sparkle sparkle

on christmas night, we shot off a big bunch of fireworks, and after about 2007 tries, i finally captured a few good ones on my hot new camera. HOT, eh?! twinkle twinkle

snowshine

happy holidays !!
yeah. i just love this old chair, so i took pictures of it. yes, of course it's orange.














and also, neat shots of inside my dad's shop of his welder and some tractors. grrr.

here are a few pictures from the farm. YAY snow!


AND i made a snow angel. RAH.

back, back, back . . . back, in the U.S.S.A.

i'm baaa-aack.
i'm in minnesota (and i have apparently forgotten how to spell it, because i couldn't decide if there was two 'n's or not - WTF?! ridiculous. I'm fine now, i know it. don't worry.)

there is tons of SNOW here. wow! white christmas it is, yay!
it is also COLD here. gee, surprise surprise. And i thought Paris was bad. HA. I guess this is really it, i'm not a Californian anymore!

so if you feel like calling me on a phone, i'll be at my parents' house from Saturday til Saturday the 28th. I'm not going to post the number on this wwwebsite, so just email me and i'll give you their number.

right now i'm in "the cities" staying with Pasternak. She's at work, and i'm eating all her cookies at her house. yes!

la la la, le corbusier

i took a little excursion out of Paris, to see what is probably the most famous house in architectural history: the Villa Savoye built circa 1929 in Poissy, France by iconic architect Pierre Jeanneret - known as Le Corbusier. My classmates Pierandrea, Brandon, Rajat, Ahbishek, and Brian were with me on the little journey which took about 40 minutes from the center.
















it was amazing to see, surprising even to myself (as i personally am a much bigger fan of his Chappelle Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp - which was too far and too expensive on such short notice, though of course we tried to arrange - i must visit soon)!

really, amazing. here is a slideshow so you can pretend you were there too. perhaps i can get some better pictures - i messed up my color balance somehow, oops.

i just don't get it

France, i mean. What is up?! Just look at this picture of me sitting on a terrace overlooking the skyline with roses. Huh?

I hate to be a downer, but i'm still "London". You have to pick, there is no wishy-washing. Choose. Paris or London. Let me know your results, i'm curious why! . . . I prefer friendliness.

Though aside from the psycho-crazy-killer hotel conceirge at our second hostel (he was so mean and frightening we left the hotel - though we should have known from its cheap rates and one-star rating) the trip was pretty good. I enjoyed hanging out with my classmates and also seeing some new urban/architectural spaces as well as revisting some i've seen before. There were many things i did not see however, but it just takes time to transport and get around with so many people.

There was about 18 people from my class that went and stayed one night in the Grand Boulevard district near the Opera (and near lots of shopping) - and then i stayed on 2 more nights in the La Marias district (which is much more hip in my opinion) with the girls, Yvegenia, Anastasia, and Hang. We did a lot of walking the first two days with the class and it was COLD. holycrap. brrrr. We visited The Pompidou Center (Renzo Piano), La Defense area with a scary christmas village set up in the middle of the corporate financial world, and Parc de La Villete (Bernard Tschumi). Oh yes of course we also walked along the Seine, past the Louvre, the Opera, the Bastille, Notre Dame, etc. Bleh.

As for french food, we had savory crepes for lunch one day and sweet chocolate crepes on the street at 2am when returning from the bar one night. I did also want to have an eclair, but was frightened away by their prices: 2for20euros! whoa, just for a pastry?! Wine with dinner of course, but i found just the table wine to be a bit overpriced just because its "french". Also, the girls and I had a great dinner one night of Mussels with Roquefort and Belgian beer.

