animation test 2

interested in animation via photography. these tests have a range of success. the frames per second is a crucial factor and I'm beginning to see the pros and cons of fast vs slow. the more successful ones have less 'camera shake' which is distracting to the animation of the people.

animation tests

Art School

When I was in high school, my dream was to become a comic book artist and draw funny comics for people to enjoy. I seriously considered applying for art school. A few of my good friends applied and got into art school.

For some reason, I never applied to an art school. Life has a way of throwing the unexpected at you, which dramatically changes the direction of our lives.

When I was applying for colleges, I focused on places I was comfortable going to and where most of my high school friends were applying to as well. In one alternate universe, I would be following the footsteps of both my brother and my father who both studied at Case Western Reserve University. In a completely "what the fuck why the hell not" decision, I applied to Washington University in St Louis, which would've been my last option.

My first two options ideally would have been Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania, 2 great Ivy league schools. I got rejected from both.

Wash U accepted me though, and in a bold and completely "what the fuck why the hell not" decision, I moved down to St Louis. St. Louis, a city I really didn't know anything about other than the Gateway Arch.

I actually got accepted into their BFA program, so maybe I was going to be an artist after all! But in another "what the fuck why the hell not" decision, I transferred to the architecture program at the last minute.

Well 4 years later and I do not regret these decisions. At some point in that period I decided to apply for graduate school and looked primarily at architecture programs. This made logical sense to me, and yet my heart told me I wanted something different. There was something about site, and landscape that I gravitated towards and in another "what the fuck why the hell not" decision I decided to apply for a Masters of Landscape Architecture Program.

At first I looked at local programs such as Wash U's new landscape program, or OSU's program back in my home state. I knew I would never get into Harvard, so I said "what the fuck why the hell not" and sent the Harvard GSD my application materials. It only took a few edits of the statement of intent anyway.

Well one day I wake up, check my email, and Harvard GSD just sent me an acceptance notification email. Great, another unexpected twist. OK, I'll visit the school during Open House weekend and see what it's like. I was impressed by what I saw, and little did I know I was walking past a lot of the friends I would eventually make here, unbeknownst of our eventual intersecting destinies.

Here I am now studying landscape architecture at the GSD, and I think back to how lucky and how weird my life has been. Nothing has been happening according to plan. This summer, I will be interning at the firm I was sure would least likely accept me, and yet I will be moving to San Francisco for the first time in my life.

I still think about going to art school. Its never too late to continue your dream. I'm still young, maybe in a few years I'll return to school and pursue what I've always loved doing: Drawing cartoons.

flux city project #3

After speaking with professor Niall Kirkwood, a minor adjustment was made to the overall scheme. Instead of agriculture directly feeding off of the canals that cut through the site, a secondary canal peels away from the main ones in which water will undergo a series of constructed wetlands within which water is cleansed. The issue of salinity and pollution in the water is the main hurdle in proposing agriculture for this site, but a hybrid system of water cleansing plus rainwater mixing will help create a solution suitable for crop growth.

Urbanism on the site will primarily be buildings adjacent to or over the canals of the site. Buildings adjacent to the canals will actually help shade the water, helping to prevent overgrowth of algae in the water (algae water is not suitable for agriculture because due to the depletion of oxygen). A building catalog will consist primarily of the types that react/butt against the canal.

One issue that hopefully I can resolve soon is how the highway interfaces with the construction on the site. The highway over the southern shoreline is lower than anticipated.

In general, the overall productive ecological system is figured out, I will now need to dive in and work on the details (plant/crop types, zoning, phasing, seasonal patterns/changes, building distribution). In particular, I would like to have a planting pattern decided since that is very conditional on the quality of the water, the amount of sun it receives, and its growing season.

The issue of food production and urban agriculture is not new in landscape architecture and one that I have been interested in since my days at Wash U.

