Well it's been ages since I was in the blogging mode, but thought I would upload this quick pic from my office Holiday Party. As you can see I was enjoying myself and the great restaurant.
see more about Blue Hill here......very good probably the nicest restaurant I have tried in NY :) ok that's all for now have to get back to work
well it's been a while since i blogged anything, just been busy with work and trying to study for my architectural licensing exams :( ugg man is it hard to get back into the studying mode :) i am use to making lots of plans to do a millions things on Saturday and it's so hard to find a quiet place in this city to focus and read....generally i try to hit up the massive b&n near union square, but that's just an excuse to make my way thru the Green Market, my latest favorite place to shop..winter squash, pears,a million varieties of apples, concord grapes, heirloom tomatoes ... it just makes cooking so much more fun :P
then there was the weekend i did CANstruction :) an event to gather hundreds of cans for the hungry in new york. loads of architects, engineers, and various people from the design community design structures out of cans that are then exhibited to the public for a few weeks, dismounted and donated to organizations to distribute to the hungry. grimshaw's was a little ambitious, i think the idea was better than the execution :P but there were some pretty impressive ones as well.... you would b e surprised at what kind of art you can make from baby can corn and sardines
there was also the week i went to the university of Maryland arch. school to work on a grimshaw exhibit there. that was pretty fun. lots of work but great to learn about all that goes into an exhibition. sadly i only have one image from that of one of the cases that we used to display and transport the grimshaw models.
Artkrush...one of my new favorite online art/architecture weekly publications, an image above from this weeks issue
Saturday i took a trek out of my little west village area to the P.S.1 MoMa museum in Long Island City Queens. For several years i have been reading about the young architects program/competition on archinect that happens there every year and have been wanting to check it out since moving to ny. Saturday was the final day so i decided i better go check it out and it was well worth it, great temporary space called "Liquid Sky" by LA based firm Ball-Nogues.
The area around the museum was also quite interesting ; lots of old warehouse type building with graffiti. Crazy thing is no one seems to stop anyone from painting on everything, as it's quite obvious that the graffiti is improving the area in it's own way. i thought this truck painted on one of the building was pretty cool :)
here are a few of my random pix, was great weather too, so it made it even better.
well work has been particularly trying lately schedule wise :) but what else is new.
however, this past Wednesday we were treated with a half day and a great company picnic in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. the weather was perfect and there was plenty of good food, drinks and lots of soccer and a bit of badminton as well.
I'll only post a few pix as most are of people few of you probably know and i have censored the ones of myself taken by others as they were very unflattering shots of me flying thru the air trying to hit that little thing known as a shuttle when playing badminton, a sport that i now know due to wind etc. should definitely only be played inside :)
see at right...people i think are interesting for some reason or another.
first entry: oliver sacks
reading one of his books at the moment An Anthropologist on Mars
http://www.oliversacks.com/
Recently for various reasons including a marriage :) (see earlier post) I had to find two new room mates to fill my little apartment. And I am happy to report they are both wonderful! We had a bit of party with our neighbors downstairs on a Wednesday night! it was great. Lots of good food as one of my new room mates is a chef and so is one of the guys that lives downstairs.
One of the highlights (if you can call it that ) of late nights of work in Manhattan is what to eat for dinner :) there are so many choices and everything is good and not necessarily even that expensive (though not a concern since it's on the office). This is one thing I really missed when I was living in London as most places closed there relatively early and were not big on delivery much less variety...at least in the area our office is in.
One of our latest discoveries is this great little Chinese place called Province that serves the most tasty small sandwiches. They consist of a few choices of fillings (Shiitake mushroom is my favorite) inside a doughy steamed bread of northern China known as Mantou.
if your ever in nyc heading south of Chinatown towards the Tribeca area this is a must eat and it will only set you back $5.
this past weekend while in houston i got to do a lot of hanging out with friends and family. i had the chance to meet up with my friend, fernando, shown with me here and to go to a great art/street festival with my family in the old historic heights district of houston. ahh and not to be left out was all the fun i had with my sister's kiddos, however at the moment I don't have my pix of them downloaded just a few that fernando sent me from his camera, so more later on the kids :)
a great article from a co-worker regarding recent trends in architecture
However, I personally resent, for example, two billion dollars being spent on a subway station in New York City that looks like a bird.
I have no idea why a subway station should either look like a bird or cost two billion dollars," he said
http://www.architectureweek
back from london town but no time to gab now! just wanted to post this awesome work from a co-worker at grimshaw...crazy stuff :) enjoy
well things are winding down here in London as i am leaving in less than two weeks :-( :-)
I have mixed feelings as I am both excited to return to old friends and family in New York but i have grown to really love London and met so many great people in my time here.
4 months is just enough time to start to finally feel a bit settled in a place whatever that means.
anyway i am thankful for the time and excited to return to NYC to a new project at work and two new room mates. and lots of catching up to do.
here are a few pix from my past wanderings this weekend.....a trip to canary wharf....an amazing exhibit at the Bartlett Architecture school, the British Library and lots of stuff along the way :)
Well as usual I am blogging in fits and spurts and so much has "happened" since the last time i made a post i don't even know where to start much less which of my hundred plus photos i should choose from my vacation to France last week to post. so as usual I'll just throw some random ones up here in no specific order :)
The nice thing about this last visit to France is I was more relaxed about not feeling that I had to take a picture of everything! But at the same time I wish I would have taken more people pictures as I seem to be guilty of my old architect ways of just taking lots of pictures of building and well of course the wonderful food (that is very different and better : ) than British cuisine).
In addition to several days in Paris I also had the pleasure of heading down to Avignon in the Provence region which was very beautiful and had such a wonderful Mediterranean feel.
Well May 11 came and went and now June 2nd will come and go and I am still here ....not to complain considering "here" is London :) I am referring to my ever changing scheduled leave dates for work.
I am both enjoying the extension but also beginning to miss friends and family back in the states and also the feeling of never being sure of when i am going and how to plan for the next few months. Even if it was for longer at least I could plan for after or enjoy till then however you want to look at it. I just keep telling myself this is the free...single...flexible...bohemian lifestyle....or something........
Interesting in this flux I have now moved on to my second but not last place of accommodation. The Citadines Hotel. Not necessarily the most modern place with breath taking views of the city as my flat north of present but the great thing is it's right in the center of the city near many of the monuments, museums, restaurants, the river etc. Plus the adventure of living with my colleagues is now over! ahhh a sigh of relief for my new found privacy and solace. We had some good times but these are good too : )
yes and one last good thing about the extension, more time to travel! on to france next week!
Ok so enough of a rant about all that, some interesting cultural events in the past weeks to post
a lecture by mr. nick GRIMSHAW himself, funny i have to go to a lecture to hear my own "boss" talk
A night at the Royal Opera house for a treat of ballet and Opera.