And of course, the Eurostar, ahhh, the EuroSTAR. what a beautiful lovely ride. So peaceful, so fast. I almost wish it took longer! Way to go traintravel :)

I will post a little slideshow of Paris images soon, just have to create it and get some images from other people (my camera battery is crap and kept dying).

the race continues

taking skypege to a whole new level are bootyAmy + beverlyErin, with a 3 hour conference call with me, holycrap. (though most of that was spent elfing ourselves) now, if anyone can figure out how to have video during conference calling, you will surely be the new skypampion - we seem to only be able to have it when speaking one-to-one, boo.

but of course, Funk, i did not forget you, the one and only person (well besides my mom and my sister) to call me - and weeks ago too. You are in another league! Yes, AND for using a calling card all on your own, 2000 points! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FUNK!

and allisneak, i know who you are . . . .

it's over.

i'm done for Term 1! It seems i'm still tired, as yesterday i slept 11.5 hours straight (woke up at 2:30pm completely confused)! ahhh, sleep. glorious.


final review was . . . ok. Not great, but not bad - i'll take it! I still have work to do (make a documentation book of studio work + write a big term paper i haven't started) that is due the 1st day of class in January, but hopefully i can get some of that done before i go home for the holiday.

so i'm going to Paris

on Wednesday, Dec 12th (at 7:30am, WTF) i depart for Paris Franceypants. "For School". Yep, we are taking our first studio trip, although only half of my class is going. But that will be a good thing. A 20-person mob of architecture-happy tourists taking photos of random alleyways and wierd buildings is better than a 40-person group, right?! Should be good, atleast the wine and cheese will be . . . not sure how much i love Paris. Maybe it will change my mind! I'm returning to London on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 15th.

also what is cool about this trip, is we will be taking the Eurostar's new highspeed train from the new St.Pancras station (semi-close to my house now - previously out of Waterloo) and the trip totals only 2hours and 20minutes. Fast. Speedy. Through the chunnel. There is supposed to be some bigdeal champagne bar at the new station too. Boo-yah.

ciao chaofaces

okay everyone, so after this weekend i'll have actual TIME to speak to people (well, when i'm not drinking heavily of course), i.e. sign up for skype if you want to for FREE

Big Al gets the prize for 1st place - she did this weeks ago and we had a long chat!
Nanchao gets the prize for 2nd, but with Honors - she signed up and we had a real phone call with VIDEO! i saw her. she saw me. we both looked like crap, etc. :)

i miss my commenters (even the anonymon) or else send me emails! hell, if Prachi can send them from Nam . . . (cheers P). ok.

countdown 3 2 1

this is it.
my final review is on wednesday. yes, this wednesday, the 5th. F!

the official last day of TERM 1 is this friday the 7th. The school is having a big xmas party which is supposed to be a blast. YAY.
i can't wait to have some drinks!

yeah, so wednesday, yikes.

whoa, i went to a museum

after many days here in london, i finally finally got a chance to go to a museum, just for fun. the TATE modern is open until 10pm on saturdays, and there is an exhibition there by Louise Bourgeois (spider sculptor) and also an installation by Doris Salcedo of a giant crack in the floor. yay!




anyway some nice beautiful things to see. live vicariously through my camera eye:

gobble gobble

HAPPY THANKSGIVING !













i am thankful for:

umbrellas
warm winter coats (from mom + my roommate antoni's ex girlfriend)
russian cough syrup (from my friend anastasia)
my student oyster card finally arriving (30% discount)
google images (where i found these glorious little "turkeys")
+ a bunch of really serious stuff - but lets just have laughs today, eh?

and i just needed to put these little sheepies on here. don't know why they were in the '3D turkey' search, but alas, they have found me, and i have named them Bob + Norm.

legg warmers, arm warmers, i'm insane

so i've done it - i've succombed to trendiness
i've bought 'warmers:

leggs + arms

(oh come on, it's cold here! and it seriously rains every day. i need them)
they are the greatest things [re]invented!!

new components

we've gone digital in studio now - i'm learning 4 softwares and trying to script, model, and animate some sort of new dynamic systems with variation, difference, and the ability to grow . . . all 'parametrically' of course.

here are a couple pretty images, not sure what they mean, but well, my rudimentary ability to render random shapes is improving i guess! i used a sin-wave script to help me generate these though, that's impressive, right?