The End of the World

Amazing feast from a Chinese restaurant in Queens, NY

I had this amazing dream last night, 4-2-2012, which was one of those dreams that felt so real you remember every detail upon waking up.


I will describe this dream now: (post-dream analysis in parentheses)

On the news....... reporters were reporting that the world was going to end soon. Life as we know it would completely be obliterated. Humanity needed to accept this fact.

I was still a student at the Harvard GSD. My classmates and myself have all accepted our fates. We decided to have a group meeting to just talk together.

On the way to the meeting room (which happens to be at the top of a skyscraper for some reason), I run into a nice old lady. She gives me a triangular shaped pill...says it helps clear the headaches. I thank her and ask for her name, she says her name is Nina.

Inside the meeting room, I sit down with my GSD classmates. It's dusk outside. From the windows I can see other skyscrapers and people jumping out to their deaths (I guess to avoid whatever horrors would cause the end of the world).

One of my classmates (won't say his name), tells us we should talk about the important people in our lives, and he suggests talking about how great Gary Hilderbrand is (Landscape architect and professor at GSD). I immediately say "Let's talk about PDT!" (Peter Del Tredici, GSD lecturer and local plant guru).

(this whole part confused me....because why the hell are we talking about how great Gary Hilderbrand is)

Afterwards, we all had this amazing Asian feast which resembled a meal I had when visiting Willets Point in Queens, NY. For some reason, people from my high school life were there as well.

Meeting is over, I walk outside and hang with two girls I am friends with. They want me to take a picture of them in front of a historic cathedral that resembled something in Venice. I comply and aim the camera at them posing.

The image came out bad, and I tell them to move over so that they would get better light. At that point I look up at the sky and see a massive, burning asteroid fly overhead (aha, so that's how the world's gonna end!). I quickly point the camera at the two girls and once again the picture looks crappy. But I realize I had no time left since we were all about to die from the asteroid. So I bluff and tell them the picture looks great.

Those were my last words before the asteroid strikes Earth and I get engulfed by a wall of fire. I feel myself die. It was painless. I feel my consciousness disappear. Everything turns white.

Then something weird happens.

As if my whole was a video game, there appears a copyright logo with the company EA games.

(What?)

Suddenly television static appears, and the opening menu of a video game appears. The camera pulls back to reveal a desolate room. My room. I am lying on my bed.

I realize I have been instantly reincarnated after my death, only several centuries after the world ends. But my consciousness and my memory of the end of world didn't disappear. I wander around to find myself in a completely foreign world much like in the film "Spirited Away".

I attempt to take a nap on a broken chair. The chair breaks. I fall over.

And I awake for real. This is now reality. It is 5:00 AM. I sit in my real bed and think to myself what the fuck just happened. I just experienced the end of the world. I feel slightly psychologically damaged.


But I'm fine now.

flux city project #2

The project's logic is generated by 2 primary natural conditions:

1.  Drainage Patterns - inherently tied with the terrain of the site, natural drainage lines inform how water will be channeled through the site. Different scales of canals and agricultural fields result from this optimization of natural runoff. In essence, the system is combining typologies of agriculture and channeling.

2.  Sun/Light - when programming for agricultural productivity, sunlight is the second key element (next to water). Sunlight affects the orientation of crop fields, and the density of fields. When deploying buildings on site, shadows cast from the buildings creates consequences/opportunities. Building typologies may morph in terms of how light washes off rooftops, reflects off surfaces, and programmatic needs.

Perhaps a 3rd ecological condition? Maybe later, these are a 2 big ones.

Due to the different scaled densities of the fields, suggestions can be made on the types and mixes of crops grown in the fields. Should it be a mono-culture? Or utilize inter-cropping?

