Spring Break-- Glasgow, Scotland

On Saturday the 14th Lura and I flew from Dublin, Ireland to Glasgow, Scotland, with a bunch of Irish Rugby fans going to the Ireland, Scotland game that next day. We got there safely and went to our hostel which overlooked Kelvingrove park, and then went around for some more exploring that afternoon. We hit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and saw famous paintings by Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, and Renoir,,, and of course I absolutely adore impressionism so this whole place was fantastic for me. After this we went walked down to the main shopping area and then went to dinner at the Islau Inn, which is this Scottish pub we found randomly. Turns out this was the best place we could have gone, because they had live music playing with a fiddle, some drums, and a bagpipe! We stayed there for a while just soaking it all in, and then called it a day. The next day we had a traditional Scottish breakfast with “tattie” scones,, which is how they call potatoes. Next we did some more shopping and went to Princes Square for a delicious Chicken Caesar Salad for lunch! I miss those so much so I had a lot on this trip. Then we went to the Glasgow cathedral and to the Necropolis behind it,, which is basically an entire graveyard city on a hill which overlooks all of Glasgow. Next we went down to the Clyde river and walked up and down this,,, and we saw some cool foot bridges, Clyde’s Arc, the Armadillo building part of the SECC, and the tall ship among other things. Then we circled back to the train station area and roughly calculated that we had just walked about 8 miles! Needless to say I believe we covered everything significant in Glasgow! That night we went to the Bier hall for pizza, and this was neat because we found a Heather Ale which is made in Scotland using heather, so of course we had to try it! After this we took a night train which we thought would put us in Inverness the next morning no problems, but it turns out we had a 6 hour layover in Aberdeen,,, so when we got there we had to get a hotel nearby—nicest place we stayed in the whole time! However on the train ride to Aberdeen we had a rather interesting trip. First of all we had some Scottish friends sitting across from us who were returning from the crazy rugby match that day. They immediately recognized that we weren’t from Scotland, but they guessed that we were from Italy! I looked around to make sure we weren’t wearing anything that said Italy on it,,, and we weren’t, so I asked how he knew that we came from Italy, and he said it was because of my glasses. As they described Scotland they said it was miserable because of the HORIZONTAL rain that never ends, but for some reason we were blessed with fantastic sunny weather this whole trip, so apparently we got the wrong impression of Scotland! By the way--- Scots don’t know how to play beach volleyball,, it doesn’t exist unless you play in a glass dome in parkas. Just food for thought.

And so here ends our stay in Glasgow, however, there is much more to come of Scotland…

So I know I haven't done this in a while...

First of all, I would like to apologize for my lack of blogging for the last couple of weeks, I have gotten wrapped up in school and Italy life and have thus been a slacker on my blog. However, I will now attempt to update you on my last last trip, Spring Break, I will try to keep it generally short and sweet, since I have an entire other 10 day trip to update y’all on!

This past spring break March 12th through 23rd, I travelled with Lura to Ireland, Scotland, and England. We were the first ones to leave a day early immediately after reviews for Bergamo. Our flight the next morning was out of Milan Orio al Serio (where Ryanair flies out of) so we went the night before and stayed in Bergamo to make everything easier the next morning. Our first experience with Ryanair gave us the correct impression of the hassles you have to deal with when flying with them,,, because the whole morning we were standing in ridiculous lines and wondering if we were going to make our flight or not. Turns out we did, so we got on a plane full of Italians flying to Dublin for St. Patrick’s day,, and I’ll tell you what- Italians are the loudest people to travel on a plane with! Once we arrived in Dublin we took a bus to our hostel in the center of Dublin and met up with another architecture friend who is currently studying abroad in Barcelona,,, Erika. We went to our first Irish pub for lunch, and I was so fascinated by the fact that they put stuffing on their sandwiches! What a fantastic idea! And—we had real ketchup (we are used to Mato Mato here in Italy which tastes more like a combination of ketchup and cocktail sauce) which tasted so sweet, and had water for free! After lunch we basically wandered around Dublin and just stumbled upon things that we wanted to see,,, first we walked along the Liffy River to see a few cool bridges and new buildings before we headed to Trinity College and Dublin Castle for a quick tour. After this we went to Temple bar area for dinner and dessert, and even though it was 5 nights before St. Patrick’s day, the place was already packed with young people from all over the world ready to party.

