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.