Not only am I back at school, but I've jumped right into the deep end. This year is the first time i'll have 3 classes in one day, with design studio in the morning (aka furniture!!) and then portfolio after lunch, and shakespeare right afterwards. The thing that makes it all more bearable is that I have all 3 classes with Jenny, whom I missed very much over the summer.
Studio is going to be really awesome, we can make pretty much whatever we want, and it doesn't have to be seating. It can be tables, beds, lighting, anything with which you could decorate a room. There's also a competition with a laminate company where the winner gets money and maaad publicity, and I'm really excited about that too since, duh, I spent the whole summer making a laminate chair.
Portfolio is with the teacher everyone says is overly tough and makes people cry, but he seems dedicated to helping us find our story and how to defend our own work, so if any class will be a challenge, it'll be this one, but, hopefully, worth it.
Shakespeare is with an awesome older man who loves shakespeare, clearly, but loves getting students to love it too, by giving us historical context and having us act out scenes from each play, etc. I'm looking forward to this class as one of my remaining liberal arts electives.
The rest of the week from here on out will be easier, with jewelry (with jenny!) tomorrow morning, silk screen (with no one i know!) at 2, abnormal psych on wednesday afternoon, and studio again (although its a trip to see the felt exhibit at the cooper hewitt) on thursday. And then it's the weekend. Yay! My apartment is also really awesome, and I'm really glad to see all my friends I've missed over the past months again, even if I do miss copenhagen a lot still. I'll post pictures of it soon!
31 August 2009
18 August 2009
DIS summer design exhibition 2009
I've already posted with my thoughts on leaving Copenhagen, so I won't go through all that again. Suffice to say that despite the heat and my jetlag, i am glad to be home, although I already do miss Scandinavia very very much, and I know I will continue to want to return there for a very long time.
Instead I'm going to dedicate this post to the final work of the DIS summer 2009 arch. & design kids, a very talented group, many of whom I will miss very much when we won't get to spend every waking minute of every day together in the studio or out on the town or on a coach bus in the Danish countryside. At the right you can see my chair, in the show space.
Here's a glimpse of the overall space the show was in, with the textiles hanging, architecture models on tables, and chairs grouped on the floor. (The furniture kids blew the rest of 'em out of the water, if I do say so myself. The textiles were fantastic as well, although there were less than 10 of them, and the arch kids needed descriptions of their projects to be more engaging. But after all, scandinavia is all about the furniture!)
Here are a couple of other snapshots from the opening. This is Kim's chair, to the right, and below are Dobie and Natalie, who is sitting in my chair, with her print hanging in the background.
With a lot of the chairs it's pretty evident how the study time in Scandinavia has impacted it's design (if you know what to look for), but with a lot of them it's not so evident, and I think mine could be included in the latter category. If you look at the details, though, you'll see how the (custom-fabricated) steel stretcher bars were made not to hide the chair's weakness, which is that it wants to splay out when you sit in it, hence the steel bars, but to showcase how it all works.
The fact that the washers on the ends have holes in them, visible to show how it was screwed together, and the way they are straight, and not curved, in order to leave the spotlight on the veneer shapes are indicative of scandinavian design. I know I'm not a scandinavian designer, but I have learned so much about chairs, of course, and scandinavian lifestyles in general that I like to think I have a solid idea of not only how people think here, but also why it has been (and will be) a foundation and a leader of design in many different areas.
Instead I'm going to dedicate this post to the final work of the DIS summer 2009 arch. & design kids, a very talented group, many of whom I will miss very much when we won't get to spend every waking minute of every day together in the studio or out on the town or on a coach bus in the Danish countryside. At the right you can see my chair, in the show space.
Here's a glimpse of the overall space the show was in, with the textiles hanging, architecture models on tables, and chairs grouped on the floor. (The furniture kids blew the rest of 'em out of the water, if I do say so myself. The textiles were fantastic as well, although there were less than 10 of them, and the arch kids needed descriptions of their projects to be more engaging. But after all, scandinavia is all about the furniture!)
