Saturday, August 31, 2013

August Review



I haven't posted at all this August, although I have still been collecting thoughts and images. Presented together, I hope they create a sense of the month past.

I have been steadily working on my earthquake museum, with a couple of free demonstrations of how buildings react in earthquakes. The 6 point something on Friday happened on the day we were learning about 'torsion' and how buildings resist twisting in earthquakes. It turns out our studio on the 3rd floor sways A LOT.



Speaking of which, this is where I have been spending probably far too much of my time.

But I do love being outside, and the interesting things that are there



I like the way this student hall expresses its internal functions so clearly in the facade, with the common areas highlighted in boxed window frames and cut through the middle of the entire building. That it stands as a kind of spectator of the sports (and city) below.



I love architecture's ability to encompass such a diversity of subjects. I love that our first lecture in the morning can be a discussion on the role of mana and ahi kā in 'cultural landscapes', and then straight afterwards we can have a lecture on the structural performance of floor diaphragms in earthquakes.

It has been super interesting writing an essay about pre-European marae ateā, or forecourt, along with the problems with scholarship on pre-European periods in Aotearoa New Zealand this entails.


Giles, J W fl 1847. Angas, George French, 1822-1886 :Tu Kaitote, the pah of Te Wherowhero on the Waikato, Taupiri Mountain in the distance. George French Angas [delt]; G. W. Giles [lith]. Plate 15. 1847.. Angas, George French 1822-1886 :The New Zealanders Illustrated. London, Thomas McLean, 1847.. Ref: PUBL-0014-15. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22844562



(How to write notes to one's self late at night...) Bold, underlined, red, italics, 18 point.


Another project in the office was drawing the construction detail for the 'core' of a mid-rise building, where my design looked at ways to integrate an atrium into this space, but as discussed in another lecture, the fire design requirements will therefore be more complex.

More recently;



Colour-coded thoughts


And relief that I was able to save a corrupted 3d model file (due to imported geo-data set an astronomical distance from the origin point - thank you this page, and the function "remesh")

Finally, on my walk today I saw a drawing that I liked, but more so the composition that it was in context with:


Hope you had a good month too! See you next time