Design 2 + First Day 4th Semester

I could NOT sleep last night. So 5 AM rolled around as I did, and I rushed to make the 6:15 bus.

Had a nice breakfast in school. Waited for everyone to show up, and then later had the big fantasy draft from the professors. Originally I was supposed to be in Giovanni Santamaria's section. But due to my recent failure of Design 1 with a C+ grade... They moved me to Section 4 with Martin Krovac. Really nice architect from Prague, whom works at Steven Holl Architects. His wife is an architect as well, and is rumored to make some appearances over the semester to help our class.

The professor introduced himself, and then asked each of us to do the same and to tell everyone something about themselves. The first two students began, and each mentioned their favorite architect or their origin country. This led to being assigned a research project for each.
To avoid this, I decided to mention "I like classical music."
Martin then asked, "do you know any architects that worked with musicians?"
I asked if Frank Ghery working with the symphony counted. He wasn't too thrilled about the idea so he suggested Le Corbusier working with Iannis Xenakis. And to pick three of his projects.

Interesting subject matter. Anyway, he also assigned that everyone should design their dream home for this friday (Plans/Sections and 1 perspective/collage). I started some sketches for it.

Speaking of sketches, we had a site visit today in Soho. We visited the Roosevelt Building by Richard Morris Hunt (Sound familiar? He was the memorial project from Design 1). I took some panographs of the facade, and did a quick sketch of it and later added gray scale shading to it.

After the site visit, a friend and I went to the HighLine to check out the new addition. We walked many many many miles, but we saw everything. And simply said, the HighLine is more beautiful than when we first went to visit it 18 months ago.

6PM- We had structural Steel Design with Mathew Ford. It was fun. We reviewed statics, and I made a few jokes while my body was rejecting caffeine and my legs were in pain from all the walking.

Ok, thanks for checking in, dear reader ;)
~ArchiTalmud

Depression and 'Will Power'

“The key to life is on a treadmill. I’ll just watch and learn while your chest burns. Because if you say you are going to run three miles and you only run two, I don’t ever have to worry about losing something to you.” ~ Will Smith

Will Smith's Interview: Will Power

Over the vacation, I learned to use my new scroll saw, and broke a blade in the process. But this isn't the story I wanted to tell in this post...
Over the last three weeks, I've tried reading up on Modern Architecture History, finishing the Louis Kahn: In The Realm of Architecture biography, and a simple book for students about the design process. But all the while, I had locked myself in my room, lights dimmed, hours late and human interaction a galaxy away. All this did was cause depression.

Yes, depression is a real thing.

The only remedy that worked was getting off my bed and onto the floor to get some exercise (doing push-ups). The other part of the remedy was to get some sunshine.

I went from a 190 lbs, depressed, introvert, to a happier 187 lbs human with more energy and a lesser tendency to snack. And this realization to change my bad pattern came after I read the interview. It made me realize what giving 110% really means.

To me, it means giving up: watching TV shows; and rewarding myself every 5 minutes, or whenever my brain said, "GIMME CANDY!"
It means going the extra mile- plus three more miles- because I'm in this for the long run. I'm here to succeed and my competitors are only giving it 90-100%. Whether it's true or not, it's still worth it to make believe that all that needs to be done is putting in the extra time and not just stopping with 'Ok'. To be at the top, you need to go beyond 'Ok', you need to be 'better than ok', its better to be tired at the end of a race than to come in second and say, "That's ok. At least I didn't come in third."
But that's the point I want to make: Don't settle for second-best. BE THE BEST.
And if you're not the best yet, there's something to yearn for. BECOME THE BEST and then go beyond that.

You can always push the limit. I've done that with rules, because discipline and authority have, for some time, been an issue. I've had a need to test boundaries to know my limits, but that was on a two-dimensional plane. There's a third dimension that exists above the ground you stand on currently. All you have to do is climb so you can get the exercise and eventually reach the sunshine and fresh air that one needs so desperately to avoid depression. To achieve that 110%!

People say to give it your 'all'.

But I want to tell you, and myself, "Give it your all PLUS!"


Good luck to all, dear reader ;)
Thanks for reading.
~ArchiTalmud