The following essay is an abstract for my final studio. The research studio was led by Stephen Kieran, James Timberlake, Jacob Mans and assisted by Billie Faircloth, all of the architecture firm KieranTimberlake. The final review will be tomorrow, May 8th in their offices. Computers and cell phones provide massive improvements in connectivity and productivity, but also... Continue Reading →
05/06: Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory
Two days until final presentations, so another brief post today about The Greater Philadelphia Geohistory Network and their overlays of historic maps of Philadelphia. The interface allows you to browse around a map or satellite view of Philadelphia via Google Maps. Users have the ability to add layers of maps, for instance the 1962 Land... Continue Reading →
05/05: Reflections on Urban Morphology
The Case Studies in Contemporary Urbansim, Landscape Architecture and Design had an exit essay of sorts, which I wrote this time last year. A portion is represented here: One of the most important lessons offered in this course is that urbanism is a study of four dimensions, not simply three. We covered a few examples of... Continue Reading →
05/04: Crowdsourcing the Image of the City
This post is part of a few others on mapping and neighborhood identity. Another look at Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City, today focusing on the research methodology and the maps derived from this research. Lynch and his team sought out 30 people (admittedly mostly professional and definitely not a random sample of citizens)... Continue Reading →
05/03: Bardo Museum
More photos from a trip to Algiers last year. These photos were taken at the Bardo Museum, a recently rehabilitated Turkish Villa housing artifacts from prehistory to antiquity to Ottoman times. During my visit most exhibits and artifacts were still in storage, as interior renovations had only recently finished.
05/02: Plus de Sacre Coeur
Back in May of 2013 I spent a few weeks in Algeria and got to explore Algiers before flying home. Yesterday I showed a few photographs of the Sacred Heart Cathedral. Here are the photographs I took from the interior. Apologies for the low quality. The structure and textures are amazing. I don't know if... Continue Reading →
05/01: Sacre Coeur d’Alger
A few photos from a trip last year to Algeria, today of the Cathedrale du Sacre-Coeur d'Alger. It was planned and designed before Algeria gained independence from France, but was completed after to a country whose Catholic inhabitants were part of one of the greatest mass exoduses in human history. Notice in the first photograph that... Continue Reading →
04/30: Image of the City
One of the first reading assignments I had in architecture was Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (PDF link to the intro and chapter 4). A few quotes from his introduction explain the focus of his studies. "This book will assert that legibility is crucial in the city setting." How does the general public, or a... Continue Reading →
04/29: Sketching the Detail
More sketches from the "Design Thinking" sketching/field trip class. The first shows an adjustable connection to a modern piece of furniture, in this case a clamp as part of a free standing lamp. The second sketch is of a hand rail detail at the John Paul II Center in Northeast DC. Both drawings make use... Continue Reading →
04/28: Sketches from Undergrad
In undergrad at CUArch students used to take a sketching field trip class during the first semester of their second year. (The program has since been reshuffled a few times, it is hard to tell which classes have changed and which have simply had their names changed.) The ambiguously titled "Design Thinking" had Eric Jenkins... Continue Reading →
Adam Achrati 