More Playing with Flash

So here is a super low quality video that is a combination of flash with some terrible audio installed in windows movie maker. Yea during the recording of the audio the dish washer was running. This is a super rough test and exploration for what we could be using in the beginning of all future fluffy muffin videos.

Final Project

Here is the final layout for the Ballard Neighborhood Design Studio. I think it turned out fairly well. Some of the most valuable feedback was the disconnect in ideas between the greenways and the intersection.

On Wednesday we are doing an open house to the community in Ballard. Wish us luck!

Thea Render

I just now made my very first rendered image using thea render. I'm pretty excited to finally get my hands on this program. The price for students is insanely cheap. About 100 bucks for me.

I got the program itself which allows you to import models and two plugins which allows you to render from the programs itself. I will definitely keep posting my progress on here. As of now I've only had a bout 20 minutes to play with the program itself so we'll see where this goes! Also update on how the fluffy muffin is doing. We have just been approved for google adsense so thats a step in the right direction!. We are adding a new section as well. Something about surviving life/college. I'll be posting on that a minimum of once a week and the other team mates will be posting as well. AND we are currently in the process of reorganizing and redesigning the entire site and the GUI. Stay tuned!

Ballard Community and Designers Meeting

Friday we had a quick meeting/review with the Ballard Community Council to give them an update on our progress and developing ideas. Here is part of what we showed them. We got some good feedback and direction/voiced concerns over the course of the day so that now we can address them over the next two weeks. Please Click the Picture for Higher Quality Images

I think from here we are moving to a more over-arching theme of Health in the project. Taking the health themes expressed on page 1 and pushing them and calling them out throughout the whole project. Thanks for checking it out!
Until next time!

Healthy Places

Hey guys quick update on how this week is progressing. My professor has encouraged us to think in the direction of healthy places and healthy neighbor hoods. So what kind of health are we talking about? There is obviously the health of body then the less talked about health of mind and finally we need to promote healthy relationships. I want to take this new angled look at the project over the next few days. Here is a couple images to go with that.

Also, in other news, tonight Alice and I went to a seminar/ demonstration of Photoshop at the Adobe building in Fremont. It was pretty cool, artist David Julian was there showing some of the techniques he uses in his art. It all seemed pretty basic techniques, such as using masks, but he uses them in a way that stuff turns out really well.

I Love Hexagons!

I heard some quote or something the other day about how you should never say that you don't have enough time in life to do this or do that, because you have the exact same amount of hours in a day that the great doers of the world had/have. Then the quote went on to name some great accomplishing people, Einstein, Mozart...etc etc. And it kind of struck me. Its true? The more i thought about it and discussed it with a couple people. Yea that the quote is a little bit generalized, but nonetheless it has kind of given me some fresh encouragement that I'm not sure is correct.

My biggest issue in life I think is that I want to do so many different things. Sometimes I get frustrated with the whole path of things that you have to finish one thing before you can start another. I have to finish this degree before I can start another. I have to make money in this profession before I start another. But are those people who were great, did they always stick with one thing. What if you have several passions? How do you choose which to pursue. I guess my question is can I pursue all of them????

I dont think it's indecision as much as...indecision.. whatever.

Back to Ballard. This last week are putting together some design refinements for another presentation to the Ballard Community council on the 24th of February. JJust been putting together some basic graphics to show them which will go through another round of work before our final on march 9th.

In other news, I finally met with my professional mentor! She was great and encouraged me to apply to more internships. It was great to meet with somebody that is fairly recently out of a Landscape Architecture program and so is very familiar with the current Landscape Educational experience and had some great advice! and im not just saying this in case you read this! :D Anyways.

This is what we are working on the Ballard Project. Some rough graphics. Click the images for Larger, more clear views.

and next I am trying to come up with some ideas for an overlying portfolio theme thing... here is something i threw together today.

I love hexagons.
Until Next Time!

Internship Applications as Practice Portfolios

Yesterday I submitted an application to another internship and I came to realize that as I apply to internships it becomes a little easier each time to submit "sample work" It's an abbreviated portfolio so to speak. Now the last internship I applied to I was even less satisfied with my application than this one,but this one I have started to think about the style I want to show, and themes and types of works I want to put forward. Here is what I submitted yesterday.

The reason for these particular pieces is that the call for applications specifically mentioned the adobe suite, CAD, and Sketchup, so for this particular submission I didn't include any Rhino or physical model building.
Until next time!

Getting Dirty Digging

Hi guys, today I'm just going to be giving a quick update about what the future of the quarter is looking like. It looks like its going to be fun! I have to admit that thus far the quarter has been pretty slow going, and I think that is mostly my fault for not taking full advantage of my time. This quarter in Restoration Ecology we are going to be getting our hands dirty in restoring part of the Union Bay Natural Area. We have compiled a rough, super simplified, restoration plan and now are doing peer reviews. After the reviews we will be revising and adding to the plan then submit it for final approval to our professor. Once we have approval we can get on with the dirty work! Just wondering....should I buy more waterproof boots? Probably...
The next hands on activity is we have the option, which I am taking, to help design and build a rain garden at a residence in the Ballard neighborhood with Mithun.Also very very exciting. Yes I know, to some of you building a rain garden is not a huge deal but its a first for me!.
More new stuff, I am debating on getting a kindle or kindle fire for reading the large amounts of online reading that this program requires as I find myself falling further and further behind in assigned readings. But most likely that's just an excuse I'm using. Need to find a job first!. Anyways, we are also having our mentor meet and greet this Friday. There is going to be food, drink, and some interesting presentations!. Now what picture should I include on this post....how about one of my desk! Delicious...

