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.