‘Habana is very much like a rose,’ said Fico Fellove in the movie The Lost City, ‘it has petals and it has thorns…so it depends on how you grab it. But in the end it always grabs you.’ “One of the most beautiful cities in the world. You see it with your heart.” Enrique [...]
Archive for the ‘School Work’ Category
Desde La Habana {Imágenes y Son}
Posted in ArchistDesign | Studio, Architectural Photography, Architecture, Art Show, art,poetry,writing, Books, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Habana Diaries, History of Architecture, Le flâneur, Lectures, Music, Photography, photography, Quotes, Reading, Research, School Work, Traveling, tagged Alejo Carpentier, Architectural Styles, Architecture, Centro Habana, city of colums, cuba, Cuban eclecticism, El Malecon, Federico Lorca, graham greene, Habana, Habana Vieja, Havana, havana as a rose, images, La Habana, literary quotes, Lost CIty, photographs, Photography, Quotes, ruins, urban design, Vedado on April 20, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Ballerina
Posted in Architecture, art, Collage, Digital Collage, Photography, Poetry, school, School Work, Writing, tagged architectural narratives, ballerina, Casablanca quote, cityline, Digital Collage, ink drawing, leopold lambert, poem, Poetry, RIetta Wallenda, suspended at 300 feet with no harness, the funambulist, tightrope dances, tightrope walker, woman on September 1, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Nets To Rietta Wallenda Tightrope acrobats dance above safety nets (or not) Nerves taut like violin chords Pulsing on neck, tendons stiff. / The fisherman spreads his father’s nets Repaired a thousand times, damaged again He sews his wounds on the beach Fastens the corks The old man with the young eyes who listens to [...]
Wabi Sabi, Dwellings for Imaginary Civilizations, Nightverses
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, Art Gallery, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Berkeley Diaries, Books, Coffee, Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Featured Artists, Poetry, school, School Work, sketching, Writing, writing, tagged art, charles simonds, clay dwellings, corcovado nights, designers, dwellings for imaginary civilizations of little people, graphite drawing, new york, NYC, Poetry, poets & philosophers, sarah vaughn, wabi-sabi for artists, whitney museum on August 28, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional. From Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers Charles Simonds began building clay villages, ruins and what he termed ” dwellings for imaginary civilizations of little people” in the [...]
Bruce Mau’s on Architecture, and more importantly, Life: An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art,poetry,writing, Books, Featured Architects, Quotes, School Work, Writing, writing, tagged an incomplete manifesto for growth, Architecture, attention span, begin anywhere, bruce mau, digital revolution, visual, writing on July 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Today I want to stray from the visual and go back to words (even though visual work is piling up by the scanner, waiting to be shared.) The visual permeates every aspect of a designer/artist life…it is the expected outcome: something that all can see. Here in sketchbloom I share works and progress/process in form [...]
Drawn Resolutions (and calling for mandatory poetry)
Posted in Architecture, art, Artuesdays, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Digital Collage, Drawing, Essay, History of Architecture, Ink, Photography, Poetry, Quotes, Research, school, School Work, sketching, Theory and Criticism, Writing, tagged 'spiro kostof, ability to visualize, architect: chapters in the history of the profession, architects, architecture academia, architecture curriculum, artist, balboa park san diego, communication for architects, criticism, curricula, designers, downcast eyes: the denigration of vision in twentieth-century french thought, draw it, Drawing, drawn, essay, eth switzerland, importance of literature, inchoate, ink, intellectual dialogue, literature, mandatory poetry, marc angelil, meditating, pen, Poetry, poetry humanities in architecture curriculum, powerpoint, read in the park, read outdoors, resolutions 2011, sketching, the picture is worth a thousands words syndrome, tyranny of the visual, visual people, visualization techniques, war, writing, writing for architects on March 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
As designers, architects, artists, we use the ability to first visualize then communicate a desired outcome. Implementation means having the courage, discipline and perseverance to bring that vision into the physical realm. I love to write, and to write lists, but this year I am doing something different with my 2011 resolutions. I am drawing them. It [...]
