Archive for the Uncategorized Category

Perversion

Posted in personal, tamospaya, whatever on April 8, 2009 by TOI

Todo ha perdido su significado, todo se mezcla, te venden consignas en chistes, en anuncios, todo ha perdido su sentido y las cosas se han mezclado, ya no sabes de lo que hablas, ni lo que ves, ni lo que compras. Te venden una batidora de cocina que a la vez tiene un gel en el mango que hace que tu pene se haga mas grande, ese es el resumen que saco de una semana en contacto con la realidad mayoritaria de este país (españa-europa-elmundo). Nada funciona porque nada tiene un rol o un objetivo claro, todo tiene que valer para todo, y mañana además servirá para otra cosas porque si no será viejo y aburrido.

Viejo y aburrido es lo que me parecen la mayoría de las personas que me encuentro, sin nada que decir, sin nada que hacer, no se hacen preguntas en sus cabezas, no dudan, no cuestionan, son felices, se creen el estatismo de una realidad pasada. Me he quedado casi sin gente con la que hablar, al menos con los que puedo hablar ya no están aquí, ya no hablan este idioma, que tontería estar escribiendo esto en este idioma, que tontería estar escribiendo esto.

La gente sigue siendo muy paleta, esta como adormecida, esta muy adoctrinada, los mensajes que he escuchado me han dado mucho miedo, me parecia increíble seguir escuchando ciertas cosas, me parecia obsoleto, inmoral, indecente. El presidente hablaba en los mitines como los peores discursos comunistas de los años 20 y 30 en Rusia, la gente aplaudia enfervorizada, los programas de televisión eran terriblemente sesgados, los argumentos superficiales, la gente de 80 años ve la televisión de manera impasible y simpatiza, el mundo se suma en el oscuro pasado y en un futuro donde la relatividad se ha entendido como el todo vale.

Por eso prefiero seguir en mi realidad paralela, por eso prefiero seguir desconectado, sin tele, sin noticias, sin cierto tipo de realidad. Tengo necesidad de leer, todo se aclara pero el campo se agranda y necesito conocer más, leer más, investigar mas. La práctica profesional es inútil si no has definido una posición social y filosófica de antemano. Si no transmites una visión social de la actualidad, la profesión se convierte en un juguete de niños, un juego divertido y entretenido, pero que no merece la pena.

Mañana cuando vuelva al mundo online escribire esto traducido, quizas revisado, quizas extendido, quizas tenga alguna idea mas clara de cómo irme. Las ideas se aclaran, pero abren nuevos horizontes aun mas lejanos y que hacen banales intereses anteriores.

Por eso tengo claro que me quiero pirar, que si no puedo armar mis ideas de forma plausible e investigar como expresarlas es mejor irse, irse a otros mundos, a otras vidas, a bajos fondos, a mundos decadentes donde todo es mucho mas directo, claro e instintivo, es supervivencia, es franco, honesto, directo. Prefiero vivir noches sin fin, disfrutar la vida sin ligaduras, abusar del sistema y ser un parasito del mismo una vez que aprendes a vivir simplemente trapicheando.

Trapicheando significa escribiendo, traduciendo, haciendo renders, es decir trabajos temporales con plazos de entrega cortos y que no tienen una coherencia en el tiempo ni aportan una producción interesante o provechosa a la humanidad, es decir simplemente cumplen una necesidad pasajera e inútil de alguien. Le ofreces un servicio efimero en el momento que lo necesita. Pero no es un servicio que “produzca” aportes o resultados ni que vaya mas alla de si mismo. Una vez que aprendes a vivir trapicheando, (lo tengo en tareas pendientes), el resto del proceso es mas sencillo, viajar a donde uno le apetezca, según los vientos, alquilar espacios abandonados, cutres, olvidados, sencillo, unicos requisitos: un enchufe, internet, una ducha y un armario.

Apegarse a una cotidianeidad y a una serie de lastres como son hipotecas, creditos, compromisos, etc, no tiene sentido sin no se lleva un trabajo que sirva de algo. Si solo quieres un trabajo para ganar dinero para sobrevivir, entonces puedes vivir trapicheando, lo que ademas te da la libertad de cambiar de aires cuando quieras.

Si por el contrario tu trabajo aporta algo, sirve a la humanidad a la par que a ti, y te enriquece, es decir es lo que da sentido a tu vida, la cotidianeidad es probablemente un peaje que hay que pagar. Pues esa labor sera sin duda alguna una labor a largo plazo, condicionada a una serie de colaboraciones externas a tu propio trabajo y con un lugar fisico mas o menos constante o con pocas variaciones, y siempre variaciones dependientes de los requerimientos del trabajo, no de la voluntad.

far far away donkey

Posted in Uncategorized on March 21, 2009 by TOI

This is the view from my window these days-

far-fara-away-02

far-fara-away-01

I can see the sun and palm trees….

why not?