Here are a couple of other snapshots from the opening. This is Kim's chair, to the right, and below are Dobie and Natalie, who is sitting in my chair, with her print hanging in the background.
With a lot of the chairs it's pretty evident how the study time in Scandinavia has impacted it's design (if you know what to look for), but with a lot of them it's not so evident, and I think mine could be included in the latter category. If you look at the details, though, you'll see how the (custom-fabricated) steel stretcher bars were made not to hide the chair's weakness, which is that it wants to splay out when you sit in it, hence the steel bars, but to showcase how it all works.
The fact that the washers on the ends have holes in them, visible to show how it was screwed together, and the way they are straight, and not curved, in order to leave the spotlight on the veneer shapes are indicative of scandinavian design. I know I'm not a scandinavian designer, but I have learned so much about chairs, of course, and scandinavian lifestyles in general that I like to think I have a solid idea of not only how people think here, but also why it has been (and will be) a foundation and a leader of design in many different areas.
16 August 2009
Goodbye, Copenhagen!
I've done my souvenir shopping, I'm selling my bike tonight, and I'm starting to pack. It's hard to believe this whole trip is over, I've met so many people and learned so much I feel like I've been here forever. Don't get me wrong, I'll be really glad to go home. But there are so many things I'll miss about this city, I already can't wait to come back. The food, the people, the weather, the bikes, all the museums and restaurants I missed, this apartment. Being here has made me want to see more of the world, even though I'd be happy just to come back to Iceland and here once again. Time to start planning my return!
After I get home it's time to turn my thoughts back to New York and school once again, and to moving in to my new apartment with heather, which is exciting! New York is no Copenhagen, but then again Copenhagen is no New York. I'm just going to say to both cities that I'll be back.
P.S. happy birthday mike :)
After I get home it's time to turn my thoughts back to New York and school once again, and to moving in to my new apartment with heather, which is exciting! New York is no Copenhagen, but then again Copenhagen is no New York. I'm just going to say to both cities that I'll be back.
P.S. happy birthday mike :)
05 August 2009
an update... finally!
Okay so before I talk about the rest of the study tour, let me tell you about my morning, and the weeks since i got back.
so a few days ago (last thursday) i went to the Carlsberg brewery with my friend Christian, which is literally down the street from my apartment. it was really cool, and they had some really good beer (i don't even like beer!) but when we went to the gift shop the guy told me my card had a bank error.... uh oh. i chalked it up to a danish pin-needing credit card or something (they've all sorts of weird pin credit cards here) but no. This i found out this morning, when i went riding in the sun and heat across the city to a hardware store to pick up nuts & washers for my chair (the guy gave them to me for free, which was nice-- about the only good thing that happened today) and then afterwords i found a Baresso (the coffee chain here-- like starbucks, but more expensive (hey, it's copenhagen!) and way better) because i decided i deserved an iced latte (Iced coffee is soooo hard to come by in this city!!) and a sandwich for later, when i'd be at the studio 2:30-10 pm. well, i finally make it to the front of the line (let me tell you, Nyhavn (street) on the canal + sunny day = tourists galore) and i order my stuff, and, no surprise, my card doesn't work. So the girl tells me to go to the ATM outside and skip the line when i come back, but when I go outside to find the ATM and I think I'm about to get cash, the machine goes, "sooooo ummm, yeah.... your card? it's bad. we're gonna keep it. KTHXBAI!" and im like WTF?? So i go back inside to tell the girl i don't have cash on me (where does my money goooo??) and that it ate my card, and she just gives me a pitiful look and wishes me luck. I was going to go home and get cash, but instead since i was closer I just went to the studio. Where i spent the entire day doing not one single thing on my chair except draw a line where my teacher needs to cut it for me. that's it. in 7.5 hours i did only that, and i got a bacon cheese burger in Christiania. that's it. Why? because ever since my chair came off the mold yesterday morning, i've been shoved to the back of the line since i'm way closer to being done than anyone else in veneer, which I guess is a good thing.
