sketches!

so while here in rome we have had a lot of sketching classes and everything. i figured everyone might like to see some of the work that ive been doing outside of studio, so here are a few select sketches of mine

Southern Italy!!!

so after easter, as soon as we came back from our adventures we were off to southern italy for a week! we went to Naples, Capri, Cuma, Sorrento, Pompeii and Castellammare di Stabia and a few other places. all of which were gorgeous!! hope you guys like the pics!

Casa Malaparte is a house on the cliffs of Capri that no longer allows people enter it. well, except for us :) our professor knows the owner so we were able to go an hang out there and we did a cool sketching exercise.

here we have the ruins of baths in Cuma

we went to Pompeii! and it was awesome!! i spent three years in hs learning about Pompeii in latin class and i was really excited to go

here is a view of sorrento and castellammare from the top of a mountain

easter break nerd-fest

so we go to istanbul, come back leave for paris, come back for a week and then have five days off for easter. yea, its been a rough semester here in italy. so for easter break a few friends and i decided to take a trip. we decided that amsterdam would make a good destination. so away we

went! off to amsterdam. just outside of amsterdam in Utrecht, which just so happens to be the name of the art/architecture supply store where we all buy our goodies from at home. if i told you how much money i pay to utrecht a semester, you wouldnt believe me. but anyway, it also happens to be the home of one of the most significant architectural buildings in the last 100 years or so, the Gerrit Rietveld - Schroder House. and we got to take a tour of it for cheaper than usual because we told the lady how poor we were haha but they were all reallly nice and being inside of this house was a one in a lifetime opportunity and it was wellll worth it.

Amsterdam is one of the prettiest cities i have EVER seen. all the canals and bridges, and again the dutch are the nicest people i have ever met. people on bikes would ride by and just say hi! it was great! and speaking of the bikes, they we everywhere!! they dont just have bike lanes, they

have bike highways! ok not quite... but they do have a three story bike parking garage at the train station! it was so cool haha but with all these bikes around we decided to take an

architectural bike tour around the city. people dont generally think this, but amsterdam is an architectural hub. so we rented our bikes and were on our way. about 20 minutes into said bike ride, it started to rain. we biked on!! then it started to rain harder, and we biked on! and then it turned into a torrential down pour! and we biked on!! until it was just too unbearable and we biked back to return the bikes. but biking through the rain without anybody else around and checking out all these awesome buildings, was one of my favorite times here in Europe. so our time in Amsterdam was coming to and end and we had class we had to get to, but we werent quite ready to go home. so on our way home we took some detours through Frankfurt

(germany), into Belfort (france), and finally into Ronchamp (france) all of which have some really cool architecture, Ronchamp especially.

Ronchamp is a quiet little farm town in the middle of nowhere france. but up on top of this one not so little hill, is another one of the most important buildings so have ever been built. Le Corbusier's Notre-Dame du Haut. i was speechless when we walked in. and i still cant believe we were there. so our awesome trip of five guys going to amsterdam turned into an architectural nerd-fest haha it just goes to prove that you cant take us anywhere.

us guys in the Alps!

Istanbul (not Constantinople)

to clear up any confusion the title comes from a song from 1990. heres a link to a video where tiny tunes put it to a wonderful little skit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv-KcF3Rkv8&feature=related

so for my spring break, (again working back in time) a few friends and i went to Istanbul! it was incredible. a true cultural experience. first i just want to start by saying that i will never EVER fly anything but swiss air. we were so comfortable and there was so much space on the four flights (rome to zurich, zurich to istanbul) that we had it was amazing. on the flight over to istanbul my friend and i sat next to each other, and both had window seats!!! i sat next to one person on all the flights and she was a really cute french girl! and you get snacks on every flight followed by a piece of swiss chocolate. i cant even imagine what first class was like...

ok now that i got that out of my system.. we stayed in area of Sultanahmet, which just so happens to be the tourist district of the city. but it was still really nice. our hostel was fairly cozy, minus the fact that it didnt have heat. and it was colder then than it had been in december, it snowed while we were there... not exactly what we were expecting here haha. but we had blankets and i had seven layers of clothes on so it was sooo bad. but upon arrival we dropped our stuff off and were off wandering the city.

