maybe not the last post~
This was my fifth semester here at MIT and the first one I actually enjoyed. All the courses I took seemed unrelated but they fed each other in rich and unexpected ways. This course, Sensing Place, was a major player in shaping my thinking and seeing and it influenced my approach to the other subjects both through it’s content and it’s rhythm and attitude.
From the very beginning I realized that the work for this course was going to demand that I slow down and venture below the surface that my first two years had kept me spinning on.
A lot of emphasis so far had been given to quantity of production and iterations of an idea, not it’s development. Also, I had acquired some really nasty photographic habits from documenting sites without any regards for framing etc. Most significantly, I felt that since arriving at MIT I had not been able to complete a thought. Everything I had produced was either based on half baked ideas or a good idea that was hardly decipherable through sloppy, last minute presentation documents.
The light journals were an amazing introduction to the course. Having to stop and observe the light around me several times a day for weeks not only connected me to my surroundings but also to my schedule. It forced me to work steadily instead of obsessively, a little at a time, not a bunch the day before class. The first reading assignments also had a patient tone to them. They talked about the planning and the timing that can be involved in getting the ‘right’ image. Throughout the month of september I had the sunrise and sundown times posted on my desk and as I continued to write the light journals these numbers on the sheet accumulated meaning: light and dark of course but also warm or cool, hazy or crisp, long shadows or short…
I’d like to continue this essay about the wonderful experience that taking this class has been and if I do it will be later this week. My head really hurts, I’m sick today.
For now I want to express how valuable it is has been for me to have had the opportunity to spend time on a project that had a well defined scope and wonderful professor and team of classmates to learn from and share the work with.
I hope that I will remember this as I advance towards putting together the subject matter and the people that will be part of my thesis experience next year. I’m thinking that perhaps continuing this blog could be a way to help me remember…
image/text
I just don’t know what I want to convey in this essay. I know how I feel about my site and why I find it interesting but I did not focus on those things while taking pictures of it. When I consider going about the essay in with a “top down” approach I return to thinking that I need to shoot a whole new set of images to convey the meaning I’d like to share. When I look at my images I find them seductive and intriguing but they speak of things other than the site. Most of all, reviewing the images, I recall struggling with the process of capturing an image and conveying a thought through composition and focus.
This series in particular, if I were to put a caption to it, it would be the internal monologue that was playing in my head as I was clicking and clicking. It would go something like: “Symmetry, nice ; and the building vs the flowers, nature and concrete and look how perfectly placed this is; oh, the light on these flowers is great, I like the flowers; but the door, the door is right above the flowers; great, someone walking out of the door; it’s about the fixed and the transient, these leaves are great; wow, i can get the leaves and the door in a single shot; too bad I can’t fit the lights…”
and almost all of the images from this site came about with this internal dialogue… and I wonder if maybe that is a layer worth revealing.
That’s the thing about text and images in essays. The collaboration is best when each is an independent layer that adds complexity to a subject that need be neither the text itself or what is in the photos. The amazing experience that death of a valley provides comes from the fact that through the combination of text and images the piece expressed a very particular event in time and place but also the essence of timeless elements and their importance in all human lives, things such as home, roots, family, livelihood and all the things that create a human community. The images alone speak of the particular. The text alone is a mix but because text demands of it’s reader to dig into common experiences and concepts, it is general. Together they are a reflexion on… well, very many big subjects such as progress, destruction, community, ecology, politics…
Hm.
simple. Keep it simple.
Thing of asking various users how they feel about my site or how they use it. Using that as text. Also I’d like to show it on a map and give it’s statistics, such as square footage, number of levels etc, because it’s small size compared to it’s many areas, was part of what I liked about it.
essays from 2007
Looking at many essays at once, the importance of narrative is emphasized. Beauty, as always it seems, is never quite enough all by itself. Meaning, and how it is delivered will always trump beauty that lacks substance…
The scripted version of 64 Salem is my favorite. The images are strong but having the story with it is delightful. The way the text and images are presented is well balanced neither overpowers the other. The site at first just looks like something any urban dweller walks by on a daily basis without thinking about. Getting the story behind it just blows apart the cocoon with the reminder that everything in an urban environment is related to human stories, layers of them.
The Fort Point Channel essay is also powerful in how it delivers it’s narrative: the site’s history, listed chronologically. It is effective and poignant. The images are strong and eerie and it’s a perfect dose of answers for questions that pile up while looking at the images. This sequencing, I imagine guarantees a second viewing of the images.
The Fort Point Channel Essay, Move is really beautiful; the combination of the images and the theme with the motion, animation is delightful. It takes full advantage of what the medium of web design has to offer. The delicate simplicity of the layout lets the focus stay on the appearing and changing images.
This is all very helpful in understanding what is needed to put together a meaningful essay. I have not yet discerned a strong story in my site. I would like it to be more than a series of nice pictures… a little more than just a description.
