Stay Tuned...

Once I get my life a little more organized, I will post some of my projects from this semester, so stay tuned. I know I'm more excited about most of them than any of you are, but I will try to make them seem interesting. Coming soon...

Houston, America's Fourth Largest Suburb

This past week, my Gophers played in the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas. As field staff lead for the marching band, not only did I get free flights and a very nice hotel room (complete with king sized bed) to myself, I also got to see the city of Houston, Texas for the second time. The first time, I was at the NCFL (National Catholic Forensics League) tournament freshman year of high school. After my 5 semesters in college, I saw the city through a different light this time, and what an unpleasant city it is (I'm putting this very lightly as I don't want to insult any Houstonian as they are from Texas and their feelings get hurt very easily). It is basically a giant suburb with a downtown. And a majority of that suburb is dirty.

First of all, it took us over half an hour just to get from the airport to the hotel in downtown. The hotel was nice, and was right next to MinuteMaid Park. It also provided a nice view of downtown, which is a very generic American downtown. Houston lacks the unique skyline that makes NYC, Chicago, and other American cities instantly distinguishable. Most buildings are tall boxes, with a strip of lights around the top. Some glass buildings have chunks missing, unnecessarily, to make "architectural statements." The street life in Houston is virtually nonexistent  This could be because it was in the 40's the entire time we were there, and Texans aren't that tough in the cold weather. They are in the process of constructing street car lines, which is a great idea, but they are on streets that run between parking lots. It takes a full 15 minutes just to get out of downtown and onto a highway, which ring the area. In true flyover country fashion, all the freeway interchanges are flyovers, involving towering ramps seemingly built for no other reason than being tall and looking cool (remember, everything's bigger in Texas).

Once we got out of downtown, it was a full 45 minute drive to where we held our practices. Granted, this wasn't in Houston proper, the suburb of Houston just continues out into other suburbs. In good traffic, it takes as long to travel to this point in the metro as it takes to travel from my hometown to the edge of Kansas City, 60 miles away. It's insane.

Reliant Stadium, where the game took place, is not like most stadiums built recently, in that is away from downtown surrounded by parking lots. The stadium itself is a nice structure and impressive to behold. It's more famous neighbor, however, is not. The Houston Astrodome, one of the most innovative American sports facilities at the time of its construction, is sitting empty and decaying. It is such an eyesore next to the new, gleaming Reliant Stadium. It is a sorry sight, and a sign of our failure to maintain what we have. We are so quick to want the newest stadium, the newest features that we won't maintain what we have, even when it is an American landmark. Tell me you haven't heard about the Astrodome? Everyone in America has heard of the Astrodome (exaggeration), and they are essentially just waiting for it to collapse so they don't have to pay for demolition.

To finish my rant, Houston, and Texas as a whole, is a city and state I do not need to visit again. Their "we are better than you and we are gonna let you  know it" attitude leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. It doesn't help that the Gophers lost the game in a very tight fashion on a last second field goal or that Texas Tech's fans had zero class. But rest assured that I will use Houston in my future as what not to do. Seeing it first-hand, I don't know how 6 million people can live in a city like that. It makes me so happy to be living in Minneapolis, a city that has it right.

St. Paul Union Depot and Its Mississippi River (Dis)connection

Since it is nearing finals week and I am swamped, I figured I would post this, since I already wrote it. This is a blog post for my Sustainability and Planning on the Great River class. It will be posted on the River Life blog at riverlife.umn.edu blog sometime, so you should check it out. It is actually a really great site and blog.

Headhouse of Union Depot.

"St. Paul has always been a river city. Its geography made it the perfect location for a steamboat landing, with its lower landing quickly becoming one of the busiest in the country (NPS). As railroads grew into the primary source of travel in the US, St. Paul grew into a railroad hub for the upper Midwest. In 1923, a shiny new depot opened just above the lower landing that cemented St. Paul’s place as a regional transit hub. However, construction of the station included elevating the tracks out of the reach of flood waters, thus severely limiting Lowertown’s physical connection to the river to a few underpasses. Just this year, the depot reopened after a $243million restoration (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), bringing the relic back her 1920’s beauty, but updating her in prep for becoming a 21^st century transit hub. Soon, Union Depot will be the terminus of the Central Corridor light rail line, the cities’ Amtrak station, the end of a proposed high-speed train connecting to Chicago and beyond, as well as a center for bus transit in the region. Couple this with the vibrant Lowertown neighborhood and the new Saint’s ballpark expected to open in 2015 (Pioneer Press), and Union Depot will be the center of activity on the east side of downtown St. Paul. This provides an excellent opportunity for planners to reconnect St. Paul’s riverfront with Lowertown.