Urban Agriculture

Hi Everyone!
This week in studio we presented our findings about our topics of interest. Mine was Urban Agriculture. The first page of the document I put together outlines words we associate with the two separate terms, "Urban" and "Agriculture". It then goes on to explore why we as a society grow in one place but not in others. Then breaking that down the document explores precedents that have broken out of the normal box of food production to try something "new" in the urban environment.

The examples on this page explore three different reasons why people decide to grow in an urban environment rather that the traditional rural. The first reason being that in Gaza they are effectively cut off from a rural food supply thus they must grow their own food on their roofs to survive. The second example is of a company intending to make money by eliminating the need for land, soil, and much water through the science of hydroponics land "vertical farming"> Green Green Earth company is based and Japan and serves companies like Subway, Disneyland, and the US Military according to their website.

The last page brings the issues closer to Ballard and shows that the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle has a real desire to move into the area of Urban Agriculture. We can see this in these examples which are very few in compared to the many out in the neighborhood that are currently active.

There are some URL's in the bottom right hand corner of the final page if you want to learn more!
Until Next Time!

From Beginning to End: Sketchbook

This post is going to be the first installment of projects that I have completed from "beginning to end" meaning the initial concept phase up to the making of a final prototype project. The first project is a sketchbook I made for my girlfriend for Christmas. Alice does all the comics for our website Fluffy-Muffin so I thought I'd give her this to make it a little more official.

The first phase obviously was thinking up what to do in the first place. This is what some of the initial sketches looked like.

I kind of mulled about on this concept for a week or two then ended up going in an entirely different direction and decided to go strait to a RHINO model. First I was going to go landscape orientation but decided on portrait just because she usually likes that better.

I then exported these vectors to autocad and simplified it to make a CNC laser cutter compatible file. All that really means is making the lines you want cut to be red and a 1.00mm line weight and the lines you want etched in blue. everything else should be on a no-plot layer.

The cuts came out fairly nicely.

Then here is the final product after staining, sanding, and glue!

I am definitely going to make some variations of this in the future. My next one I am planning to use cut stainless steel on the front rather than wood stained a different color. I'll let ya know how it turns out!

Until next time!

Arrivals

I finally was able to pick up my books the other day. I'm so happy to be making my library larger. What do I need now? A proper bookshelf.

There are a few things I want to make in the schools woodshop these coming months and I'm trying to prioritize them. There is a stand for my computer monitors so I can free up some desk space. Actually need to make 3 of those. One for home, one for studio, and one for a friend. Next is a coat rack. My little studio is cramped on space and not having a proper coat rack usually just results in my hanging my coats and hats on the door, but then I cant close the door, so a coat rack is needed. Next is the bookshelf, I keep telling myself that if my books are out where I can see them more often I will somehow absorb the information contained in them just by staring... Last but not least, I want to make a shoe rack for hanging my shoes on when I come in the door. I usually take my shoes off but then they just pile up around the door, and since my fridge is by the door I can't get into my fridge....and thus cannot eat....see the issues here? Anyways.

I mostly want to treat these projects not just as building projects but also as finished work projects, and I want to build them all in autocad and Rhino 3D before I build them. I think it will give me some necessary practice in both of those programs. So over the next few weeks hopefully I'll be posting some of those. Right now I'm in the process of taking inventory of all the materials I have (and got for free) so I can minimize spending money on materials. That factor will be one of the primary design influences.

So this week has been an interesting one at school. So far this week we have had only one day of actual class, Tuesday. Its been snowing all week! Me and my buddy here attempted to make a giant snowball but it ended up taking about 2 hours for not that big. Snow wouldn't stick. But, as you can see, I haven't really been getting that much work done this week. Snow is great, but it is definitely a productiveness killer. What I'm supposed to be working on is a precedence study on Urban Agriculture. I've been doing a lot of reading into the subject and now I'm just trying to think of a way to put it in the context of Ballard. One of the first things I watched was The Future of Food It is a pretty interesting film seems a little biased but I highly recommend it. I has certainly changed the way I think about "traditional" agriculture. Anyways this very much fits in with the ideas of Urban Agriculture, the organic movement, farmer's markets, and the like. I am very excited about this whole idea. So the posters I am working on I want them to convey the reason's for Urban Agriculture, the challenges, etc etc and I very much want to look at both sides equally.

Hmm..what else did I want to talk about today...
I think thats it!
Until next time~

A look at Ballard's Transportation System

This week was a busy week indeed. Apologies for the intermittent posting this quarter so far. On Monday we took a field trip to Seattle's Ballard neighborhood and met with some representatives of the community there to talk about some of the outstanding issues in Ballard and some of the qualities as well. What makes Ballard Ballard?

After the meeting we spent the rest of the week compiling data about various areas of focus on the neighborhood. We then presented our "class findings" to those same community representatives and to the rest of the class. With further input from the community we are compiling all the data into a booklet for the class' use for the rest of the studio. Here are the pages that my group made!

In other news, this Friday we had our first UWASLA (University of Washington American Society of Landscape Architecture)meeting of the quarter.We have alot of events planned and I've renewed my commitment to updating the blog for the group that is meant to give prospective applicants to the program a chance to see the type of work we do and the culture of the studio in general. On top of that we are going to have a mentor-mentee meet and greet in a few weeks for those of us who have been paired up with a professional mentor through the department's mentoring program. I must say I am very excited for the whole thing.

Until next time! Hope you all are having a great 3 day weekend, unless you don't get this holiday off. In that case go let off some steam :)