Saturday, November 27, 2010

This entry is because I need to reassure myself...

This entry is just because I need to reassure myself of the interests I can keep with my project... even though I feel as if it goes down the drain with almost every decision James makes about it... there are some things that I do find to be unique and respectable.

- I like how it is a conglomeration of spaces; it's spatially rich and the overlapping/ fuzzy boundaries between spaces and systems is actually interesting and beautiful - I like that it's not really complete or figured out [ although I will probably regret saying that in a matter of days... ] 

- even though I didn't before... I like the green roof idea and integrating green 'terraces' above the city at different heights and distances from the building core... I guess this is sort of an extension of the original 'ziggurat' idea... and I guess the ancients had something right meshing together the ground plane at such high levels with infrastructure and commerce

- I have somewhat come to like the massy-ness of the building... I guess if we hadn't "gone big" the whole strong zig-zag of the building might have been weak overall. I think just the shear mass of the thing makes us appear to be balls-y and "confrontational" from the start [ yea... TMical called my writing 'confrontational' this semester... I guess all my work is becoming this way lately... sort of a reaction against James being in my life - and being in my life too much... ]

- I like how our building isn't caught-up on super-fussy things like facades and funny floor designs like Steve & Kyle's or even Marissa & Elliots [ although I do like the M & E ceiling concept... it reminds me of an inverted version of my facade system for... ironically M&E w/ Dimitrius ] - I know that with the model we will have to choose nice materials and project to the jury that we have planned for integrating quality materials in the design... grrr - even though James refuses my suggestions and tends to like really cheesey materials... whatever, not something I can keep wasting energy on... he's just like that in general - cheesey and not of a good quality... okay, okay... so anyway yea... not getting caught-up on superficial, Dean-Douglis-like excessive-patterning of surfaces... just going for good, quality material adjacencies 

Sooo, yea after that small rant in the last paragraph I wasted alot of energy in trying to think of more things that I like about this project. I think therein lies the problem... I waste so much energy being upset at what James forces me to say okay to that I don't have time to appreciate anything about our project. But it's really not fair that he won't let me give input into the project.... ESPECIALLY since I'm the one pulling allnighters to bring all the work into a presentable format. Sure, I can deal with not having control over the sole form... he did take into account a lot of my suggestions about that. BUT when he starts telling meeee what should go onto the facades of this building... he is bringing his weak opinions and bad taste into the wrong territory. I mean c'mon... who did Jefferson yell at three times in Italy to take off the goddamn, ugly-ass watermark background from all his presentations? ... yes, James. And who for materials & enclosures class... chooses a final project that basically avoids all material concerns and manifests its interest around a tilted pane of glass? ...yes, James did that, too. So how can I really sit back and let him tell me "no" to concrete when I KNOW it's a good choice for areas of our building? It really kills me. This is what I've waited all semester for and he's crushing it. He's probably the only person in the class who doesn't recognize me for the one thing I'm good at - wall sections and material choices... for those wall sections! UGH. Whatever... I just have to stand up there next to him and if we are criticized for choosing dumb materials I'll just stand there and not say anything like I did during the stupid curvy-wavy-column shit that we presented during the midterm... yea.... the thing we were criticized for .... and the thing I told him we SHOULDN'T do. AHHHHHH.... there is soooo much frustration that I have for him right now. Sure, he can do the whole form-manipulation thing... and I respect that a lot because it's something I see as superficial and not really architectural... anyone can shift around spaces and forms... what I think becomes interesting are the sections and stemming further from that the materials you select for those sections. Oye... I can't even express myself anymore.... he makes me so frustrated and I can't wait until I don't have to work with him anymore.

not excited to go back to RPI,
- c

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