It has been a very strange couple of months as the family has suffered a series of personal events that I won't go into detail here, instead I thought I would regale you with tales of my Spring Break and the current happenings of TOIstudio.
We spent a week in Charlotte, NC recently as my sister just had her first child and the girlfriend and I thought it would be nice to go help out for a while as they got situated with the new addition. The kid is cute, but doesn't really do much. I don't have a grasp on child development so I am not exactly sure at what age a mini bike is an appropriate gift. My sister and her family reside in a planned community south of Charlotte, sort of similar to a lifestyle center. There are shops and restaurants down a private drive with condos and apartments off to the side offering the sort of living amenities that home owners usually take for granted. I spent most of the time in shorts and flip flops consciously aware of the climate differences between Charlotte and Cleveland, Ohio (where TOIstudio is based), sitting outside, reading and staring intently at the construction details of the condos.
Different climates build differently, that seems obvious, until you start to experience the lack of airlock vestibules in restaurants or the exterior escalators that would last all of 14 days in Cleveland (Summer or no, we have road salt particulates wafting in the air, ready to settle and spoil any mechanical contraptions), connecting exterior spaces adjacent to eateries and shopping. Exterior spaces that in late March, are in heavy use. There is quite a bit of recent construction in Charlotte (say in the last 10 years) as it has become a powerful financial banking center. The recent construction bust has left it's mark on the skyline with a few incomplete projects. The recently completed projects however show the mark of half understood tongue in cheek "new urbanism" and "faux mixed use" that is also prevalent in quite a bit of local Cleveland construction, what we lovingly call "town-shacks". You know the sort; containing the "brick" ground floor with vinyl siding above with interspersed blockings of EIFS (fake stucco), attempting to create a rhythmic facade that instead becomes confused by the window arrangement, sizes and scales. Where the masonry isn't really done that well and the trim isn't quite straight or aligned and the whole thing feels slapdashed and not as rustic as one hopes, especially when there are miles, literally MILES of it.
However the people there don't mind. They didn't seem to be bothered by architectural faux pas that must have been imported with the population that migrated from the Cleveland area. Not once did a single inhabitant follow my gaze to a lintel detail and shake their head in solidarity of poor flashing execution. Instead they seem to just relish the sun and the fact that while most of the northeastern USA shivers under mounds of snow their light dustings are excuses to call in sick for school or work. If only they knew (although a lot of the ex-pats DO KNOW, which is why they are there in the first place).
I sat and read and drew and played with a new baby and watched some rather horrible tv selections with my family (that we laughed at wholeheartedly) and completely put aside any thoughts of architecture in Cleveland. It was the best Spring Break ever.
So what's new? Well, I hate the sort of people that intone that "new things are in the works, just wait and see!" because that sort of tease never delivers and to be honest it isn't much of a tease regardless. Instead some quick bullet points.
TOIstudio is currently constructing/retrofitting a shared fabrication shop space with a local artisan and has already completed some work (which will find itself on the webbernet site as soon as photos are taken). The idea is attempt to focus on reinforcing the ideology that design and fabrication has to go hand in hand some. Not a groundbreaking new thought, but something that I have been wanting to do since college and have yet to find a place that would let me do it, so instead, dammit, I will do it myself. That was a lot of commas there.
We are also working on an
augmented reality project that will start to reveal itself around the city of Cleveland. Partially for a client, partially for fun, mostly because I like to make and do things and darn it the sun is coming out.
Most importantly, TOIstudio has taken a long self reflective look at what we want to do (I want to do, its all about me right now) and what "happiness is" (ugh) and what needs to be done to get there. Crazy as it sounds this past winter has been especially harsh on the hopes and aspirations of which I take accountability for. Time to stop scheming and start implementing. Think King Missile "It's Saturday".
It's gonna be a whole new decade. Oh, and I have a stack of book reviews to post, some way too old (but will go up anyway) some way to obtuse (I blame the author of the book being reviewed).
Lets get to work.