Posted in Uncategorized on January 27, 2009 by TOI

why NYC looks so cool in videos?
“Flight of the Conchords” S 1

missing

Posted in Uncategorized on December 22, 2008 by TOI

I am not missing, I am just travelling, this time around spain, Yes my friend around Spain, and yes I know the places I am visiting, but I am serving as a guide, as a ciceron, but still need to lear, above all to learn when they move or cut the roads because suddenly you find yourself stopped with your car in the middle of nowhere, not nice, not nice.

be fully back on the 30th

P.S. Why always people look for the same stuff, If I put cow, bogart, casablanca, london underground and a couple more words in the subject my post would rank among the top ever. Weird.

This one uncategorized

miscellaneous II. the long way to the office

Posted in London, blogs, city living, shame, travels on December 3, 2008 by TOI

normally it takes me 35 min to go from my flat’s door to my desk at the office.
normally I get to the office between 9.3o and 9.45 am
official time to start working 9.oo am
route to the office. Bow road station. district line one stop to Mile end. Change to central line. 2 stops to liverpool street. Walk from liverpool street to old street.

On Monday I tried to get to the office on time. Various reasons for that.

Monday December 1st.
8.25 am. Go out of my building
8.35 am. I took the district line
8.38 am. I jumped onto the central line at MIle End.
As i entered the coach a lady sitting there just fainted. They had to call for medical assistance. Train stop
8.42 am.Decided to take Hammersmith line, so change plattfor and changed to Hammersmith line.
8.50 am. We are stopped at Whitechapel.There is a personill at Monument station, a few stations in front of us, all the trains on that track are stopped
8.54 am Decided to go out to the surface and take the bus
9.oo am I catch the 205 bus that goes directly to my office place. There is a huge traffic jum due to roadworks and Ring Road congestion
9.30 amI reach the office

normal time 35 min. Monday time 1 hour 35 min. And all because for ine day I tried to arrive on time.
Infrastructures and public transports are the element around which the city should be built, and we should find a way to be able to avoid interrumptions due to normal and frequent activity falilures. no?

 

Blogging.

I realised that a lot of times I got a really good idea for a post,or a really good funny thing that just happened to me, but at that moment and even that day I don’t have the time to stop what I am doing and put myself to write the post. so many times I have “unborn” posts, which piss me off, so I have thought that probably talking about architecture and society, or more about ideas than about occurrences would be a better and more interesting idea for the blog. Also I am gonna try to write the quick stuff in twitter, I like the  140 character rule. Let’s see how it goes.

Fraud.
On my way to work on Sunday I came accross this guy who showed me his arm bleeding and asked for money for a cab. I offer to call an ambulance bu he refused and went away asking more people for money. I felt something was weird with that guy. Well, tuesday I saw the same guy doing the same trick to other people. I though thatn values and respect are in the lowest levels ever.

lesson to architects N 33

Posted in Uncategorized on October 24, 2008 by TOI

Don’t fall in love with the wooden louvers.

prof. “remove the louvers… they make no sense”
girl.”no, I cannot remove them, they have been there since the beginning”
prof. “yeah, but your project is not about louvers anymore”
gril. “but I love them”
prof. “well, you can love a lot of things in your life, but I would not fall in love with some wooden louvers, I would fall in love with Claudia Schiffer, wooden louvers are only wooden louvers”

It was like six years ago when a professor had this conversation with a girl doing her thesis project. The girl was about to finish and she went out of the room crying.

I have put this to bring an excellent point to the discussion. The process is normally like this. An architect presents a layout for a project / building / masterplan. There is some discussion internally at the office, some changes are made. The project is presented to the client, changes are made again.  All changes look minor at the beginning, just move a little bit this, take out this other thing, put another floor here and so on. So architect sticks to his first layout “concept” and do all these changes trying to affect as less as possible the “original design”.

So process goes on, more changes are made, no clear criteria drives the whole process and at some point you don’t know what the project is about, it still resembles  the firs image, the “original design”  but in reality it has nothing to do with it, it is just an aglomeration of nonsense requirements and patched solutions, but it still has the original wooden louvers.

One day, in a presentation, someone asks, what is the reason behind the wooden louvers…. and you find yourself thinking about the louvers from the first time since you put them there at the beginning of the story and find out that even if you think that they were absolutely necessary and the core of the project and something you loved, the louvers make no sense anymore. So you find out yourself not being able to answer the question, removing the louvers and crying.

So.. “don’t fall in love with your wooden louvers” or you will find yourself think than these three diagrams are the same.

pages-from-080523_masterplan-massing-draft

pages-from-080529_jgc-phase-1-masterplan-strategy_small

pages-from-081021_sp1-ep06-massing-comparison

lesson to whoever wants to listen Nº 1024

Posted in "frefas", London, SOM, anger, architecture, job, sad, shame, whatever on September 4, 2008 by TOI

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.

lesson to London architects Nº 534 and Nº 716

Posted in London, SOM, architecture, shame, whatever on August 17, 2008 by TOI

534.DON’T INVENT THE WHEEL. (Someone already did it a few hundred years ago)

Same discussion as always. Each and every time you face a new project same old problems, and same discussion about how we can solve them. Helloooo!! sorry but we have done it before, it should be a no brainer.

