dinner. Good thing I like it! This version was made with red sauce instead of oil and herbs, so I did get some variety.

There are several bunk beds crammed into each room in the ostello. One large room is dedicated to the male students while the other two are for the female students. I chose a bed in the room with the balcony. Here is the view from my bed:

I would post a lot more pictures of the beautiful place where I get to live for the summer, but the bandwidth here is quite minimal and it took about 20 minutes to upload these three. Oscar, one of the three main people (architects maybe?) that we will deal with here has organized a dinner for us tonight, and it is ready now, so I am going to go wash up and eat.

Ciao!

Day 1 - Lugano

The flight from Zurich to Lugano was a simple forty-five minute up-down flight that took us over some beautiful mountains for which pictures do no justice.

I ran into a classmate at the Zurich airport who turned out to be on the same flight to Lugano and who did not have a hotel room. She is staying with me now, which makes me feel more comfortable. She bought me dinner in return for the room.

(gnocchi, a yummy potato dish with a gummy texture)

After dinner we wandered along the lake for a bit before returning to the hotel. It's 10:00 at night here, and it feels like 11:30 at night, so I guess I'm doing pretty well with jet lag.

Tomorrow we will take the train to Muggio, a bus to Scudellate, and set up for our summer in Switzerland. I will have to duct tape my luggage together (yes, I brought a roll along) just to get it to the ostello. A wheel got ripped off of one bag, and there's a gaping hole where the handle to another had been.

(Yeah, you're really not supposed to be able to reach inside like that...)

(There was a wheel there when I left. Now there's a gaping hole.)

Day 1 - Flying to Zurich

We flew past Las Vegas not long ago, and the flight has reached a point quiet and boring enough that I feel like writing...

My parents and my boyfriend saw me off at the airport. They stood outside the security area until they couldn't see me anymore, occasionally trading waves, winks, kisses and smiles across the queue.

I have my grandfather's drafting tools and my amazing scaled dividers (another drafting tool) in my carry-on bag so that they won't get lost if my luggage does. Security wanted to see them, as they had in an airport in Japan, but there were no other problems. The scaled dividers looked like a knife in a case on the screen, so I really don't blame them for wanting to open up the box.

I have the best seat on this airplane - the window seat in the last row. I get to see everything, lean on the wall to sleep, and no one will be kicking my chair. Jeff's big gray sweatshirt is accompanying my journey and will serve as a pillow when I finally decide to sleep.

(Picture out airplane window; that's the moon, not the sun.)

The man sitting next to me is from Switzerland, so we have had enough to talk about. His main language is French, and he works in Switzerland for a company based in San Diego. He was in LA for training, and says that English would be easier to learn if he could ever be there for more than a week or two at a time. Scudellate, the town where I will be staying, is so small that he's never heard of it. He even asked me if I'm sure it's in Switzerland.

We are about to fly near Richfield. I am glad I will be asleep for most of the oversea portion of this trip. While I know that we are high enough that crashing on land or water won't make any difference, something makes me feel more comfortable knowing I'm over land.

Flame Working

I am absolutely thrilled about my glass classes. I started off enthusiastic and unsure of myself, and have just developed enough skill to feel proud about my work. Even as I type this, I am dressed in business casual attire and wearing a piece I made that happens to match my outfit. It somehow came out pink even though I don't have any pink glass. Not sure what happened, but I am happy with the result!

One of the first things I learned to make was a spiral pendant. This one has a loop made from pulling out part of the pendant itself. I had never done this before; all of my other loops are made by adding glass to form a loop. You'll see this below. This spiral includes a glow-in-the-dark color. (Sorry about the reflections in the surface - I'll find a better place to photograph my pieces next time.)

After sprial pendants, we learned to make implosions. This rather time-consuming method creates three-dimensional "petals" inside the pendant. Artists often arrange them to look like flowers, but not always. Here is an example of each, both containing glow-in-the-dark glass. Please remember the three white streaks in each are reflections of the lights and aren't actually part of the pieces.

