Notable Contrasts

Talking to friends and family back in Texas, I keep noticing the differences between city life and Texas life. Maybe its part of being freshly removed from Texas and freshly planted in New York, but things are sticking out to me.

Talking to my friend who is in law school in Lubbock, I was telling him about my new place in Brooklyn: how fresh and nice it is with the remodeling, how close it is to work, how large it is, etc. When I mentioned that it was just one easy train ride from my house to work, he laughed and said it was just like the movies, getting on the subway and going wherever you want to go. And that is one huge change that struck me. In Texas, riding the train, much less the subway is completely foreign.

I have one friend in Dallas who used to ride the DART, but other than him, no one I know has ever ridden a train in Texas. I remember it being so strange to walk into Grand Central Station for the first time and see the tunnels leading off to the LIRR, the Amtrak trains, all the subways, and seeing a huge message board listing the dozens of places that you could reach from this one huge terminal. I love going into those big hubs, it makes me feel like I'm back in the grand old age of train travel, back before cars, when trains were the fastest things in the world! I like to picture the tunnels and tracks spreading out in a gnarly web, diving underground, popping up above-ground, dipping into stations, cars emptying and filling back up.

The drawings in this post are some of my favorite section drawings ever, I love the idea of all these different levels interacting. To me there is something utopian and thrilling about the idea that all these levels can be so harmonious and happy together.

Back in New York City, cont'd

Week one, in short.

Sunday, flew in, dropped bags at friends house, went to meet potential roommates. Interview/speed-dating went great, arranged to meet second roommate next night. Exhausted from a day of travel and passed out early.

Monday, up at 5:00 to catch three trains to meet coworkers, drove upstate, had meeting, drove back. Went into office about 2:30, hugs and smiles and greetings all around. It was great to see everyone. Looking forward to seeing Colette and the boss-men when they return from their respective vacations.

Tuesday, onto a new project, familiarizing myself with a new set of drawings. I read the contract documents, client interviews, etc., which was a tad dull. These are some of the overlooked parts of being an architect. And an earthquake at lunch! The building was gently swaying, we ran to the window to look out, (I feared it was an explosion) and then we went back to work. About an hour later, two coworkers who had been out of the office came back and asked why we didn't evacuate with the rest of the building! Whoops.

Wednesday, anxious about finding an apartment, hoping to hear back from potentials. Then I got a wonderful text from one of the brothers who I'd met last weekend telling me they wanted me as a roommate! Very very exciting!

Thursday flew by, it was quickly happy hour time! Because Shane was moving back to Texas, it was a Hoedown-themed happy hour: chips, pickles, flannel shirts and country music.

Friday was the day I moved into the new place (which meant simply throwing my meager possessions in a pack). But before that, the whole office was nervously watching the progress of Irene all day. Several people who lived in the flood zones left early to try to prepare, and I went searching through filing cabinets finding crank-powered emergency flashlights (with radio and alarm functions) and distributing them to people in the office.

Saturday morning I bought some last-minute provisions from the newly-opened supermarket just up the street (talk about a grand opening) and sat around reading and chatting with Jaime and Tim most of the day. Waiting for the storm to hit was pretty dull, and all of Irene's might that we witnessed was a bit of wind and bit of rain. I woke up Sunday morning with the power still on and the sun shining between clouds.

A pretty packed week: First week of work, a new apartment, my first earthquake, and my first hurricane! Hopefully this week will be peaceful.

Back in New York City

Its as if I never left! Long line at the cab stand at LaGuardia, surly driver who didn't want to drive to Bushwick, great Chinese food in Williamsburg!

I woke up extremely early Monday, yesterday, to take the train to Jonathan's house so that we could pick up Shane and drive upstate a ways to visit the house I worked on last fall. It was such a beautiful drive up, about an hour and a half north of the city. Things turned green and idyllic really quickly once we left the city. Parkways are my new favorite road system; no commercial vehicles, just cars!

The site of the house was beautiful, forested and green. We got out of the car and it was so fantastically cool, it couldn't have been 60 degrees! It was great to jump back into work with a field trip, and it was edifying to see all the things I'd been drawing last fall starting to emerge from the ground. The project was not as far along as I'd thought; delays with the permitting had pushed back the start date. They told us the foundation walls will be poured Wednesday. It sounds like I might get a chance to go see the progress a few more times too! Shane is leaving this week, so I am going to be taking over his role on the house, which at this point is basically to just troubleshoot any questions the GC sends us. (Thats some architecture/building industry jargon right there, GC=General Contractor. Clever, eh?)