I mean, if you really want to propose a revolutionary system, or focus all your energy in pushing to the next step that specific problem within the whole project fine. But if it is just the same discussion about which of the 3 know options to solve that problem we choose, I mean that should take what 5 minutes, that’s it.  

There are a lot of things to solve and decisions to take in the proccess of making a building (or anything related to architecture) and there is no need to invent the wheel in each of them, there are a lot of things that have been done before, so just copy them.  It is really frustrating when you are sitting in the middle of a discussion about the same old problems about structure, facades, aligments and so on, so on, and you see they are trying to invent the wheel as if this time was the first time ever someone faces this problem, and not only that, but they come with a solution worst than the ones developped n the 1930’s.

Shame on us. We still don’t know how to fix a grid. If Mies were alive. Shame on us.

716. SOFTWARE IS A TOOL. TECHNOLOGY IS A MUST. COMPUTER PROGRAM ABILLITY IS NOT AN ADDED VALUE. I AM AN ARCHITECT.

During the last 2 decades or so (maybe 15 years) computers have been incorporated to the architect’s everyday life. but this new way of working have not been understood completly and has not been incorporate to our way of thinking as something natural. 

At job interviews we are still asked what computer programmes we use, because being able to use one software or not is still and added value. But oh my dear friend, be careful, because it is not an added value to your architectural skills, it is an added value to your contribution to the production chain.

We are not hire as architects anymore, but as technicians that know how to operate “complicated and oscure” software that produce the so desired computer simulation image, the new object of desire of architects and clients nowdays.

So if you so your technical / computer skills you will be push to produce images, booklets, brochures, excel sheets, wahtever you know how to do, instead of being considered an architect.  Young architects are not hired as architects anymore but as people that know how to deal with the computer world and with software meanwhile the “god designers” keep drawing in trace paper as a reminescent of the prehistoric ages.

Adding to this incapacity of the “god designers” to express theirselves through computers and draw a single drawing, and the use of young architects as technicians, there is the fact that no training, no software specialist is brought into the companies, because that is not an important part of the job.

Whatever

“from bernie modified 54.jpg”

Posted in Uncategorized on August 2, 2008 by TOI

Filing and organizing is not one of my strongest points.  The title of this post is the name an image inside our Dubai project booklet. We are suppose to have a very complex and strict filing system, it usually works, it usually names a file something like APR0103000. A month oago we decided our project was too quick and complex to follow this, so our boss send and email saying, please put all the files in this folder and give and self-explanatory name to them. “from bernie modified 54.jpg”
Image to follow

Note: following previous intentions I have decided that every time I stop a post without finishing, I am gonna keep writing from where I left but probably about a completely different subject.

today I have a nice hangover
today I have bought my plane tickets for my september holidays. US, Canada, Spain.  Maybe portugal??
today I have made a muxtape for Annie’s blog.
today http://toi.muxtape.com/
today I have fallen in love again with the idea of being in love
today I enjoy my 5 days off
today I like London
today I like farewells. They are neccesary, and as most things in this life, they are not forever
today I am not an architect

dubai. Part II (lesson to London architects 532)

Posted in London, SOM, architecture, dubai, personal on June 29, 2008 by TOI

and I guess more parts to come as my life is focus on that at the moment.

people tent to do what they are familiar with, and what they know how to do. but this doesn’t imply you are doing the appropiate thing or the better thing possible to do. This thinking structure normally leads to a position in which you try to move your task to a field you are confortable with, but normally don’t do what you are require to do.  sorry guys, that’s wrong

second issue of the week is about being short-sided. you loose focus, you loose perspective and you loose the sense of what you have to submit and that leads you to one of those special moments that almost every architect loves which is changing and changing and refining something based on no-idea, just opinions, feelings and my neighbor saying how beautiful that is. really nice 4 hours discussions about the sex of the angels to end up with a solution worse than any solution drawn at the second year of architecture school.

truly architects are killing their profession themselves, they have margin the space, the people, the construction to put their focus on the image, and shout out loud how good they are in creating images, problem is everybody can make an opinion about that…………. so we are killing ourselves.

third issue of the week is about fame, authorship, position,  hierarchy… Now everybody wants to be a famous architect, or a famous architectural firm, wants to be boss, or project leader, of have a nice name on a card saying director of my own crap.so nobody cares about the actual project, but about being the one with the greatest idea ever, or the one putting the face to the crap being built. And they think that will bring them money and a nice house in the suburbs with a dog and 3 kids.

let’s see what happens the 14….. what about ending the game?

firstly tonight, spain plays the final of the eurocup soccer championship