uhm, yeah. no, considering i'm expected to be able to do something as complex as this - done by someone else last year:

new knees

my dad is having knee replacement surgery today.
he's having it right now, actually.
i'm not there.

i wish i could be, Dad - i love you!

big wigs

the architectural association has some amazing visitors each week. last week was especially noteworthy:

monday night: Bernard Tschumi

tuesday night: Hella Jongerius JongeriusLab

wednesday afternoon: Peter Cook [archigram]

friday night: Biothing (Alisa Andrasek); DORA (Peter Macapia); EZCT Architecture and Design Research (Philippe Morel, Felix Agid, Jelle Feringa); Gramazio & Kohler (Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler); IJP (George L Legendre); and Xefirotarch (Hernan Diaz Alonso)

bernard tschumi is impressive, there was a long line outside in the cold over an hour before his lecture began. peter cook is absolutely hilarious, you just want to have him as your grand dad of course. and well for me, meeting hella jongerius was a rare moment, though most of my classmates didn't even bother to attend cuz they didn't know what she does. ah, such beautiful things. [image of her "office pets" for vitra]
the friday night crew, are all part of a young emerging new generation of crazy architects. they were qute interesting to listen to, though understanding there work is much more difficult to an ordinary person i think!

you can view links to these events and more on www.aaschool.ac.uk of course. yay.

big eye

a week or so ago, i was taken on a nighttime "flight" on the london eye. i had been on the eye only once previously, during the daytime last year, and the nighttime trip is much more fun (well, atleast if you are a nightperson like me anyway).



it is a fairly quick trip, around 17 minutes or something, but you can really see some amazing things - aside from how murky the thames is!

and no, of course i did not take these nice pictures

- ours are all incredibly blurry and dark like this one of Benny:

timetables timetables

well many keep asking me about TIME.
here, they don't use the word "schedule", its always "timetable". of course.


i have a few that you might be wondering about:

1. DAILY TIME

everything in london starts later than the USA. no one here would be caught dead meeting before 9:30am. clearly, this is perfect for me. (however due to the time required for travelling across the city, i actually do have to get up at around 7am each morning. ek. sometimes i oversleep of course and have to disrupt my roommates shower schedule. oops! not good.)

the advantage is still in my favor though, as everything at my school starts atleast 20 minutes late. often much later. seems architects were never ones for keeping time! so far, i appear quite prompt in the eyes of everyone else. yay.

john street (ref.prev.post) is open from 9am until 12midnight daily - with an occaissional extension until 2am if previously arranged with the tutors (prior to a big deadline). i typically leave each night around 11:30 if i want to take the tube home, but most often i take the bus around 12:00, which is a bit more comfortable. the buses are slower naturally, so i often get home around 12:45/1:00am. (but please don't worry mom, the bus stop is close to my flat)

2. WEEKLY TIME

the weeks go so fast for me. my school is organized according to weeks, this fall-er, autumn-term is 10 weeks in duration (well, plus some extra non-official time that is "recommended"). we are apparently on week 7 already, yikes! each week they print and post a weekly agenda with events, courses, announcements etc for the whole school. often there are many good lectures and exhibitions in the evenings at the main school. i feel like i have just started adjusting and that perhaps it is currently more like week 3? nope, guess not.

each week i have a series of studio time, seminars, and software tutorials. i have no electives and it is all used to compliment each other. like this:

Monday: 10:00am-all day studio course: Parametric Urbanism. (yeah, figure that one out!) also, 6:00pm regular monday night lectures at the main school. 8:00 eat cheap soup on the street. recommended to spend rest of the evening in studio.

Tuesday: 10am-12:30pm Design as Research [seminar]; 12:30-2pm New Anatomies of Architecture [seminar]; afternoon/evening in studio course. in 6 person groups, we present the material in our required readings to the rest of the class and have discussions based on the topics. it is a lot of reading and most of it i have a hard time understanding, but it is very interesting and does all relate to our studio work somehow!

