DESIGN | DAI 1 Obsesion: Luz

During the year 2003 we have been editing and collecting on DVD the recordings by photographer and professor Ricardo Santonja in Atxu Amann's Drawing class in Madrid Architecture School featuring  Javier Seguí, Uriel Seguí, first years architecture students and many more. Instituto Juan the Herrera has published it and is available in Mairea bookstore.

That's my first DVD and it has been a pain to discover how all this new stuff works. I fell a little bit embarrassed by the design of the menus. Sorry. As Atxu always says, you learn to fuck, fucking and you learn to draw, drawing. I guess with DVDs is the same.

DAI 1 2003 Obsesion: Luz | Atxu-Ricardo-Irene-Uriel...alumnos

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DVD DETAILS
Publisher: Instituto Juan de Herrera
Collection: Cuadernos de apoyo a la docencia del Instituto Juan de Herrera de la ETSAM (163.01)
Release date: 2004-V
Language: Spanish
Retail price: 9,90€
ISBN 13: 978-84-9728-103-4
ISBN 10: 84-9728-103-9

My First Laptop: Packard Bell EasyNote E3245

Last semester I started to enjoy video editing with the eπ short film we did in DAI 2 class. As we didn't know much on how to use Adobe Premiere efficiently and nobody  taught us, we end up editing that short on VHS. Luckily, at the end I was able to play a little in my cousins PC and I managed to  synch the audio and the video tracks for the final release. 

This September starts my second year in Madrid Architecture School and I needed a computer.  The DVD is becoming the way to go on video and laptops are starting to include DVD recording units. Making videos with menus that you can play in an standalone player is something I was dreaming for this last years. Being able to do that with a machine you can carry with you everywhere is just mind blowing.

Looking back to the VHS days is a pain, with such a poor image quality, the need of all this expensive equipment just to edit content poorly... and thinking that in few years with the introduction of YouTube all this DVD world going to be irrelevant....anyway... The Times they Are A-Changin'.

LAB | Approach to a Skyscrapper in La Castellana

The first year in Madrid Architecture School comes to its end. This is the last proposal for Projects 1 class. The task was to design a skyscraper in La Castellana in the center of Madrid. I have no big idea of how to approach a task such a big as that, but teachers seem to like my drawings. I have been looking to Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers work, so I guess is a kind of a High-Tech building.

Memory: 

A skyscraper in the middle of Castellana, with surrounding buildings no higher that ten stories. The proposal consists in a building basically differentiated in two pieces. The first one, the part that meets the height of the near by buildings, resembles a concrete block with few opening in the façade. The second piece, that rises from there, upwards, is a huge glass façade with the building's structure on front of it, structure that works also as a brisolei. 

This external differentiation is reflected in the buildings interior. The opaque part is where conferences and reunion rooms are located and behind the upper glass façade is where offices are located. The concept plays with the idea of being build in two parts as well, with a prior heavy concrete part bellow and a lightweight structure mounted as a later enlargement. 

The building is organized inspired by Richard Rogers Lloyd's building were service and served spaces are clearly divided. Vertical communication as stairs and elevators are in the east façade while north façade keeps all the installations. The main goal was to keep a square plant as free and versatile as possible.

SHORT FILM | eπ

This is the first video work I have ever work in. Completed together with class mates Cristian Álvarez, Elena Calvo and Alba Rodriguez. The idea was to show Ernie's life in the Architecture School of Madrid. Recorder on digital DV and edited in VHS due to problems with computers. Some of the funniest days in college happened while shooting this video. I should collect all the behind the scenes footage and release them someday, but there is no hurry; the older we get, the more fun it will be to see ourselves in our first year of college.

Jorge Oteiza dies at age 94

Yesterday Jorge Oteiza, a basque thinker and sculptor died at the age of 94. It's a shame and I feel pretty sad for discovering Oteiza so late and so far from the Basque Country. But I feel fortunate because here in Madrid Architecture School teachers really appreciate this artist's work and this semester we had an exercise in projects class that was to re-think one of his metaphysical boxes, one of his last sculptural works with which he concluded his experimental artistic process. I have been so lucky to be in this second semester in DAI2 with Atxu Amann and Marta Maiz. Marta had a very especial relation with Jorge, she and her husband worked with him several times and she brought to class many books written by Oteiza. Among them, Quosque Tandem! A must read for anybody interested in art. Rest in peace Jorge. Here a drawing I did based on a photo of Jorge Oteiza.