we started of course with the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (see left), which were conveniently three blocks from where we were staying. we saved the hagia sophia entrance for another day but we promptly enter the blue mosque. while we were there we were actually allowed to saty for a service. it was really interesting be able to watch this completely different culture and religion. i really enjoyed it. after that we set off the explore the city for all of its wonderful culture and cheap food :) i was able to get 3 kebabs, a potato pastry, lots baklava, and a donut pastry for dessert. all on the first day. it was glorious.

the next day was fairly miserable so instead of more wandering we hit up some museums, including the archeological museum which was very, very cool. after that we met up with some friends of friends of friends (you know one of those things) who happen to be studying abroad there. they made us a very nice dinner and then took us out at on a party cruise up along the canal that turned around in the black sea. it was a lot of fun. the next day was way nicer so we

went to Hagia Sophia and we all basically exploded with happiness. This is a building we have learned about just about every year in school and were always under the impression that we will never ever EVER see it. and we did. and like i said, we almost exploded with happiness. we spent two almost three hours there and then continued to explore the city and all of its wonderful treats. that night we went out with a few canadian students that we met at our hostel.

the next day with the accompaniment of our new found canadian friends we went to the Topkapi Palace, the home of all the sultans, it was awesome! seeing as it was just sooo

unbearably cold that day we decided to go underground, to and underground cistern (left)! altho its no longer in use, it was really cool down there. and then went to the Great Bazaar! and of course while we were there we got attacked with people trying to get us to buy stuff. some of the girls got some things in which we had to barter down for, which was a lot of fun. on our last day, we decided that we needed to make a trip over to Asia, seeing as its only a 25 minute boat ride away. so, we did!! it was a lot of fun, not much different, but now i can say that i went to two different continents for spring break haha. Istanbul was an incredible experience and it was truly something i will never forget or experience ever again.

Paris part II

so here i am working backwards in time. the week after spring break, we took a class trip to Paris for the week!! paris quickly became one of my all time favorite cities. our tour-guide for the week was a professor at Catholic and a former dean of the school of architecture. so the information provided to us everywhere we went was just incredible, he knew something about everything and everything on most things haha.

The very first day we were there we went to Notre Dame, which was breathtaking. and then we just kind of meandered around for a bit in the nightlife of Paris. The next day was a busy one, we started at the Place des Vosges, then we met a friend of our professor's and went to one of many architecture museums/exhibitions and got to see some really cool buildings and some really models. then we hit up the Palais Royal and finished the day at the Centre Pomipdou. all of which we had to sketch, something that on this trip i learned to love (pictures of that to come).

over the next few days we spent time at the Louvre, in the tuileries garden, which were gorgeous. the Grande Arche la Defense which had very mixed feelings amongst us architects,

but nonetheless was a lot of fun, especially because we got to go to the top of it. We also visited the Institut du Monde Arabe, which has this sun-shading device that is actually too expensive to run haha, but still very very cool. the museum of natural history that used to be a large palace was also pretty awesome. on our own a few of us visited the Parc de la Villette, unfortunately my camera broke on the way there :( so pictures from here on out may not be those of my own... this is my disclaimer.

and of course we also saw the Eiffel tower and the Arche de Triumphe. and then by the hand of our fantastic guide we took a tour of a residential neighborhood that had some really cool contemporary architecture. we ended the trip with a great dinner and an even better trip to Architecture.Studio which is one of the top architecture firms in the world!! overall paris was just an incredible experience and is definitely on my list places i MUST return to.

the French!!

and so here we are! the week after spring break we took a class trip to Paris for the week! and it, was, incredible!! i loved every minute of it. one day i WILL go back there. i will go into the details of my visit at a later time, but for now here are some pictures of some of the things we did and saw while we were there. enjoy!

The Centre Pompidou
The Notre Dame
The Eiffel Tower
The Pyramid inside the Louvre

La Grande Arche La Defense

project 2!!

So... project 2 is complete!! for this project we were giving an area in Trastevere that we got to redesign. we demolished what was there got to design a new urban area. so this is what me and my partner proposed for our project. the jury really liked our spaces and piazzas, not such huge fans of the park, but the spaces were awesome and they really liked my perspectives :) !! so here are our drawings, hope you like them

oh and the two light grey boxes are a museum (big one) and a church (odd shaped one) that we had to include