Off-Campus Locations

Here are the ten locations I have to decide between for my off- campus semester next fall.

Amsterdam
Berlin
Barcelona
Syracusa
Rome
Puerto Rico
Santiago
Prague
Lisbon
Cardiff

I have a strong desire to go to Amsterdam, but have yet to decide where I will go. I believe that my final selection has to be made by Thanksgiving.

Off campus: Barcelona, Berlin, Syracusa?

My studio has been presented 3 of our 10 off campus locations for next year. I will post more on each choice after I do more research. My initial impressions are that Berlin and Barcelona will be near the top of my lists both seem like lively dense cities (definitely the type of city I am looking for). I am excited to see where I might end up...

Barcelona, Spain

Berlin, Germany

Syracusa, Italy

BIG lecture

Last week I managed to fit into the packed Slocum auditorium at SU to see Bjarke Ingels present a lecture titled Hedonistic Sustainability. Bjarke Ingels is the founder of the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) based out of Copenhagen, Denmark.

It was a very refreshing and interesting presentation. I couldn't help but be absolutely amazed at the uniqueness and clearness of his work. Each project he presented had a clear large concept and was presented in such a way that you were convinced that it was the only possible solution to the issue at hand. Bjarke has a unique ability to bring humor to both his work and presentation; definitely something I have not seen from many of the other lectures at SU or ESF.

There were far too many projects presented for me to comment on any in particular, but they all were connected by there ability to begin to connect complex systems together, in a way forming an architectural ecosystem. I hope to be able to have my off campus study (more to come on this later) be related to this kind of large scale thinking.

Loop City

Loop City

I highly encourage anyone interested in learning more about BIG's work to explore their website. It has a great amount of images for each project. I particularly like how the website is organized the icons are a great representation of Bjarke's style. Also BIG has several books published on their work. I plan on ordering their monograph Yes is More, later this week.

Tomorrow, Walter Hood is presenting at SU. I hope to make over to see his presentation. It is great and rather fascinating to see that SU architecture has had a long list of landscape architects present in the past year.

Furnished

Last week I attended the exhibit furnished at Syracuse Architecture School. The exhibit was an exhibition of department faculty's experiments in furniture design.

The work was very fascinating and what struck me most was the craftsmanship of the furniture. In particular I was interested in a chair made using a 3d scanner. The professor modeled the chair after the form of her own body making the ultimate personal chair.

Another interesting piece was a one legged table. It was made of wood and assembled in a unique way.  The table appears to stand effortlessly against the wall; I am sure no easy feat to design.

I highly recommend to anyone in the Syracuse area to stop in and see furnished. It is a rather small exhibit and can be absorbed in just a few minutes. The exhibition runs until October 11 and is located in Slocum Gallery.

There are a few more exhibitions and lectures coming up at Slocum. I will post more on them in the coming weeks.

West Onondaga Social Influences

Check out my group project from forth year landscape architecture studio at SUNY-ESF. We are studying the major catalysts in the downtown Syracuse and are trying to harness some of their energy and focus it towards our site.

Posters (PDF)


More drawings and project statements to come as my work develops.

Santa Barbara Zoo

While in Santa Barbara I visited the Santa Barbara Zoo. It was a small but very nice zoo. The zoo was on only 30 acres but had over 500 animals. Also the grounds were very well maintained and made each exhibit feel separate from the rest of the zoo.

 Below are a series of photos from my day at the zoo.

Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens

One of my stops while on vacation last week was the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens. The 65 acre botanical gardens are located in Mission Canyon and features over a 1000 species. The video below explains more about the gardens.



The gardens were organized by different native habitats of California. The map below shows the layout and sequence of the garden.

Trail Map (source)

The first garden upon entering was the meadow section. The meadow section was contained by a looping path. I was impressed by the diversity of native shrubs and grasses in the meadow section. In particular I liked the contrast of the grey shrubs against the greens and browns of the other meadow species.

Meadow Path

Native Shrubs and Grasses

The trail from the meadow section led us down a steep ravine into a shady canyon full of large redwoods. The large trees managed to block out most of sun but where the sun did break through it made beautiful shadows on the ferns and clover that covered the canyon floor. The clover had some sort of symbiotic relationship with the redwood trees. We flowed rocky stream along the right side of the garden path to the next garden feature. 

The Understory 

Redwood Trail

The next feature of the botanical gardens was the historic aqueduct. it served as the main water source for the Santa Barbara  Mission. The aqueduct provided great views down the canyon. 

