Fall is probably the most wonderful time of the year [with the exception to hockey season ;) ].

I was walking on campus today, pretty much unhappily since I was “blessed” with the worst spot on campus [if you can still call that part of school campus] when it hit me… I love fall. The color of the leaves were brilliant reds, stunning burnt oranges and golden yellows, all dancing in the wind, some wildly blowing around on the ground, and some still attached to the limbs that would soon shed them along with the others. I couldn’t help but to stop and just breathe deep, as deep as we did in yoga class. I sucked in as much of that fall air as my lungs would allow. I felt completely satisfied, at peace with every aspect of everything, even Seaton hall.
Things have seemingly gotten better in recent days. My design for studio is making progress and I am actually feeling the urge to scribble on paper more and cut bits of chipboard and assembling them to represent an idea that might, just might be a good one. For our second project this semester we have “been given the opportunity” to design a temporary structure that is to house the International Textile Exhibition. Basically we are creating and exhibition area and gallery to house the fashion trend setters of the world, and showcasing how textiles are progressing into the future. This might be kind of interesting, but how does this link to architecture? Good question and maybe in my next post I will have a more developed answer. But so far my link deals with unraveling and the urban fabric that exists in Kansas City, Missouri.

[Warning architectural theory approaching]

Think of it as this way, a woven piece of fabric has warp and weft, horizontal and vertical members, infill and structure. These are all ways in which to describe the nature of the piece of fabric. Not unlike a piece of fabric the city has a natural pattern of buildings and streets i.e. infill and circulation. The way that I am arguing it, the circulation of the city is the structure of the city while the buildings represent the infill the meat of the city. [this point is supported by various architectural theory essays of past civilizations and the way they structured their citied based on temples, dwellings and business…i.e. ports.] The buildings rely on the circulation paths to support the function of the city not unlike the warp to the weft of a woven piece of fabric. While the city is the strongest at its center where both infill and structure are heavily integrated it doesn’t behave like this consistently. A city, like fabric, becomes unraveled and frayed at the ends. Circulation still exists but the density of the city changes as it becomes more spread out and less dense. The city is no longer tight knit; it becomes pieces and elements, not one cohesive unit. This is most noticeable upon entry and exiting the city, where you can see the build up, or the weaving of the city take place right before your eyes. One can experience several roads coming together and can watch the landscape transform from low lying planes to towering structures soaring over head. In a dualistic relationship the exact opposite will happen when leaving the city. The structures that once were reaching for the sky begin to come back to earth, they begin to spread out, circulation paths begin to diverge into several different directions and soon one finds themselves out in the middle of the rolling hills dotted here and there with farm structures, completely unlike the tight knit fabric that was the urban context. Now the trick is, turning this idea into a building…. Yeah about that.

Ok that is enough architectural metaphor for now, and knowing me that will probably change 100 times before Friday. So how does that relate to fall, it doesn’t but I think that is ok. Oh an before I forget the image bellow was taken from a friend of a friend on facebook who recently traveled to Minneapolis for some Landscape architecture conference…I guess that is part of a sculpture somewhere in the city.