Project 05 - Formative Review

Truthfully, I’m really not enjoying life at the moment. The first term of any year is always tough due to the shear amount of work required: in this case, a 5-week and 3-week design project, Creative Practice module & our dissertation. The problem doesn’t really lie there though, but in the fact that I’m currently having to fight myself on a daily basis to remain focused and motivated on the various tasks at hand. I feel a bit like the “boy who cried wolf” to an extent right now, in that I’ve always been so disparaging of my own abilities that when I hit I point that I’m genuinely struggling with more bullshit than just “the dissertation ain’t working out right now” or, “life ain’t fun”, well yeah. Life isn’t always fun. But what really takes the fucking cake is when you’re having to fight yourself, or more specifically spectres of yourself formed at shitty points in life. I ain’t alone in this, I know that; it just feels like I’m losing a battle right now, and I don’t know what that means for the war. People who know me are really rather concerned, and I don’t want them to be, I want them to be confident that I can deal with it, survive and succeed; but perhaps that is reflective of my own lack of confidence right now. I hate worrying people or getting in their way of enjoying life.

Anyway. We’ve got a field trip for the next part of the project, and the weather is looking like it will be rather wet. Pfft. Bring it. We survived the Folkestone field trip, we’ve got this XD.

End of Year Show

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been prepping for the end-of-year show. It has been rather fraught at times, but we’re there. Just some tidying up to do on Monday, and then we’ll be set for the private view on Friday @ 16:00.

One year left. Oh, and a thesis to do over the summer. I really need to figure out what I want to write about…

Project 04 - Submission

Today marked another milestone - we handed in our Term 2+3 portfolio and finished our 2nd year of Architectural education. These are some selected slides from the final folio.

To say I am knackered is an understatement; also a bit emotional both for personal reasons, (despite how old/experienced you get, moving on from unrequited crushes is never a completely painless experience) and as the project was on a rather, intense, theme of psychological trauma… yeh, I’m knackered.

So, whats next? Key things I learnt from this project: atmospheric skills - this still needs work to get it completely accurate to how I wish the architecture to actually feel, function and look. Be careful with Rhino (and other CAD packages), whilst I was definitely still learning the programme at first, it is still quite easy to get lost in the programme, either with the camera (as Nasios would say: ‘De-Orbit!’) or with details. Some of this will come with time - as I progress, I’ll understand structures more and more, and also know where to go and piece together unfamiliar or new structural concepts; and hopefully won’t need to redraw quite as much. Then there is also the predisposition to choosing emotionally charged subjects, which if I’m honest may not change all that much as I enjoy challenging myself. But still, there is something to be said for wisdom in the face of all of that.

As for next - we start our dissertation prep. We have our first session with our tutor on Thursday, and I’ll be looking at starting to map out my interests and where the intersect with the broader themes of our working group.

As for the summer: catching up with dear old friends; putting up the exhibition; finding a new home; and damn do I need a holiday somewhere.

Project 04 - Model Development

The project is ramping up rapidly now - despite the campus closure due to England’s aversion to snow. Last week was predominantly model making - both a 1:200 site model which was fabricated using both a CNC router (for the pine base) & laser cutter (for perspex & MDF pieces); along with plaster casts of 25x25x15mm & 50x50x15mm cuboids for volumetric concept modelling.

Translating my initial intuitive models to 1:200 site based concepts was, and still is a bit difficult, but I’m getting there. Having gone through 3-4 iterations (both physical and/or CAD based), there are still problems with my current iteration that I will have to fix on the go as it were. The crit is <2 weeks away, and we have a mini-brief for Technology to complete in that time as well if memory serves. There is also the continued Communications task, based around the keyword/concept of ‘folding’, (which I have attempted to wrap into the main project) we’ll see how that turns out.

I’ve had to take some personal time these past two days as I’ve had a pretty rough week and a bit, nothing major; just a lot of soul searching and a desire to put myself back on track. I really am grateful for the friends I have.

Project 04 - Site Survey

Project 04 - Medway

New Year, New Project, New Update.

Our project for terms 2 & 3 revolves around the design and implementation of an “archive” (whatever form/function/etc that may take). We’ve been given 5 sites to choose from in Strood - and I’m mulling over two of them, both located on the bank of the Medway (so, amongst other things - plan for flood risk & sustainable drainage etc.).

The two top slides of this update show a route not taken with this project (pun unintentional) - that is, the archiving of “protest(s)”. These two maps were a quick attempt to show the route, origin and potential dispersal patterns of the protestors at two protests: the “Reclaim Your Voice” student march in Edinburgh, 2011; and the 2003 “Stop the War” march in London. I’ve decided to go for a theme of “psychological trauma” instead, for archival. 

Project 03 - Conclusion

A friend of mine commented last night when we were playing pool, that we are “Half-Half” - as in, we are at the half-way point through our 2nd year, and thus half-way through the course as a whole.

It was a long, busy, fun and poignant term.

Oh, and we still have 2000 words or so to write over the Winter break. Speaking of writing, I used to be a lot better at writing these blog posts! Blame a change in priorities if you wish - despite no longer having the dreaded commute, all that time has been taken up studying, sleeping, or eating (sometimes 2 at a time - although I’d avoid eating & sleeping at the same time, gets messy).

Next term we have one long project to see us through, much like 1st year, along with the creative practice module, more cultural context & technology afaik. Then we get dissertation prep for summer.

Let us see what the New Year brings…

Project 03 - Kingsnorth (cont.)

Project 03 - Kingsnorth