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!

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!

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 :)

Mastering Autocad

So today in between classes I've begun to go through my autocad book i mentioned in my last post. So far, its pretty nice. I'm only on page 10 as of now but the pictures and diagrams are very clear and helpful. Even though I'm going through the basics right now I am still learning little things that I didn't know before. And what has it brought forth so far? A polar array of an offset polyline. Amazing, possibilities...

Until next time!

Fluffy-Muffin has Arrived!

Hello everybody! The fruits of my winter's break labor has finally been revealed! The website my friends and I have created is now live and ready to be critiqued! I really encourage anybody reading this to go take a look. As of now we only have one article and one comic up but we are adding more content 3 days a week. Ultimate goals? Well in my mind one of the ultimate goals is to have the site grow to a place where writers and comic maker's alike can create and post their own content and have it recognized! Or just entertainment...either way I've had a lot of fun and stress, yes stress is good in this case, getting the required elements together along with my teammates. There is still much much more to add and I cant wait to see where this all goes!

Anyways in another front do you think I should include some of the graphics for the web site, in a portfolio page? I am seriously considering it.
Until next time!

Working from the Sunny State

So yesterday I submitted my final model for my Rhino modeling class and here are a few pictures of it. A couple things I definitely could have done better if I summed up the motivation was variate the fern rotation and scale a bit more, definitely should have done a better job on marsh grass. Somethings I still need to figure out is how to make face-me objects, for those of you who don't know what that is, it is just an image that turns and always faces you as you are orbiting the model, I don't think it does so well with shadows though. If you didn't see the earlier version you can check out a picture here. Anyways I may continue to work on this model for a piece of portfolio as it is not quite up to standards as of yet. Take a look at some of the pictures below! AND if you would like to support me take a look (and by take a look I mean click) some of the advertisers on my page!

Other news. So I had my telephone interview with the firm I mentioned previously and it seemed to go ok. I don't know if I'll be selected but the interviewer and I seemed to hit it off well. I hope to get the position but I am ok with not getting it too. If I don't I'll find something somewhere else soon! I'll keep you guys updated. Also on another front, my partner and I have decided to submit to the ASLA awards the Orcas St. Housing Project later in the New Year. I hope to be more thoroughly involved in the submission process and I think it's going to be a good experience winning or not. Some things to be aware of if you find yourself in a similar position is the 50 dollar fee to become a student member of ASLA and the Entree Fee for the project itself! You can look at some of the PRE REVISED graphics in my earlier post here. Until next time!

Final Submission

So today me and my partner put together some pages of 11 x 17 to submit to our professor for grading. These pages will also be given to the city of Redmond to show and consider at future meetings concerning the park system. Hopefully its helpful. Comments are welcome! Until next time~

On other notes, so far California has been great. Pretty cold down here. Tomorrow I have that phone interview. I actually looked at the land8 lounge blog for some tips on what types of questions to expect and what types of questions to ask, but they all seemed geared more towards professionals seeking jobs, not a student looking for an internship. I'll let you know how it goes! Wish me luck!

The morning after

Well the quarter is over! The above picture is the aftermath of my studio desk and it was well worth it. Our presentation to the redmond arts commission was somewhat of a disappointment due to the attendence of only a single guest. Better than no guests I suppose. It was a stark difference to the review on Wednesday to professionals  professors and students. Overall I think the quarter went fairly well and I think I was taught more this quarter than the previous three combined. It's been great.

So in other news, I now have a phone interview scheduled with a firm here in Seattle who is looking for a winter quarter intern! I am pretty excited to get the opportunity to talk to them in a form other than a resume or cover letter. Wish me luck! 

Right now I am on a train on my way to California for the week where I shall finish my final rhino model and prepare for the interview!! Pictures to come as I go.

Until next time!