What Do You See? A project by the Emerging Leaders of Architecture

Emerging Leaders in Architecture

​An Honors Academy of the Virginia Society AIA

The ELA was “designed to develop future leaders in architecture firms, in communities, and in the profession.” This year I am honored to be one of 15 members from around the state. For our class project this year we have been given the task of evaluating and brainstorming ideas for the development of a small area of Richmond. The community of Old Manchester is located just south of the James River. It is a diverse community made up of residential, commercial, industrial, and many vacanct proporties. These factors make it a prime location for us to study.

This year’s class has decided to go in a slightly different direction than last year’s class. The previous class was able to present their findings on the study of the city or Norfolk in our firm last year. (an article about last year’s project…

http://www.aiava.org/professional-development/emerging-professionals/emerging-leaders-in-architecture/2010-ela-class-page/

This year, we are building a kiosk! One of the main themes that kept coming up in the beginning stages of discussions was how to respectfully engage with the community. There have been many studies of this area, and many community leaders have been repeatedly approached by groups interested in bettering this neighborhood. We are very aware of our limited time in the program and were worried of making false promises we would not be able to keep. As a group, we developed the idea of using an object as a vehicle of communication. The images below outline our schematic model. We have chosen 4 key sites for this kiosk to be constructed and displayed. Inside it will house the studies of the neighborho

od and have interactive components for both children and adults.The kiosk will be set up at each site for one day with select members there to answer questions. All in all, it is a kind of social experiment to try to see what people would like to see in their own community. The kiosk and our findings will be on display in the exhibition space at ArchEx in Richmond in November. If you are interested in keeping up with the project we have started a facebook page and twitter account. Also let me know if you would like to be add

ed to our email list.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/What-Do-You-See/134894846593899

Location 1 - Trycicle Gardens is a very successful community garden project located in the heart of Manchester http://tricyclegardens.org/

Location 2 - Corner of the Courthouse square.

Location 3 - The parking lot of a Residential building that is adjacent to the Hull Street Bridge heading back to downtown Richmond

Location 4 - The Public Library

Our design

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Learning to sketch again

Every summer my company has sort of “Themed Months”. This month is Graphics month. We have a series of lectures on how sketching is still important, how to present proposals for awards, and guest lecturers from various disciplines. We also go out once a week during lunch and do what we call Scavenger sketching. This is always a great way to get people away from their desk and picking up a pencil again. No matter how much I say I’m going to make myself sketch more, I never seem to do it. It was never my strongest skill, but the sketches I love the most have always seemed to come from the end of a long trip of sketching every day. While I was in Oxford last September I found a cute little art supply store and bought a little water color sketchbook, water color pencils, and a water brush. I have always been scared of watercolor. And other than the large watercolor I did at Rural in second year, I haven’t had much practice. The sketchbook itself is only 5 ½” x 3 ½” so I took this a pretty un-intimidating medium. It makes me get away from the detail of the drawings (which I usually tend to focus on) and get more to the general idea and simplest forms. Below are a few sketches I did while in London and Scotland last year. All in all I think they are fun little graphics and one of my new favorite ways to sketch.

View from "The Meadows" Edinburgh Scotland

The Serpentine Pavilion, London (all 4 sides)

Section of the Rottenrow Gardens, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow Scotland

So with these in mind I pulled out my little sketchbook and decided to try again for Scavenger sketching. Needless to say that the 8 months I did not pick up my sketchbook is definitely showing. I get so aggravated whenever I try to start sketching again, but the idea is to keep going. So although these are kind of embarrassing, here is week 1 of Scavenger Sketching. Hopefully during the next 4 weeks I can at least have a couple little sketches I’m proud of.

View From Waterside over to the ship docks

Omars Fountain Cafe

view of Portsmouth across the water

Piles in the water next to the dock

To make the idea of sketching again even more nerve-wracking, I had the bright idea to put all of our Scavenger Sketches up for sale at the local coffee shop to benefit CANstruction this year. So I officially have 3 more weeks to produce something that is worth being displayed and sold publicly. Wish me luck, I may need it.

One day....

I do consider myself a collector. Most of my collectibles fall into one of 4 categories:

Family / Antique Jewelry

Charley Harper Prints / Books / things

Junk I love

and last but not least....

Designer chairs!

I have a true love and, almost need for, designer chairs. Last year I officially started my collection of Mid-Century Modern furniture when I purchased my first two Eames molded plastic chairs. It was hard to choose but I got the Rocker in the Blue and the Side armless in the Lime green with the dowel legs...both of which I still love!

A few months later we were doing a sketching exercise over in the arcade and I happen to take the last few minutes to walk through one of the local galleries that happen to be having an auction for the Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer! needless to say, even though I had no business buying three chairs this year, I just couldn't pass it up. So I wrote down a sensible bid knowing the worth of the chair and crossed my fingers I wouldn't get it (like I said, I could not afford this chair and with my London / Scotland trip only two months away I knew I should not have even entered). One week, to the day, before my trip I got the email saying I had one the chair. So I opened up my travel fund and wrote a check for the chair. looking back I'm happy I won and love my chair :)

Which brings me to the reason of this post. I came across an interesting post on the etsy blog today about one of my all time favorite chairs (the eames lounge) and thought I would share it with other chair lovers out there.

http://www.etsy.com/storque/handmade-life/noted-assembling-the-eames-lounge-chair-12567/?ref=fp_blog_title

One day I hope to have a little house of my own filled with all my fun chairs and prints :)

Reliving some old memories

This is a time lapse of us building our thesis project. The quality is pretty bad to get it small enough for you-tube, but it still makes me smile.