Lambert’s Landing, the site of St. Paul’s busy lower landing, sits quietly between the depot and the river. Currently, there is a fairly standard park along the bank. A running trail here, some trees there, covered in brown sod on pack ground; the most it inspired from me was a yawn. However, the development potential of the park itself is a topic for another blog post. The important feature of the park is the presence of the depot just beyond. The rear of the depot looks down upon the site, almost mocking it, reminding the landing of how railroads overtook travel by steamboat. While this visual connection is strong, there is absolutely no physical connection. To get from the station—and subsequently Lowertown—to the river, a person has to walk down Sibley Street and under a sketchy underpass. Then, they have to play frogger on a four lane road with freight traffic. Not fun. But the plan of the building provides the solution. While the head house (the main structure) is two blocks from the river the concourse actually bridges Kellogg Blvd and stops 200 feet from the water. This is where a connection to the park could be constructed. 

With inspiration from the redevelopment at Kansas City’s Union Station (http://www.bnim.com/work/freight-house-pedestrian-bridge), a pedestrian bridge can be constructed; one that connects the depot to the park across the tracks and Warner Road. This would be an opportunity to create an architecturally significant monument (one that architecture nerds like me geek out about) to match the monumentality of the depot. It would reestablish the city’s riverfront as a gateway to St. Paul, just as the station has become. It would also make the park a feature destination within the rejuvenated Lowertown neighborhood. With potential commuters and travelers from across the metro and even as far away as Chicago walking through the depot, they can be drawn to the river. A monumental station connected to a monumental river by a monumental bridge. It only seems appropriate.
So what can you do? Simple. Visit the depot. Try to get to Lambert’s Landing. Is it easy? If the answer is no, then there is an obvious problem. Problems need solutions, so a bridge would be just that. Also, while you are down there, visit restaurants, shop in local stores, and walk along the river and remember, everything in the cities connects to the river in some way, even Union Depot and its (dis)connection."

Lambert's Landing with Union Depot (arched roof) behind.

I Can't Even Go To a Banquet

Tonight was the UMMB's annual banquet recognizing the end of the season and celebrating the achievements of the band and the individual members. We all get dressed up, eat delicious food, and watch a great slideshow of the season. Sounds like a relaxing evening, right? Wrong.

The banquet was held at The Depot, which is an upscale hotel complex with an indoor ice skating rink. The reason it's called The Depot is because it is a renovated train station. The ice skating rink, which they covered in boards and was where the banquet was held, was in the old train shed. So of course, with my current project on train stations, my architortured mind spend tonight torturing me. I examined every truss, noting that the shed was not a vaulted structure, but a simple triangular trussed shed. It was not very wide, probably only fitting 2 or 3 trains and platforms. A good chunk of the night was spent trying to find a reason for the very large pipes coming straight down into the center of the space with a funnel-like structure on the bottom. Probably for the ventilation of train smoke, but with a shed this narrow, if the edges were open, which I'm guessing they were, there shouldn't be need for a large vent system like that.

This is what I thought about through the awards ceremony and dinner. I really don't think you need any more evidence that architecture has forever ruined my peace-of-mind. Not that I mind.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Train Stations

As I sit here, watching the clock tick toward 12:30am, I wonder. I wonder if anyone else on this planet, or at least at the university, has ever written 8 pages and 4,088 words on union train stations in America from 1840-1940. I know the answer is probably no, but to make myself feel better about myself, I'm going to say yes. There is somebody on campus that will cry with me over the loss of Penn Station in New York, or cringe at the notion of St. Louis's Union Station as attempting a unified facade, or even freak out when the book I checked out of the library features a very detailed exterior elevation of Kansas City's very own Union Station. With them, I could have a very heated debate over which Twin City station was superior, Minneapolis's Great Northern Depot or St. Paul's Union Depot. We could even have Google map parties where we try to find these stations in relationship to the city centers without the help of the search feature.

In reality, I know no such person exists. It's a little lonely in my architortured mind, but it's okay. Someday, society will catch up to my superior level of brain function, and everyone will appreciate good architecture. Oh what a world that would be.