The Essay, Lawrence 2; the voices. that was quite a wonderful complement to the images. It can shift the essay closer to the documentary… but I suppose it doesn’t have to, it could also be used in a more personal way, or even abstract way (with music only, or sounds) that would place the essay nearer to video art.
back from China- an amazing other world
Got back last night. Still stunned and completely jet-lagged. Looking at the pictures, it feels like a long dream. What an amazing world we live in! I am so grateful to live in a time and a situation that allows me to explore it.
High order + High complexity
Not confusing and not boring:
-Legible and interesting or
- Decipherable and exciting or
- Clear and gripping or
-Simple and engaging…
High order makes a work attainable and inviting to audiences that may not be aware of the complexity, which still can be felt but does not need to be understood. I always believed that great art should not be out of reach. Certainly, understanding more of a work’s complexity will always heighten the enjoyment one gets from it – and with great works, this can be infinite- but something at the “surface” needs to serve as a door. If it cannot accommodate a door or a ladder, it is not as strong as is could be… If it is all complexity, it is also hermetic.
Four kinds of order: Homogeneous; hierarchical; coordinated; chaotic
I think my site has both order and complexity and possesses qualities of each type of order…
There is homogeneousness. It comes from the scale of the buildings that create this little patch. They are all large, institutional structures. There concrete elements and lighting fixtures coordinate the space. There is a hierarchy: It’s primary function is that of a passage way, the straight line and it’s width manifest its primacy. The meandering path through the vegetation is subordinate to it and is probably also subordinate to it’s function as a public outdoor sitting area. When one exits from the backdoor of the student center, the bench faces the door and is framed by two lampposts with a potted plant in the middle. It looks like a living room. The place’s function as a service entrance introduces an ordered chaos. Crates, elevator, compactor and the utilitarian bright light contrast with the soft yellow glow along the vegetated path. All of this is integrated / hidden/ revealed in just the right doses. I wonder how much of this was the result of one-time planning and how much has been added as retrofits.
p.182 : “In the eighteenth century, the title “geometer” referred to all mathematicians, computation ability was a sign of intelligence , and many of the well educated were proud of their arithmetical computation. The gardens also display an understanding of military engineering. These gardens were ordered by a grammar invented not only as an expression of the deep structure of the landscape of the Ile-de-France –floodplains and canals- but the intellectual and political context as well”
Intelligence and discipline. I appreciate thinking of these landscapes in this way. Many of my memories from childhood all the way up into my twenties take place within these French garden landscapes. I am sure that they have shaped me in some ways. The rigor; the exactitude necessary to create and maintain them; but the beauty and extravagance that they allow… I walked across the Jardins du Luxembourg every morning for years and I remember seeing the maintenance involved on my way to school, but also the joy and variety of experiences that they provided. An afternoon spent around the Grand Bassin had an entirely different flavor to it than one spent around the darker, more secluded Fontaine de Medici or on one of the three big lawns, yet these were all minutes away from each other and make sense as a whole.
embedding/scale/detail
I have fallen a step behind in the readings due to some more studio-induced myopia; These notes relate to last weeks reading assignment.
The connections between Shape Grammars and the Landscape Grammar continue to echo as I read through the language of landscape. I feel it would take some serious analysis to do the comparison and each concept justice so it will have to wait for another writing opportunity, but it is on the top of the pile of thing I would like to really study someday.
(About p. +/- 170) For now I will mention that both speak of embedding – how something emerges from layered shapes or contexts, uses. Both grammars put emphasis on being able to see these embedded elements and “play” with them, use them as another element along with those that generated them. This ability to focus on the emergent form and manipulate it independently from its context is key in SG.
Also when mentioning Pattern Language, as with landscape language- these are not prescriptive systems, like shape grammar, the impact of free will, personal expression or artistry does not get lost because of the use of a system. On the contrary. These grammars are tools for analysis that enable a different, new or more thoughtful and thorough use of the elements to which they are applied.
p.173-
Issues of scale. In studio, we have been working at several scales at once. The smallest is that of the individual student’s dorm space which we explore at a 1:50 scale. We are also having to think of the buildings that will be composed of these rooms and the classrooms that have also been studied at the large scale, and that we are doing at 1:200. Finally we are having to consider the relationship of these buildings with each other and the landscape that will be stetching between and around them, and for that we have been thinking in 1:400 or 1:500… It has been very useful to be thinking of details during the past few weeks as a way to keep all these scales connected. It facilitates the development of a language that can articulate and define the design across the various scales, giving it a unity beyond that which can be provided by only a grid or a height, material or shape.
While taking the photos of the site, I noticed that different details on the site were connected to the various functions of the place: the crates and recycling bins are there because it is the service entrance to the student center’s businesses. The cigarettes on the floor speak of the fact that it is also a place for a time-out, a public outdoor space. The leaves on the floor are a consequence of it being an organic, changing place; the hose, the fire hydrant and the occasional power outlet that peaks out of the ground connect this little sliver to the larger urban grid. The hose and the planted flowerpots are a sign that this is a tended garden and connects it to the rest of the carefully manicured MIT campus.
studio myopia~
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Yesterday’s class was very interesting… it was strange to get so personal in an academic setting- but it was very useful. The journey that brought me back to school at 30 was filled with personal issues that have had to stay behind the gates of the academy. It has been challenging to leave them there because for every weakness there was a solution, a crutch, a metal of victory for surpassing it. Going back into my history yesterday gave me back a sense of what an accomplishment it is for me to be here, now, at MIT, furthering a passion that took at lot of time, effort and sacrifices to uncover.
