So two of my bosses were recently featured in the Philadelphia Business Journal as “dealmakers.”  It’s a pretty interesting interview, especially when they start talking about the politics of Philadelphia.  It’s nice to see some not-so-famous firms getting a bit of good press.

http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2008/07/14/focus4.html?b=1216008000^1666356&surround=etf

This is what happens when Eddie and I are the only ones posting!!

(Linked from: http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/6/25/128589138845733435.jpg)

So as reported in our very first post here, there are plans in the works for a very tall building in Philadelphia, even taller than the Comcast Center.  Well as reported on Phillyskyline, the media, as always blew this a bit out of whack.  You see, when completed the ACC tower would be the tallest building in America as of now. However, there are 2 projects underway which would currently be even taller than the ACC tower, which the news conveniently did not mention when it said that the project would be the tallest in the country.

Yay sensationalism!

If you’re somewhere interesting and exotic I want to read about it! Maybe even see a photo or two…

But even if you’re in Philly, it doesn’t mean you can’t engage in fun ARCHITECTURE-RELATED activities outside of your 9am-5pm (8am-8pm) “work” day.

Take, for example, last week’s presentation by MArch-classmate-turned-Philly-Sustainability-Director Mark Hughes. You can read the press coverage here: http://www.planphilly.com/node/3354 .

Suffice it to say he is AWESOME and SUPER SMART, a great speaker that we hope to have address the PennDesign community at some point in the coming school year.

I want to encourage whoever reads this thing (even if it’s just you, Eddie) to take time to explore your summer city, because we sure-as-heck won’t have any time to once studio starts!

This Thursday 6/26 there’s a presentation of the PennPraxis Plan for the Delaware River Waterfront that’s been in development for the past year. Event details are at http://www.planphilly.com/node/3285 .

I went to the design charette and initial public presentation and it’s always been a good time- FREE FOOD (laugh all you want) plus the opportunity to see PennDesign’s (well, the planning department’s) influence on the community, in action. RSVP ASAP!

Architectural thinking (if you can call it that) doesn’t end when you detach yourself from the computer and leave the office. We just have to get into the habit of appreciating (or denigrating) our daily wanderings in a location where others can take a look!

So with it being summer, most people are working during the day and doing fun, non-school related things at night.  This means that time for snarchitecture is limited without the need to find ways to procrastinate and waste time while sitting in studio.  As you may have noticed, there has been a lack of posts to the site, and part of that is my fault for not finding loads of interesting things to discuss daily.  But hopefully it’ll pick up as time goes and we can really get it going come next fall once school starts back up again.  But anyways, if I do happen to see something interesting in my wanderings while working this summer, I’ll be sure to post about it.

But anyways, enjoy the summer, get outside and do some things away from the computer! (such as playing with your firm’s softball team in the city-wide architecture/real estate/contractor league and getting royally whipped 42-2 last night, as I did)  It’ll be great!
Until next time…

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=999

So this week begins the annual summer ritual of summer internships.  The first few days are always rough as you try to find a way to fit yourself into the workflow of the office, and with some of the things I’m doing having to wait for a few days for other things to happen, that has been especially challenging.  So today, I find myself doing oddjobs until my dentist appointment this afternoon.  Fun stuff, but at least it’s better than moving a sample library to make room for knocking out a wall, as I had to do my first day (Monday).

I’ll be sure to make periodic posts over the summer as to the progress of working here, as well as anything I notice or see on my daily walk to and from the office.  Now it’s time to pick up some redlines on roofplans.  Yay.

I have come to one singular, undeniable conclusion about the vast majority of design students.  They are absolute idiots with a myopic, whimsical focus neither relevant nor terribly useful in the professional world – at least not in the first few years.  Now this may, at first, seem harsh, but I’ve reached the end of my rope on accepting absolute mediocrity from a group of people supposedly at the top of their game.

While this is not an isolated pandemic, it is particularly horrifying when a lack of basic educational skills exists at this point (Ivy League Graduate School) in one’s personal academic development.  Didn’t we all have to take the GRE to go to graduate school?  As I recall, there is a writing section graded out of 6 points.  Perhaps these folks were able to achieve 3′, if they were lucky?  Obviously the application committee cares far more deeply for those who can create a ’sexy’ autonomous image of yet another bio-morphic building than it does for those who can put a decent sentence together without the aid of two hands and a flashlight.

Now, in this instance I am ranting specifically about a lack of writing ability, but as the title of this diatribe suggests, the problem is really ‘well roundedness’ as a whole.  The fact is, I’ve sat on a vast array of pin-ups, reviews, and desk crits in my academic career - so many so that I can’t think about it without becoming ill, and yet, I’ve realized that most students can’t really speak either.  They may be able to articulate their project with buzz words like ‘amorphous’, ‘flux’, ‘nebulous’, ‘modular gradient’, or some other piece of the blob lexicon, but let me know when you find a prolific practicing architect who describes his / her own work with similar terms.  I can only assume job interviewers have lowered their expectations on perspective employees – hoping only for a nice portfolio, a warm body capable of production; the kind of person who cannot be brought in front of the client without wanting to shoot yourself in the face afterwards.

You know the stigma that college campuses are famously liberal.  Well while that is also true, design schools are infamous for living in a fantasy land, especially with studio work.  Am I the only one that values my other classes?  This may be particularly egregious at this school, but maybe it runs deeper than that.  Spending two weeks on one image because it’s your only skill set seems unproductive.  Start caring about more than your pipe-dream studio project and absorb the entire realm of education.  Try working outside of your comfort zone and doing something you’ve never done before - you might like it, and more importantly, you might find a new niche, something that broadens your horizons.  Thus ends the public service portion of this announcement.

In the end, a narrow skill set has got to be detrimental to the student at -large.  You may attain name-brand employment, you may even get compensated at a slightly higher scale than those around you (’slightly’ higher having the meaning of any kind of paid overtime in this case), but ultimately, your ceiling has to be lower.  How can a lack of reading, writing, verbal eloquence, and general self-presentation make you more attractive to anyone?  Clearly I don’t have the answer, so perhaps you should go ask another architecture student.  But be patient, it may take them a while to find the words.

So I was on facebook (procrastinating, wasting time, whatever you want to call it) and came across a fellow UVA grad from 07 who I knew who had a blog as well. Turns out, he’s actually making quite a difference in the world, working down in Biloxi, MS as a DesignCorps Fellow. Pretty cool stuff. I really encourage you to check out his blog at http://vbaudoin.wordpress.com when you get the chance. It’s refreshing to see that there are people other than Brad Pitt who are making a difference. Really makes me wonder what I’m doing at an Ivy League School designing pipe dreams? But that’s for another day - now I really need to get back to this dumb presentation!

Well, Rhino has just crashed on me for the third time because it claims, my computer doesn’t have the memory to run through it. What’s the deal with work flow in this damn profession? Why isn’t there a singular program that does it all, instead of having to model in one, draft in another, do renderings in another, graphic linework in a fourth, etc? Is BIM the solution? And, if so, why is BIM, the supposed cutting edge, next generational industry-wide tool, not in the schools yet? - the supposed next generational, progressive forum.

I don’t understand, but I know there are a lot of inefficiencies in the system, in how work gets done. This applies to work in academia and work in the professional realm. Perhaps overcoming this lack of efficiency is one step twoard better pay industry wide. If we could be more prolific and accurate in our tasks, we might be deserving of better compensation. These are much larger issues worthy of further discussion…but workflow has me down. There’s too much work, and absolutely no rhythm, or flow.