(I'm kidding. I promise I'm not this vain. Also, that would be a very scary world, if people could relate to me)

Resuscitation Attempt

So, I haven't posted since September. Boo me. But this is my attempt to revive my blog from the catacombs of laziness. Being in the middle of the final stretch to winter break, I don't have a lot of creativity left (and what was left was used to come up with the phrase 'catacombs of laziness') so this post is going to be mostly pictures I have taken throughout the semester for projects and the like. They are all from Minneapolis/St. Paul, so I guess you could say that this is my plug for the Twin Cities (see my earlier Kansas City plug). Here you go! Oo's and Ah's appreciated.


The following pictures are taken from Indian Mounds Park, on the Mississippi River bluffs above downtown St. Paul.

Downtown St. Paul

Minnesota State Capitol through the fall folliage

Architecture of the Earth

The next photos are from Lock and Dam No. 1, in the Mississippi River Gorge on the border of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Tug boat leaves the lock heading upstream

Stairs to nowhere

Tour boat in the lock

The next three pictures (noticing a pattern here?) are from the Minneapolis Central Riverfront, where the Mississippi River runs through downtown and falls over St. Anthony Falls, the only natural waterfall along the entire length of the great river. I chose some lesser photographed views, because I didn't want to post something that everyone has seen before.

Grain Belt sign, red house boat, Hennepin Ave Bridge

North end of the Stone Arch Bridge

General Mills "A" Mill

The final set of pictures is from Lake Como, St. Paul. Sorry, I broke from the 3 picture pattern.

Lake Como in St. Paul

Historic Como Pavilion

Anybody lose a chair?

I love these old cottonwoods

Well, that's all for now. Hope this will get my butt in gear and I can fit some posts in before winter break, even if it is just my teardrops on the  keyboard. Gotta love architorture school.

Ciao for now!

Life: The Ultimate Design Project

Recent occurrences have me thinking. I'm already gonna tell you to get off my back, because is it some deep things I've been thinking about and it may seem cliche. But that hasn't stopped me from thinking.

There are many metaphors about what life is. A journey waiting to be taken. A book waiting to be written. But as an architect, I think of it in another way. I see life as a design project, beginning at conception.

Every design project starts out with the designer being told the limitations, the rules, the regulations of the project. This is the element of the project in which we have no control. This is the first several years of life. Adult shape our world, set our rules, and raise us until the point in which we can start to take over.

Next step, the rough sketches, the beginning, the failures. This would equate to the period of life during grade school, middle school, and high school. Even college. This is a time of great experimentation. Trial and error. It is also a time when we make terrible mistakes, but use those mistakes to make our lives, our designs, better. As we reach college, we begin to see the big picture. We finally have the resources to develop our design. How we use them is up to us, and the success of the final design depends on this very crucial time.

Next comes the repetition, the polishing. This comes after college. This is when we get a job, any job. Even jobs we hate. But we do whatever it takes to work our way towards who we want to be, what we want our design to look like. The key to this step is to keep pushing, to keep working towards out goal. This is also the time when our mind begins to branch out. We look to others for feedback, we help those who are at a mind-block, otherwise known as a mid-life crisis. We also bring others into this project, becoming the rule makers for a whole new generation of designers. The cycle is never ending.

Finally, we reach the end of the project. This is a misnomer, because no design is ever finished. Time simply runs out. This is the saddest time of the design project that is life. The designer is never able to look back and see everything finished, because they are no longer here. They have moved on. But if they were successful in their goals, achieved their design aspirations, they have left a legacy to be admired by others. Designs are permanent, designers are not. People die, designs do not.

This is a great source of comfort for me. I have had far to many ends to deal with lately, but I can feel at peace knowing that while they're no longer here physically, their legacy will live on. That is what design has done for me this week.

I'm Back...

I'm really bad at blogging... But you know that. I know that all 2 of you who read this didn't hold you breath since the last post, but I will do my best to keep this thing going this semester. My life gets much more interesting during the semester anyway.

A quick update on how my semester looks:

Senior Student Manager = 17 hours of work a week
17 credits in the Bachelor of Design in Architecture (BDA) Program = 11 hours of class per week, increasing to 16.5 hours per week in October
Field Staff Lead for the UofM Marching Band = 8 hours of rehearsal per week plus 10 hour gamedays
Gold Pep Band = playing at every men's basketball game this season

Busy? Yes. Having the time of my life? Yes.

In my spare time, I am trying to make my new apartment a home, along with my roommate. My crowning achievement of the past week was figuring out how to install my cable and internet in one night. It involved a trip to Home Depot, an hour and a half with my dad and I arguing on speaker phone, and my adrenaline pumping when I finally got it at 10:30. I wasn't able to sleep that night, I was too pumped up.