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
It’s been a myopic week. A studio review preparation sucked 100% of my time and thoughts since Friday evening. It was today and suddenly I can feel the world around me again. It is wonderful! After cleaning up my desk I decided to take some pictures of my site. It was 10pm and it had probably been over a week since I’d photographed it. It has gone through some transformations. The leaves are drying- some are falling. More tree limbs are apparent. Also, a new lamp post was installed. I’ve been torn about it. I understand the logic of it’s placement, it goes along with a symmetry about the aceess to the back entrance of the student center. However it also happenes to land very close the center of the alley that winds down the garden. It actually isn’t bad once you are on the path but from above, approaching the area from Mass ave. , it looks like it’s going to be in your way and I feel it may dissuade some to step down and trough the path. I wonder if I would have a problem with it if it had been there all along. In any case I am glad I have before and after pictures.
Tonight, photographing was amazing. Knowing what I now know about depth of field makes such a big difference. It is one more took that I can use to create the image that shows how I feel and what I think about what I am photographing. I challenged myself a few times tonight, betting whether I would be able to capture the string of light around the backlit leaves of an almost bare tree… Can I capture the absurd, the romantic and the mundane, the story in the still?
Working single-mindedly, obsessively the way we have been trained to for studio, is really a strange practice. I feel like I’ve been on another planet for the past few days, like the world stopped turning. It is lovely. The irony is that part of why I left painting behind as a profession was that I did not like all the time alone that it required. Architecture is collaborative – and I love working with others but so far in school it has not been. This semester in studio, from now on, we will be working in teams.
Wednesday 8th.
The studio project is the design of a middle-school and high-school campus in china that will be built to replace the destroyed buildings by the earthquake. It is a huge project. They have decided to centralize the region’s schools and make a campus for 5000 children. It will have many buildings; classrooms, dorm buildings, sports facilities, library… we have been divided into teams of three, each team assigned the task of developing a design for a set including a class cluster, a dorm cluster and a “activities” center on a 220×45 meter lot. It strikes me that there has been no discussion of landscaping so far. I’ve been reflecting on my experience on the MIT campus and realizing that a big part of what makes me feel at home is using the “hidden” places, which are most often the spaces between buildings. I appreciate that they are generally less manicures and less prescriptive- my site for instance has an extra layer of functionality- it is a service entrance alley. I enjoy places that have embedded traces of various functions- NYC is full of them, it is a web of functions; within one space, different people live extraordinarily different lives, and they are all somehow accommodated. Some places, for one or another reason, only have one function. I don’t find them remotely as interesting or comfortable to inhabit, no matter how beautiful or skillfully made they are. Killian court, I think, is such a space. It always makes me a little sad. It is static and lonely, chronically underused. It is like the top model that is single because men are too intimidated by her beauty to ask her out. It just gets looked at and is perfectly manicured, too manicured. It also suffers from not being in the way of much. One can walk down the infinite corridor 20 times a day and never actually walk through Killian court.
I am hoping to design this campus with the landscape in mind, perhaps more so than the buildings, at least for a while. I’d like to see what comes out of letting an idea of a landscape dictate the some of the main decisions of for the buildings. I have never done anything like this before and to be perfectly honest, I never really paid that much attention to landscape. No matter what comes out of it, it will be a great learning experience and I am very grateful to be taking the “Sensing place” course as I get to work on this studio project. I am hoping to integrate them as much as possible.
Light and Connections
Monday September 21, 2008
p.49~ “landscape literature is the product of life, not a mere representation of it”
Photography at it’s best… it’s great power comes with a requirement of humility. An ability to think more about what is in front of me an how/why it is meaningful than about one’s own prowess as a technical master. Galen Rowell talked about this; the problems that came with focusing on technique, how until he mastered it enough to stop thinking about it, content suffered. If a photo doesn’t convey its content with depth, it is a mere representation, no matter how technically polished.
Tuesday September 22
Stepping out of G. Stiny’s lecture. It’s an amazing combination, to be reading “the Language of landscape” and listening to G. Stiny in parallel. It’s all about Seeing & Thinking & Doing & Designing & Knowing…
Today’s lecture ended on a not of irreverence. This was only the third lecture of the semester so he is still trying to explain to us what the limitations of certain types of representations are and what Shape Grammars (SG) offers in response to these limitations. At the end, he called “compositional design” moralizing (compositional as in composition made of components) because it is intrinsically deterministic: there are things you can and cannot do with components. Stiny refuses to be told what he can and cannot do with what he sees.
What intrigues me is that I find the process of reading the landscape that is described in the Language of Landscape (LL) is similar in some ways to the way SG makes us look at shapes. There is humility; a reverence to what IS there as opposed to what I might THINK (pre-conceive) is there. Stiny is willing to say that his life’s work involves looking at lines with a pencil and trace paper.