And that my friends, is Ireland for you,,, we were only there a day, but at least I can say I have been to Ireland!

Survival of the Fittest

I have survived potentially the hardest week here at Genova! Since I was in San Diego for a week, our review of our vertical tower design got postponed until this past Thursday, which also coincided with our research presentation, so needless to say I have been quite busy! However, I am now done and have slept, so I am at least coherent enough to write this blog.... So now I will tell you a little bit about our vertical tower design...

The city of Genova is built from the port upwards onto the mountains (or just really big hills) up behind it. Most old villas are around 6 stories high so it is a fairly vertical city, which then stacks on top of itself as you move upwards. The result has actually a very horizontal effect, with all the stacking the city reads as a series of terraces layering on top of each other. So our approach for the tower design was to continue this terracing idea into our outlook tower. We also incorporated the corkscrewing views around our site into our spiral design, and wanted the experience of climbing up the tower to be integral to the tower itself. You can see our result in the pictures, which is a tower made up of stairs which rotate off a central core to form a tower. Thus using horizontal features we were able to create a vertical tower that is more about horizontality, and thus meshes well with the Genovese tradition. Well so we think, you are allowed your own opinions!

The other project that we did was research, the topic of which we picked at the beginning of the semester. Tara and I researched the sculptural qualities of concrete utilizing two main buildings in our research, Le Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut chapel at Ronchamp and Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazzetto Dello Sport in Rome. These buildings could not be more different, in fact basically the only thing that connects them is the fact that they use concrete and they were built around the same time. However, our job was to compare and contrast how these buildings were sculptural although in highly different ways. It was rather interesting to study and compare these buildings, because both were approached differently in design--- Nervi took an engineering approach because he believed that a good structural solution would result in a natural aesthetic and Le Corbusier took an artistic approach and designed a chapel which is more of a sculpture on the scale of a building than an actual building. Anyway, this is all interesting for those of you who don't believe me.

After that on Friday I had an initial project study due for Golda, in which we were given three spaces throughout Genova in close proximity to study. Throughout the semester we will visit these spaces and determine what it is that makes them tick and basically whatever we want to discover,, and then we will have fun putting these observations into maps, which will hopefully visually describe the feeling and atmosphere of the spaces. It should be fun, however right now my spaces look rather like a James Bond film so it should be very entertaining....

My blog from my 10 day trip is coming, I promise! I will split it up by day like I did before, but hopefully I will have those up by today or tomorrow. I finally get to catch up on all that stuff now that studio has died down!

~Heather

Home again!

I have returned safely to the villa after our amazing spring break trip touring Dublin, Glasgow, Inverness, Edinburgh, and London. Currently I have our vertical tower design project and research due at the end of this week, so I have quickly refocused myself to do nothing but work on architecture. However, this weekend I will be able to update you all with blogs and pictures about what all I did over spring break! Ciao!

~Heather

So it's Tuesday/Wednesday.

Today was very unlively here in the villa, considering all day we were all consumed with studio work in preparation for reviews tomorrow. My partner and I don't have a deadline tomorrow, but we worked to finish our boards anyway, since our extention is over spring break. So basically I have been sitting in the same position all day sketching and doing various things with el computor,, and am getting rather tired of it. We are almost done, so a little bit further and I should be home free and ready to leave for Ireland, Scotland, and England! I am getting more and more excited as it approaches,,, no obligations besides getting there and having a great time!

