diseño urbano

portola valley

pier 70

hell's angels in the dogpatchhey yall,

yesterday was my first day of the last studio i'll take here in this masters program. in class last week, i was getting nervous about my skills in this advanced design atmosphere...i secretly whispered to my legendary professor, peter bosselman, that i didn't know auto-CAD, and he secretly whispered back "me neither!" we chuckled at our shared use of pens and paper...

this weekend, i decided to throw my fears aside, and try to have as much fun as possible in class this semester. my first adventure will be to learn how to use the laser cutter to make a topographic model of the site... ;)

so, yesterday we took a trip into san francisco to learn about the portola valley watershed, which was the original route travelers took into the city. we are going to map this out in every way possible, examine it, and make a plan for increasing density in the valley. the second half of the semester, we'll be focusing on the slips over near bayview / hunters point, currently the last area of industrial use in SF.

seeing the valley and the watershed was really neat. i wasn't sure what i was supposed to do besides walk around and take pictures, but the views were interesting and the walking was fun. prof bosselman (the boss?) has a tendency to find all of the strangest parts of the urban form - interrupted street grids, grassy trails through urban neighborhoods, hells angels headquarters at the old waterline abutting new landfill...everything that makes san francisco magnificent.

i'm lucky to be studying with him, learning this city, and maybe learning a thing or two about new, and old technologies in this field i'm supposedly going to master.

i'll keep you posted...

xo
alis