A common root between LL and SG is the belief that until you see, you do not know. Seeing in this context involves active looking, thinking, manipulating, experiencing, and experimenting… It gives back to the fact of Knowing all of it’s complexity as well as it’s simplicity~ simultaneously!
Wednesday 23
Looking through the pages of “Daring to Look” reading here and there. This summer I read Collapse by Jared Diamond. Also (unfortunately not yet very far into), Cadillac Desert by Mark Reisner. These readings along with my cross-country trip are really allowing me to connect with the emotions of the history of this land. (of land in general, the USA in particular) Coming from Europe where the labor of the original transformation of the “wild” land into agricultural or urban land was done so long ago that the efforts are no longer visible –only the results. I am deeply moved by these tales and now pictorial records of what it took to shape this country’s landscape. The effort of so many individuals and many government interventions, laws, economy, European ancestry as well as the fervent desires to break from them. Until this summer I struggled to understand the individualism and what seemed to me selfishness of my father’s political beliefs that he calls Libertarian. He is a native of this country who grew up in North Dakota, and Guam, and has now lived in Nevada for the past 15 years. I understand it better now, having experienced the freedom that can be felt here… but it seems to me that this “wild west” philosophy too often fails to acknowledge what I would argue makes it possible in the first place, namely, enormous federal interventions, then and now still.
Today these issues have evolved into complicated, complex, political issues. Their roots though are in deeply entwined in the images of these early settlers a romanticized reading of their experiences as lone wholesome, hard working Americans laboring for the American dream. Bio fuel, global markets, Africa’s famines, farmer’s subsidies… all these issues with their ethical dilemmas… I understand them just a little bit better now that I have a sense of the scope of the struggles of our so, so recent history.
With all these thoughts running through my mind I was compelled by the image of a farmer (#136) to stop and DRAW his portrait… and that makes me now reflect on the meaning of drawing.
I stopped (first requirement when engaging in the act) and looked (second requirement) at this man’s face and doing so I was able to NOTICE and FEEL (result of the first two actions) so many detail that make up this image and give it’s meaning.
-the shape of his hat: well worn and soft
-the shade it provides, but his eyes still squint.
-his expression and wrinkles- is it a smile? He looks peaceful and tired, worn, but okay despite it all.
-his clothes: overalls are functional, jacket and shirt, dignified.
-he is thin, his shoulders are narrow. His hand is holding a rope, the horse’s harness.
Drawing him brings me closer and allows me the time to observe and meditate on what I see.
Friday 7pm
The light was wery interesting outside. It’s pouring rain and very dark from the low and heavy clouds. The rain is coming down like a waterfall and the lights of the traffic signs bleed out, their colors enhanced by the their dark glossy wet backgrounds. I hadn’t described anything quite like this since starting this journal. I had to mention it.
Reading S. Heaney last night. I strongly identified with the depth of his feelings for his land. I am not so sure however that learning of a place’s history can enhance someone’s appreciation for a place if they do not already have the “illiterate” connection to it. Literacy will deepen a connection that exists, I’m not sure it can create one.
Sat.
In Professional Practice yesterday we discussed some examples of codes, that attempt to formalize the affects of the context into a set of rules. In their attempts to retain an urban fabric, they strangle the processes that created them in the first place. The life that created an urban fabric is gone and all that is left is a shell. Unfortunately, too many places justify the need for rules of preservation.
I was having a conversation about this with a fellow Parisian yesterday evening. Coming from the same exceptional place we both have an appreciation for a well knit urban fabric but she seemed more appalled than I by the buildings that some on the codes or rules have generated, the neo-something buildings, the modern adaptations, literal interpretations of codified styles that were shown in class- south-end historic district code abiding structures.
I don’t like them more than she does but the importance of at least attempting to preserve a fabric prevents me from dismissing them too quickly. This conversation came at the end of a day that I started in a computational design class where we looked at the Palladian shape grammar developed by G. Stiny and Mitchell. The very end of the day , after the conversation with my friend, was spent with LL , reading about context.
The problem with trying to codify a style is that a style is the product of a live process: “context is a place process happens, a setting for a dynamic relationship- not a collection of static features” (LL, p133) The rules writte in a code for a neighborhood, prescribing materials, proportions etc, IS a collection of static features! The results the produce are not shaped by the dynamics of any process (social, economic, technical…) but an interpretation of the surface, not the heart, of what was once a driving force. And the unfortunate and perplexing thing is that it’s the result of deep affection and respect and care for the life of a place that will most likely shape it’s path to a slow death by stripping it of it’s ability to respond with vitality to what current forces may be.
Placing shape grammar in this discussion is challenging… it is a code after all. But to it’s credit it has the inherent ability to allow for infinite variation. The rules for the Palladian villa can generate plans that can fool an expert but these same rules can also produce plans that wouldn’t’ fool a five year old, but they would still obey underlying principles that are perhaps more important to keeping harmony between things.
Detail-based lists produce resemblance, but so often no harmony between neighboring structures. It’s the limits on dialogue that strangles.