Anyway, so, i called the bank back again, after i couldn't get in touch last time, and they told my mom nothing when she went to the bank looking for info, and the guy connected me through to bank of america headquarters, where a nice woman named Georgia explained to me the BoA Emergency Card Dispersal Procedure, which is limited to once a year per customer if you qualify (and I was like, i freakin qualify, you shut my card off!!) and basically it boils down to them private courier-ing (courieing?) my card to me tomorrow by noon. I must have sounded so relieved by the end of my 20 minutes on the phone with Georgia she actually laughed at how many times I thanked her for helping me. So as long as i manage to wake up and hear the door buzzer ring tomorrow morning, I won't be in a foreign country without any money or any means of providing for myself. Phew.
Kay so that happened. That, and, i woke up with the skin of a sunburned 85 year old lady on my face. I'm not going to get into details, but i'll just say that something about the combination of wind, sun, exercise, and probably something I eat all combine to create an all-out war of epic proportions against eczema on most of my extremities.
I know what you're thinking, today was a blast, right? You're jealous you're not in Denmark, with eczema, no credit card, and no help on your chair. But I do love it here, every minute in this city! I'm not taking any of my time for granted, and I finally feel like I belong here, and it's sad to think i'll be leaving in 2 weeks!!
As for the rest of the study tour, well after Stockholm we went to the Ikea factory in sweden, which was pretty boring because everyone except for 2 people were on holiday (everyone here is on holiday!) and it was pretty much like any other furniture factory we've seen (you've seen one, you've seen em all, except for PP Møbler, which was pretty fantastic. Our teachers call them the best furnuture makers in denmark, and i believe it!) except for their super amazing gigantic RP machines. (That's rapid prototype for all you non-ID people out there... it prints computer models from Solidworks or other programs in 3D from liquid plastic. Hot stuff.) Only one that they had prints in 14 kinds of plastic, from really hard to really soft, and it can print joints and moving parts somehow, instead of just solid pieces, which is AMAZING. They had a plastic bike chain, which they had printed from a computer model, and it moved and worked and stuff. It's really cool, especially if you're an ID dork like we all are. That's the thing I learned the most from this study tour; how quickly 30 kids can bond with just a bus and a week and a few awesome teachers, and the common interest of being interested in how everything works. It's great, and we were just talking last night about how that fact that we're all design-based means we can all make really good friends in a short amount of time, since we all have the same base interests.
Since we got back from the study tour we've been in the studio every day (including both days last weekend) for at least 6 horus a day (last week we were there 7 am -2:30 pm and B team was there 2:30-10, and this week it's switched.... our poor teachers get no breaks) busting our butts to get our chairs done. Mine is closed to being finished, making one really difficult mold was definitely faster than several easy ones like most people are doing, and I'm really excited to see it finished! I'm going to post process pictures and final pictures on facebook eventually, but believe it or not I actually have a test tomorrow (on our process and on the study tour info- don't worry, it's "open sketchbook"!) so I should be going to re-read our study tour guidebook, I suppose. And I've got to get up early to make sure I don't miss the courier tomorrow!
