Dawn in Stages

As promised, here are the rest of the pictures I took Monday morning while I was cramming for my History of Interior Design midterm:

Good Morning New York

So I got up with the sun this morning to get some last minute cramming in before my History of Interior Design midterm. Of course, I decided to spend some time setting up my camera and tripod to document the sun rising over midtown:



This is just a teaser, I'll post some more with amazing vivid colors later today (once I've kicked this test's butt!)

Midtown Sunsets

As I'm typing this, I'm squinting as a ray of pure gold is bouncing off the building across from me and leaping through my window to blind me. This is a routine, during the last half hour of every day the sunset roars into my apartment in a flourish of yellow and red. It transforms everything it touches, remember these candlesticks (they're all the same color):


When I showed this picture in my Color & Materials class everyone wanted to know where I live that I get such great sunsets. But when I told them Midtown they scoffed at the idea of marvelous midtown sunsets. So, for the record:


This is a Midtown Sunset.

Maquettery Mockery

My new project in studio is a live/work space for an individual who someone else in my studio has designed based on this outfit. Part of our process is to create a few mock-ups of our garment to get an idea of the way that it restricts the movement of our client. These are some of my maquettes, which I kind of fell in love with:

This one is of a mock-up of the upper torso and hood, but it kind of looks like a Jawa from Star Wars

This is probably the most successful, its made out of a single balloon:

This was my first attempt, and my most complete mock-up, out of felt.

This one is made out of a black plastic bag:

The gang all together:

Playing Catch Up

I know, I know I haven't been keeping up with the fast pace of my previous posts, but I have a valid excuse: grad school is really hard! I'm positive that I've never worked this hard in my life, I literally have a paper due tomorrow on a Saturday! But anyway, while I am procrastinating from proof reading said paper, I will show you some of what has kept me so busy.

My final project for the Foundations portion of my Studio class was to design a pavilion on a site at Pratt. The lot we were given was 30'x30', and it abutted the Engineering Bldg, for the purposes of our hypothetical situation we said that the pavilion structure was a temporary, outdoor structure designed to be of use to all members of the Pratt community (ie not just the students, but faculty, security guards, Pratt cats etc.). Some of the pictures in the previous post were taken when I was researching the site on campus.

What I ended up building is a structure that evokes an ampitheater after an earthquake:


Because the site closely abutted the much taller Engineering Bldg. I wanted my site to be largely cut into the ground. I also thought that this would cut down on wind so that the Pratt community could use it more in chillier weather (and to light their copious cigarettes). Sidebar, Pratt is like a freaking episode of Mad Men with everyone puffing away all the time!!



At first I built a more traditional, right-angles classically inspired pavilion, but my sketchy construction quality actually saved the day as it caused a jumbled aesthetic that my professor Tetsu immediately told me to pursue.


The jumbles serve more than an aesthetic function, it also provides a number of different seating and lounging options, depending on the persons height and preferred lounging position. The travertine would warm in the sun for those, both human and otherwise, who might want to take a quick pratt cat nap.


The site can be accessed from 3 sides, but from the lawn side there is just a 10 ft drop, so I've also installed a 10 ft high glass barrier wall (which you are looking through in this image):


The only feature of the site that extends above the ground are these two monolithic stone beams that meet in an arch that I think creates a nice tension and allusion to classical columns.

Jewelry Detective

When I was in Athens on vacation with my parents a few years ago, I purchased a mosaic ring which I now wear almost every day. We saw these mosaic type rings in a number of different stores and searched until we found a motif that I really loved. Something about this image tugged at my memory, but I could never place it, until a few weeks ago in the middle of my History of Interior lecture.

This is my ring:

This is the "Prince of the Lilies' fresco at the Palace of Knossos on Crete:


No wonder the image felt familiar, I'm sure that Ms. Cottrell my beloved highschool Latin teacher showed me this among many other frescoes when she would wax on about the glories of Knossos (home of the mythical labyrinth of the Minotaur). Now I'm even more excited to wear it all the time!