Hybrid Notes : Bjarke Ingels. San Diego. 02.25.2011
Posted in Architecture, art, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Design, Digital Collage, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Featured Architects, Lectures, Museum WOWs, Photography, Poetry, Quotes, San Diego, school, School Work, sketchbook, sketching, Theory and Criticism, Writing, tagged 2011, AIAS NSAD, Allen Ghaida, Autograph, BIG, bjarke ingels, california, danish architect, Drawing, february "%, Hybrid notes, lecture notes, museum of natural history, newschool, NewSchool Arts Foundation, newschool of architecture and design, notes from the lecture, NSAD, NSAF, Review, san diego, sketches, visual notes, yes is more on February 28, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Bjarke Ingels came to speak to our school Friday night. The venue was the Museum of Natural History in scenic Balboa Park. I am still blown away by the lecture and, more importantly, the message. It was truly (r)evolutionary. The fact that BIG’s insanely brilliant concepts not only get built but a) give back to [...]
Drawn on Coffee
Posted in Architecture, Coffee, Poetry, Quotes, school, School Work, sketchbook, sketching, Thoughts in the alley, Uncategorized, Watercolor, Writing, tagged Carlos Fuentes, cities, city, Coffee, ink drawing, Poetry, poetry on architecture, revolution, sketch, sketchbook, urban design on January 31, 2011 | 3 Comments »
One more post before the month is over. I still have a lot of sketches to share and am working on finding time to do some more collages (wow, the previous sentence needs to have more conviction to it!). Lots of changes going on around the world…. I am just sitting and seeing it all turn. [...]
Dispatches from Vladivostok: Architecture, Poetry, the Oneiric, the Grotesque
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Books, Featured Artists, Lectures, NaBloPoMo, Poetry, Quotes, school, School Work, Theory and Criticism, Writing, writing, tagged and the Wilderness Urbanism of John Hejduk, architects as artists, Architecture, architecture of a city, art, Baikal, critical thought, criticism, Detour, Errand, essays on architecture, Exquisite Corpse, Invisible cities, Italo Calvino, John Hejduk, Lake Baikal, Marco Polo, Mask of Medusa, Michael Sorkin, paroles d'architects, Riga, sketches, the ethics of aesthetics, the informer, the minister of culture, theory, venice, Vladivostok on November 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »
John Hejduk has been called one of the most influential architects and educators of our time.. He was also a poet, an artist and the Dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of the uber-prestigious Cooper Union in New York. I am reviewing couple of his books, Vladivostok and The Mask of [...]
XRay of my Brain II
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Collage, Design, Digital Collage, Drawing, Painting, Photography, Portfolio of Work, school, School Work, Watercolor, tagged Architecture, art, faculty work, Pedagogy, portfolio of work, Practice on October 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
My second board for the faculty display wall. I now have a list of new art to add to my portfolio tabs, as this was a great opportunity to curate my artwork. It feels great to be done (for now). Happy Halloween!
An X-Ray of my brain
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Collage, Design, school, School Work, writing, tagged Faculty Board, Miti Aiello, Pedagogy, Philosophy, Practice on October 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The board is done and up on the faculty display wall. In the process, I refined my skills with Illustrator, pondered philosophy, practice, pedagogy,and crystallized what I am, do, stand for — in a tangible format. A welcome tall order.
