Day 198

A little bit of post-sunrise at the beach:











And a little bit of Color & Light notebooking:


(recognize the leftover Anthropologie portfolio cover? Reused.)





I can't believe it's Thursday. Thursday! Spring break where have you gone?

Also,



At least we know I can get an internship. Now in terms of taking it...

Day 197: We're adjusting. Lots of walks and a 40-degree-day swim for this guy:







Day 196: And a half-hearted finish for this stuff:





And on we go.

Days 192-195

Last Thursday my studio professor's partner came in and gave an inspiring demonstration on watercolor perspectives:











Later on Thursday our handsome buddy got very sick and I rushed home to be with him, leaving my computing homework unfinished.





Buddy left us on Friday.



Saturday and Sunday were spent in bed. And so it is Monday. Back to the grind. Luckily it's Spring break week and I'm not on a stringent schedule.

I'll be taking Buddy's brother Teddy (on the left) to the beach, finishing my studio project, logging in my Color & Light class notebook and preparing for the remainder of Spring semester.

Days 190 & 191

It's almost April and this is how I am dressed to walk to school. Because today, it is snowing.

Days 188-189

Working on the Nickerson dorm project towards an informal pin-up on Thursday.

For now that means a general concept model and rough computer sketches/floorplans

Days 185-187: Make a Topo-Model the "Old Fashioned Way"

So, the freshman dorm project continues. I worked with another classmate on a topographic model that would suit both of our end-of-project needs. Win, win.

Nowadays (as in, over at the BEB Archi-torture building) these models are built entirely by the laser cutter in about 10 minutes. Each elevation layer is mapped out in Autocad and the laser cuts a sheet of cardboard to the exact shape. Considering I'm at the beginning of my Autocad learning and the INTAR professors thought this would be a good learning experience, my classmate and I built this thing by hand.

Pro: I can now read a topographic map with one hand on a utility knife and the other on a ruler.

Con: It took the better part of a night and the finished product is not at the level of ::perfection:: the laser cutter would have provided.

Without further adieu, here's how it went down: (Actually, first up is a shot of my studio desk this semester. Good to know some things never change, right?)



Buy cardboard



Print out 1/16" scale site map. Use 1/8 cardboard to represent 2' of rise



Trace layers of the site map - cutting away each as you go. Do this for 6 hours.





Find something heavy and clamp down 35 layers of cardboard overnight because each layer is warped in a different direction.



Wood-glue and spray fix the layers together until there's no way the recycling center will accept the cardboard.







I'm not bitter about this model - it's going to make a tremendous impact on the final outcome. But once was enough.

Day 184

Some pictures from the daytime tour of Nickerson Hall, a Freshman dorm.








(tape monster)



I went back and visited last night. Nickerson pulsates with drama at nighttime...which makes sense because art school freshman are nothing if not dramatic. Now can I design for that....?

Day 183

A little too tired to post today, 6am tomorrow morning will be much better.

Day 182: RISD Freshman Dorms

Our next project in studio is to redesign RISD's Freshman Dorm "Nickerson". I have some site-photos to upload tomorrow from our tour of the spaces. Below is a research powerpoint I presented in class today. We were asked to do a quick, 5-10 minute talk about an area of interest in relation to dorms, the freshman experience, etc. I chose Semester at Sea, aka the best summer I've ever had.