productive procrastination

37 days, 106 views, 0 posts... less really is more

It has been more than a month and it feels as though i've been here just more than few hours and just short of a lifetime. I've been a little apprehensive to jump onto the blogging band wagon. So much has happened that I don't even know where to begin. Our first studio project is already over. Piazza di Pietra proved to be a bit of a challenge, but it got a lot easier after we stopped studying Piazza San Peitro and started researching Piazza di Pietra (whoops). Things like are bound to happen when you have a completely random group of Stephanie, Steph, and Stephen. One could also argue that things like that are bound to happen when only look at the project sheet once. It took a leap of faith, but the project was fairly successful. Like all great things, it wasn't without a few speed bumps.  The layout (not a grid - xanax please) forced me to step outside of my comfort zone.  It might have been the most important thing i've done in the last three years. From the instant that the second layer of drawings went down, i felt the chains break. I was set free from the orthogonal, rigid, gridded, ruled, slaved spatial organization that is my mind. It was truly liberating.

So as for the rest of Rome... i'm going to do word/phrase associations

children = mini adults
campo de fiore = tranformation
dr higgins = mrs weasley
collosseum = overrated
pantheon = unfathomable
wedding cake (vittorio emanuele) = not AS gaudy as i had imagined... im kind of warming up to it
top of the wedding cake = "i can see russia from my house"
campidoglio = scale
via del corso = saldi/sardines
ara pacis = materials
forum = every latin translation I ever did in high school and can barely remember
spanish steps = need to be seen at night
trevi fountain = walked by with my eyes closed because after seeing the spanish steps, id rather see it for the first time at night and tourist free
giolitti = where gelati went to heaven
san crispino = where gelati is overrated
tiber island = romes beach club/hospital? (theres a new building typology for you)
pantheon = still unfathomable
parco della musica = materials and details
renzo piano = san renzo piano
maxxi = anxiety
zaha hadid = ursula
someone speaking to me in italian = "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
being mistaken for a roman in fiumucino = completely unexpected
bar farnese = best coffee in the campo
angelo (little old man with green blazers at bar farnese) = CIAO BUONGIORNO!!! GRAZIE MILE!!!
cafe farnese = best chocolado caldo in the campo
forno = best lunch spot in the camp (zucchine e mozarella panino)
piazza navona = somehow appropriately scaled
capitoline museum cafe = the best view of rome
walking around hearing romans talk = i really want to learn this language
italian class = im never going to learn this language
our dorms = ghetto nursing home
italian coffee = how am i ever going to go back to drinking the burnt mud in america?
this blog = not as painful as anticipated (i may even do this regularly)


thats about all I have for now. more to follow...