During february i went to San Diego, California. Had a great time with the coolest people ever. Plus, my friend pato was there as exchange student. It was nice to go around the campus skateboarding, it has some pretty modern movement concrete buildings. And accross the main street, there it was. On a cliff above the Pacific Ocean... the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn. Rather than words, 100+ pics to describe it on my architecture blog.

So this semester, i started my FINAL project. It'll take a year, and we've got a sketch of a theme. Public usage buildings in downtown, and during the theorical aspect of this we are studying Mies and Le Corbusier, followed by a trip to Brazil in May to see large scale public buildings in... View full entry

As of monday, i started my office internship. In my school you get to do 4 internships in the last 2 years. (arch office, social work, city hall, technological/magazine). This will take one month of my summer. In february i plan on visiting California in the US. This office is very good, the... View full entry

beware!!!! last sutdio is about to finish. what you can learn from a 1/25 model? how to stucture it! if it collapses, real construction will collapse too. Im doing the last physical models, so i can get into some 3D viz that i'll need, working on Plataforma Urbana (a students blog about ciry and... View full entry

this is what im doing (updates..soon?): - moving www.plataformaurbana.cl into an arch+urb blog - studio: designing a teather, researching about acoustics with ecotect - internship: working on construction details for a public square (veeeeeeeeeeeery slow) - social life: national holidays... View full entry

a new semester has started! and this is my last one before my thesis project. so im pretty close on being an architect ;) this semester theme for studios is "Peñalolen" which is a district of the city located at the start of the hills. My studio will focus on a performing arts... View full entry

so i finally finished my semester, after a tought studio i almost failed. but i passed all my classes and im in winter break. will post pics of my studio project and some ecotect work i've been doing. new semester starts in august, arg. ;) but... it was worth all the hassle. i just love... View full entry

i've been slacking on my posts since i've had a pretty busy semester, working on some projects and lots of classes! here's what's keeping me busy studio: this semester all the studios have a comon place, called parque sur (southpark... !??!?!?!). in the limit between 4 districts that have... View full entry

So im finally done with internship, and project was shown with only a few crits (some floor textures, define some tree species and make a demolition plan). They loved it, and it has high chances of being built!!! :) would be my first built project, i'd be so happy. The plan looks weird here... View full entry

i wonder how is the dorm system in the US... wonder if it's like in the movies ;) as for us, in chile, we dont have dorms. so if you are from another city, all you can do is either rent a room, rent an apartment or live in a relative's home. i've tried everything: from living alone (first year out... View full entry

Well, after traveling around the city, watching the work city hall has been doing in public spaces i've been getting to know all the elements they use: vegetation, chairs, public furniture, and specially the textures/colours/materials. with this elements not it's time to start working proposasls... View full entry

so after finishing studio this december (which i did pretty well...) i was ready for a whole summer of fun (southern hemisphere), but i decided to do my internship. i don't know if that's the word you guys use when you work while you are still a student, and you gotta report that work to the... View full entry

well, semester is over and im headed for summer vacations................................. NO!!!!!!!!! internship during january.. working @ city hall in a parking lot reconversion..which sounds nice :) well, i didnt post much because of my broken camera, but now i have some stuff to show about my... View full entry

Well, seems that the "after class" party we threw at college was a success... ppl from both design and architecture schools, ranging from studio 2 to ppl doing their thesis...it was very nice, but guards werent happy at all since we didnt wanted to leave when campus was being closed (we dont have... View full entry

This is a theoric classes tests week, so we arent forced to work on studio...but since im going so slow im working on it for tomorrow's critic, and studying for advanced structures (earthquakes/wind/etc) test on friday.my library's perspective: two big walls holding boxes that contain the... View full entry

CHARLA DE ALEJANDRO ARAVENA se presentará en videoconferencia desde Harvard Fecha: Martes 12 Octubre Hora: 18.oo hrs. Lugar: Auditorio Sergio Larraín.Lo Contador translation: ALEJANDRO ARAVENA LECTURE videoconference from Harvard i highly... View full entry

Ok, so while i was thinking in more ideas for my library, i decided to visit my university's brand new Med school building. One amazing project, done by A Arevena (PUC.Harvard) and F Perez (PUC.ETSAB). It's very well acomplished, in terms of puting a modern building next to the beaux art (1894)... View full entry

Well, another week with good news. .i found out that my camera works, i just have to press the usb connector to it, it's kinda lose. Im posting pics of the finished chair. I hope you guys liked the postings, from the renders, to the construction and now the final chair. Now, on the construction... View full entry

Well, looks like my digital camera broke (USB connection isnt working) so i gotta take my memory sticks somewhere else to download the pics.. BOOOOH new camera this xmas :D Urbanism wasn't that good last week: my paper wasnt good enough, because i confused the term "mutations". i tougth it was a... View full entry

This has been one hell of a busy week! studio on monday = no weekend at all... but i did well, now im almost done with the program distribution. Whole tusday-wed was spent working on a chair for my digital construction and modeling class: a wodden chair made out of slices (a mix between aalto's... View full entry

First month at school in a nutshell: I'm not on the excercising stage of my career. 4th and 5th year students get mixed around a theme, in different studios. This year theme was the Mapocho rive, which goes across our city (Santiago, Chile). Studios by Guillermo Jullian (Le Corbusier's atelier... View full entry