End of Week 1

Let's see...where did I leave off...
Day 3 of the library tour of San Francisco involved a very informative talk from a local architect at her office. She talked about three branch libraries that she's worked on here in San Francisco. She gave some great pointers on getting started and sticking to an idea. She also talked about her career and how she got into architecture and her story was...not so much inspiring, but interesting and somewhat uplifting. While I can't remember her last name, I do remember her firm's name: [KP]a+d. Like lily pad. :-)
In the afternoon we wondered up the street into the North Beach neighborhood (little Italy). My prof. made sure to point out the church where Marilyn Monroe got married to Joe DiMaggio, among other things like the rhythm of the neighborhood architecture and the difference between the the two city grids.


Saints Peter and Paul Church. THE catholic church for this community.

We passed many a small coffee shop and pastry shop and being the lover of Italian food that I am, I MUST return to this neighborhood. I only wish I could afford to become a regular.
From there we caught the bus to our site. Our project is to use the site of Marina Branch library but pretend there isn't a building there currently. The Marina district is the most northern part of the city, very close to the Golden Gate state park and the Bridge. We took plenty of pictures and explored the surroundings while waiting for a short tour of the current library facilities. Unfortunately this tour wasn't very helpful to me because the librarian took us into the staff lounge to talk to us and answer questions and not everyone fit into the room. I was one of those that didn't get to hear the questions being asked, nor his answers. Oh well.
After the tour, we continued picture-taking and went our separate ways. My prof. had told us that we could take the same bus that had gotten us to the library back downtown to the metro tunnel, but classic me, I took the bus going the wrong way. I ended up in the middle of the residential area right next to the Marina. At first I was scolding myself and thought I should whip out the GPS to figure out how to get home ASAP, but then I thought "it's a beautiful day and there's no need to rush. I'm going to go look at the water," so I wandered on down. Unfortunately there was a very busy street without a cross walk in my way and only a recreational bike path on the other side. Not wanting to get run over by car or bicycle this was as close as I got.


That's the Golden Gate in the background.

After snapping this pic, I went up to Lombard to catch by bus, making sure to get on going the right way. I wasn't really paying attention the the route and didn't realize this bus would take me so close to the Golden Gate Bridge.


View from the bus.

The bus actually went right up to the lookout point next to the bridge before turning around and heading south.

We had Thursday off to actually get started on our projects and Friday we had a crit. bright and early. I think I must work much much slower than everyone else (or I just insist on getting enough sleep) because even though I felt I did good work, I didn't have as much as most other people to show.

And now I'm procrastinating for Monday's crit. so I'd better get back to it.

Days 1 and 2: Libraries!

Yesterday was the first day of school (still not registered btw) and we spent it getting to know San Francisco. We met downtown at the original post office which has now been converted to an office tower with a very nice atrium.


They still have the old windows with their signs.


Pretty atrium with the fountain from the sky.

After doing some sketching we walked around downtown looking at examples of scale, renovation, addition, and modern architecture. We went to the ferry building and actually looked at the photos they have on display of the renovation.

We stopped for lunch at the mall at Powell Station and I was able to finally get a seven day bus pass. No more having to worry about having correct change! Well, for a week anyway.
After lunch we took the MUNI to the Ingleside Branch Library; one of the smaller city libraries.



SURPRISE! Our project for the quarter is a branch library of the SF public library. However, this is not our site. Our site is where another branch library currently resides. We're going to visit tomorrow.

At the Ingleside Library we talked to one of the architects who worked on it (also a Cal Poly alum, of course) and the librarian about various issues that came up and what they wanted vs. what they got. It's a nice little library, but it was really simple and I'm not sure why we spent the ENTIRE afternoon there.

In the evening I went to dinner/happy hour with some people from class. Lots of walking. I didn't get home until almost midnight.

Then this morning I got up at 6:30 so I could leave at 7:30 to be in Berkeley at 9:30. We met at the East Asian Library for a tour with one of the architects (sensing a theme?).


For some reason this was the only picture I took of the exterior. After the tour and photographing the entire interior, I just wanted to leave.

This library was actually really nice. Really good use of natural light from above in my opinion.



After the East Asian Library, we didn't have enough time to go see all the other buildings she had planned for us to see in S.F. that morning, so instead we had three hours for lunch and to find our way back to the San Francisco Public Library. If that sounds a little off, it's because it is. My prof. seems to have a slightly distorted sense of time. She also seems to think she's given us info when she hasn't, so half the time we're just trying to figure out what she's talking about. It's going to be a real exciting quarter.

Next library on the agenda was the San Francisco Public Library.





