Winding down

Getting ready to move across country. Still lots of things I have to sell and pack. I am stressing about selling these things. :) on the other hand I am excited to make the move, and start some new things. I hope to be accepted into a mfa program where I can do some exploration of my body of work. I will definitely keep you all posted.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Week Nine

After scouring my favorite new pastime site www.virtualglobtrotting.com  I have come across something I think is worthy to blog about.  I have been spending/wasting hours scanning the aerial photos of celeb houses and architectural oddities with this website.  I am fascinated with the perspective that comes from an aerial view, I don't think it is some kind of voyeuristic thing I think it is simply because we spend most of our time 6 feet or less in my case from the ground.  I truly envy the bird's eye view that is only an option to those creatures that have wings, I suppose those artificial creatures that have wings and camera lenses too.  THIS is the one image I will share with you for now and if you get sucked in like I have I encourage everyone to browse this website some more, not at work obviously.  

The page I linked above is interesting to me architecturally, because it reminds me of the Nazca Lines that the ancients carved into the ground.  But in this case these scars on the earth were done by Saddam Hussein in his attempts to cover up the illegal activities that he once perpetrated.  

Well I will let you all get a chance to fly around the globe and scope out your own intriguing shot.  

Week Eight

This is my last blog post processed using my new favorite website, wordle.com .  I think they are on to something.  I know I appreciate the simple idea of taking my words and making them something visual and graphic.  I am reminded when I started architecture school that we were taught in our first drawing class, that if you can write then you can draw.  This defines our writing as art, or a form of art.  I still believe this to be true.  To test this, all of you who think you are no good at drawing, the next time you write something don't look at the letters and characters, but look at the white space in between.  There you will see what I am talking about.  It will appear as another language or something foreign, but after a while you will, like me, be able to jump back and forth between the written words and the negative space surrounding them with great ease.  

This wordle example is obviously not hand written, but by randomly composing the words this way it makes you see the space between the letters.  

I also should give credit to the blog where I first came across wordle.  That would be fellow architect Geoff at bldgblog.com  Thanks! 

week six

Micro Managing Not Macro Managing.  

This is what I mean by the above statement is that all these pretty renderings I see in every architecture magazine I look at are fantastical images of buildings that overreach their means. These designs are very impressive on paper, but most of the time they never come to fruition or if they do, the never come out as successful as the renderings evoke.  I do not want to lead you readers on a long rant, like I have done in the past, I just wanted to air my grievances about the current state of affairs as far as my profession goes.  

I have a prediction, that I hope will come true for 2010.  I predict that the new fad will be to build the smallest building we possibly can instead of the biggest.  (But not as small as the school for ants).  This would be great because it would re-teach architects how to detail a building properly and respect the scale of humans as we are the prime user of almost every project.  All these mega structures lose that sense of scale and detail, because they are just trying to build higher and bigger than the plot right next door.  So, as my title suggest architects will become better micro-managers instead of macro-managers.  Honestly neither kind ever sound good on a resume, but I am stretching their meanings to fit my topic. 

I for one would like to see buildings be more technical as far as paying attention to the detail, instead of talking about how many millions of tons of concrete I was able to devour in the processing of my ridiculously expensive building.  

Animation

week five

Taking the section slices here and in the previous post I have made a topographic mesh of the exisitng site conditions. These sections were taken at 100 foot intervals, and combined with the survey to create the 3D surface mesh.

week four

Here are some initial diagrams of the project in the previous post. The site is about 100 acres in the hills of china. The excat area is called Huanxiu Lake. We were invited to compete for a masterplan proposal for this virgin land.

week three

Here are some examples of diagrams I have done using Sketchup My favorite tool for visualizing 3D models.  These diagrams are an exploded view of the different layers of function that we developed into the masterplan for a mixed use community.  

Week two

Week two. Well this being my second installment to my blogging atempt
at producing one post a week for this new year. I am taking the
opportunity that I have right now as I board the shuttle to the
airport. I like this shuttle bus concept because it saves my wife a
trip to the busiest airport on the west coast, and it is better for
the environment. I was going to read a little but they turned off the
lights so decided to blog from my iphone. Thankfully the email program
has text correction because this bus is aweful bumpmy. I left that
mispelled on purpose. ;)

The one topic I would like to address right now is about a recent
article from skyscraper magazine, it was more of a news item. It was
about a new tower getting the green light in Dubai. They showed one
rendering for this building, and let me tell you, it was nothing
spectacular. All I can really remember was that it is going to be 60
stories tall and that it will look like every other 60 story high rise
in dubai, that has been built in the past 15 years. And for those of
you who don't know that is litterally hundreds of buildings. The point
I wanted to emphasize about this Bulding is the name of it. The
developers simply are dubbing it "The Skyscraper". My observation is
that I guess the only name not taken had to be somthing like
skyscraper. And I think the name fits, a generic title for a very
generic and very useless tower in a city that definately does not need
another carbon pimping, human rights violating structure. I am glad
that the name for my Dubai project isn't taken yet. It will be called
"The ------------". You know what you can fill that part in because
i'm sure you are just as qualified.

Kurt Neiswender, LEED AP

week one

For the new year I have a concept for blogging, at least for me that
is. My idea for this year is to bring a new post every week for the 52
weeks of the year. And like many resolutions, I am already 3 weeks
behind! But I can count this one as the first. So let this be the
beginning of 52 weeks.

Talk to you soon in catching up.

Kurt Neiswender, LEED AP