Matthew Barrows and have decided to open an ice cream shop on Brompton Road in Chelsea. Who cares about architecture or the San Francisco 49ers (... seriously who? did they win... what a bad cousin I am... I did not watch the game)? Anyway, after our dinner at a decently authentic Italian restaurant Matt and I strolled around trying to come upon some rocky-road.... to no avail. Any other Caputo cousins interested in starting an ice cream shop... we think we're going to really make a killing.
In all honestly we had a lovely dinner, chatted about are respective immediate families, and filled each other in on family gossip.
This week is going to be a bit hectic but I wanted to just send a link to this article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/periodproperty/7926673/Period-property-in-London-Malplaquet-House.html
We're having our first of 3 landscape courses tomorrow and we're meeting at the house that the article describes. Out teacher will be the owner of the house, Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, who, as the article points out, is a renowned landscape architect here and abroad and is gardens adviser to Hampton Court Palace. The "class" tomorrow is also 5 hours long... so let's see what we're in for!
This week, besides that, I have to attend my regular courses, plan another series of autocad sessions for my classmates, write a paper, attend a planning meeting in Peckham about the station (and have my drawings ready for that), have a meeting with a recent acquaintance from The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, start applications for M.Arch, and get ready to go to Venice on Saturday!!
Happy November!?
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
BUSY
It's been an eventful week.
Last weekend was spent primarily paper writing for a final paper for one of our short segment courses: Environmental Assessment for Buildings.
I also visited Dave's house in Brockley--- we took a walk through an awesome park in his neighborhood (up on a hill with great views), hung out at the big house where he lives (and watched Notting Hill), then went out to dinner to a great little pub in his neighborhood, and then went to a party at his new friends' house in near Canada Water and the docks.
Tuesday we went to the Brunel Museum for class which is in Rotherhide. The museum is at the entrance to the first tunnel to go under the Thames which was designed by Brunel for moving goods. The museum building contained the steam engines for pumping the Thames Tunnel. It was pretty cool to go down into the shaft where the tunnel began but our professor wanted us to focus on how the building was saved from demolition and how the museum gained momentum and has worked as an adaptive reuse scheme.
In the evening we went to a great Lecture at the RIBA. It was about creating change and international development through architecture. There were two interesting speakers. One of them was Ashu Sharma of SEEDs, which is a organization that works to build disaster resilient structures in India. He talked a lot about localism in design.
Wednesday we went on an all day trip out to Ipswich and surrounding areas. The trip was organized for our Structures and Materials course taught by Brian Morton. He arranged a great day and had a little bus take the 14 of us around everywhere. We visited Cressing Temple and saw the oldest timber framed barns in the world (and of course how they worked structurally). Then went to an adaptive reuse project-- housing in Mannigtree at a maltings (which is where they used to make beer.) We visited an actual home and saw how they double level maltings space had been split up into units. We also visited a couple churches. One was mostly in ruin but one side of the ruin, one aisle had been turned back into a church. Brian's firm had also worked on the structure there. My mom would have loved it.
Brian treated us to a great lunch at the Anchor in his home town, Walberswick. We had fish and chips and local beer.
home in old maltings building! _______ At Cressing Temple learning about wood structures
Thursday we had the second of three sessions at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the history of British interiors. We focused on 1500-1750. Next week its 1750-1900's. The sessions are based in the British Gallery and a specialist on the exhibition takes us around.
That evening we went to see "The Woman in Black" a supposedly scary play that was showing in Covent Garden in the Fortune Theater.NYU gave us tickets to go. It was pretty campy but fun to see some live theater and be in that area at night.
Friday I went out to Peckham early to meet with Benny and go over some drawing stuff. I came back to my neck of the woods for a fancy tea at the Kingsgate Hotel--- which NYU paid for, and then made it down to Westminster for Evensong. Which was beautiful and also FREE.
This Saturday morning I went to a meeting of the "Sketchmob" at Southwark. Sketchmob is a group of architects and other professionals who like to draw in their spare time. Today they were drawing near Borough Market and Southwark to encourage others to draw. Dave met me there. We drew for a while and then had hot soup at the market and headed over to the Tate Modern.
Then I went to church with Kathleen and had a quiet night. (Well we watched No Country for Old Men... Don't know if you can call that quiet)
Today was definitely quiet! All I did was go to the gym and then I met my friends at the pub for roast (Sunday traditional meal at the pub).