Marbles are the most difficult things we learned to make back in the beginning class. They can take hours to shape into perfect spheres, especially the larger ones. I put a reverse spiral inside this one, it starts off in one direction then goes the other way. I never made another marble because this one took so long to make.

I am thoroughly enjoying the sculptural side of this class, despite the fact that this is the area in which I need the most improvement. I am actually very good at making turtles although I have no pictures to show for it due to the fact that I have given away every turtle I've made that didn't break.

My favorite things to make right now are glass flowers. They are simple to make in many ways, and at the same time can be rather difficult because they are prone to cracking as the artist focuses on one area and forgets to keep the whole flower hot. Here are some of the flowers I've made:

One of the most difficult things to make in flame working is a ring because of the tensions in the glass as it is pulled into a circle. Rings are highly prone to cracking, just like flowers, so what did I decide to do? ...combine them, of course! As an artist shapes a ring, the ends of the glass left behind look leaf-like before they are removed. I decided to leave them in place and add a miniature flower. This is something I have been attempting all quarter and have finally only yesterday managed to produce. The small white center of the clear glass flower glows in the dark.

These are only a few of the kinds of things I have made. I've been badgered for pictures, so here they are! Enjoy.

Spring Term 2010, Week 9

I have completed my floor plans, so all I really need to do now is draw a few other views of the building and build a model or two for my presentation. That sounds simple, and in reality it is, but it will also be very time consuming.

I have been taking a flame-working class, a class in which students learn to shape glass rods with a blowtorch. It is one of many classes offered at our Craft Center. I feel it is important as a future architect to familiarize myself with as many materials as possible, and the Craft Center is a great way to do that. I've been making glass pendants for necklaces, flower and turtle sculptures, rings, and a few other things. I've finally reached a point where I feel my work is sell-able, so if anyone wants to help a college student out, let me know what you want me to make and I'll tell you if I can do it and how much it will cost you. Once I get some good pictures of my work, I'll share them here.

Going back to my project, I've decided to be a social revolutionist in my designs. As part of my leadership training, I have become aware of the fact that there are over 10 different gender identities, and that some individuals will not use public restrooms marked as "male" or "female" because it will make these individuals (or those around them) extremely uncomfortable. I have, therefore, decided to include three restrooms in my design, just as I included three locker rooms in my aquatics center project last term, which was based in San Francisco. I have a meeting set up with someone from the Pride Center who puts on seminars to promote awareness about gender issues. She will help me figure out the best way to address this in my design, as well as the best way to communicate my reasoning to a panel of judges who will, most likely, be comprised of rather traditional faculty members.

Spring Term 2010, Week 7

This week I scrapped my direction and started over with a lot of things. My program is still the same, and so is a lot of the organization, but my approach is quite different. Rather than trying to fit my architecture into the classical past, I am going with a relatively modernist approach. I had been going with neoclassical (aka Greek or Roman Revival) since that's fairly typical of old wineries, but the more I thought about bringing in the high-rollers, the more I began to think state-of-the-art technology is a must-have. I am not even using standard construction in my design. Instead, I am using SIPs, or Structural Insulated Panels, something buildings in all extreme climates (hot and cold) should utilize. Imagine, if you will, two sheets of plywood separated by an approximately foot-thick layer of sturdy foam insulation. The plywood is glued to the insulation, forming one thick panel. These panels are so sturdy that they replace the need for studs. The joints are done in such a way as to form what is essentially an uninterrupted blanket of insulation around the building. In a typical house built with studs, these studs separate the panels of insulation, creating thermal weak spots. If you look at a picture of a house taken with a thermal camera, you can tell where the studs are. This, obviously, makes for very inefficient insulation in comparison to the SIP approach. SIPs are comparable in cost to normal construction, and save a lot of money in the long run. This is one of many ways in which the building I design will be innovative and refreshing in its new technology, creating a draw through its very state-of-the-art-ness. It will be a building that will teach the public simply by existing. (Or, it would teach if it was actually to be built instead of simply being a school project.)