Charlottesville, Va.

Original Thesis:

Develop a series of patterns that define the architectural interpretation of contemporary built works of the historic urban fabric in Paris, France.

41 Days in Paradise:

6 Memos for any Millenium: The language of architecture can be distilled into a series of elements (structure, light, circulation, proportion, and surface) which, regardless of their aesthetic form, play an important role in the formation of coherent architecture in all styles and time periods.

Souterrain: The role of transportation infrastructures, specifically as they apply underground, continually inform and deform our understanding of the city as a continuous logical landscape, as well as a series of event spaces and flows.

Cities and the Dead: Past creative uses of the intricate latticework of voids underneath Paris can be reinterpreted to find creative solutions to current issues facing Paris, and in doing so can explore the prospect of an inverted city below.

In-Tent-City: Subcultural movements exist within the Parisian homeless community, defined by community cooperation, creative solutions to survival techniques, and nomadic tendencies. These groups challenge contemporary practices of urban living while simultaneously raising awareness for their own plight.

Monu-Mentality: The Grands Projets serve as monuments spread across Paris and present a paradox in contemporary Parisian architecture of scale; the monumental size of the Projets seems to defy the largely human scale of historic Paris, but at the same time draws from a long line of larger-than-life monuments found in French architecture for the last 400 years.

Old Ideas, New Constructions: Haussmann was able to apply earlier urban concepts in new ways to transform Paris to what we know today. Likewise, many contemporary architects are using old concepts and applying them in ways that appear innovative, but are in fact deeply rooted in practices developed in earlier periods.

The Francophone Candidates: Many of the contemporary projects around Paris are not within the historic confines of the city. Instead of seeking interpretation of the surrounding historic context, these contemporary works focus on technological and social considerations when designing new projects.

Interview with Christophe Lab: Designing contemporary works in forgotten places, and the role of context in Paris’ outer arrondissements.

The thesis for "41 days in Paradise" will be the overarching thesis which ties each of these disparate essays into a coherent string of thought. Given that enormous task, I am not sure just what that thesis is. I do think that it is not so far from my original plan, in that it draws significantly from the contextual, cultural, and infrastructural zeitgeists surrounding contemporary Paris, instead referencing these as the starting points for architectural conception. The other problem is, and this one I never really defined, is whether "architectural conception" is aesthetic, functional, social, etc., in nature. This is something I will need to address in "41 days".

Charlottesville, Va.

After a nice month long hiatus from studies, things are expected to begin picking up here. Last week I met with Bill Morrish and Phoebe Crisman to add them to my Nix team. Phoebe has a background in architecture and the urban environment, which is of great interest to me, and Bill's expertise is in infrastructural issues and the bigger picture. Both had extensive knowledge outside their field. Coupled with Ed Ford and Judy Kinnard, I should have enough input to keep this thing from ever crystalising. This week, that will be my main focus. Now that I am back and have more or less 8 essays and one long ass interview to compile, I will need to rework my thesis to be sure that readers have a clue what I'm trying to get across. Seeing as I don't even know just how I'm going to pull it off, it could be pretty demanding. I am, however, rather confident that despite turning my original proposal on its head, I'm still more or less ending up with a similar thesis, albeit a very different approach to the subject. I will come up with two theses: One sentence, which sums up the gist of my research in a handful of words, which is preferable during conversation about my research. The second will be a paragraph, in the neighborhood of 200 words, that captures with some level of detail just what I hope to ellicit from this research.

The second thing I would like to do is to make up a revisable schedule. I say revisable because my on the ground schedule was obsolete within 9 days, and I don't think this will be much different. Still, with studio, exams, papers, research, and the occasional free moment, and with a tentative final presentation circa mid-october, I will need something to keep me on track. Piggy-backing this research with my design research class ought to help, but to what extent, I'm not sure.

So stay tuned. I'll begin posting writings as they near completion and/or reflection points. Comments/critiques are most vividly welcomed in all cases.