I’ve lived in the South East of Manhattan for 12 years. It has a fabric. Old tenement buildings, four or five stories high. Flush facades to the sidewalk. Lots of brick- Over the past five years there have been a number of entirely new elements erected, high rise, high-tech buildings, totally irreverent – I was horrified at first. Today, as some of these structures are earning their patina and place in my own history with these new characters I appreciate the fact that they mark the events, the context of the decade in which they were erected. They give even more meaning to the old tenement. They embody the vitality of the neighborhood and continue the long and beautiful story of these few blocks which housed successive waves of immigrants who built their synagogues, churches and temples… and ten years ago only was also a safe haven for the last of the Manhattan junkies and barflies… and is now a fashion runway for the rich, young and hip. The trendy glass and steel high rise hotel in the middle of the block of brick tenements buildings on Rivington street between Ludlow and Essex tell that story. It “breaks” the style of the fabric but it continues the narrative. What is more important to preserve? – I’ve always preferred the lower east side to the west village.
LIGHT notes
FRIDAY
11:30am
In front of the student center, sitting on the steps under the tree. The sky is clear- the light is strong. The sun is 90º me and the leaves of the three provide flickering shade, a partial shade. It is just right. Shadows are short under objects around me; there is still a bit of haze, it feels like morning even though its the very end of it. Highlights on the smooth surfaces of the tree leaves and branches are almost white and on other objects the contrast is high between the shaded and the lit surfaces.
1:30pm
I am in the studio, room 5-414. The overhead fluorescent lights are on; I am far from the windows and blocked off from the natural light. There are skylights behind me in the hallway which I see through the glass wall. The light that I am in is homogenous, overhead and artificial while the hall has the diffuse, blue light of the early afternoon. One ray of light from the hall is scraping the glass and illuminates a rectangle of the desk behind me. If it weren’t for the corridor It would make no difference if it were day or night.
4pm
In front of the student center again, sitting on the steps but this time I am facing east because the tree’s shadows no longer shades the steps near the entrance. The shadows are longer than thy were but the contrast is still sharp, maybe even more so than earlier as the color of the light has gotten warmer and the shadows seem cooler and therefore darker. The haze is gone, the atmosphere is clear. Objects casting longer shadows appear heavier. The sun is affecting people’s behaviors. It is low on the horizon so many of us have our backs turned to it and the warmth is pleasant; but people walking towards us are facing west and the sun is hitting them directly in the face. They are all squinting. Groups that are standing up all have gravitated under the shade of the trees.
6:30
I am in the courtyard of the Edgerton graduate student housing building. There is no more direct sunlight but it isn’t dark yet. The sky is clear except for a few small, thin clouds. There are no sharp shadows, just a soft darker zone around the areas where objects meet the ground. Low contrast; but subtleties in texture and color variations are more apparent than earlier today. It is a calm atmosphere. The light is cool. The light on the western half of this courtyard is darker than on the east but the transition is almost imperceptible.
10pm
I am in my room, on my bed. Lamps on each side of the bed provide enough light for reading but keep the rest of the room in relative darkness. It is soft and warm light that floods from the top and the bottom of the lamp shades which themselves seem to glow. The only the objects receiving direct light from the flooding light cast any shadows. Still, the shadows are barely darker than the areas that are only deceiving the diffuse light. This is what might be described as an intimate atmosphere. Everything looks soft and a little fuzzy because they are surrounded by the diffuse shadows cast by the glowing lampshades.
3:pm
In my bedroom. Sadly I must admit I woke up only recently. Today id overcast, the sky is a medium gray color. My room faces south so It gets flooded with whatever light is out there. Today it is a cool light coming through the one window of the two in my room that doesn’t have it’s shade down. Shadows are fuzzy and long, the edges are diffuse. It is gray and calm, the walls look soft. There is little contrast. My husband is here with me and we have been smoking in this little room. This gives an extra softness to the atmosphere as the smoke hangs around the room and gives it a hazy glow. If I did not have a clock, I might think it was still morning.
4:35
Corner of Albany and Mass Avenue. It is raining lightly. The sky is entirely gray but unevenly so. The backdrop of the sky is very bright , almost white. In front of it, thicker clouds move- there are layers of clouds- those to the south are backlit and look darker, others have gradations, they are brighter on top and darker on the bottom. The wet asphalt reflects the light so this intersection is quite bright and everything has an even light on it. Trees, cars and even people look good, almost like lit for photographs. There are few shadows, only right under cars and bushes. Streetlights and poles are partially reflected where the water on the asphalt is puddle. This is quite a beautiful scene.
5:41pm
Z. center. 2nd floor. Looking out onto the western side of the student center, facing south. The light on this floor at the gym is warm and even. The space is lit by rows of ceiling fixtures that emit onto the ceiling that reflects evenly and diffusely. There are no sharp shadows and no highlights. The dark carpeted floor absorbs the light and overall seems lighter than it really is. This gives the place a muffled sound and a safe and comfortable look. It is dark outside and through the windows, the scene is a gray blue that emphasizes the warmth of this space- the windows mirror us inside and the reflections combined with the outside create blue and orange compositions.