Historic Aqueduct

My favorite section of the botanical gardens was oaks section. I was amazed by canopy created by the Californian Live Oaks. The distorted trunks were unlike any trees I have seen before on the east coast. 

Oak Canopy

There were several other great sections of the garden including a section on the plants of the channel islands and a desert section. 

Desert Section

California Trip

Here are some pictures of various places during my vacation in California.

The Langham in Pasadena

Zen Garden at the Langham

Santa Barbara Mission 

View From Courthouse Tower

Courthouse Stairs

Santa Ynez Mountains

Marina

Sail Boats

Elephant Seals

Last week, while on vacation in California, I visited an elephant seal rookery near San Simeon. At first glance the beach appeared empty and we started to wonder what we were doing on such a cold and windy beach. Fortunately we just had to walk down the beach a short distance to find a whole group of seals resting in the sand.

Elephant Seal Rookery

The interactions between the seals were fun to watch. Most of the seals didn't move very much but those that did could only move by wiggling in short bursts. Other seals seemed quite content shoveling sand on themselves with their back flippers.

Flinging Sand 

We quickly learned that August is fighting season for the males. The battles never lasted for more than a few seconds but they were incredible to watch. 

Two Bulls Fighting

Fighting Male Elephant Seals

The differences between the male and female seals was immediately apparent.  The males were significantly larger than the females. One of the info graphic signs on the beach said that the males can reach sixteen feet in length and weigh over 6000 pounds. The females can reach a length of 10 feet and can weigh near 2000 pounds. 

Female Seal

Male Seal

View Down the Beach

Erie Boulevard Figure Ground Studies

I made this video this morning out of curiosity. The images are from a group project in my spring 2011 studio class at SUNY-ESF. Each figure ground is actually a composite of six 2'x2' tiled images making the final compiled images twelve feet long. The five drawings were done to highlight the dross located on a three mile stretch of Erie Boulevard. 

Figure Ground Studies For Erie Boulevard from Zachary Barker on Vimeo.

Newseum

Newseum (source)

I visited the Newseum in Washington DC for the first time today. Before even entering the museum, we were presented today's front pages from fifty newspaper's representing each state. It was really interesting to see how the front story varied across each region, but sadly the Indiana state fair tragedy was the focus of most papers.

Alaskan Newspaper (source)

First stop inside the museum was the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery. It was my favorite exhibit and definitely the one I will recommend friends to see. The gallery had every prize winning photograph dating back to the 1950s. Each photograph seemed to be a symbol for the era they were taken in. The majority of the images were unbelievable in the the way they were able to capture the perfect moment when the photographer only had a split second to react.

Pulitzer Gallery (source)

After the Pulitzer gallery we headed downstairs to visit the Berlin Wall Gallery. The centerpiece of the exhibit were eight pieces of the Berlin Wall.  The gallery told the story of how news and information helped bring an end the the wall. In a way it made me think of the similarities with social media's role in the Middle East political uprisings.

Berlin Wall (source)

There were several other interesting exhibits in the Newseum but the one that left the most lasting impression was the 9/11 exhibit. The centerpiece of the exhibit was a portion of mangled satellite antenna that was once the highest point in NYC. The mangled steel was a disturbing realization of how destructive that day was. The film "Running Towards Danger" was playing in the gallery's theatre. It focused on journalists on scene the day of the attacks and how they reacted to such a horrible day. 

Another great part of the museum was the Hank Greenspun Terrace overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue. The view was incredible thanks to the building regulations in DC restricting the height of the surrounding buildings. As a landscape architect student it was interesting to see how the security measures protecting government buildings were camaflogued into the streetscape. 

Terrace View (source)

We could have easily spent all day in the museum but after a few hours we were ready to eat. We went to the tasty mexican restaurant Oyamel on 7th street. The restaurant specialized in authentic small plate mexican dishes. Believe it or not they even had a cricket taco on the menu. I had to try it and it was surprisingly my favorite dish of the evening.  

Oyamel Restaurant (source)

We took the beautiful George Washington Memorial Parkway on the way home. It was amazing to see how thoughtfully the road was laid out each bend seemed to provide a more spectacular view of the Potomac and Georgetown University. As I stared out the window I found myself wishing I was one of the people relaxing on the boats below. It was a nice way to end an amazing day in our nation's capitol. 

George Washington Memorial Parkway (source)