This is going to have to be a post in two parts, as it is now time for my second day of work. More to come later, my followers few!

Cheap seats for fashion

Even though there are months left in my residency here in the city, I've started thinking back on the other half of my time here. I sort of regret taking advantage of some of the free weekends I've had when I've stayed in my apartment instead of exploring the city and immersing myself deeper in the various bits of culture available to me. But I am pleased to have seen a few very neat things.

One of my favorites so far has been Joshua Bell and the New York Philharmonic. Just a beautiful, fantastic, insert-superfluous-adjective-here, performance. So cool. But unlike the Mahler symphony from the week before, my seat was way, way, way up in the third tier. (For the majority of people in the world who haven't been to Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, that means in the rafters, sharing a seat with the pigeons, looking through a hole in the skylight.) The sound was still good, and it was still a very worthwhile experience.

ButI started thinking about the other things I'm experiencing in a third-tier kind of way. One of the big ones is fashion. I've never been so conscious of fashion as I've been these last few months. Its easy to not care at all what you wear in Austin, especially since its over 90° over 90% of the time. Shorts and t-shirt, done.

But here, fashion is something about which I am much more conscious. I'm sure this is heightened by the fact that I am in a design field. I'm becoming more and more certain that presenting yourself in a fashionable manner is essential to being taken seriously in my field. I used to think it was enough to just be professional in dress when the occasion justified, but something Calvin, the principle, said to my team a few weeks ago really made me rethink that. I paraphrase, but it was something like this: How can we expect a client to believe that we can design something for them that is current and beautiful and fashionable if we are wearing last year's look?

This might seem incredibly vain. I'm trying to put myself outside the issue, but I now agree so strongly with him that I am having a tough time playing devil's advocate. Sure, you can say "the beauty and power of my design speaks for itself," but I think everyone knows that is bullshit. There is no way Le Corbusier sat back in his out-of-style suit and said, "my Villa Savoy speaks for itself." He was a shameless self-promoter, and was definitely very conscious of the image he presented to the public. Why else would he have chosen a pseudonym?

So in this round-about way, I'm getting around to saying that I think I'm going to try to include some 'fashion observations for the frugal-minded' in this blog. I hesitate to say fashion tips exactly, because I really, really don't know much. But just the same, I'd like to offer my observations, partly as a way to codify my own likes and dislikes, and also as a way to incentivize me into paying more attention to fashion. So keep them eyeballs peeled.

Fresh fresh pretty pretty

This weekend I'm going to start a new project. It's going to be pretty ambitious, and it's going to be very cool. I feel like this has been simmering at the back of my mind for a few weeks, and I think its finally time for it to be realized.

No details yet; more Monday.

Danish chairs, 18th century cartography

Reading on the train home, browsing through Design of the 20th Century and saw some pretty excellent graphic design from Knoll Associates in the 50's. It was just a tiny blurb, but the text mentions the effect it had on the branding of the company. I can't wait to get to work with a graphic designer on the branding for my own firm! That's quite a ways down the river I reckon.

Its finally cold enough to wear a coat every day! Its been very pleasant, I enjoy getting to layer. Hopefully it will stay this nice for a few more weeks, at least until Lydia comes to visit. I've got a feeling New York doesn't jump from 80 to 40 in a day like Austin does, so I think we're safe.

I was exploring an incredible website at work today, OasisNYC. There's a tab in the sidebar with historical maps you can toggle on and off. Very cool, very nerdy. Maybe not as interesting if you don't know New York a bit. Its cool to realize that Spring Street used to actually have a spring on it. And Canal used to be a canal. And a new one for me, Broadway dates back to the pre-European inhabitants, the Lenape.

Ending with an incredible chair by the great Finn Juhl: the Chieftain, circa 1960s.

Tape measure

One of my coworkers gave me this tape measure yesterday. A rep from Oasiq, an outdoor furniture company, left it at the office this week. Its a neat little tape measure, and seems like quite a clever leave-behind for a furniture company, as architects and interior designers are constantly needing the dimensions of various pieces of furniture.

Its also a neat thing to have in your pocket when you're designing anything. I find that I can usually guess pretty closely an object's dimensions is if it is in front of me, but there are other things that are so perfectly dimensioned that its easiest to just measure them. For instance, right now, how far back from my screen is my face? How far from my keyboard is my body? How much clearance feels comfortable between my knees and the table top? I think to really be a good designer, you've got to be in touch with the human dimensions of space. That's something I need to think on.