The only rather exciting event of the day was hearing from my family as they arrived in Parma today. They had a great time in Cinque Terra and really enjoyed their amazing view from their apartment in Manarola. Yesterday they travelled to Pisa and hit all of the major attractions- climbed the leaning tower without it falling, went in the cathedral, and heard chanting in the baptistry. Today they travelled to Parma and had some official Parmasean cheese, which was supposedly delicious. They are surviving on very little Italian, and through the use of a dictionary, a PDA, and very helpful waiters they manage to feed themselves fairly well. Tomorrow/Today they head off for Venice while I head off to Ireland. So they are safe, surviving, and having a blast--- right now they are in the sensory overload phase of Italy where everything they see is more beautiful then they can imagine--- they may not get over that part in 10 days, but they will get a good look in Italy, that's for sure! Anyway, I'm over and out, I may or may not be able to update during my spring break,,,, we shall see what happens. Ciao ragazzi!

~Heather

Terragni Day!

Ciao Ragazzi! Today we had a day trip to Lake Como, with an emphasis on great works by Giuseppe Terragni, an important Italian rationalist. We left bright and early via a Genovarent bus, which is always nice because we get great sleep on the way to and from our destinations. After a slight mix up with direction,, we made it to Villa Bianca, an apartment design for Terragni's cousin,, which thus allowed him to do whatever he wanted. The building was rather interesting not because of the architecture necessarily,, which was rather modern and well,,, plain, but what was interesting was the creepy sculptures scattered around the surrounding gardens. Luckily we didn't run into any rabid dogs like the sign on the gate warned against, but we did run into a slightly crazy man who gave us postcards and told us about being married for 55 years. Great guy. Next we headed actually into Como and hit Terragni's War Memorial. Although Terragni won the competition for this memorial, he was forced to change his design to replicate a sketch drawn by Antonio Sant'Elia--- the leader of futurism--- before he died in the war. So this monument is interesting because it is both futurist and rationalist, and thus greatly shows the very close correlation between these two movements. This monument is right on Lake Como, so from there we got some good views of the surrounding countryside. Next we went to what is considered the first modern building in Italy (disregarding Ca' Brutta which no one really cares about) The Nococomum Apartment Building. It was nice to see in person and see it's great contrast to the baroque decorative architecture directly beside it, but it wasn't as impressive as the pictures made it look. However, it has been modified over the years so it less jarring texturally and colorly (?I had to make up a word there, apologies?). Next we had lunch, and directly following lunch, we saw my favorite building of the whole visit...

The Casa Del Fascio is a building in the center of Como which was meant to be a house for fascism,,, exactly as the title implies. Thus the architecture is full of propoganda to reflect the "clarity and honesty" of the fascist party. Thus the architecture is simple and utilizes a lot of glazing and natural lighting so that you can literally see right through the bottom level of the structure,, and you "know" what is going on at all times. However, this is a very skewed perception, because if you count the column grid, there are a lot of rooms hidden from this, not to mention the other levels and the supposed basement where they housed all the people who disagreed with the fascist party. Thus this building is an insane paradox, and actually works perfectly with it's function, because the fascist party was the exact same thing--- a presented facade with an entirely different thing happening under the surface. The Casa Del Fascio thus perfectly reflects the contradictions of Fascism as well as serving as a model for how easily people could fall into Fascism's trap--- they were really rather good at propoganda. So maybe the architecture is not the best for architecture's sake, but it is one of the best correlations of form follows function that I have ever seen,,, even on levels that were not intended. Okay,, so yay fascists.

We also saw a Nursery School in the Sant'Elia Quarter in which Terragni designed everything on the scale of an elementary school kid,,, so needless to say, this was my place! Everything was so cute and tiny including the handrails, bathrooms, and tables and chairs. It was also interesting how he took a city setting and added as much green space and natural lighting as possible to give the kids a great rural experience while in school. All in all, it was a cool place.

We headed back and are now back to our usual studio routine, but Terragni day was definitely a positive addition to this trip. As for those of you who may be concerned with the rest of my family--- I didn't hear from them today, but I should tomorrow once they arrive in Parma, so I will keep you posted! Thank you and goodnight!

~Heather

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