That is all for today. Homework for tomorrow is done, $15 fountain is assembled and trickling away, and my bed is calling to me. This is going to be an interesting semester, and I'm excited to take you along for the ride. Bon voyage.

Heyo

So...

I've let a week go by without posting. I'm finding it hard to chronicle my mind during the summer, because I turn it off. Maybe I need to take a walk around this great city I live in for some inspiration. That's why I love living in a design city: there is design everywhere I look. I guess I just need to clear my mind and let it all inspire me, release the chains I find myself putting on my mind, and let the thoughts flow.

Goals for the week:

Go for a walk.
Forget where I'm going and simply go there.
Bring a sketch book.
Let my mind spill onto the page.
Bring my findings back here.

That may just be what I do. I definitely need something like this. Until then.

Happy Pride!

Random Rant

Okay. So random rant.


This is the Education Sciences Building at the University of Minnesota.

This is the view from the Education Sciences Building at the University Of Minnesota.

WHY do the education students get (arguably) the best view of downtown from campus?! And why do they get one of the best reno jobs on campus for their offices?! Okay, so we get Rapson Hall, with an addition designed by Steven Holl, so I can get over the building. But the view... I simply cannot get over. This is an inspiring look at the city we live in, all the design it encompasses, and the reason we, as designers, do what we do: to make a city that can be proud of its skyline, its riverfront, its urban core. The river, inspiring so much design, flowing like a slick ribbon through the picture. Bridges span the valley, bridging the gap from here to there, bringing the skyline forth into almost touchable reach. The mills, representing the reason this city is here today, standing proudly along the river. The skyscrapers, showcasing Minneapolis's place among the great skylines of the country, rise silently behind. This picture shows every way in which design can bring a small milling town into a thriving metropolis of the 21st century.

This is why this view is so very inspiring to a design mind like mine. So why the heck do the education students get it?

(Yes, I am seeing green)

Brain Vomit

One of my favorite things about being a design student is the connection you have with other design thinkers. When I am alone or with people not versed in design thinking, thoughts race through my mind, but stay there. I know that it would be hard to have a conversation with them about the random and seemingly minute details running through my mind. But when you put two design minds together, magic happens. All these thoughts kept circling in my mind finally get a chance to be freed. It's a moment of pure brain vomit...Okay, so maybe that isn't the most pleasant metaphor, but that's truly what it is. It is an uncontrollable spewing forth of all the pieces of unchewed thoughts in my mind.

"Can you believe how square engineers are?"
"Is it SketchUp'ed or SketchedUp?"
"Good thing that's the psychology building because is designed to play tricks on your minds."

This is how archinerds communicate. This is how two architortured minds connect. And best of all, this just confirms what I already know: design is my life.

Straight Lines? There Is No Such Thing.

This isn't going to be a very long post, but I noticed something very interesting while walking to Target this evening. The city street I was walking down was a pedestrian mall, straight through downtown. So why, when I was walking down Nicollete Avenue was my path taking so many curves? Isn't the most direct path from point A (the bus stop) to point B (Target) a straight line? It makes sense from a design standpoint. However, there is one thing design cannot predict: humans.

We are the factor that can make or break a design, we cause architects to look at their completed projects with the little animated cloud of squiggly lines over their heads and mumbling bad words under their breath. People like to walk, but they also like to congregate, to move at different paces, and to create spaces of stillness in the middle of a corridor of movement. Also, we like to go off the beaten path, indulge in our sense of adventure. When you put all of these into a single downtown street, you find people standing in the middle of the sidewalk, walking opposite directions right at each other, and even those just walking in zigzags for the fun of it. This street becomes a living room, a hallway, a doorway, and more all at the same time.

Thus, my walk to Target became a constant zigzag, saying excuse me, and getting dirty looks when I didn't drop a dollar in the panhandler's cup.

God I love Minneapolis.

KC Masterpiece

Although I grew up in small town Kansas, I've always considered Kansas City to be my city. It was only an hour away and we spent countless days there for softball games, shopping trips, and the like. After all I have learned, I appreciate it even more for the hidden gem it is. 

Located smack in the middle of the country, it is easy to get to from anywhere, easy to get around once you get there, and full of interesting neighborhoods, buildings, and design. Sadly, not many people know about it, or feel it is not worth their time. They couldn't be more wrong. I want to share just a few examples that show why KC is a diamond in the rough.