Wednesday: 10am-whenever is Studio course; 3pm-6pm Rhino [software tutorial]

Thursday: all day is expected Studio course

Friday: 10am-1pm Design Synthesis [seminar]; afternoon in studio; 7:00pm regular evening lecture series

Saturday: 10am-12:30pm 3dsMAX [software tutorial]; 1:30-4:00pm Maya [software tutorial]

Sunday: 10am-12:30pm Catia [softward tutorial]; 1:30-3:30pm Additional software tutorial vary, but almost always there is a double session of something. ugh.

3. MONTHLY TIME

hmm, what? crap, its almost thanksgiving?
i do laundry about once a month. in fact, i'm doing several loads right now.

it also seems i only see my roommates about twice a month, we had dinner the other night together for the second time ever. Armenian restaurant in Bayswater - amazing houmus!

i'll be in Paris for a short studio trip next month, after term ends around the 12th of December. i am looking forward to it, hoping to discover some more interesting things than just the regular tourist destinations i did when i was there in 2002. of course, being there to study urbanism, i'm sure we'll find something . . . besides wine and cheese - maybe :)
and then i'll be home in Minnesota for xmas. flying into Minneapolis on December 19th (i think) and back out on December 28th. i am planning to spend the new year in my new city, it should be quite neat - though i don't yet know anyone else who is going to be around for it . . . eeeeh.

4. YEARLY TIME

i will be here for a couple years - technically my program is 16 months, with my end-of-project being scheduled for end of January 2009, with final portfolio/documentation/response submission due in March 2009. what happens after that can't be known, but yes, yes, yes, i would like to work here for a bit. i think only then will i really know what it is like to LIVE in london.

visitors are highly encouraged, but definately contact me in regards to your ideas of timeframes, as school is intense and i will want to be able to have atleast one or two pints with you!

ok laundry is done. bedtime is here. time to shut the windows.

londsay's first visitors - 1st!

some other minnesotans were in london, a couple weekends ago! my friend Alex (left) and his pal Mike? (right) were visiting the big smoke, though unbeknownst to each other until they were here i guess - whatever, weirdos.

i met up with Alex (who was spoiled and staying at some fancypants hotel in soho) and took him out for drinks and a dose of student reality - to a party in my studio with byob and iTunes, and the boys then took me out to a gigantobar in Piccadilly Circus with gigantodoormen + DJs.

on a side note, it should be mentioned that london is a bit like vegas. you can drink on the street. and in phone booths. who knew?

http://picasaweb.google.com/lindsaycarol/MinnesotansLondsayS1stVisitors

skype me skype me

so i finally set up a skype account and can make cheap phone calls with Buttercup (my computer's name is Princess Buttercup, yep)! i even figured out how to send sms messages to cell phones from it!

YOU MUST DO IT TOO

its free to set up. FREE. just go to www.skype.com and download it, yeah? Then search for me, lindsaycarolbear or by my full name. Then, call me, text me, chat with me, etc.

brilliant!

the Royal College of Art

this past week, we did a collaborative workshop with the Industrial Design Engineering students from the RCA (Royal College of Art) in South Kensington. We spent our time over in their studios (with views of Hyde Park!), using their workshops and facilities to construct 1:1 scale models of randomly assigned structures.

8 teams were created with 5 DRL(me) students and 3IDE students each and the pictures can show some of the madness that was the process. my team consisted of 2 guys from Peru, an italian, a japanese, myself (all from the AA) and then an american from Aspen (finearts background), a brit (engineer), and an austrian (product designer). it was a ton of fun (especially to get away from our school for a bit) and we learned a bit how the attitude of other designers is different from ours.

a critique was held on friday, my team was one of 4 teams awarded a prize: dinner at Wagamama! yay. then we had beers in the space, and after a few, the constructions were destroyed at will by the crazyness of the students. then we all went to the RCA "Art Bar" which was quite a happening place, and proceeded to party. It was a nice relief to finally let loose with each other and not worry about a deadline the next day! i now am very aware, however, of how little 'dancing' i do, compared with the rest of the world. These people are insane!