A lot of catching up to do...

Sorry I haven’t written a post in a while, Design Build took over my life as usual, but I love it regardless!

So last week I was in San Diego for the National Design Build Competition. I got there a few days early to adjust to the 9 hour time change as well as just have some time to chill with the team in preparation for DAYS of competing. The weather couldn’t have been better, upper seventies and sunny, which helped set a positive mood for the whole competition. I won’t go too much in detail, but here is an overview of the competition… We started out Wednesday morning at 6 AM and found out that our project was a 180,000 sq. ft. $80 million History Museum in Denver, Colorado. We were given a 13 page detailed program listing with adjacencies given, and that thing was a jigsaw puzzle to figure out, so Chris and I were loaded down. We turned in our proposal with some very creative solutions at midnight on Wednesday, after 18 hours of rapid fire designing. Then we stayed up to work on the Oral presentation the next day, for which I did many more sketches and models. We presented at 3:45 on Thursday, and I believe I had one hour of sleep around 10 am before that. Our presentation went perfectly and we got many many compliments by judges and audience alike. After that we had the debriefing and the awards ceremony, at which we placed 2nd in the nation. Go Clemson! Anyway, we and many other people believe that we deserved first, but that just means we will work twice as hard (I don’t think that is possible!) next year to win Nationals.

Friday after the competition I travelled back halfway across the world back to Genoa, which I was VERY excited to see. As soon as I arrived Mom, Dad, and Hilz arrived at their hotel in downtown Genova, so I dropped my stuff down quickly and headed to them--- no rest for the weary! Saturday I took them up to the villa and showed them around places that I frequent, and then we walked down to the train station and I decided to show them a little bit about the Genova bus system. For dinner we went out with a few of my friends here to a restaurant close to the villa called Maniman’s, and my family got to try some true Italian pasta, wine and dolci for the first time, which I believe they enjoyed. Sunday was their only full day in Genova--- so I had to pack a LOT into the schedule to show them all the significant destinations. We went by Christopher Columbus’s birth house, through the old city wall tower, into San Lorenzo Cathedral (The Duomo of Genova--- this was neat because we got in there right as the mass was ending, so we got to here a little bit of prayer and singing before we explored the cathedral), and to the port to see Il Bigo all before lunch. Then we went to a restaurant right on the port and had some Trofie al Pesto—a popular Genovese dish. After lunch we went to the Aquarium which was new for me. This aquarium is one of the largest in Europe, and we enjoyed wandering through it,, my favorite part were the jellyfish,, although the seahorses were a close second, oh and the penguins too. After the aquarium we had some gelato, and then headed up via the funicolare to the top of the mountain. We walked up close to the fort so they could get some good views of the city, and then headed back down to the hotel to take a break before dinner. For dinner I took them to the “best pizza place in Genova” according to Luca, and we had a great meal and ordered random desserts not knowing what to expect. Hopefully they picked up enough Italian so they can get by in the rest of the cities, but luckily their other destinations are more tourist attractions so English is spoken more prevalently. I packed enough in that one day I think they saw most of the city!

Today I met Mom, Dad, and Hilz at their hotel on Via XX Settembre for an amazing continental breakfast, and then sent them off on their journey to Cinque Terra. I know that they arrived safely and had a great day walking around and exploring that area, and will stay there tomorrow as well. I’ll try to keep you informed about their progression through Italy as they inform me!

As for what I am doing,,, I am currently working on a lot of vertical tower design, but luckily Tara and I got an extension for our project until after spring break, but we are still going to work as hard as we can to get the project far advanced before we go our separate directions. Tomorrow we have a day trip to Como, which I am really excited about especially because we get to go see the Casa del Fascio by Terragni, which is my research project for Saverio, and one of the most interesting buildings to study in its correlation with Fascism. Should be a blast, I just hope it doesn’t rain! That is all for now, Ciao!

~Heather