going to the show (36 hours and 3 countries)

Some things take time and effort, some others take money, some other will and determination.

The impact of big mass events is growing bigger and bigger every day. Some events are not only having an impact on their own city where they occur, but they make people move across the world,  making their impact bigger and more spread. This effect has been happening for a few years now with periodical events of great significance and duration like Olympic games and Soccer World Cups for the las 25 to 30 years, but nowadays it happens for a 1 day only events as concerts. Not only people from within the country move to the capital for the show, they come from all over the world.

This post is a brief record on what does it take to go to one of those big concerts and everything that is involved with it. 36 hours, 3 planes, 3 countries,  standing queues, rain, and much more for a 2h 20 min show.  And it was worth, no doubt.

Madrid 7.3o am. Walk out to the street into a diverted street with a few cars stuck at the start of the rush hour.

Madrid. 8.00 am Underground to the airport. Rush hour in action.

Madrid airport. 9.00 am As quiet as possible. Plane taking off at 10.30

Dublin. 12.30 pm. Walking down O’Conell street. You can feel U2 are playing in town today. 80.ooo people expected in the stadium, around a third or a half coming from outside Ireland, T-shirts, street improvisations and pre-concert shows are everywhere. Special tran and bus services in & out of tonw. (O’conelly train station special information board)

Croke park. 3.oo pm Queuing in the rain, people cheer the sound check as if  it was for real.

Croke park. 5.3o pm Doors opened at 5.oo pm to enter into the circle. I was there since 2.30 pm.

Croke Park. 6.oo pm People sitting on the ground waiting for the supporters to come out, it’s like a big family picnic, but nobody knows the others.

Croke Park. 7.00 pm. Standing in full, while the seating area is empty while supporters play.
U2 came on stage at 9.oo pm

Croke Park. 11.30 pm  After concert moment, Pics, greetings and phone calls.

Dublin. 12.oo am. A huge crowd walks on Dublin streets in their way to downtown,

Dublin airport. 1.30 am. People sleeping on the floor over glass pavement.

Dublin airport. 4.30 am, It looks like rush hour or a massive city getaway, it’s only 4.30 at the Dublin airport checking area.

London Stansted. 11.00 am. A few hour to kill whilst changing planes. Something to read, something to eat.  Fancy some seafood??

Alicante. 5.oo Why should you put police at the border check, just let the people come in.

Oh, yeah, there was one gig in the middle of this. U2 played home @ dublin,  it was awesome, I was there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFIdFUa_hUc&feature=channel

(http://www.youtube.com/user/U2006com) 24/07/2009

lockers

Madrid school of architecture LOCKERS!!!!!

I am back. “sort of”

It’s been one and a half months since last time I posted something in the blog, my longest drought ever. I am really sorry, I’ve been missing the blog and wanting to write but I could not get myself to do it. Basically writing emails, proposals and essays make me not to be willing to write on the blog afterwards. Every time I am on the computer I am writing, and most of the times it’s the same thing once and again, and then the answers to that and so on, so I don’t want to write on the blog, and there is no much to write about either. The only other exciting things I’ve been doing were going back and forth to Madrid (4 times) and London (2 times), reading, and doing house renovation at home. I improved a lot my tiling skillss as well as my false ceiling construction ones.

No much left over, hopefully moving again in 4 months or so, in the meantime maybe some more travelling, up in the air. Got some cool picks I’ll upload over the weekend.

It sucks.

London days. Stills

Following the urban of the move post, here are some picks of my walks through London in my last week there.
This was My London. sort of

hackney. 100 football fields. wanna play?

Old garages. I would love to renovate them and put my office here with a vibrant courtyard.

Directions.

Old magnetic Lloyd’s Building.

Mutivideo-two screen cocktail layout.

The curve @ The Barbican. 3D modifications

Smithfields market. Brightful meat.

Suitcases. My life in boxes once again

London days. Urban on the move

Last 10 days have been pretty intense and there is no point to try to summarize it. So instead, I post a series of videos that try to capture East London life on the move…. there are some bits missing, the farewll party, my life in suitcases again… but I’ll put more pics later.

This is my farewell to living in East London, enjoy the ride.

does your washing machine print plans?

no!!! come on, what kind of washing machine do you have?

Funny that the other day I compare buildings to electronical appliances, because today I had a really funny conversation with one of my friends.

- What are you doing?
- I am doing laundry and printing some plans?
- wow, both at the same time
- Yes, but I am not using this computer
- So, which computer you have the washing machine plugged into?
- No, no, I am at the office

At this point I just started to make hypothesis, like thinking that my friend was able to control the washing machine at home remotely from the office computer, so from one laptop he could send the plotter some plans ad choose laundry temperature. There was a slightly less sophisticaded option that was my friend ordering laundy online, like a courier or food. there was athird option which meant he actually was doing laundry at the office while printingplans at the office. You know, office small, 3 people, so you have to multiply yourself. Small offices are tough, you work on sundays, you work at home, you print while doing laundry, Obvious logic my dear Watson.

