Terminados...pero no de veras: Finished...but not really

So, after pulling all-nighters (or close to it) yesterday, we were required to meet for Graphic design class since field trips took the other available dates for working on the book-making process. We were also required to finish the boards that we were working on most recently so when I told Bill on the way home from dinner around midnight that I was going back to Aldana to do work, he decided to grab his computer and come with...so there we were til 3 this morning working on photoshop and inDesign only to get up at 9:30 and come to studio to do more work...

...and this is how we felt about it...

After getting paper for the books at an art supply/paper store in Ciutat Vella, we came back, did some folding and chopping and arrived at the point (no pun intended) seen here. I spent most of today poking little holes in the creases of the folded sheets so that I could then thread them together.

This is a pile of said pages, which were next taken and divided up into enough books for our whole class and teachers. Each of us got about 12 sheets, which was anywhere between 100-200 pages after being folded and thread. Billy was naked and pretending to be at the beach, since that was the plan before we learned of book-making day.

After we took the mini-booklets, we had to tie them all together to make each book, using a method of clamps and shear human strength. Each tied pack then had a paper towel placed on the binding edge, and was soaked with glue to harden the spine, then topped with another paper towel for cleanup of glops and to help avoid excessive dripping. While waiting for these to dry, in a stack in the corner, Esteban made the mistake of giving us spraypaint, stencils, stickers, and materials we had bought for book covers...and it became the highlight of today!

Not only did we create our own font, the BCN Cerda, if you will, but I cut out the stencil seen above which became the main source of our cover designs, altered for each individual book, of course. This was so much fun, and the creative juices flowing like crazy!

Christi is posing with the cover we made for her book.

By 10:30, the books still weren't dry enough to take them to get them trimmed, so we have to come back tomorrow, but we're off to meet everyone at the beach and play some frisbee!

Fiesta al studio de Profesor Vidal: Party at Professor Vidal's studio

After months without having seen Teresa, she was present to welcome us to professor Vidal's own architecture studio for dinner after the final presentations. Not only were the different types of pizza and tortillas great, but we were in for a huge surprise with all of the art/architecture work that Vidal has done. Who would have guessed that he did a large number of the paintings on the wall?!

Billy, Monica, Brandon, Tom
Professor Vidal, Eugenia, Gisela, Bob

Victoria, Sean, Teresa, Billy, Mon--Teresa is trying to make us eat like a good mother! haha

Gisela, Bob, Vic, and Sean... FOOOD!

Rob, Bri, Ben--all a little tired but having fun.

At the end of the night, Professor Vidal not only busted out a great speech about our semester together, but this cake with our group photo from La Sagrada Familia, and a copy of his book of artwork for each of us! It was the end of a good studio-despite it being extremely difficult (at least for me), and the best semester so far because, let's face it--I was in Barcelona with amazing people, and professors that helped us to see all that they could.

Macheta final: Final model

A simple, but to the point model to explain my final project at the block and architectural scale.
I figure that after all the work this semester, some pictures of the physical objects should probably show.

My two blocks (turned one block) in massing from above...soon to be limited to the block to the above-left for the architectural scale.

The block in question, from the "God-view" aka, Plan/Perspective

Same block, to give you an idea of the materiality of the mountain-side of each building (creating transition from dense neighborhood to wide-open plaza through the use of materials and transparency).

Those would be the facades of the buildings taken from the plaza across the main access path.

And there are the elevations from the bird's eye plaza side...From left to right: Housing, Offices/Restaurant/event space, Gymnasium, Market/Roof-courts, fields

Sweet deal.

NOW...fiesta.

Donde esta el juez?: Where is the judge?

After postponement of the jury by a day earlier in the semester, we were definitely on BCN time for the final jury, which didn't start until at least an hour or 2 after it was scheduled! Finally our main juror, a dean at ETSAB who we'd met the first day of class there. And so began the final jury...

Tired, much?

Sean, Bill and Bri with their projects all pinned up!

Bri

Gisela, Monica, and Tom at our ginormous site model of Placa de les Glories

Gisela's personal presentation (we had so many drawings that the pins were falling out...teamwork came into play...yay us)

Felipe describes his personal urban proposal

On snap! Presentation Time!!!