7pm
I am in the living room. This room is a half basement. There are windows but they are maybe 5.5 feet aboce the floor and start at the level of the sidewalk outside. We can see people’s feet and legs when they walk by. It is very dark outside. Completely overcast and the sun is probably almost down. Very little light is coming into this room right now. The little that does is dark grey and diffuse. The room is lit by my roommate’s plant lamp. It is a special fluorescent tube and this fixture holds two of them. It is dim and cool and because the bulbs are bare and ti is only 4 feet off the ground, objects in the room cast long shadows. Around the light it is a high contrast scene. From where I sit, the objects in front of me are backlit. The other side of the room is dark and grey. Blue color, which is actually quite similar to the light outside.
11:45pm
In my bedroom again, with the two bedside lamps on. The room looks brighter to me this evening because I finally unpacked and put away my suitcase, which had been sprawling its contents all over the floor. The floor is now clearer without all the stuff because it there are less shadows. Other than that the light in here is exactly the same as it was last night: low, warm and soft.
Sunday
11am
In the living room downstairs. It’s sunny outside. Beams of light come through our little sidewalk-level windows. They are very dirty so the light is diffuse and the windows themselves look like creamy white panels. The room is evenly lit even though the windows near the lamp have their shades drawn down. The plant lamp is on but is barely noticeable, because the color of the light it emits is so similar to the light coming through the windows. The room feels evenly lit, dim and cool.
1:30pm
In my bedroom. The sky is clear with occasional white puffy clouds passing by. There is no direct light coming into the room, only cool, even daylight. The sun is high in the sky. The light coming in only reaches one third of the room on a diagonal and the rest of the room is noticeably darker. The ceiling is the darkest of the six surfaces of the interior of this rectangle. Shadows are light and blurry. There are some bright highlights near the window, reflections of the sky on the glass frames of pictures on the wall, they have several shadows, two or three. They are fuzzy and overlap.
4:15pm
Winter & Washington Street, Downtown Boston. Clear sky. This street has many reflections and reflections of reflections of the sun, starting it’s way down. They bounce between the buildings of this narrow street, it’s a very dynamic scene. Unexpected areas in the relative darkness of the indirect sunlight are brightly lit; spots on the pavement, cars and asphalt pop out. Some windows look like the sun itself. High contrasts, bright highlights. This looks like a movie set.
5:10pm
Atrium of the medical building. I was walking through here and decided to stop and try to describe the light in this space because I find it quite spectacular. The sun is almost perpendicular to the top of the atrium and it’s glass front. Rays are pouring in and the façade’s mullions draw long, almost parallel shadows on the otherwise bright and warmly lit adjacent wall. Surfaces of this hall are all of light colors. The walls are white and the floor is a reflective light grey terrazzo. Bathed in this warm light everything looks creamy. The floods of light pouring in through the glass has a particular texture. I suppose it’s diffused a certain way by the glass but I can’t find words to describe it. Shadows in here aren’t very dark as so much light is being refracted and bounced around. Overall it is not very bright in this space but it is very warm and aside from the spots that are getting direct sunlight, it is an even, low contrast space.
6:15pm
143 Albany street. Facing south, sitting on a stoop outside my dorm building. The sun is almost down. Over towards the west the top of some buildings are still getting some direct light. The rest of the street is evenly lit. low contrast. The color of the light is rather warm and the atmsphere is clear. I can see the end of Albany all the way down, crisply. The sky above is a pale blue but down the street it is a bright yellow with a very slight green tint to it. The direct light hitting the buildings is an intense orange. Right around me however the colors seem pure, not tinted. There are no shadows.
Monday
9:40am
direct sunlight tries to pour into my bedroom. It is beating down on the half pulled down shade which spares my bed from the rays. The bottom half of both windows is covered- for privacy- by a shear, rough linen that flow when the sun is behind it. The shade of the top half of the window that floods the wall facing my bed remains open. A stream of bright yellow light streaks the wall at a steep angle and casts long shadows of the objects hanging there. A letter written on a 8.5×11 sheet of paper is there, held by a single pushpin around which it now curls. The sunlight passes through the page, lighting it up and reflecting the white oh the paper back on the wall, making it glow.
11:48 am.
I am sitting in the alley between the Z center and the student center building, facing Kresge auditorium. I am in the shade of the student center’s overhang. 1 foot to my right id the sharp edge of this shade and the bright volume of the midday sun. It is not yet at its apex so the shadows are longer than they will be soon. They are dark and well defined; there is a tree and a patch of bushes in front here and they are sparkling, as I look at them backlit- their leaves almost white and moving slightly in the breeze.
2:47 pm
Edgerton courtyard, facing east, half of he space is getting direst sunlight- the building is a lozenge, the western edge is casting a sharp shadow over the half that I am sitting in. A row of trees protest the two first floors of the eastern façade, leaves are still there and they shade most of the surface letting through little specs of direct sunlight. It looks quite yellow and very bright in contrast to where I am. It is a perfectly sunny day. The sky is a deep, solid blue. It looks like a sheet of paper, there is nothing beyond the tops of the buildings to give it depth. Here in the shade there is no shadow. I am in the shadow.
