This week, I built by far the most challenging model yet. This model was difficult to build because it had a very oddly shaped roof. This roof involved 12 different triangles fit together at angles to allow water runoff. It's difficult to visualize but the photos of the model are at the top of the project page. I also helped to build different models for a building on the UNM campus in Albuquerque.
During my second week of the internship, I worked at Bora building models out of foam for a meeting to build a new school. I created 4 different models as possibilities for how the school would be shaped and where it would fit on the property. It took me almost 3 full days to build all of these but when they were done, we went to the school, I set up the models and we had a 4 hour meeting with school board members, parents, students and faculty members.
This first week has been one of the best weeks of my life. Each morning, I wake up, get ready and ride my bike 10 miles on bike paths through the forest and the city to work. At Feildwork I've been sitting in on various meetings with clients, making visits to construction sites, and helping to design and build models. Since this week was my only week at Fieldwork, on Friday I did a sort of final project. In the morning, after my ride, Caleb took me up to Forest Park where we had to check out a bridge that needed replacing. My job was to design a bridge that incorporated their general ideas and was practical and efficient for its location. Pictures of everything that I did this week are posted on the project tab.
Since I was a small child, I've loved designing things. I used to lay out huge pieces of parchment paper on my living room floor and draw intricate designs of tree houses with beds, fireplaces, water balloon cannons, and any assortment of ridiculous accessories. When my brother and I would play with LEGOs, he would be making his lego man run around the room while I figured out how to make an elevator move up and down in my lego mansion. Now I enjoy designing and building ski jumps, mountain bike trails, and continuously find myself enjoying work at school in which I can be building or designing something.
During my Internship, I hope to learn how my love for building and designing could be turned into a career. Although I don't have much of an idea of exactly what I will be doing, I hope that by the end of my three weeks, I will have a design or drawing that I'm proud of and something that I built physically to show my family and friends. Since freshman year, I have known that I wanted to do my internship with our good family friend Tom at Boora Architects. I had my heart set on going to Portland and following up on my childhood obsession with drawing tree houses and designing and building intricate lego house models. Since I knew where I wanted to go, who I would be staying with, and what business I would be working with, I figured I was all set and didn't get into the details. Although since the beginning of junior year I knew there would be a lot of paperwork and planning to go along with the internship, I put it off. Unfortunately, when the lack of plans caught up with me, I realized that there was a huge scheduling problem. I would be in Sun Valley Idaho and Steamboat springs for the first two weeks of the internship time trying to win a few national titles in freestyle skiing. On top of this, Tom would be in Durango during the third week and not at work! Because of this initial conflict, Tom mentioned that he has some friends at a super cool architecture and design workshop called Fieldwork, also in Portland, at which I could do the first week of my internship while he was in Durango. After doing some research about this additional company, I was incredibly excited to work with them for some of the time. When Tom and I contacted Fieldwork however, we discovered that my mentor there would also be out of town during my desired timeframe. This was terrible news. However, instead of giving up and simply finding a less complicated internship in Durango, I found a solution. After my two weeks of ski competitions, I would come back to Durango for a week, get ahead on some school work, and then go to Portland, sacrificing two additional weeks of school. This solved the problem, Tom helped me finalize the paperwork, and I'll be hitting the ground running as soon as I get back. Whoever is reading this must be incredibly exhausted and should probably take a nap.
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AuthorGeorge McQuinn ArchivesCategories |