A little late, it needed a couple extra photos.
In the house of immiation cats
I never knew...
This mosque along my walk to the gym went from white on Sunday, to stunning gold and aquamarine the following Tuesday.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Friday, October 25, 2013
It's Been One Hell of a Five-Year Ride
Today – the last weekend remaining in
October before Halloween – marks the five year milestone since I
first traveled to Moscow, ID, to scout out the U of I campus and
finalize my decision. Whether I was to return to college at the ripe
old age of 26 or not needed serious consideration in its own right,
not even speaking to the details like living 300 miles to the North,
leaving a band, a business, a home, a cat, a girlfriend and really my entire life behind
to go attempt something I never wanted to do in the first place. Yet
now, here I sit, typing up what amounted to a passing thought last
night, in my private apartment in downtown Bangkok, for a travel blog
inspired by an exchange program upon which I was able to capitalize,
through the college of Art and Architecture at U of I, a mere
semester and a half away from obtaining a degree in a field I never
could have imagined. Quite honestly, it's hard for me to pinpoint
what drove me to this line of study, but I distinctly remember
having a day toward the beginning of my second semester in Moscow
where I was slapped in the face with the reality that I really needed
to be headed down the road on which I now find myself.
Innumerable hours upon weeks of program
layout analysis, structural bending theory and shear/moment diagram
problems, finding reactions, generating piles of trace and marker
just to throw away every idea for the day, twiddling with AutoCad
laser cut layouts, burying my head in architectural history books and
on and on an on, I now find myself heading up the task of designing
the structural framework and roofing system for a to-be-built
community center in the Huay Kwang district of Bangkok.
It's been one hell of a five-year ride, and it's not quite through yet. Soon I'll be joined by a long time accomplice, we'll find ourselves somewhere between the Malaysian peninsula and the island of Borneo, I'll be taking my parents to Angkor Wat, I'll be doing I-have-no-idea-what with my time left between graduation and running out of money, and yet still, sometimes I think “holy shit, it'll be nice to get back to Boise.”
Sometimes a dude just wants to wake up with his cat laying on his chest, play some riffs or grab an ale with friends.
It's been one hell of a five-year ride, and it's not quite through yet. Soon I'll be joined by a long time accomplice, we'll find ourselves somewhere between the Malaysian peninsula and the island of Borneo, I'll be taking my parents to Angkor Wat, I'll be doing I-have-no-idea-what with my time left between graduation and running out of money, and yet still, sometimes I think “holy shit, it'll be nice to get back to Boise.”
Sometimes a dude just wants to wake up with his cat laying on his chest, play some riffs or grab an ale with friends.
That said, I'll gladly settle for this
half of the planet until that time comes. Also, Five-Year Ride would be a terrible band name.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Random photo dump Sunday 11
Oughta buy that magazine.
Now with more cheers.
That probably says something.
Mmm...mixed berry cheesecake colon.
Oh you gonna take 'em alright...all four of 'em...
Servicing the D since 1985
With a face like that I'm more inclined to call it rape.
I'll take seventeen pairs.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Random photo dump Sunday 10
Bunny train
Seriously, bunnies everywhere
Crucifixion school
Maximum FuzzThai the Orange
I see we have something in common.
WHOA! An architectural blog post, no way!
Seeing as the study or architecture is what got me to Bangkok at all, I suppose it's time I throw in a bit of that for the blog. Granted, this post will not be what you expect. It WILL be unexpected, and not analysis of local architecture here in Thailand, I promise that.
For our continuing efforts on a community center in an underprivileged, unofficial settlement in a Bangkok suburb, I have been put in charge of structural and environmental factors for the design. Since this project is to be built, certain realities of economy and feasibility must now be met, as we move away from dramatic theoretical gesturing and into cold hard concrete, steel and budgets. Or, in the case of this climate, hot hard concrete and steel (but we will fight that off with plenty of clever tricks and climatic analysis.)
Since being tasked with this, what I can easily say is my favorite part of architecture - the nuts, the bolts, all the systems and technical know how - I have begun to collect images of simple structures around town that might inform the final design. I can say this much about what I have in mind: I am leaning toward a steel frame because of it's tendency toward repetition without loss of expression, it's low mass and therefor low thermal gain in the ever-hot weather, and the skill set it may pass along to the community members involved in the erection of the project.
So now, here's a quick look at a fairly clever little bus stop. As far as I have seen, it is one of a kind, not the usual production-model stations sprinkled all over town.
That's like, "so what" right? But when you know what you are looking at, it's actually a pretty neat little trick the designer pulled off. Now, I am assuming this was intentional. If not, call it a happy accident. At center span, we see the depth of the truss is at it's minimum, and the quarter points is where it maxes out. That is really goofy if you understand how a structural member acts in bending. The strength of the member is determined, in extremely simplified terms, by the square of its depth. Along with that, we need to know that bending forces are at their maximum at center span under a uniform load, which we clearly don't have here by looking at the roof - it's in 5 points - but we'll call it uniform today because the points are spaced in a manner that we can call it close enough for the purposes of this post.
So then, this thing is built totally wrong, with the weakest point at the exact location where it needs to be the strongest. Or is it?
In fact, it is perfectly designed under these parameters, with a simple illusion being pulled on the eyes. Center span of the truss is in fact directly above the columns, and this is effectively four spans with columns uncharacteristically located at the center of two individual trusses, which have been tacked together at their ends for stability. Otherwise it would all be a giant balancing act, waiting to ruin someone's day once a breeze came along. In the end, it's really four cantilevers, two of them meeting at what appears to be the center of a completely backwards truss design. The touchdown at the columns only happens maybe 18" above my head, but the ceiling is closer to 10' at the low point of the arches. Kinda cool.
- Nick
For our continuing efforts on a community center in an underprivileged, unofficial settlement in a Bangkok suburb, I have been put in charge of structural and environmental factors for the design. Since this project is to be built, certain realities of economy and feasibility must now be met, as we move away from dramatic theoretical gesturing and into cold hard concrete, steel and budgets. Or, in the case of this climate, hot hard concrete and steel (but we will fight that off with plenty of clever tricks and climatic analysis.)
Since being tasked with this, what I can easily say is my favorite part of architecture - the nuts, the bolts, all the systems and technical know how - I have begun to collect images of simple structures around town that might inform the final design. I can say this much about what I have in mind: I am leaning toward a steel frame because of it's tendency toward repetition without loss of expression, it's low mass and therefor low thermal gain in the ever-hot weather, and the skill set it may pass along to the community members involved in the erection of the project.
So now, here's a quick look at a fairly clever little bus stop. As far as I have seen, it is one of a kind, not the usual production-model stations sprinkled all over town.
So then, this thing is built totally wrong, with the weakest point at the exact location where it needs to be the strongest. Or is it?
In fact, it is perfectly designed under these parameters, with a simple illusion being pulled on the eyes. Center span of the truss is in fact directly above the columns, and this is effectively four spans with columns uncharacteristically located at the center of two individual trusses, which have been tacked together at their ends for stability. Otherwise it would all be a giant balancing act, waiting to ruin someone's day once a breeze came along. In the end, it's really four cantilevers, two of them meeting at what appears to be the center of a completely backwards truss design. The touchdown at the columns only happens maybe 18" above my head, but the ceiling is closer to 10' at the low point of the arches. Kinda cool.
- Nick
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
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