The Beginnings of Architecture
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art,poetry,writing, Books, History of Architecture, Lectures, San Diego, school, School Work, tagged A Global History of Architecture. Francis D.K. Ching, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. Spiro Kostof, A World History of Architecture. Michael Fazio, Altamira, and Vikramaditya Prakash, Architecture: From Prehistory to Postmodernity, Beginnings of Architecture, Catal Huyuk, Eddie Izzard, Eddie Izzard on Stonehenge, History of Architecture, History of Architecture textbooks, Jericho, Lascaux, Lawence Wodehouse, Marian Moffett, Mark M. Jarzombek, Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman, Powerpoint Presentation, Pre-Columbian Architecture, Pre-Contact Architecture of the Americas, Stonehenge on October 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
From my Friday’s History Class. The Beginnings of Architecture covers Stonehenge, the caves at Lascaux and Altamira, and what we consider the beginning of the urban revolution in our hemisphere, the proto-cities of Catal Huyuk and Jericho. I will share weekly my History powerpoints, well, okay, the ones I consider complete…next I want to sharpen [...]
Collages in Art and Architecture
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Collage, Design, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, Graphic Design, School Work, tagged collage, collage in art and architecture, crackling glaze, gloss, Hector Perez, repetition, richard meier, socal ex on October 19, 2010 | 4 Comments »
I have been thinking and wanting to explore collages again since this summer, when I was so inspired by Hector Perez and his students’ work with SoCal Ex–but not until today I finally acted on that impulse. I have two works done and one almost complete. Two to share, and one part of a larger, [...]
Architecture is built politics, (un)built poetry
Posted in Writing, art,poetry,writing, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Architecture, School Work, San Diego, school, writing, architecture, tagged Architecture, architecture is built politics, Award, bad urban design, bad urban spaces, Balboa Park, Boston SOciety of Architects, BSA, Choi+Shine, competitions, Downtown San Diego, electricity pylons, failed urban spaces, Farmers' Market, Gaslamp Historical Quarter, Horton Plaza, Horton Plaza fountainfenced, Horton Square, Ice Rink, Iceland, Irvin Gill, Italian cities, Land of Giants, loetering, Massachussetts Architecture and Design, Piazza, piazza design, piazzas, poetry of the unbuilt, public, public responsibility, public sphere, san diego, Signonsandiego, Steel frame poetry, Unbuilt Architecture Award, unbuilt poetry, urban design, urban moments, urban planning, wells fargo plaza, why public spaces fail, world architecture news, young designers on October 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Choi+Shine, a Massachusetts-based design studio has recently received the Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Architecture Award for their creative concept Land of Giants™, transforming the generic steel-framed electricity pylons across the Icelandic landscape into unique, individual humanised forms. Read the World Architecture News article here. In contrast to the poetry of the unbuilt, and whenever [...]
Steven Holl: Sketches, Watercolors, Collages
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Design, Digital Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, F R A G M E N T S, school, School Work, Watercolor, Writing, tagged Archigram, Architect, Architecture, art, collage, Drawing, Kiasma Contemporary ArtMuseum(1992-1998), Knut Hamsen Museum(1994-2009), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1999-2002), Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture (2002-2009), photocollage, Simmons Hall, sketch, sketchbook, Steven Holl, Watercolor, watercolorist, written in water, written on water on October 13, 2010 | 2 Comments »
All images are from a research project completed by my student, Mariam Thomas, on Architects as Artists and their rendering/design techniques. The relationship between architecture and art, and the study of practitioners who are also artists (with the mindframe of artists), whose design process transcends design practices and pragmatism to include enlightment, discoveries and art- wonderings [...]
