Photo-Montage-Marathon

A coworker of mine asked me to do a simple rendering for him of a home renovation he is doing to the front facade of his house. Little did I know that this would be a 3-night marathon of photoshopping. Coming home from work just to begin more work. Brings me back to my college days. But other than 3d modeling, photo montaging is one of my favorite things about architecture. I just love being able to take a vision, or in this case a sketch, and make someone else be able to understand said vision. I like (love) to Design!

Anyway, enough words, here's the goods...

Oh yah, and I finally figured out how to attach larger images. Thanks to my flickr account, there will be no more uploading small and/or pixelated images. Let there be full-bleeds! (If such a thing existed on the internet...)

Radvent, Day 11 - DREAMING

What is your personal dream? What would happen if your dream came true?

It takes me a long time to decide on "a dream" because once I commit to having a dream, I will stop at nothing to make it happen. I often create dreams where I will expand a tangible dream into a crazy "intangible" dream.

Current dreams include:
Getting a golden retriever (crazy dream: living on a farm with hundreds of golden retrievers. I just want their furry, floppy, goodness all around me!)

Designing my own house. This one terrifies me because I would would want every "cool" thing I have seen in my own house. I might go crazy! Also, I heard that having yourself as your own client is a horrific experience.

To live an urban lifestyle. I am tired of relying on a car, not being able to have spontaneity, and having to plan out errand trips. (I once drove to 3 different grocery stores in one day.) I was inspired by a class I took in grad school where we studied urban/dense living in which communities would be built around transit, amenities, community. We have all been programmed to want big houses in the country side with acres of land, but that is just not for me. Give me my box in the city!

Big Dig House

The Big Dig House, by Single Speed Design in Cambridge, MA takes advantage of over 600,000lbs of reused materials, such as structural steel and road panels from the Big Dig Project. Because of the load-bearing capability of these materials, a rooftop garden was implemented into the design as well as a rainwater harvesting system. In true prefab style, the construction time was reduced immensely with the entire structural frame being built in under 2 days. The open 3,400 square foot house features an exposed structure and an abundance of natural light. For more information, check out http://www.ssdarchitecture.com/works/residential/big-dig-house/. (image from Single Speed Design website)

Studio Withdrawals

It has been 15 days since graduation, and 15 days of glory it has been. Being sucked into the 5-year "jail sentence" that architecture school is makes me appreciate every relaxing moment, every day of sleep, every minute just doing nothing that I have. I feel like I am finally about to start my life and get around to the things that I have been putting off for five years.

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Colorado for a friend's wedding, which was basically the first time for relaxation that I had after school, finishing thesis, and moving to New Jersey. Even though I am embarking upon a scary new chapter in my life in becoming a "true" adult and finding a career, I feel like a tremendous burden has been lifted. That is an amazing feeling, to live life without that constant retractable "leash" of architecture school, in which would let me wander during the summers, but always "yank" me back around August 27th of the last five years.

I can't wait to design! Today I think I started to have my first "studio withdrawal". We were driving around the residential area in Princeton looking at all the houses. I began my architectural career when I was about eight years old, designing houses. I had no training in architecture, just my ideas and the floor plan books of houses that my parents had bought for me. With all the larger scale projects that I have designed in school, I have not had a chance to remember how I started. My favorite project was the prefabricated residential house design in which I was able to focus on materials and customize every aspect of the design. The larger projects that I have designed have not allowed for this level of design and I wish to get into this once again. After my 15 days of freedom (which has also included getting my resume and portfolio ready for the treacherous job search), I think I might be ready to get back into it, even after all those late nights in the studio, with little sleep in which I was about to give up and quit to become a business major. I could never do anything else. As much as I have said I wanted to get out, I could never actually do it. The architectural "leash" will always lure me back, and I'm okay with that.