5:10pm
Roach library. On the second floor looking toward the stacks, daylight and artificial light are competing for this space. Reflections of the sun pour though the glass façade and bounce on the polished concrete, doubling it’s overall impact on the volume of this room. The shine is strong; the grey concrete floor has a white glowing section in the middle of the room. It gives off a cool color. Meanwhile the halogens beat down on the metallic walls on which a photo display hangs. It is a much warmer light, low and but steadily repeated all along the wall casting a long row of orange W”s .
6:51
the sun has set. I am sitting on the steps in front of the student center, facing south, the building to the west as well as some trees are glowing, bathed in an intense ping light, I guess the sun hasn’t completely set. On the lawn in front of the auditorium, the air id clear, crisp and the light is cool, mo defined shadows, a mellow light, there is enough contrast to clearly make out shapes but overall it is a low, even light coming from the clear blue sky still above.
10:40pm
On the steps of 77 mass ave. The street lams are on they are bright and white. The path towards the student center also id lit by street lamps but they are shorter, dimmer and their translucent lobes emit pink-ish colored light that is not as bright, so the street looks taller than the path. Further, the interiors of the shops in the student center are also glowing but they are emitting yellow light through their windows. The red backlights of the cars glide down the avenue, as the signals turn from a matching red to a bright green. Orange blinks in the distance. This is a very high contrast scene as all these colors are glowing against an essentially black backdrop. For a night scene, it is very colorful.
Tuesday
8:50am
In front of the student center, sitting on the planter’s rim. The sun is behind the trees and the sky is still white. There are no shadows but direct sunlight is, orange and warm, is bristling through the trees that separate this area from Mass ave. the top floor of the SC building is also orange-ish. It’s a very slightly foggy, I can see a layer between me an the main building, very light. Contrasts are low and even the edges of the trees shadows are fuzzy, soft. It is morning
11:30am
In front of the North face of the Media Lab. Facing west. The sky is bright white; a few blue clouds hang below the bright dome. The white surface of the Media Lab building is reflecting diffusely and the regular square grid on the concrete floor stands out as it draws its pattern on the floor, the light is very diffuse, there are no defined shadows. It is bright but there is little contrast. Textures show all their subtleties.
6pm
On the steps of building 10, Killian court. The sky is a light gray. Blue clouds below it move in the distance. Right above me, one shade darker, some clouds. It is bright and the air is clear. I can see well into Boston across the river. The green of the grass is extremely saturated, and stands out below and between the grey sky and the grey buildings. The trees create some darker patches of green below them but the color is still very saturated. The chips of cedar wood around their base are a deep burgundy color. It looks much more intense than usual. There are not defined shadows. It is very peaceful and beautiful.
Wednesday
6:10pm
77 Mass ave. Steps, facing west. It has been a clear sunny day. The sky above me is bright blue with a little gray. I am in the shade here but the sun is still hitting the upper third of the columns with an orange tinged light. On the other side of Mass ave, the cluster of trees creates a dark volume against the area behind it, which is still getting some direct sunlight. The orange-ish light on the entrance is of building seven seems to be reflecting back onto the avenue. I think I can notice it on people’s faces. They get warmer toned as they approach the building and cooler as they move away from it. The atmosphere is crisp. The eastern, glass face of Kresge is dark and reflects the bright orange brick of the chapel that faces it as it is turned a fiery red by the setting sun.
Thursday
9:40 am
Mass ave. On the steps of the student center that face the avenue. The light is doing lovely things to the trees; bright, almost yellow spots are clearly demarcated from the rest of the deep green lawn. Shadows are long and well defined, the light is a bright yellow, the sky is blue with one or two cotton clouds floating around. The sunlight is bright and reflects off of surfaces. The air is clear, no haze. Highlights on shiny surfaces; cars glitter as they drive along. This is a happy, good-looking morning.
4pm
In studio. The fluorescent lights were on earlier during a meeting we held at a table near my desk. When we turned them off to look at someone’s computer screen everybody sighed with relief. Those things are awful! There is plenty of light from the other overhead lamps and some daylight coming through the skylights and the window across the alley. It feel so much calmer without the overhead right above, maybe because colors don’t pop out so much, contrasts and saturation are lower so it’s more soothing. A light box has been placed behind a moveable partition to my right. The bright white light emanating from below looks mysterious, a little spooky.
5:25
Facing Mass ave and building 9; sitting on the student center steps. I was just taking some images of my site. It is the “magic” hour, the light is orange, shadows are long, leaves are translucent, windows reflect the sun… I am very frustrated. This camera is brand new and I need to first spend a little time with the manual then a little more re-learning about shutter speed and ISO ect. Digital is a different thing… Not having the limitations of a certain number of shots as well as the ability to see the results immediately really decreases my willingness to spend more time on a single shot. In addition, the new habits from taking site pictures for architecture projects are really making it difficult to concentrate on the single shot. I keep trying to describe the place instead of just feeling it and trying to capture its essence. Moreover, I have the reflex of thinking that everything can be fixed with Photoshop. None of this is conducive to the production of the single, meaningful capture of a moment in time and place. Last time I took photos in that frame of mind it was with a roll of 35mm. film, black and white. This is going to take some serious adjustment.