Class Notes: Thinking in Axonometric
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Design, Desk Crit, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, F R A G M E N T S, school, School Work, tagged Adding and Subtracting, Addition, Architect, Architectural Construct, Architectural Design, Architecture, Architecture Model, Architecture Studio, artist, Composition, Cone, Cylinder, Design, Design Composition, desk crits, Drawing, Explorations, Felt Tip Pen, First Year Design studio, Foam Models, ink, ink drawing, Interpenetration, Marker, Materials, Miti Aiello, newschool of architecture and design, Orthographic Design, pathways, Platonic solids, Platonic Solids Exercises, san diego, Scale, Schematic Design, Shadow Calculation, Shadows, Sharpie, sketchbook, sketches, Sphere, Subtraction, Texture, Utopia, Volumetrics, White Model on September 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Shadows, Math, Truth…Ephipanies
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Cures for the Nothing, Design, Desk Crit, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Lectures, Quotes, school, School Work, Writing, tagged Abstraction, Architecture, Being then Doing, Drawing, Drawing and Sketching as Tools for Design, First Year Design studio, John Ruskin Quote, light, Light Angle, Philosophy, Platonic solids, Quotes, Reduction, Reductive process, Shadows in Axonometric, Truth on September 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Happy September. Post coming late today, but it is a new month and I hope this, my birthday month (yay) will be better than the last- and all summer for that matter. Lots of challenges and growth but…they don’t call them growing pains for nothing. In my classes today we shared links on artists, visual notes, [...]
Progress with color techniques- the Queen Califia session
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Desk Crit, San Diego, school, School Work, tagged california, Caliph, Color, desk crits, Drawing, drawing and coloring plen air, Escondido, experiments, history of California, Kit Carson Park, Markers, Mythos, Niki St. Phalle, Queen Califia, Queen Califia's Magical Garden, rendering and Delineation, san diego, sketchbooks, The origins or California, watercolor techniques, Where California got its name on August 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
From yesterday’s Rendering and Delineation Class. So proud of my color-wary students. Read the story of the mythical Queen Califia. California is named after her! See Niki St. Phalle Sculptural Garden ‘ Queen Califia’s Magical Garden’ in Kit Carson Park, Escondido, California. Previous posts on the subject: California and Califia Listening to Baroque Music in [...]
Queen Califia’s Magical Garden {Continued}
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Featured Artists, Graphic Design, Lectures, NaBloPoMo, San Diego, school, School Work, Tutorial, Watercolor, tagged An open sketchbook, Architecture, Botanical Garden, Color Drawing by Doyle, Color rendering, Drawing, Escondido, fabric, Furniture, hand rendering, illustration, ink, Interior rendering, Kit Carson Park, Markers, Niki St. Phalle, Prismacolor Pencil, Queen Califia's Magical Garden, san diego, Suzanne Cabrera, Texture, Tutorial, Urban Sketchers, Watercolor on August 18, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Lately, I’ve favored the watercolor and pencil technique, but want to get back to working with markers. I found these two great tutorials on marker renderings from my blog friend and Urban Sketcher extraordinaire Suzanne Cabrera at An [Open] Sketchbook: can’t wait to share them with my students! { Tutorial 1: Furniture/Fabric } { Tutorial [...]
Working with Color
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Design, Drawing, Experiments, Graphic Design, NaBloPoMo, San Diego, school, School Work, Tutorial, Watercolor, tagged Architecture, Botanical Garden, Color Drawing by Doyle, Color rendering, Drawing, Escondido, fabric, Furniture, hand rendering, illustration, ink, ink drawing, Kit Carson Park, loose rendering, loose sketch, marker rag paper, Markers, Niki St. Phalle, Prismacolor Pencil, Queen Califia's Magical Garden, san diego, Texture, trace paper, tracing, transfering, Tutorial, Urban Sketchers, Watercolor on August 16, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Do you remember Niki St. Phalle’s ‘Queen Califia’s Magical Garden’? Well, I went back with my students for some loose watercolor and pencil renderings.
Imaginaire : an evening with Magritte (and colors)
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Coffee, Design, Digital Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Experiments, Link Love, School Work, Watercolor, tagged Architectural review, Architecture, Arles, Cafe' A La Carte, Coffee, Domus, Firenze, Futo Coffee, Harvard Design Guide, Inverno, la pioggia, loose watercolor techniques, Miti Aiello, Place Lamartine, Rene Magritte, Starry Sky over the Rhone, Surrealist house, University of Louisiana-Lafayette, Vijay Raghavendiran, Vincent Van Gogh, Watercolor techniques. George S. Loli, Winter in Florence on August 10, 2010 | 3 Comments »
After some meetings today I stopped by the library, Futo coffee in hand, and indulged in my favorite Architecture periodicals: Domus, Architectural Review and Harvard Design Magazine. An article on Surrealist Houses launched an expansive search on the Architecture of René Magritte; will share some of the findings here. I am also thinking about watercolor [...]