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

This classic beaux-art building is home to one of the best art museums in the country, according to friends who are experts on art (of which I am not). On top of this, admission is free! How many world class art museums can say that? Outside, the museum is surrounded the sprawling Kansas City Sculpture Garden, full of sculptures by artists known the world over. As if this wasn't enough, there is the stunning addition done by Steven Holl, known as the Bloch Building.

This is the real reason I visited Nelson-Atkins. My art friends would love the art, my sculptor friends would love the sculptures, even my landscape friends would love the gardens. But I, as an archinerd, love the Bloch Building. It bares a striking resemblance to Rapson Hall, the building I study in everyday, due to being designed by the same architect. This really is a case of world class architecture right in the middle of America. It sharply contrasts the classic limestone building sitting atop the hill, while still allowing it to be front and center as the museum's iconic facade. Sitting east of the main building, cascading down the hill, half underground, this addition is an experience all its own. I could try to explain it in full detail, but the only way to do it justice is to visit it. Do it. Go to KC, visit this museum. See great art and architecture all wrapped into one site.

Sporting Park

On the Kansas side of the metro sits one of the newest of Kansas City's world class sporting facilities. Home to Sporting Kansas City, KC's pro soccer team, this stadium is an experience all in it's own. Come for the game, stay for the architecture. Or come for the architecture and stay for the game. Either way you are in for a great time. Designed by world renown Populous (who has an office in KC and also designed TCF Bank Stadium on my own campus) this stadium makes soccer fans and architects alike smile. Designed to be intimate, to be fan friendly, and to promote charity, this stadium achieves all three. The bowl seats just over 18,000 (many games actually see over 19,000 fans due to standing room tickets).  All seats in the stadium are under a roof, while the field is under the wide Kansas sky. This roof not only shades the seats and keeps the dry in rain, it also keeps all noise inside the stadium and right in the ears of opponents. The stadium contains lavish club spaces, areas where fans can directly interact with players as they enter the field.

Again, this is an environment you must see to believe. Pictures don't send the chill down your spine like roar after a Sporting goal, the blue confetti flying, the cauldron going insane, all against the best backdrop in all of major league soccer.

So...what is the moral of this story? Go to Kansas City. Do it. Hop on I-70 or I-35 or, if you are adventurous, even I-29. Introduce yourself to a city much like an awkward junior high student. She has an inferiority complex, being overlooked by the popular kids, like NYC or LA. However, once you get to know her, she blossoms before your eyes. The Country Club Plaza, the Crossroads District, Union Station, the Kauffman Center for the Performing arts, and, yes, the world's best barbecue. Why else would I name this post after a bbq sauce? So stuff your mouth, as well as your eyes. You'll be in for an experience that lives up to it's sauce, a masterpiece.

An Architotured Mind?

This is quite the title, I know. But why did I choose it?

Everyone knows the horror stories of all-nighters in studio, projects that pose impossible amounts of work with scary deadlines, cutting 55 slices of cardboard only to glue them back together...

But that isn't the type of torture architecture has caused my mind. This involves how everyday spaces morph in front of me. An art museum is no longer and art museum. A shopping mall is no longer a shopping mall. Even my own college campus is no longer simply a collection of buildings and lawns. Every designed space becomes a source of inspiration, a question of design, and a space to be studied. I cannot drive through suburbia without wincing, almost feeling physical pain at the site of McMansions going up block by block in record time. Any house where the walls are dry walled before the roof is even begun gives me nightmares.

On the other side of the coin, its amazing how the canopy of a tree becomes architecture, how a single block of a busy street becomes an outdoor living room, and a shopping mall becomes a way for a growing middle class to express their new-found values.

A design mind begins to see the world differently than the average mind, asking itself so many questions.

"What did they do?"
"Why did they do this?"
"Does it work?"
"What would I have done differently?"

Then my mind delves into concepts such as: programme, aesthetics, context, form and function, the list goes on and on.

The fact that these questions race through my mind in every city I visit, every building I enter, and every space I inhabit, that is where the title for this blog comes from.

I inhabit an architortured mind.

What am I crazy?

To answer that question: yes.

That is the precise reason I decided to begin a blog. Looking back over my first two years of college, I wish I had a record of everything that has happened, of the ways I have become the archinerd I am today. Also, I figured it may be entertaining to read....maybe.

Anyway, hopefully I will keep this up, as I have never been able to keep a journal. It is my hope that if nothing else, this glimpse into the life of an architecture student will make you feel a little better about your life, a little less hectic, a little more sane, and above all else, make you feel...something.

Cheers!