Friday
12:30
Mass ave, Steps of building 7. Overcast, the atmosphere is clear and it is quite bright. Shaded areas have very diffuse edges. The color of the light is cool. People look pale. The contrast is good, I can see in the darker areas like the trunks of the trees, but there are not highlights. The building reflects quite a bit, things here may seem brighter than elsewhere because of the steps reflecting upwards. The sky had both a bright white dome and darker clouds below that vary in density. None is darker than anything down here.
8pm
It is nighttime and raining. It is beautiful! All the colorful artificial lights reflect, so do the shadows. Very high contrasts with a lot of highlights. It is shiny! I just got bac from taking more pictures of the site. I got a tripod. It really helps. Once I set up a frame I font’s have to think about it anmore, I can concentrate on getting the shot to come out the way I want it. I’m not there yet but it’s progress.
Saturday
12 noon.
Student Center, in front of Anna’s. Facing East. Cloudy. The sun is behind a white shield but some blue patches appear overhead. The light is bright and even and there are no shadows. The air is clear. I’ve requested some poetry from the library today, the limits of my vocabulary are staring to bore me… I took out my contact lenses and am not wearing my glasses right now. This helps me see light better in some ways, without getting distracted by details. Things look matte. Kind of soft and grey.
5pm
usual spot, student center. Figuring out the camera is taking a stupid amount of time…
the light is beautiful right now. Very simple. It is low but still cool. There is a pattern of backlit clouds in front of a baby blue sky. Shapes are outlined in white when I look towards the sun.
Monday Sept. 15th. Student center, facing Mass ave. 11:35am
It’s very bright todat. I am sitting in the shade of a tree. The page is lit but most of me isn’t. It still looks and feels like summer. I guess it still is, technically. The air hasn’t turned yet, it is still warm and heavy, Fall is crisp, it usually starts with school. I feel like I’ve described this light before.
Tuesday, 11am. I finally took the time to figure out the sittingd on my camera nad started to understand aperture and shutter speed! VERY exciting! For this, digital is priceless: being able to change a setting and immedialtly see the resultant image trains the reflexes. I took a series of night shots yesterday a and could see the effects of long exposure and small appeture on the depth of field. I took pictures of a small model on my desk. I don’t have a macro lens but with the right setting all the parts of the image that look blurry through the lens actually came out crisp. This is great! Textures can really be captured, subtleties, variations of light… today is overcast. I eant to see what can be captured in this light, it’s very soft and even.
Sat, September 20; 11:12am
Fall is here. It is still warm but some trees are starting to lose their leaves.
I’ve talken many photographs this week as “roving photographer” for the department. It’s been like a crash course in handling all types of different lights. I’ve challenged myself to stay on all manual settings and not use a flash. Monday I photographed the town hall meeting that was held in the AVT at noon where Young Ho addressed the student body for an hour. There was a beautiful stream of cool light pouring down from the skylight and reflecting off the bare white wall. There were some artificial lighting but it was very dim. It was a difficult atmosphere to capture, both in terms of color and composition.
Thursday evening was the Department lecture series. That was an entirely different situation. The room was very dark and the speaker had just a spotlight on him. ISO helped to keep him in focus.
My awarness of color has bee hightened as the color correction settings have been throwing my images to both extremes of coolness and warmth. It is unsettling how much that can change the feeling of an image, it can completely obliterate a hard won balance of all other settings…
Sunday
Until yesterday I was waiting for my copy of “the language of landscape” to come through the mail. I finally decided to check it out from the library and start the reading I was already behind in.
Thinking about the meanings of shapes is a wonderful complement to the other courses I am taking this term: shape grammars and computational design. These courses also emphasize a deeper reading of shapes but in a completely different way: without history or narrative but as elements with embedded potential. I do not yet have a good grasp of this but I know there are interesting complementarities in these to different ways of looking. They both profess a deepening of the act of looking as a mode of reading and knowing- taking in and acquiring fact and understanding of what is, was and could be.
On a personal note; reading the Language of Landscape at this point in my life reminds me of the proverb about the teacher appearing when the student is ready. I spent all of my life in two dense cities with layers of history, social structures, cultural influences, namely Paris and New York City. I never thought much of the world outside of them. I had however noticed an undeniable and complex relationship between the natural and the artificial within these places and the distinction had never seemed like a clear one to me. The city exists and is shaped by it’s “natural” conditions: Paris is a basin, NYC is an island. Their respective form is as much a consequence of those conditions as the shape of a tree is a consequence of its relation to the wind, light and its water source. The city is organic on so many levels.
This summer I got married to an American man from California. For out honeymoon we flew from NYC to San Francisco and rented a car to drive back to the east coast with. For three weeks I experienced the road through the American landscape; I saw and felt more than I am yet equip to understand but one thing is now very clear for me: I want to know more and see better.
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