September 6, 2006
The dream has ended
The summer of sluff has finally come to a close. Today was my first day back to school and our critics did a fairly good job of scaring the shit out of us. They told us that not only is this going to be the most challenging of the studios so far, but they decided to make it even harder than it was last year. I don’t know what that means yet, but at least I’m well rested. Stay tuned…
What we did find out so far is that our site is another riverfront site, this one across the river from Philadelphia in Camden, New Jersey. Camden, hmmm, why does that sound familiar, you might be asking yourself. It’s because of this.
At least when we go for a site visit for the analysis phase this Friday I can stock up on my crack supply.
Posted by austin at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)
September 1, 2006
US Open
Through a series of connections (including my father, who if I did not mention would feel personally slighted) my new best friend Bill Mcatee got Lori and I kick-ass seats in Arthur Ashe stadium for opening day of play where we got to see Justine Henin-Hardenne, Andy Roddick and Lindsay Davenport roll over their first round opponents. Even though the matches were clearly one sided, it was really sweet to be at center court watching some of the world's best. This was our view of the matches.
After seeing all the stars at center court, Lori and I wandered around the grounds and saw some portions of a few other matches. The highlight for me was the discovery of my new favorite tennis player Maria Kirilenko of Russia. I didn't get many good shots of her, so check out her Web site and the wonderful 'shots' pages. I've already applied for her to be my mail-order bride. Lori is not pleased.
While in New York, Lori and I stayed with her aunt and uncle in the Upper East Side. Lori's uncle is a minister at a presbyterian church and has a sweet setup. I always feel like I'm in the Royal Tannembaunms when we stay at their insanely large Manhattan house, no, castle.
And since New York is home to some of the best graffiti in the world, I thought I'd share one of my favorite pieces.
Posted by austin at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2006
Let there be (more) light
Since there was such overwhelming, positive response to my last post, I thought I'd regale you all with another facinating tale of me making useless, but cool, shit.
Boom, blue light on a shelf.
What? No wires? What a bulky, semi-portable, needless creation. Why thank you, I'd respond to such a statement. How'd I do it? Glad you asked. With these simple items: An antique blue jar with lid, a 9V battery, a 9V battery clip, three blue LED lights and three 330 Ohm resistors. Little solder here and there... and that's pretty much it. Originally I wanted a switch in there, but then I got lazy and decided one can just snap on/off the battery connections. Then I figured out that once glued in it wouldn't be possible to unsnap the connections, so I had to add the switch later, which made it more difficult than just going through with it from the beginning. Lesson learned. Little hot glue later and wham, magic. Add jar and done.
Oh, what will he do next!?
Posted by austin at 10:34 PM | Comments (5)
August 21, 2006
As if nothing has happened...
So Lori and I recently returned from a trip home to sunny Minnesota where I recently participated in my first dumpster diving mission. It used to make me feel uncomfortable seeing crazy old coots and the homeless digging through dumpsters for god knows what. And to be honest, it still does. So that only partially made me balk before I decided to jump into a dumpster for what appeared to be some seriously old electronics junk. Now, for those who know me well, I tend to go through phases of interests. Today's interest du jour is electronics. Why? I have no idea. It just seemed like a cool, useful thing to have a basic working knowledge of that would allow me to take shit apart and build weird little contraptions (and be less, or moderatley less, likely to kill me), another foible those who know me may recognize.
Which brings me back to the dumpster. Electronics parts can be expensive, so why not see what sorts of things I can scrounge for a little project that was mulling around in my brain for a few weeks. In this case, I totally hit the jackpot, what I spied was indeed and ancient piece of electronics junk that, because of its size and its suspicious looking knobs, buttons, swtiches and the like would probably not make it through airport security, I quickly looted for parts.
After returning home I purchased the requisite bulbs (in this case special "display case" bulbs), a small wooden craft box from Michael's, a can of spray paint and a dimmer switch. The result? This kick-ass light. 
The overall design/build was pretty easy. A cord off a random power supply was purchased from a local junk store for $0.90, end lopped off and wires exposed. Positive end was wired to the sweet looking, nice sounding (albeit entirely superfluous) switch, which was wired to the dimmer switch. Then, all off the light sockets (purchased for a pittance from MN legend Ax-Man surplus supply) were wired parallel with all negative ends connected right to the negative end of the power supply. Details (sort of) can be seen here. Details aren't great, and part of the problem is that I described it wrong. Positive power source (seen at bottom center with orange cap) is wired to dimmer, dimmer to switch, swtich to lamps, lamps to negative power supply. Simple. Plug in and enjoy.
The original idea of this light was just an interesting ambient light source that looked really cool at low levels because the filaments are so long and cool looking that it's cool to just have on at really low levels where the filaments just glow a light, cool orange. This is really hard to photograph but here is the best example. The total bonus is that, when cranked up high, it actually provided really bright, beautiful light. Again, not great, but see here. Other interesting thing of note is these sweet feet I scrounged from the dumpster trip.
And now to field the inevitable question: "A wooden box for electronics? Won't it catch fire?"