Anyhow it would be really cool to have a washing machine able to print plans. like a multi combo device.

By the way I am getting overwhelmed by the amount of texts that are uploaded to a very cool website. AAARG They have philosophy, cultural, political, architectural texts about almost everything that are uploaded by the members, it is reaaly a very good resource, but I get an email everytime someone uploads a text that is everyday and I cannot read them, I am freaking busy, so I get anxious about that, rrrrrrrrr

well, enough for today, it will be another 6 days week at the office

lesson to whoever wants to listen Nº 1024

parcel boundary. definition.

1. I am sorry to say this but why British cannot speak proper English. Parcel boundary = Plot limit, or plot line, or plot boundary.  Parcel is what you sent through the post to other people.

Well, back to business.
Parcel Boundary. Definition
You spent a couple of months doing the layout of an area around 3km by 2 km, boulevards, parks, roads, and plots. You freeze this layout, you focus on the volumetric conditions and deliver your masterplan.
After that you Chicago office take 6 blocks within that masterplan to go further and they just decided, well you know, can you change your parcel boundaries because it doesn’t fit my buildings. Fuck, wow, I thought it was the opposite, I define the limits and you stuck to them. 

So we started fighting, we change the lines, we don’t, and so on so forth for 2 months. But not only that, they want to change the parcel boundary because it affects its contention wall for the basements, hello!!!!!! you want to extend the plot limits because you want to keep you perfect structure grid and build the contention wall outside, but yu cannot do it on the public domain, so you have to extend the plot limits, you change the road layout, you change the park design, you change all of the other architects buildings because you wanna build the contention wall without affecting your grid and as you are Chicago and the mother ship, London do whatever you fancy.

whatever. these romans are crazy.

One of the problems of our age is time. If you try to do something in half time that is require you are not going to be able to do it properly, and if you do it for sure you would not have put enough thoughts on it. But who cares, it looks that not thinking is how we are suppose to behave, and then suddenly problems appear.  Then when you want to solve the problems you put 5, 6, 7, fancy mediocre people together to do video-conference and that are not able to take decisions and what it is even worse they have no right to take them.

 whatever. these romans are crazy.

I’ll put some pictures of the so “called” “process”. 

They look like kids with new shoes, smiling thinking on how big and important they are doing projects like this.

I had a “weird” dream last night

Normally I don’t remember my dreams. I wake up, I think, wow what an amazing dream, I remember for like 30 seconds and then I lose it and just keep the feeling that, wow that was awesome. But last night I woke up suddenly at 3.oo am and thought, wow that was one of the best dreams ever. So I step out of bed, walked into the living, took a paper and managed to write down the “title of a movie”, like the title of the dream.

“What would I be doing now if I had never slept till I met you? Nathan”

The only thing I remember about it, it is that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were dead and Harrison Ford was walking around.

No, don’t ask questions, but I will write a movie about at some point. So I have copyrights fellows. 
Then, when writing this a really deep questios has arisen within me (the force is strong within me), would any star actor like Tom or Brad Pitt participate in a movie in which they would half to play themselves. Like one of those small roles that appear in the credits as “themselves”, but beain the starring role. A movie about your own life.

Whatever. I like the title. “What would I be doing now if I had never slept till I met you? Nathan”

P.S. esta es para ti mune.

“frefas” and selfish. dangerous combination

Finally after some time I remembered what I wanted to talk about.  Today we bring back one of my favourites issues. My behated “frefas”. if you still don’t know what that is, check previous posts. So when it comes down the stretch and you have to handle pressure, don’t look perspective and deliver your job meeting the deadline is really dangerous to be surrounded by selfish people and frefas architects. Frefas tend to loose all perspective and spend endless time doing marginal details and shaping buildings that they have not being asked to shape, or doing foam boxes for crappy working models instead of buying a samsonite hard cover black smart suitcase. But if it is bad to work with a frefas in that situation, it is worst is it is backed by a selfish  social-climber because they would never say anything against the frefas, at the contrary they will support every stupid decision that he makes. That lets you in a difficult position, but who said life was easy.

At the end sometimes unbelievable you get the commission, even with a very average project and work.

Whatever.  

 

PEC in Finland

Yes my friends, PEC made it to Helsinki to see the marvellous frozen country and now the secret of the peoples who are able to live under the snow. It was short but really amazing and productive trip.

from seeing snow for the first time in London to a visit to the Modern Art museum. Also including some classes at Otaniemi University or a visit to the wind tunnle test for a bridge, all in two days.

Of course do not forget dinner and gathering with colloeagues. There’s time for everything in this trip.

Tomorrow i’ll link to annie’s blog about it……