Matt Barrows comes to town this week... hopefully we'll meet up!!
Last weekend was spent primarily paper writing for a final paper for one of our short segment courses: Environmental Assessment for Buildings.
I also visited Dave's house in Brockley--- we took a walk through an awesome park in his neighborhood (up on a hill with great views), hung out at the big house where he lives (and watched Notting Hill), then went out to dinner to a great little pub in his neighborhood, and then went to a party at his new friends' house in near Canada Water and the docks.
Tuesday we went to the Brunel Museum for class which is in Rotherhide. The museum is at the entrance to the first tunnel to go under the Thames which was designed by Brunel for moving goods. The museum building contained the steam engines for pumping the Thames Tunnel. It was pretty cool to go down into the shaft where the tunnel began but our professor wanted us to focus on how the building was saved from demolition and how the museum gained momentum and has worked as an adaptive reuse scheme.
In the evening we went to a great Lecture at the RIBA. It was about creating change and international development through architecture. There were two interesting speakers. One of them was Ashu Sharma of SEEDs, which is a organization that works to build disaster resilient structures in India. He talked a lot about localism in design.
Wednesday we went on an all day trip out to Ipswich and surrounding areas. The trip was organized for our Structures and Materials course taught by Brian Morton. He arranged a great day and had a little bus take the 14 of us around everywhere. We visited Cressing Temple and saw the oldest timber framed barns in the world (and of course how they worked structurally). Then went to an adaptive reuse project-- housing in Mannigtree at a maltings (which is where they used to make beer.) We visited an actual home and saw how they double level maltings space had been split up into units. We also visited a couple churches. One was mostly in ruin but one side of the ruin, one aisle had been turned back into a church. Brian's firm had also worked on the structure there. My mom would have loved it.Brian treated us to a great lunch at the Anchor in his home town, Walberswick. We had fish and chips and local beer.
home in old maltings building! _______ At Cressing Temple learning about wood structures
Thursday we had the second of three sessions at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the history of British interiors. We focused on 1500-1750. Next week its 1750-1900's. The sessions are based in the British Gallery and a specialist on the exhibition takes us around.
That evening we went to see "The Woman in Black" a supposedly scary play that was showing in Covent Garden in the Fortune Theater.NYU gave us tickets to go. It was pretty campy but fun to see some live theater and be in that area at night.
Friday I went out to Peckham early to meet with Benny and go over some drawing stuff. I came back to my neck of the woods for a fancy tea at the Kingsgate Hotel--- which NYU paid for, and then made it down to Westminster for Evensong. Which was beautiful and also FREE.
This Saturday morning I went to a meeting of the "Sketchmob" at Southwark. Sketchmob is a group of architects and other professionals who like to draw in their spare time. Today they were drawing near Borough Market and Southwark to encourage others to draw. Dave met me there. We drew for a while and then had hot soup at the market and headed over to the Tate Modern.
Then I went to church with Kathleen and had a quiet night. (Well we watched No Country for Old Men... Don't know if you can call that quiet)
Today was definitely quiet! All I did was go to the gym and then I met my friends at the pub for roast (Sunday traditional meal at the pub).
Matt Barrows comes to town this week... hopefully we'll meet up!!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
A couple shots from King's College at Cambridge.
We visited Stroud this week. For our Economics of Reuse class we are to plan for a new use for an existing goods shed by the station, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the mid-nineteenth century. Our use should have a greater impact and help revitalize the town in some way.
We learned about the nearby canal and they system of the Cotswalds Canals and how they fell into disrepair. The watercolor image imagines how they might be revitalized to bring new interest to the towns along them, like Stroud. Our professor showed us around the town and included an adaptively reused cluster of warehouses closer to the center of town. They how house artist studio and exhibition space.
The canal in Stroud.
Artist studio space in the converted warehouse in Stroud.
The old good shed that we will reuse in our projects.
We have a big paper due next week so I spent my first full day in the library (the RIBA). But we treated ourselves afterwords by going to Benito's Hat! Our favorite little Mexican restaurant... good cheap tacos.