Okay, here we go, I DON'T KNOW! Only time, extensive testing and a fire extinguished on hand will tell. I ran it at a very high, bright level the other day for a couple hours (a couple becuase I completely forgot about it, which was, after all, the reasoning behind the test) and the only adverse effect was that the light sockets were moderately warm to the touch. I though this was safe enough so sealed the box and that's that. I've been thinking about adding some holes to the bottom and a couple to the back to allow air to move through and cool a little bit. But a fire extinguisher will work too.
One last disclaimer before I go: This was not my invention. I just made some of my own design adjustments. I got the idea from a kick-ass site called Instructables. Check it out.
Posted by austin at 4:53 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
February 21, 2006
To the next level
I'm your huckleberry.
Posted by austin at 3:01 AM | Comments (12)
February 18, 2006
Keepin' it Weird
I was just at a party at this kid from Texas's house and I stole this awesome mug . I'll return it to him tomorrow, but then I'll insist he give it to me. That's just how landscapers roll.
And I realize that Lori is out there trying to create a big hullaballoo about The Great Beard Experiment of 2006 and attempting to drum up a whole anti-beard contingent to barrage me with clean-shaven propaganda, but let me tell you a little something; people like my beard , I like my beard , and until you find a chicken wing wedged in there somewhere, the beard is staying.
Posted by austin at 3:31 AM | Comments (11)
February 16, 2006
For those of you who don't know...
My mom loves me more than your mom loves you.
Posted by austin at 4:20 AM | Comments (0)
7 days, 2 all-nighters, 10 cups of coffee, 18 meals, 4 unfamilar programs, and...
One kick-ass first board!
After those strip-field models that I told you about earlier we were given our studio site and told to do an analysis study based on an in-class fieldtrip to the site lasting two hours.
The Challenge:
The site is about 4800' x 1200' or, five million, seven-hundred-sixty thousand square feet. It is just north of downtown Philadelphia on the Delaware river. It is the site of a former shipping company. Boats used to moor against the jetty and cargo would be unloaded; shipping containers left in the yard to be hauled off by semis, bags of cocoa on pallets stored in a 900', climate-controlled warehouse, or either placed on railcars to be riden to major cities in the northeast and midwest. The site is large and flat, spotted with buildings, has rail running into it, and is severed in one corner by a section of N95. The majority of the site did not occur naturally, it was piered and filled in the early 1900s. It is a constructed environment with only an industrial past. It is a barre, blank slate. Or is it?
The site is bound on one end by the river, the opposite by the freeway, one side by a waste plant nearby, and on the other side a senior living center, a prison, and beyond those the historic Pennypack Park.
We were also told that the next steps would be to design a miniscule 60' x 60' garden on the site, and then to design a full-site park.
The Result:
Well, what can you do? I traversed as much of the site as I could during the brief visit, taking pictures and notes about things I found and found interesting on the site. The assignment included requisites of three panoramas and three cross sections of them, a plan, material studies, and five detailed sections with photo montages. My board shows the plan at the top bordered on the left with a material study of Permeability, on the right a material study of Emergence. The Permeability study looks from the breakdown of the impermeable asphalt to smaller and smaller pieces, to the sandy dirt found in remote corners of the site, and is represented in the plan as, dark grey->light grey : impermeable->permeable. The Emergence study looks at the plants that have been able to inhabit this inhospitable site since the corportion has been dismantled, it also looks at how these plants have found root in the cracks of the pavement and hasten and further its breakdown. Plant populations, dark red->light red : dense plants->less dense plants. Where the red and grey overlap the plants have infultrated the pavement. Over each photo is a symbol representing the particular study; these symbols can be found on the plan showing their location.
On the plan can also be found one vertical and two horizontal white lines. These are the major cross sections and can seen montaged with panoramas in the white river space below the plan. The short orange lines on the plan are the detailed cross sections and can also be seen with montages on the river below. The bold orange line is the site boundaries, the blocks are the buildings, and the rest is the surrounding area.
The major cross sections are pretty straightforward and I'll just take time to explain one of the detailed sections. The topmost montage is the mid-left orange line on the plan and looks at an area where plants have settled and have penetrated into the pavement near the pier. Along the cross section line, which is hard to see at this size, is a horizontal series of photos showing the surface condition gradient, plants to impervious surface, the thin strips to the left are more pervious, the progressive solidity of the surface thicker photos. Below these I've used inverted images of grasses to represent the amount of liquid that is able to penetrate the corresponding surface condition. This is also used to mirror the actual plant material that is able to grow at each particular condition.
Finished size: 24" x 36".
So, for those of you who've asked, that's what I've been working on since those stupid strip fields. We've now been working on our 60' x 60' garden plots for two weeks. I'm struggling with quite a few aspects of my design at the moment. I'll try to get something out about that soon because I'm sure talking about what I'm trying to do is very different that what I've done, and I'm as interested in the choas that gets me somewhere as you might be.
Peace out.
And yes, this is only one of my classes.
And yes, it is 4 a.m.
Posted by austin at 2:10 AM | Comments (10)
