YO.

I'm back again.  Geez.  Lots of posts lately.  One week of school down, 15 to go.  Monday off.  Nice way to start the semester so far.  First semester out of four now that has started uneventfully-

Fall 07- Tiffany moves here a week before I start school.

Spring 08- Grandma gets sick.  Etc.

Fall 08- I move.

Spring 09- NOTHING GOING ON!  At least nothing life-changing with repercussions for months on end.  Its pretty nice. 

I have four classes, three of which I was able to choose the professors for(and thus the topics).  So I have a Tech class called Optimize/Maximize, that will work in conjunction with my Studio design (multiple unit housing, this semester, on 5 Chicago lots- 125'x125') and a program called Revit that is a 3D modeling program- I can design a building for example with a specific wall construction (choosing types of insulation, etc.) and find out how well it insulates, and change the insulation for the whole building on the fly to see what the change in energy use and material cost would be.  Sweet.  We get to take material cost, energy use, size, shape, etc into account and decide what is important to us and how to get the most from the least- say I want a big building with minimal energy use.  So I make a box- less surface area, less heating/cooling costs, less material.  Etc.  So that's cool.  

My other two classes are theory.  One is Pacific Northwest Modern Housing- gonna be pretty cool.  Frank Lloyd Wright and a few other Modernists, very good at getting the most from the least, very interested in articulating spaces within homes to make them interesting, usable, cozy, dramatic, whatever.  Being taught by a guy who is old and studied under Mies van der Rohe at IIT, where I could have gone to school instead.Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  He's important, especially in the Modernist world, especially in Chicago.  All the big black steel and glass buildings he either designed or had copied off of him.

Last class is called The Flattening City, and its about the relationship between the city and the suburbs, particularly here in Chicago, but in all major cities in the US.  Not a "suburbs are bad" kind of class, but just an examination- how to bring aspects of the suburbs to the city (where's a WalMart when I need one?) and how to bring aspects of the city to the suburbs (what do you mean, "Public Transportation"?).  Its awesome as well.

So that's it for now.  Except not, cause there's another post coming.  Except its above this one, so you probably already read it.  Whoops.