For those of you who I haven’t talked to in a week: I got a job. I am working at an architecture firm in Palatine, IL. The commute is about 45 minutes for me which is kind of a bummer and kind of expensive but the job will give me really good experience.
Today I worked on some stuff using Adobe InDesign. I did one presentation board and edited a tenant criteria manual. They were both interesting things to work on and it’s nice to actually have some design input as far as the layouts go. I hope I can continue to work on some stuff like this as well as doing some CAD work in the future.
So I finished my final project last Thursday for ARCH 272. I think it turned out pretty well; it is an architecture project so it really won’t make sense to a lot of people because it is pretty abstract but I’m sure it could be interesting nonetheless. Let me know what you think via comments.
I debated over whether or not to add a song to it and decided against it, at least for my presentation in class. I might add a version with sound up here because I really like the song to which I originally put the video. The song was Teardrop by Massive Attack which is the theme song of House. I didn’t want to make the reviewers think about House while they watched my video.
We had to create a preliminary version of our portfolio for my class so I have decided to post it here: Portfolio (PDF). The file is 11MB so it might take a little bit to download it. I might put up pictures instead of a PDF eventually. We’ll see.
I went on ESLARP (the East St Louis Action Research Project) this past weekend and it was a great experience. Basically a bunch of architecture majors and a few other random people travel to East St Louis for Friday and Saturday to do different work and cleanup projects to help out the community. I took some pictures so take a look.
My group went to a police station in a small town outside of East St Louis called Brooklyn. It is the oldest established African American community in the United States. Pretty cool huh? We went there to paint the inside of the police station because it was previously the hideous shades of brown and blue. I just think that it isreally cool that U of I can partner with these communities to do something real instead of just sitting here behind our desks doing design work. Even if the things we are doing aren’t necessarily architecture related, we can still be a huge help the community while coming out with new types of knowledge.
We also did a bit of work at the Katherine Dunham Museum. She was a famous dancer and we were sorting through her stuff and keeping the important things while purging the unnecessary things. We went through plenty of old mail and found some interesting objects. It was very tedious and time consuming but I got a couple free tshirts and old magazines out of it so that was a cool bonus.
Last Sunday I went to the new campus of Wheaton Bible Church because they opened it up for tours and such. It’s not done or anything but they wanted to give the congregation a chance to see how things are coming along. I wanted to see where all of the church’s money has been going for a few years now.
Here are some of the pictures that I took. Some of them are blurry because it was still a little dark and dusty inside.
I have to admit, the new building surprised me. I sort of expected the type of building that I described in my posts on megachurch architecture but that wasn’t what it was at all. Given the exterior is not spectacular but it is definitely interesting and you can actually tell that it is a church unlike Willow Creek.
The whole scale of the projet is unbelievable. I’m still not sure that I am 100% comfortable with the size of Wheaton Bible as a church compared to the amount of community that I see there, however, the new building seems to have taken this into account with plenty of spaces just to be with people. There is a welcome center for visitors along with spaces for adults to hold their community groups. Unlike many megachurches, the new building doesn’t aim to get you in and out.
Another thing that I like about the design is that it seems integrated into the landscape. They decided to leave many of the trees that were there along with planting new ones in the parking area in order to soften it up a bit. There is a a stream on the property and a pond that the administration is hoping to use for outdoor baptisms and ceremonies. I like this because the church isn’t shutting itself off from the area around it but rather welcoming it in a way that many churches can’t or don’t want to do.
The Hispanic congregation will now have it’s own space that Ecclesia will use at night instead of both groups using the gym like it is at our current building. There are also spaces dedicated to prayer and other activities which will be a nice thing to have for different gatherings. The administration also dedicated a large portion of the new building to children, with classrooms and play areas.
I commend the efforts of the church staff and architecture firm for designing and implementing a practical and aesthetically pleasing structure.
Last Sunday I went to the new campus of Wheaton Bible Church because they opened it up for tours and such. It’s not done or anything but they wanted to give the congregation a chance to see how things are coming along. I wanted to see where all of the church’s money has been going for a few years now.