Tomorrow I'm going over to Dave's house to check out his house and neighborhood and meet some of his friends!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
october
On Thursday I taught my first AutoCAD training session. I spent a lot of the time lecturing about types of architectural drawings and how they are created (aka with which programs etc). I saved some time at the end for a practice exercise on the computer. It went really well. My class was 7 students. I'll teach the same session again on Thursday for the rest of the people who couldn't make it to the same one. The following week I'll do session 2.
It was really a fun experience and afterward my classmates commented that I was easy to learn from. Everyone seems really happy to be gaining this skill.
This week we visited a site out near Cavendish road. We heard from a woman who has really made up her career. She works in refurbishment and does it basically "by hand" with her architect husband. She focuses on old factory buildings and converts them to workspace. The largest one, and the one we visited was the old "Omnibus" factory. It was really great to see a "bottom-up scheme" as opposed to one started by a large company or government organization.
Yesterday we went to Cambridge on a day trip just for fun. We had a tour and specifically took a look at King's College, the market square, and Jesus College. It was cloudy and colder than we expected but still a fun day. We had lunch in an old converted church, sort of cafeteria style. It was great food. I had a leek and root vegetable stew that had a béchamel base with grueyere... and of course, a cheese scone. Very cheesy lunch--- A Rick Steve's suggestion. Thanks Rick!
I went to two events for my independent study (we have to go to 14 and write about them during the course of the semester.) They events this week could not have been on more opposite ends of the academic spectrum while still pertaining to the course. I took a twilight tour of the Apsley House, which was the country home of the Duke of Wellington (who beat Napoleon at Waterloo, etc, etc) Amazing house, sometimes called "Number One, London" because it was literally the first house you came to when you came through the gates to the city at that side. The other event was a lecture at the RIBA by Edouard Francois. It was called Nature as a Building Block but Francois' buildings are ultra modern... I think some of them look like green blobs... just covered with plants, strange shapes VERY acontextual. I think he might be crazy. I believe in "nature as a building block" but maybe in a way that fits more into our existing built environments. Interesting none the less.
Francois building (photo from quotesque.net) Apsley House (photo by TimeOut)
Another exciting week coming up. I've got to get some drawings done for Peckham so that we can get permission to save the Victorian stair and add our new modern one floating above it to give access to the great old waiting room upstairs.
We're taking day trips to Wakhurst, a house one of our Professors is working on, and we're going to Stroud to see adaptive reuse and refurbishment schemes that have turned the town around there.
It was really a fun experience and afterward my classmates commented that I was easy to learn from. Everyone seems really happy to be gaining this skill.
This week we visited a site out near Cavendish road. We heard from a woman who has really made up her career. She works in refurbishment and does it basically "by hand" with her architect husband. She focuses on old factory buildings and converts them to workspace. The largest one, and the one we visited was the old "Omnibus" factory. It was really great to see a "bottom-up scheme" as opposed to one started by a large company or government organization.
Yesterday we went to Cambridge on a day trip just for fun. We had a tour and specifically took a look at King's College, the market square, and Jesus College. It was cloudy and colder than we expected but still a fun day. We had lunch in an old converted church, sort of cafeteria style. It was great food. I had a leek and root vegetable stew that had a béchamel base with grueyere... and of course, a cheese scone. Very cheesy lunch--- A Rick Steve's suggestion. Thanks Rick!
I went to two events for my independent study (we have to go to 14 and write about them during the course of the semester.) They events this week could not have been on more opposite ends of the academic spectrum while still pertaining to the course. I took a twilight tour of the Apsley House, which was the country home of the Duke of Wellington (who beat Napoleon at Waterloo, etc, etc) Amazing house, sometimes called "Number One, London" because it was literally the first house you came to when you came through the gates to the city at that side. The other event was a lecture at the RIBA by Edouard Francois. It was called Nature as a Building Block but Francois' buildings are ultra modern... I think some of them look like green blobs... just covered with plants, strange shapes VERY acontextual. I think he might be crazy. I believe in "nature as a building block" but maybe in a way that fits more into our existing built environments. Interesting none the less.
Francois building (photo from quotesque.net) Apsley House (photo by TimeOut)
Another exciting week coming up. I've got to get some drawings done for Peckham so that we can get permission to save the Victorian stair and add our new modern one floating above it to give access to the great old waiting room upstairs.
We're taking day trips to Wakhurst, a house one of our Professors is working on, and we're going to Stroud to see adaptive reuse and refurbishment schemes that have turned the town around there.
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