so a few days ago (last thursday) i went to the Carlsberg brewery with my friend Christian, which is literally down the street from my apartment. it was really cool, and they had some really good beer (i don't even like beer!) but when we went to the gift shop the guy told me my card had a bank error.... uh oh. i chalked it up to a danish pin-needing credit card or something (they've all sorts of weird pin credit cards here) but no. This i found out this morning, when i went riding in the sun and heat across the city to a hardware store to pick up nuts & washers for my chair (the guy gave them to me for free, which was nice-- about the only good thing that happened today) and then afterwords i found a Baresso (the coffee chain here-- like starbucks, but more expensive (hey, it's copenhagen!) and way better) because i decided i deserved an iced latte (Iced coffee is soooo hard to come by in this city!!) and a sandwich for later, when i'd be at the studio 2:30-10 pm. well, i finally make it to the front of the line (let me tell you, Nyhavn (street) on the canal + sunny day = tourists galore) and i order my stuff, and, no surprise, my card doesn't work. So the girl tells me to go to the ATM outside and skip the line when i come back, but when I go outside to find the ATM and I think I'm about to get cash, the machine goes, "sooooo ummm, yeah.... your card? it's bad. we're gonna keep it. KTHXBAI!" and im like WTF?? So i go back inside to tell the girl i don't have cash on me (where does my money goooo??) and that it ate my card, and she just gives me a pitiful look and wishes me luck. I was going to go home and get cash, but instead since i was closer I just went to the studio. Where i spent the entire day doing not one single thing on my chair except draw a line where my teacher needs to cut it for me. that's it. in 7.5 hours i did only that, and i got a bacon cheese burger in Christiania. that's it. Why? because ever since my chair came off the mold yesterday morning, i've been shoved to the back of the line since i'm way closer to being done than anyone else in veneer, which I guess is a good thing.
Anyway, so, i called the bank back again, after i couldn't get in touch last time, and they told my mom nothing when she went to the bank looking for info, and the guy connected me through to bank of america headquarters, where a nice woman named Georgia explained to me the BoA Emergency Card Dispersal Procedure, which is limited to once a year per customer if you qualify (and I was like, i freakin qualify, you shut my card off!!) and basically it boils down to them private courier-ing (courieing?) my card to me tomorrow by noon. I must have sounded so relieved by the end of my 20 minutes on the phone with Georgia she actually laughed at how many times I thanked her for helping me. So as long as i manage to wake up and hear the door buzzer ring tomorrow morning, I won't be in a foreign country without any money or any means of providing for myself. Phew.
Kay so that happened. That, and, i woke up with the skin of a sunburned 85 year old lady on my face. I'm not going to get into details, but i'll just say that something about the combination of wind, sun, exercise, and probably something I eat all combine to create an all-out war of epic proportions against eczema on most of my extremities.
I know what you're thinking, today was a blast, right? You're jealous you're not in Denmark, with eczema, no credit card, and no help on your chair. But I do love it here, every minute in this city! I'm not taking any of my time for granted, and I finally feel like I belong here, and it's sad to think i'll be leaving in 2 weeks!!
As for the rest of the study tour, well after Stockholm we went to the Ikea factory in sweden, which was pretty boring because everyone except for 2 people were on holiday (everyone here is on holiday!) and it was pretty much like any other furniture factory we've seen (you've seen one, you've seen em all, except for PP Møbler, which was pretty fantastic. Our teachers call them the best furnuture makers in denmark, and i believe it!) except for their super amazing gigantic RP machines. (That's rapid prototype for all you non-ID people out there... it prints computer models from Solidworks or other programs in 3D from liquid plastic. Hot stuff.) Only one that they had prints in 14 kinds of plastic, from really hard to really soft, and it can print joints and moving parts somehow, instead of just solid pieces, which is AMAZING. They had a plastic bike chain, which they had printed from a computer model, and it moved and worked and stuff. It's really cool, especially if you're an ID dork like we all are. That's the thing I learned the most from this study tour; how quickly 30 kids can bond with just a bus and a week and a few awesome teachers, and the common interest of being interested in how everything works. It's great, and we were just talking last night about how that fact that we're all design-based means we can all make really good friends in a short amount of time, since we all have the same base interests.
Since we got back from the study tour we've been in the studio every day (including both days last weekend) for at least 6 horus a day (last week we were there 7 am -2:30 pm and B team was there 2:30-10, and this week it's switched.... our poor teachers get no breaks) busting our butts to get our chairs done. Mine is closed to being finished, making one really difficult mold was definitely faster than several easy ones like most people are doing, and I'm really excited to see it finished! I'm going to post process pictures and final pictures on facebook eventually, but believe it or not I actually have a test tomorrow (on our process and on the study tour info- don't worry, it's "open sketchbook"!) so I should be going to re-read our study tour guidebook, I suppose. And I've got to get up early to make sure I don't miss the courier tomorrow!
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