Bike Ride through Guardamar

This is a joint post from Kayla and Jen.

J --- I've been seeing more how the field of architecture calls us to be students of the world, requiring close observations of places and people, late night explorations of the castle and its surroundings, feeling the pulse of the city and the life that lays within it.

Last night Kayla and I rented mountain bikes right as the bike shop was closing. In our broken Spanish, we asked for bikes "por la noche." For only 6 euros each, we had the bikes until 10am the next morning. We locked them together to a street sign and excitedly agreed to meet after dinner.

We met up again at 9:30pm. Our ride started out by biking south towards the urbanizations. I thought about how they reminded me of Le Corbusier's Domino House, and made a mental note to bike back there during the daytime. Then, starting at the southern end of Guardamar, we biked along the promenade until we hit the sand dunes. As the sun started to set, we rode through the park with cacti, palm trees, and other trees flying past us.

K --- It was pretty dark by the time we came to the marina, where the Rio Segura empties out into the Mediterranean Sea. It was beautiful out there - we stopped multiple times so I could take pictures of the lights shimmering on the water. We rode about halfway down the pier and stopped again to admire the view.

On our way back, everyone was out in the streets celebrating Spain's victory in the World Cup game against Portugal - people here are much more supportive of their soccer team! They were driving down the streets and hooking their horns, riding on bikes with huge flags attached to them, and decked out in red and yellow.

We made it back to the plaza we started in and locked up our bikes to another street sign so we could return them in the morning. Hopefully we’ll get another chance to explore other parts of the town; it’s small, but there are many different neighborhoods to check out!


-- Jen Tai and Kayla Solheim

Barcelona

I travelled to Barcelona a couple of weekends ago with Eriko. Barcelona was one of the cities that I really wanted to visit in Spain so I was really excited. Sagrada Familia was definitely the most shocking, but I am going to talk about Park Guell, which I visited on my last day. We were actually very upset in the beginning, because as we started walking uphill to arrive at the park, the weather started to change and it started raining. Although we were prepared because we bought an umbrella in advance at El Corte Ingles in Alicante, it was not what we wanted our park day to be: in the rain, with our cameras, trying to take a picture of the whole city, which was just gloomy.

But, as we walked through the winding roads trying to not get ourselves wet, the weather started to change again. I really felt like the Berkeley weather was following us all the way in Spain.

What was memorable about the Park was that because it is an outdoor environment, the activities that took place were different compared to Gaudi’s other works. There were street musicians performing in the colonnade as well as the peristyle hall under the park. There were violinists, guitarists, as well as a duet with a violin and a bass player. Walking through the different areas that Gaudi designed, I felt like I would hear different types of music from Pachelbel Cannon to a more traditional Spanish guitar song—or what sounded like it.

Not only were there musicians, but street merchants were selling cheap accessories and souvenirs in the park as well, targeting the tourists like myself.

As we started to see the sun again, there were so many more people invading the Park. People trying to take pictures at that perfect spot where you see Gaudi’s slanted columns, with the view of the entire city with the Sagrada Familia in the background, as well as the famous lizard. It was really hard not to get anyone in our picture.

We are all tourists here. But as my hard-drive is becoming full from thousands of picture I took, I keep thinking that I wish I could experience these environments in a different context. This is how I felt when I visited the Prado Museum in Madrid. As I saw all these famous artworks of early Christian religious paintings as well as Velasquez and Goya’s works I learned in my Art History class, I felt so overwhelmed that I was not appreciating every work. As they place 50 paintings on each wall, making the viewer walk through the hall way, I felt like the value of each art piece was diminished. It would have been better if they were all in its original context, where there were found.

-Maya

There Are No Mistakes

As the first class to experience Arch Studio 101 in España, we had no idea what to expect. At the level of every other studio at Cal we had to enter the studio space with a humbled open mind ready to absorb new creative knowledge. The hope is always that the professor and their respective curriculum will challenge each student’s design aesthetic and abilities. I am pleased to report that this trip has become a worth while experience that has affected me academically and will prove useful to me in the professional realm. The relaxed nature of the Spanish lifestyle would seem to be a perk of the program, but in contrast to the tension of Wurster hall, I was actually unaware of how to approach design from a non-obsessively critical perspective. Then Alex presented the first assignment of the semester with the command:

“There are no mistakes, only evidence of process”.

We were drawing directly on one of our only pieces of presentation paper and we were not to erase…EVER. Each assignment was to be drawn directly on top of the other as to show the process of discovery in your final conclusion. This was a scary endeavor for a perfectionist like me, but given that I was in Spain…I was resolved to relax and go with the flow. Up until now Studio and relaxing have been polar opposites. I have always enjoyed design work but accepted that it would never be stress free. This class has changed everything for me. I have fallen in love with not erasing! If there are NO mistakes then I can NEVER be wrong; and if what flows out of my hand is always right what is there to be stressed about!? Our only mistake would be to stop seeking answers to the questions presented by the site for which we were to design. Twenty-five Berkeley scholars were dropped into an off the map town in a foreign country with nothing but a blank studio store front. Our space has now been transformed into a bustling hub of free-flowing thought and spontaneous design. Being forced to break out of our familiar time constrained lives has given life to rich design concepts habitually suppressed under controlled facades of critiqued students. My outlook is forever changed.

- Jenni Tures

LA ALHAMBRA. GRANADA.

For a free travel weekend several of us went to Granada to see La Alhambra. The architecture of the Palace in Alhambra was astounding. The walls and ceilings are covered with intricate designs and mosaics. La Alhambra is the main attraction in Granada so waves of people stroll through the Palace and Gardens. While visiting Alhambra many of us would sit down to sketch causing a spectacle. Many people would stop and watch us as we observe our surroundings often taking pictures of us drawing in our sketchbooks. Often times the architecture and ornamentation of Alhambra was overwhelming with the large amounts of people invading the space. It often became quite difficult to capture images without large swarms of tourists groups in the background. After taking architectural history at Berkeley it was fascinating to see and study the building first hand, rather than staring at it from a textbook. All of the information I learned in architectural history came alive as I walked through Alhambra. Granada has definitely become one of my favorites cities due to its abundant amount of character and spaces that are rich in the culture. -Cara W.

Week of Mid review

Seating in my living room wishing for internet….hopeless. Getting internet here is like a precious commodity, well for us anyways. These past 5 days have been mainly working towards mid-review. Its that time when we go from analysis to form quite scary…but Alex has been very gentle with the transition and has pushing us in the right direction. On Monday, we did an ambush quick sit analysis…CHAOS!! Quite informative.

Look at Scott! Our team is working so hard!

Look at how we invade our site! The site morphs into the site the site into the architecture. Continuing to work… please note the blue tape. Even in Spain I have my blue tape close to me during studio!

Then after studio we went home and cooked chicken! We are very fancy at Apt 2C…we make rice out of chicken broth…zucchini’s with soy sauce! It was quite delicious actually.

Then on Tuesday we continued working on our mylar adding more information on it.

Today we worked really hard towards mid-review…. But to get my creative juices running I went to visit the castle to understand the landscape more. ..finally discovered the walkway that wraps around the castle…great find…then I found Scott, Maya, Kathrine, and Kayla….they were trying to climb up a hill over the wall…. My first reaction was like ……….what are they doing….then Scott was like Christine your turn….I was like OK! Luckily I had shoes on because those bushes are sharp! After some rock climbing I MADE IT!

At this moment I will go work really hard on my rhino model. Good night.

- Christine L.