We had over an hour to explore and photograph before meeting with one of the head librarians. She gave us a lot of good things to think about when designing our branch library. She also showed us the super-cool automatic book sorter.



When patrons bring in their books, dvds, etc. to return, they feed them into a machine that reads the barcode and automatically takes it off their record. A conveyor belt then takes the book to the back where it gets scanned again and the conveyor then knows exactly which cart the book should go to.

After the library, my prof. took us to City Hall right across the street because "we just [had] to." It is beautiful, but at the time we were all so tired from walking around libraries all day, we just wanted to go home.




Inside the rotunda.

So after the such a long day, my feet hurt, I was tired, and just wanted to be home. It was about 6, so of course the MUNI train was packed (I love the trains btw). I barely made it onto the train so was stuck standing next to the door. After we make the first stop, I notice this woman talking really loudly over my podcast (I've been really into podcasts lately, not sure why). Talking loudly quickly turns into yelling. Then she started yelling about the guy spitting in her face.
The train is approaching the next stop, so when the guy started backing up and the woman continued walking toward him, causing people to squish into me, I assumed they were going to get off the train and settle their differences outside, as it were. At this point one guy already had his cell phone out taking pictures and someone was yelling to call the cops.
I'm not really sure what happened then, but there was a commotion and a bunch of people started getting off (the door opposite mine thankfully). I decided I didn't need to be on that train anymore even though I really wanted to just get home. I started coughing once off the train and noticed everyone else getting off was too. It was then apparent that she had sprayed him with pepper spray. Both cars were emptied and the train had to sit there, blocking the station, while the transit authority dealt with it. I don't know what happened to the lady, but I heard the guy on the platform screaming for water to wash his eyes out.
Fun times on the MUNI.

Anyway, I hope this post wasn't too long and I apologize for the quality of the photos. I didn't realize how on-the-go some of my shots were.

First Day in SF

I am officially moved into my place in San Francisco. I'm sharing a studio with a very nice girl. I really lucked out. My roommate is great, the studio is really nice and spacious considering. The only downside of this living situation is the location. It's pretty far from groceries and BART. There is a bus stop right outside so I can bus and transfer pretty easily, but I do have to make at least one transfer to go anywhere.

Today I wandered around with my Berkeley friend finding my classroom and field trip locations. While wandering around we found the Ferry Terminal Building and went and checked it out.



Very cool and similar to Pike Place. One of the places was signing up people for a CSA program, so that's something I might do.

We went to the Mission district and after finding my classroom, we went into several random shops. One of these shops was a furniture shop where we found this awesome phone:



It wasn't until I bussed with my Berkeley friend back to the BART station around 9pm that I think I found the best route for me to take to downtown, and also apparently to the grocery store and a bunch of other shops. I've discovered that bus stops here are REALLY hard to find. There are rarely signs. There are sometimes bus shelters and sometimes signs with the bus shelters, but most of the time the only indication of a bus stop is a portion of an existing sign pole painted yellow with black numbers for the routes stopping there. I could NOT find my stop to get home after the BART station because it was right next to the stop for the same route going the other way, and the sign for the stop was just the yellow paint on a pole for a crosswalk light. Twice today I passed stops, couldn't find them, then saw the buses coming and waited to see where they stopped, and then ran to catch them. I made it both times though. :-)

Today was about figuring out San Francisco's transit system. Hopefully tomorrow I can check some things off my to-do list and enjoy some beautiful weather!

Update

I finally scanned all my trace from spring quarter! Go me! I also scanned my only remotely architectural project from over the summer.



It's a copy of this picture that was taken a little over a year ago. See for yourself how accurate I was.



I may go back and adjust the drawing a tad and if I do I'll repost, but who knows when that will happen.

As of right now, I'm currently without housing for San Francisco which starts on the 20th. (Ah!) However, I'm quite optimistic about next weekend when my proposed roommate and I will go up and seek out every open house we can. I also have one lead on craigslist and hopefully that will work out.
Once school starts and I have a new city to explore I'm sure I'll have much more to post about.

Awhile ago my parents asked me to come up with a design for a new kitchen in their house. There are so many things I would love to change about their house so of course I jumped on the opportunity. However, life (and by life, I mostly mean school) got in the way and I haven't done much work on it. Now the adjacent deck has become the priority as it is has become a safety hazard. My Dad has offered me some money for my study abroad trips in return for models and such for a new deck, so I guess I have some incentive to actually work on it now. I've been thinking about the kitchen some more recently so I might as well throw that into the mix while I'm at it. I need to make sure I actually force myself to work on it. I guess I have a few weeks to get a head start before classes invade my free time, assuming my parents can get me the measurements in a timely manner. We'll see how that goes.

That's all for now. Wish me luck on finding an apartment!