Stu-Stu-Studio

So my first week of actual class is over… and it has only just begun! The professors made sure to load everything onto us all at once! Almost all of our assignments for the semester have been given to us and it is a little overwhelming! Here is the break down.

For our actual studio we will each design a student center for a school, much like a high school in America. Part of the building is from pre-WWII, the rest of the building and its surrounding area is post-WWII. The school is adjacent to a major street corner, elevated rail system, and a river. On the other side of the river is a more historic and rich neighborhood. Tomorrow we visit the school and talk to students, but we also need to have a group model of the surrounding neighborhood, which includes all of the buildings and their correct height. We actually need TWO of these models, one for the students upstairs, one for the students downstairs (our studio is split into two floors). So that is what I have been doing this weekend, as well as some sketches of my own proposed building. This project is due in 3 phases; initial iterations, design development, then the final product at the end of November.

Next is the Urban Design class, which we travel to Prague, Siena, Rome, and Hamburg. For each of these trips there is a group that has to work together and produce a PowerPoint of the cities history, buildings, architecture, and such. My city is Hamburg and it is the last city we visit, so I’m worried that everyone will wait till the weeks before we go to do all of this work, which will also inconveniently be during the heart of our studio design that will no doubt take up 90% of my time. We may also have to each write a paper on the city, I’m not 100% sure about that right now.

On top of all that, Humanities is requiring each student to write 1 paper, present 1 PowerPoint, and write the final paper on the last day of class. This actually isn’t too bad by itself, it’s the addition of the other work that makes it difficult. The paper will be given to each student by the draw of a hat, so no one knows what their topic will be until the end of class. If your name gets drawn at the end of class, you better hope you were paying attention during that class because that days topic is the topic of your 3 page paper. Luckily, the paper isn’t due until the end of the semester. Four students already got chosen last class, so they are won’t be chosen for the rest of the semester. The PowerPoint we signed up for. I paired up with my roommate and are making a PowerPoint about the Berlin Airlift. Should be pretty straightforward and easy... should be. The final paper I am not at all worried about cause we write it in class on the last day of class and we already know the topic. It is basically a reflection paper on what we learned from the class.

So here is to hoping everything runs smoothly! We travel to Prague for 4 or 5 days starting Wednesday, so I’ll write again about that experience, should be exciting!

Goten Morgen und Tschüss!