Spring quarter has finally come to a close, and it feels like it took an excruciating eternity and was also gone in the blink of an eye. I packed up all my pens, clay, rulers, pushpins, food, and many sheets of trace paper from our Landscape Architecture studio in Gould hall on Wednesday; leaving my desk bare and a little sad waiting for the next first year to come along and cover it over again. Today I went back into U-District to tie up some loose ends like library books to the College of Built Environments (CBE) library. When I left I became aware that it could be the last time I go to Gould Hall until next January, quite a thought considering how much of my life has been lived there for the last year.
But enough of this sentimental silliness, on to the exciting travel news!
Tuesday we had one of our last Croatia meetings in studio before everyone left for summer. Winterbottom had been in communication with the hotel we will be living in and had answers to questions we had about our living environment.
He started off with a little talk on a philosophical note, that we will need to understand that we will be guests in this place, there are aspects to their culture we may not understand or even agree with but will nonetheless need to respect and do our best to work with.
Also, we will need to be aware of our infamous American arrogance! He said we may not even realize that we are being arrogant or disrespectful, so for the first while we are in Croatia it would be a good idea to stand back and observe rather than start yammering away. Like that quote, "God gave you two ears and one mouth so use them accordingly." I was a little surprised that no one in the group seemed offended by this. We all seemed to understand that the very nature by which we interact culturally could be offensive to other people, and especially on their home turf when we are guests in their town, region, country, we had better just keep it in check.
With that out of the way we met our TA, Carl who did the last Croatia Design/Build, is a graduate of the program and is also apparently a masonry genius. So as we say in the business SCORE.
Winterbottom gave us a bit more information on the style of design of the area, which I as of now don't know anything about but will fix as soon as possible. He says that Croatia and the general region have set historically based rules for design, that it's very formal. But the interesting part is most of their design is Beaux Arts, which if you don't know much about looks like this:
(This is one from Versailles but you get the idea, they are highly controlled environments where hedges and lawn usually prevail, clipped and manicured within an inch of their lives. You can tell what I generally think about the style but come on! Nothing in nature should be that pyramidal.)
But they apparently also have a deep love and respect of nature with roots going back to pre-Christianity, some educated modern people fully believe that there are fairies in the forest. Can I just say that I would LOVE to design a fairy garden.
Also at the meeting we learned more about the town and exactly where we will be staying. Hotel la Grisa is going to be our home and home base for 2 months, and can I just say that it is SWANKY. (that link also has some great info on the town).
We'll have laundry service, access to wifi and probably have our studio space right in the hotel with access to plotters (big giant printers for posters) nearby. They will prepare all of our meals, maybe even bring them down to us on the job site when we enter the construction phase AND we'll get a bilingual assistant to stay with us more or less constantly to help with the language barrier. Though we won't have access to the kitchen to make any of our own food and we will have to share rooms with one other person... and my diamond shoes are too tight and my $20 don't fit in my wallet. Basically this place sounds amazing, and we are extremely lucky that they will put us up and do all these nice things for us.
Though I'm also very aware that they won't be doing all of this just to be nice, they are going to expect some serious work to get done for all their trouble and by gum I want to give it to them. As Winterbottom said "You're going to be treated like royalty and work like a slave." he was kind of joking, but also a big part of why we are allowed to work there. With an unemployment rate of around 18%, if we were working for any kind of compensation in Croatia other than education and experience there would be a problem.
We know a little bit more of the program for the site now as well. Bale is "The City of Butterflies" and has over 390 different species according to the Hotel la Grisa website. So the design will incorporate a butterfly garden, a performance space, and some kind of community meeting space I think. Still very minimal information, but enough to get the design ball rolling.
I think that's enough information to lay on you at the moment, thanks for reading!
And if you want to know the answer to "Where The Heck Is Caitlin?" currently, the answer is sleeping for just about ever to make up for those last few all-nighters. Sleep tight internet!