Tree Sketch #2

Austrian Pine (Pinus nigra)

Location: Harvard Yard

This pine tree was approx 60 feet in height. This tree grows quick, but requires full sunlight. Due to one side being shaded by an adjacent building, most of the branches grew in the direction out towards the sun. This is an interesting characteristic I also saw in the pines at the Harvard Forest. This tree grows fine in most soil types, meaning it adapts well in urban environments.

flux city project #1

Chris Reed  -  dooon't stoss believin'

Inspired by the writings of Andrea Branzi concerning manipulable and ever-changing urbanism, I am proposing an agriculturally based community with a re-programmable surface. By creating channels, brackish water may be brought through and utilized as an irrigation source. This water would have to be treated and mixed with groundwater or rainwater depending on the water salinity and its nutrient content. The web of irrigation channels acts as not only of a way to farm the land, but also acts as a social device by activating public space and seeding the construction of new residential and industrial (agriculture) buildings. 

The location is on Willets Point, a floodplain in the heart of Flushing Bay in NYC. As far as I know, there aren't any residential buildings on this site - only auto repair shops and the House of Spices (mmm...Indian). One thing to note is that residential homes on floodplains will be more expensive because of the added cost of flood insurance. The highway interchange that weaves around the site acts as a buffer between the site and the rest of the city, and finding a way to better connect with surrounding neighborhoods is worth thinking about. The proximity to LaGuardia Airport creates noise and ground vibrations on site, and also places strict building height restrictions.

Critical at this early stage of the project is setting up the key questions that will guide the project and prevent distractions. What are the fluxing conditions that drive the agricultural ecology? Sun, wind, precipitation, distribution, flooding? What site factors should be taken in account, what should be set aside? Soil, the interchange, topography, LGA? The ecological demands take precedence over urban development. 

Sunshine.....Celery Stalks!

Tree Sketch #1 - yellowwood

Yellowwood Tree (Cladrastis kentukea)

Location: Harvard Yard

The yellowwood is from the family of legumes (Fabaceae), meaning its fruit is usually a bean or pod (faba). The leaves have an alternating arrangement, not uncommon for legumes. The bark is smooth and muscular. Tree sizes are typically 30 to 50 feet in height, though the one I observed was on the smaller end (25 feet maybe). 

If you know exactly what you’re going to do, what’s the use of doing it?

What one does is what counts and not what one had the intention of doing.  

Pablo Picasso

Give me a fruitful error anytime, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections.  You can keep your sterile truths for yourself.    

Vilfredo Pareto

One gets into a state of creativity by conscious work.

Henri Matisse

All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know.    

Ernest Hemingway

One day Toulouse-Lautrec cried, “At last I don’t know how to draw.”    

Henri Matisse

A painting is finished when the idea is obliterated.    

Georges Braque

i explain the title of this blog

Society tends to portray kids as shallow and rebellious beings. This is why many adults seem to be rude to misbehaving students, and I have witnessed this happen so many times during my observations in a middle-school engineering class. The teacher for that class was relentless in his derogatory remarks towards many of the students, though they are never received as offense by these students. In fact, I might suggest that many of the students found the teacher’s remarks flattering, in a strange adolescent way of thinking. Some of the teacher’s quotes I found quite hilarious actually, so I will list some of my favorites:

1. “I have a cattle prod in the back for [the students].”
2. “I cannot believe that I have 7^th graders who behave maturely, and then you guys come along and destroy the belief of linear progression.”
3. “You are a statistical anomaly.”
4. “…my hoodie homester homefry…”
5. “…I know it’s very hard for you, but try” (in a lighthearted, condescending tone)
6. Student: “Don’t we need a joystick?”   Teacher: “I think of each of you as my own personal joysticks.”
7. “I cannot wait for the complete and utter end of civilization, and you have to work on my farm.”
8. Student: “We can use balsa wood [to build a kite] because balsa is really light.”   Teacher: “Pull up your pants!

These remarks were generally received with laughs, and I think are an example of what was discussed as “reverse-egocentrism.” These students knew their place in the school and their personalities and identities formed around that – inside they have settled themselves with the thought, “I am who you think I am.”