Our group's projects

Benja y Bob

Mon holds the competition-winning building, by Brandon Umba, non-architect extraordinaire

...it was actually ON our model for the jury...until they realized it and were not too amused...

Ben and Rob

Yeah, so about that...WE FINALLY FINISHED STUDIO ABROAD!!

Fiesta?!

El dia de Sant Jordi: St. George's Day

OK--so we all know about St. Valentine's Day, but how many of us have heard of St. George's day? Did you know that it's also International Book Day! Interesting, huh? This is basically Catalunya's equivalent to Valentine's Day, and, because of the added meaning of Books and Literature, the gift from women to men is usually a book and from men to women a flower, most commonly a rose.

Luckily, although it is our final week of classes and we are ridiculously bogged down, Bri Bob and I had to head over to Barri Gotic for some supplies and got a chance to see el dia de Sant Jordi in action. It was so warm today that there was one girl selling chocolate who had to hold an umbrella over it! Professor Vidal and Christi bought all of the girls roses...it was really sweet. I felt special-haha. I got the aldana boys each a little something from el Mercat de Sant Antoni. I put it on their beds because they're all at studio.

Just got back from dinner with my friend Anass, no worries-it's totally platonic, people. He's a chef so he made a pretty sweet meal of salad, bread, and mushroom beef and this awesome fruit-thing for dessert. We grabbed a cafe and now I'm headed back to studio to finish up my work. Happy St. Jordi's, and such

Torre Agbar por Jean Nouvel: Agbar Tower by Jean Nouvel

So--this ginormous building that I hated so much in relation to its context in our studio project at Placa de les Glories, may just have something special after all...

Agbar is the water company, so it seems only appropriate that the building incorporates water into its design with the reflective windows, and the varying cold to hot colors about the exterior. Without the tour, though, we never would have known that Nouvel carried his idea through the building. This is the basement whose stairway is made of volcanic stone to represent the connection between the land and the earth's core as you go from ground level to beneath the earth's surface.

Additionally, the area that is submerged is called "hell" and the lighting shown is the ACTUAL lighting. Why you would want people to feel like they were in hell while attending a conference in the auditorium I do not know. Nouvel designed the aud by himself, wanting to be sure that the acoustics and the emotion of the space would fit its use. The walls are made of a hard material but they are masked by a metal mesh sheath set a few feet inside of the wall to give it the appearance of continuity. The chairs are comfortable enough to sit in, but not enough so that you can fall asleep...unless you are Bob--in which case the comfort is not a factor.

Through the skin by the aud to the skin of the main tower you can see the glass panels, windows, and colorful facing

The interior literally reflects the exterior...with mirrored panels placed at specific angles to reflect light deep into the spaces. Nouvel even specified the existence of colorfully painted squares on the wall to represent the square windows that let light through the colorful facade.

Upstairs, Ben checks out the views from the cafeteria

Oh Placa de les Glories...*sigh*

OK--so how rockin' is this cafeteria?? The colors and squares themes play out in every aspect of the building, right down to the furniture and decoration...the office floors are even made of magnetic squares that can be moved should they want to rearrange!

Felipe seemed pretty impressed!

Finally, we made it up to the very top of the Tower...which is pretty flippin' high. Cool views, but I think I almost enjoyed the elevator, with its changing colored ceiling light, as much as I did the destination!

We've reached the top...consider yourselves lucky that we got into the building, let alone the top floor which overlooks the company President's office floors.

Just to give you some sense of scale...this is us...on one floor of this monster...

and while I call it a monster, as I originally tried to find the reasons that this building just didn't make sense (since it doesnt match its surroundings in the least), I found it hard not to like it. The explanations seemed valid enough for the building itself. I guess I don't mind Torre Agbar so much, as long as I'm on the inside.

:)

El camino hacia la capella: Walk toward the chapel

It is said that a woman appeared on a few separate occasions at a cave in the side of the mountain below the monastery. We headed down the 2nd funicular and took the pilgrimage to the chapel which encloses that spot, stopping along the way to see sculptures by famous artists and architects.

Tom and Bob walking up the path

Awesome against the sky

The wooden rail and line in the path

OH NO! Bob got squished by a boulder!

The cave inside the chapel

Sagrado Corazon-thinking of my SHA girls

Christi and Professor Vidal

That's our Montserrat