Exercise 4

This is the diagram I am turning in today.  Its a sectional perspective through the stage area of city hall.  I decided to have a band playing, and it needs work so consider this a rough draft.

NOTE:  on all of these drawings the picture goes off the page.  CLick on the picture to see the whole thing. 

Exercise 3

In this exercise we had to create a Data Map. I visited the site 5 times in 1 day and marked on a plan where people where standing, then layered this information in Illustrator.  I put put the sheet I turned in (which needs layout changes) and a bigger version of the map itself.

Exercise 2

This was our second assignment, where we had to design a map by annotating either an aerial photograph or an axon of Boston City Hall.  I choose to map out the most basic elements of city hall, in order to identify later “good and bad” areas.

So it went horribly wrong…

….but my classes are crazy amounts of work.  However they are fascinating, and I’ve been working really hard in both.  Give a girl an A, and she wants a cookie and more As.  And then some milk.  And a book.  And time to read it.  Outdoors on a sunny day.  With no homework.  But still getting an A.  (Nice dream)

So here are the diagram for my Advanced Representation class.  We’ve been focusing on Boston City hall a tremendously ugly building that would be shot on site as a monster if it could move.  However I am slowly coming to terms with the plaza, who can’t help the fact that it was built around a monster.  It’s even trying to kill it, by climbing up the sides and suffocating it.  So I am now taking its side in the war.  Brick stays, but anything concrete needs immediate demolishing.

Exercise 1:  has nothing to do with city hall.  We were supposed to make a map of our journy from home (which is up for interpretation) to studio.  I procrastinated mightly, until I bundled up all my focus on not doing my homework and turned it into a rather funny diagram (which was a risk that paid off, my teacher actually liked it) about all the things I can use to procrastinate getting to studio.

It needs some work.  The fonts didn’t come out like I wanted, and I am going to redo the color scheme so I don’t need the text on the buildings at all.  This is actually a reorganized layout, I turned in something a bot different.

The New Plan!

Which may go horribly, horribly wrong (or like most things in life morph into something you were completely not expecting, hopefully for the better.  Which is for me the difference in the connotative meanings for evolve and mutate.  Evolve seems like a good thing, mutate generally seems bad.  It isn’t necessarily but really unless I’m in a….an? hmmmmm an X-men movie I really don’t see being mutated as a good thing in a connotative sort of way.)

See I illstrated my own point without even meaning to.  It’s basically how I always write these days, I’ve given up on careful planning since I ignore it anyway.

The Plan:  I want to read a new architecture, or architecture related, book every week or so and then do a post!  That way I start the long road of figuring out what I want to do in two years when I graduate and I get to keep writing.  Although I do agree with my mother’s comment that my first job will likely dictate what I end up doing I still need to decide if I even want to apply to firms when I grow up.  I may want to apply to Pottery Barn and design pretty furniture and bedding, or go back and help save Herculaneum, or save an old building like I tried to do on coop at BU.

So this plan my not even last a week.  But its been declared so I figure it will manage at least one book.

-Sarah

Final project

Wow I leave in two days.  Weird.  However there is some chance this is not the end of this blog because I didn’t get through half the posts I wanted to.  Which is annoying, but I ran out of time.  Plus I really like writing it!  Anyway here is my latest excuse in the form of my final project slides!  I’m not going to talk because that is how I tanked my actual crit and for once my boards pretty much speak for themselves.  SO for an overview please reread my last post since that’s pretty much completely accurate in terms of concept.

Celimontana_cushing

It’s a powerpoint presentation and you have to download it. (click on the link, and either save it to your desk top or just click “open”)  Sorry.

-Sarah

Herculaneum Conservation and Developement Project

Hello all,

So I promised you a Fuksas  post.  What your getting is the reason you don’t have a Fuksas post!  Which is kinda close I think.  Anyways, today concludes the never ending Herculaneum project.  It was a group project and it has been causing me stress since I went to Herculaneum (a two day workshop turned into 55% of my grade for one class.  Go figure.) To recap, we went to Herculaneum were given VIP tours of closed parts of the site, and talked to archeologists and scholars about the site, and the problems it is having related to the modern day city of Resina which crowds right up against the pit that has been excavated to reveal ancient Herculaneum.  We were also given a lecture by the urban designer in charge of the new plan to redevelop the city of Resina.  In the workshop we were supposed to brainstorm ideas on how we would create a similar urban design plan and then present them the next week.  Several months later this is the final result of this project. (I personally designed the children’s museum, but mandi is the reasons the renderings look good for it.  Mandi actually did most of the renderings, except for a few done by Christine Green.  I also designed the layout for the second board, and Mandi designed the layout for the third board, and she also helped design the community center..

Credit goes to my entire group (alphabetical order): Amanda Carr   •   Drew Cunningham   •   Sarah Cushing   •   Megan Cusack   •   Christine Greene   •   Kelsey Holmes   •   Magdalena Kukulska

Stolen from the brief Megan Cusack wrote:

Our design incorporates the existing plans of the Centro Herculaneum and the
Herculaneum Conservation Project. We would like to support their plans with our
intervention, rather than ignoring them and replacing them with our own. The big urban
move that we are proposing is to extend Via Quattro Novembre, which the urban
planners are currently trying to strengthen as a main axis for the city. We plan on
extending it down to the sea and creating a series of spaces along that road that will
bring the residents of Resina and tourists alike into the park. The experience of walking
down a pedestrian only Via Quattro Novembre through and then out of the park will take
you past a light commercial area, a new museum for children, a new tower, an urban
agricultural center, a fresh produce market, and ending in a new seaport center on the
ocean. We are also proposing a new community center connecting Via Mare and the
park to a new circumnavigation walkway.

(And now for some bragging) Our presentation went well (we just got back from it).  Right after we presented, the immediate comments from the panel were all positive and showed interest.  And we had a really great response to our ideas during the round table discussion.  Serious discussion by both teachers, guests, and students of the main idea of extending the Via 4 Novembre to the sea, specific mentions of the Children’s Museum and Sea Center, and slightly more general discussions about having an agricultural center (like ours) and using typologies from the site (like our cafe did).  And on the real site they actually just got the go ahead to build a community center surrounded by green space right on the spot we’re suggested such a think (theirs has a really cool underground parking system though).  Despite the massive headache this project has been, I am really happy how it turned out.  And even happier that it’s done!

-Sarah

EDIT:  If you look down at the randomly generated posts, and then click on “Site Boards at Herculaneum” it will lead you to the blog of the Herculaneum Conservation Center, a blog written by Sarah Court and Christan Biggi.  They are two of the three experts who gave us the VIP tours and Christian came to Rome today to be on the panel of experts, although Sarah had to drop out this morning.  He was joined by Christopher Smith, the newly appointed Director of the British School at Rome (which is a really cool program).  And my teachers Tom and Scott but I’m not sure they count as guests.