A happy birthday to my sister Sara, an aspiring doctor (i.e. med student) up in Boston who might just win the Boston Marathon this year if she feels like it's worth her time. Today four years ago I gave her a promotional flyer for her birthday, one intended to get people to donate in her... Continue Reading →
This evening PennDesign had an opening for an exhibit focusing on the works of a few young Colombian (men) architects and examples of their civic works, mostly libraries, some athletic facilities, with an odd Chamber of Commerce building to keep things ideologically mixed. The exhibit, which includes photography, process drawings, video and models, is open... Continue Reading →
Before my studio began the Co-Lab in Old City Philadelphia we were asked to spend a week designing a food truck garage and food truck service to be housed on our eventual studio site at the base of the Franklin Bridge. I focused on minimizing embodied energy, from construction material to truck fuel, seeking to... Continue Reading →
With any luck, the field trip to George Nakashima's workshop (mentioned back on January 2nd) will happen this Saturday. Here is a poor attempt at a promotional flyer: **UPDATE**- this trip will be postponed as many people at the Foundation will be out of the country for the next few weeks. February 22nd or March... Continue Reading →
"What is a diagram?" is a deceptively difficult question to answer in a satisfying way. Diagrams are abstract, not necessarily representational. They should suggest potential, identify relationships, and be able to generate and stimulate new ideas. A diagram is an incomplete reduction of thoughts and ideas which allow for new connections and relationships to be... Continue Reading →
The project mentioned yesterday involved the design of a co-lab or co-working space in Old City, Philadelphia. We were introduced to Alex Hillman of Indy Hall (read a good interview with him here courtesy of Philadelphia Magazine), and were told of spaces like 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. These organizations work off of two principles, firstly that independent... Continue Reading →
At PennDesign they make an effort to introduce architecture first at the scale of object, furniture then space, with the second studio starting with the scale of the city and working down to the scale of a building. Half a semester is dedicated to studying site analysis and the neighborhood context of the site. ... Continue Reading →
Professor Tom Morton of Swarthmore College came to the Penn Museum today to give a talk about his efforts to document and digitally reconstruct Roman settlements in North Africa. He spoke on Timgad and Carthage, in present day Algeria and Tunisia, respectively. Both sites are UNESCO world heritage sites, and he and his students have modeled... Continue Reading →
A brief note on a project with plenty of potential but one which did not materialize by the time the semester ended. http://cargocollective.com/studio501/Adam-B-Achrati Achrati Exercise 3 2 Achrati Exercise 3 1 I had wanted to mix part of the movie 2046 (even after watching it 6 times I am not sure what exactly is going on)... Continue Reading →
During the summer after the first year of grad school I wanted to keep tinkering with the idea of a rocking chair/shelf mix. Around that time a student group at PennDesign called Co+Lab fabricated a counter-top installation for the lobby of the School of Design. I switched tactics and decided to pursue a similar design... Continue Reading →
Adam Achrati 