Chairs, Chairs, Chairs (on Coffee)
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Books, Design, Desk Crit, Drawing, Graphic Design, Lectures, NaBloPoMo, Painting, school, School Work, Watercolor, tagged Betty Edwards, Chairs, Class Experiment, Coffee, Figure Ground, How to Draw on the right Side of the Brain, Miti Aiello, Picasso, Stravinsky, Talent, Upside Down Drawing on August 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Another exercise with ‘Drawing on the Righ Side of the Brain’. By drawing the space, not the chair, the proportions were incredibly accurate in all drawings. The drawings can be read as Nolli Maps of imaginary cities, we can see piazzas, palazzi…we can see perspective, spatial configurations/plans, abstract paintings… I love the ambivalent water medium, [...]
Ode to Pens
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Drawing, Link Love, NaBloPoMo, Paper Goods, Poetry, School Work, tagged Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Exercise, Ghadah Alkandary, Jonathan Wells, Miti Aiello, Nablopomo, Ode to Pens, Office Supplies, pens, pilot pen, Pilot Precise, Poetry, Pretty Green Bullet, sketch daily, The Man with Many Pens, The New Yorker, V7 on August 3, 2010 | 6 Comments »
The Man with Many Pens by Jonathan Wells With one he wrote a number so beautiful it lasted forever in the legends of numbers. With another he described the martyrs’ feet as they marched past the weeping stones and cypresses, watched by their fathers. He used one as a silver wand to lift a trout [...]
Right Brain Drawing and Learning to See
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Drawing, Experiments, Film, Link Love, Music, NaBloPoMo, San Diego, school, School Work, tagged david grann, Drawing on the right side of the brain, film noir, gilda, ink drawing, le corbusier, movies balboa park, movies under the stars, new yorker, pacific beach, peter paul biro, san diego, San Diego Reader, screen in the green 2010, sketchbook, teleportation, the mark of a masterpiece on August 2, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I hope everyone’s having a fabulous beginning of August. I am really trying. I plan to go to some movie under the stars, or at the park, or on a roof, like Cinema Paradiso. A good black and white movie, preferably a noir Hitchcock, would be the cat’s meow. I am officially suffering from wanderlust. [...]
Virtual Yoga (Human Landscapes) and finally, the definition of diagram
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Design, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, Graphic Design, School Work, tagged Architecture, AutoCAD, breathe, CAD, contour, diagram, diagramming, diagrams, exhalation, graphic thinking for architects and designers, human Landscape, Joe Nicholson, paul leseau, profile, site section, what is a diagram, yoga, yoga poses, yoga position on May 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The image above aptly illustrates the process behind diagramming, which is one of summarizing and and rendering a concept more abstract, more immediately communicable. Abstract in this sense is intended as ‘ reduced to the essential’. Diagrams are, according to Joe Nicholson: 1. a simple drawing showing the basic shape, lay-out, or workings of something [...]
Artuesday | Students’ Work!
Posted in Artuesdays, Experiments, Lectures, Painting, School Work, Spontaneous Constructs, tagged art, coffee shop, Francisco Sanin, neoclassic to modern art, newschool of architecture and design, painting exhibit, Students' artwork, Syracuse on April 20, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I spent the better part of last night ‘curating’ and putting up a small show of my students’ work. Last quarter I promised my Neoclassic to Modern Art students I would organize an exhibit of their art in the main foyer of our school and I am happy to announce that that’s one promise kept:) [...]










