My latest sketchbook (Cover)

In my third year, I find it wholly important to have a personal space to keep your thoughts, not as a diary, but as a pocket-sized brain catalog.
On the cover is a small spiritual zone on a hill in a forest. To me, that is somewhere I can go to dream for a day. If not inside the box, it can be outside in endless nature. What lies beyond in the darkened sky? Only the pages know...

Pocket-sized Sketchbook- Gel Pen sketches.

Less than a week before Final Crit (Design 3)

This is me procrastinating different projects because they all want to be finished RIGHT NOW!

So instead, I'm just going to say what's due and what's my plan...

For Design, I need to stretch my building to the farthest extents of the project boundary line (about 40 feet West and South). And then I need to finish building the 1/2" scale detail section model. All the pieces are cut (I hope) it just needs to be glued together and some pieces need to be manufactured.
The drawings need to be finalized by Friday morning the latest. And Plotted.
Finally, the last 1/16" scale building model and structure model need to be built. and a tiny 1/32" model for the site.

This all before Monday morning. I know, it doesn't sound like a lot, but I've lost the ability to sit down and build models. I prefer doing drawings mostly.


For Environmental Systems I, I need to draw up the Passive house section and some water calculations.

That's all.

It's just a matter of getting off the internet after this post and getting to work for the next 72 hours.

Why I Chose Architecture (and other tidbits of news...)

I'm a bit behind in posting, mostly because of being super busy with school and holidays at the same time. But with the recent news I've shared with family, friends and neighbors, and now with you, that I've been accepted to the 5 year B.Arch program at NYIT; I've been asked this little question that's difficult to share with strangers thus, I wanted to put it out here where anyone can read.

What made me choose Architecture?

It started in high school after I switched schools, that I began to ask myself 'what makes me happy?' what do I enjoy doing?
At the time, my first answer was Comic Book Artist. After looking into I'd found that it's incredibly hard to break into the career. So I moved on to the next best thing: 3D Computer Artist and I'd begun learning how to use Blender, and tried modelling different things including myself. I'd learned a lot over the year, but then gave it up as I'd moved onto writing and story telling, my mother had even given me some Writers Digest magazines, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It involved tips on writing and how to create mysteries and intriguing dialogue. I was eating all of this up, but what didn't sit right were the words from my grandfather: "There's no money in that."

Apparently money is a big deal as you're growing up, and as I see it now it really is, but it's not the most important thing.

Because of this I started looking into lucrative careers, I was only 15 at the time. I knew I didn't want to be a doctor, it wasn't in my future. I liked math and I was doodling every day in school. So I wanted a job that allowed me to draw every day, help people, and possibly tell stories. It came down to two options: Engineer or Architect.

At this time, the internet had relatively little information to give about Architecture, what it is, and sometimes I look and see that it hasn't changed.

The description for 'Engineer' told me that I needed to learn all of the sciences including Chemistry. I HATE CHEMISTRY! That was the major turn off. Most of the information taught about chemistry is it's history, useless things for moving forward.

The description for 'Architecture' said I need I needed to be an expert at almost everything and be able to use technology. After I had given it some thought, I began researching shuls (synagogues) as my base point for understanding architecture.

I feel that until I'd decided to do that, the local library that hosted at the time maybe 4-5 books on synagogues was never touched. Now it has almost 20 books on synagogues and the books on architecture is growing in the library. Anyway, I was constantly researching and was sold on the idea. I even looked into schools within New York to apply to.

My main goal was to become an architect to builds shuls and homes in hopes to revive the old European designs that I found were the perfect places of spirituality and prayer.

But I think that covers why I chose Architecture...

Anyway, thanks for reading dear reader, and I hope to start posting more again-- I mean there is SO MUCH happening right now, and I know I promised pictures... They're coming. Just need to sort and edit them at some point.

~Architalmud

Project 3 - Concept Write-up

The concept for my design was originally a burning farmhouse, this led to the original formation of the program distribution. However, the idea of fire is a semi-physical and spiritual concept with many things to learn from. The fire inside is what drives humans to move forward. The beauty of fire is that, much like water, when you combine two flames together they become one. When you gather many people together, as is the case when you have a collection of EMS and FDNY members, a great fire emerges (not just body heat). During the summer, it is imaginable to see a group of people surrounding a bon fire that dances up to the sky; moving with the wind, smoothly dancing as embers fly away and fade into the night.

How do you hold fire, how can you keep it contained? In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans used fire urns that they used to light temples and cities at night. These urns were of varying sizes, there were Olympian scaled urns that would burn for a week straight. And then there were smaller urns that were more personal.

I wanted to incorporate the urn into the building. It would not be suitable in the city context to have an urn shaped building. So it was decided that the urn would be the negative space through the lower half of the building, and the dancing flame is the communal area above it. This is where the EMS or FDNY members could dance or play and recuperate from a shift before they run out again.

Flames need fuel, humans need fuel. Air or oxygen is essential for fires to survive. Thus the roof is only a bare container with the sides open to air. Much like a chimney, smoke will travel upward, the energy used will travel out. It needs to leave. The negative and tired energy of members needs a place to exit. This is where the kitchen, the food and fuel source of the members exists.

Thesis Concept - 2015

Continuing in my research of Louis Kahn... I've given it a little thought.

Louis Kahn in the 22nd Century

(Brick is Absent)

Project 2 - Pre-final Edits.

It's a bird!
It's a plane!
It's...

Coffee break time.