Wow it has been a bit since my last post! What have i done since then?! Last weekend five friends and i went to Rome. We were there for three full days and got to really explore the city and it was so much fun! It is a really touristy city but great for a visit. We also had to do sketches of analysis for our sketching class for multiple areas, as well as observe a topic of choice to document. I chose green space in urban fabric for the fact that a lot of cities have become to dense and lack green space to bring nature into the man made.

The first day we went to the Vatican and went through Saint Peters and the Sistine Chapel. I got to see paintings by Michelangelo and Raphael. It was some of the most beautiful work i have ever seen. Saint peters was like nothing i have ever seen. And because we were also doing work for studio, i looked at the plaza out front and the design of the zones inside of the cathdral and ended up using what i figured out about the zones of the cathedral in our project. When we walked over to go see the Sistine Chapel, we had to walk through the longest path through what felt like the entire museum to get to the actual chapel. But in the museum we saw a map that the vatican had made a very long time ago of what the world looked like and the Americas where like a big blob looking thing on the left hand side. It was really funny to see. After that, four of us went to go see the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, which is an area of roman ruins where royalty as well as other events occured right next door to the Colosseum. The green space that ihave noticed so far in Rome is where the ruins lay. The ruins are surrounded by greenery and not touched for preservation purposes. Other than that there doesnt appear to be other green spaces other than the trees along the river. We ended the day meeting up with the rest of the people at the Spanish Steps, which is supposed to have lots of potted greenery, but apparently in the winter it is barren except for the people sitting on the steps. I would love to see the difference that the plants make to the steps when they are all out. In pictures it looks amazing.

The second day we started with a trek to go see the pantheon. We have learned so much about it that it was something we all had to see and put aside a lot of time for. When we got there we walked around and sketched the relationship of the interior space to the exterior space. It was a really neat building to see, but kind of anti-climactic to what i thought i was going to see. But it was definately an awesome building. After the Pantheon we roamed through the city to see multiple plazas and the Trevi Fountain that is a very big tourist attraction. At the fountain we got to get Gelati which is amazing! As expected to be in Italy. I did studies of circulation and zones in multiple plazas so that i could use them as precedence studies for my studio project, and created pages of sketches to bring back for the studies.

The third day we woke up and went to see the pope speak at the Vatican and that was soooo cool. There were a lot of people there, but not as many as i expected to see on a sunday morning. He gave a speech in seven languages! It was pretty cool to hear. After that we went as a group to a plaza called Campo Doglio and then my studio group split of and we did more studies of plazas for our project. It was a pretty relaxed day, i got to try these folded pizza thing and a beer. It was an awesome lunch. Then we walked around until later in the day and went to a nice italian dinner for the third time. Such good food!

We woke up monday morning at 3am to cath a bus to the airport. It was such a bad idea to have an early am flight because the bus doesnt run as often and rome was freezing! But we got to the airport and on the plane and then directly back to Barcelona and studio.

Rome was a really cool city, but very touristy. I would love to go back and travel the areas outside of the city. At the end of the trip i realized that there are a decent amount of green spaces around the city, but they are mainly located around Roman ruins. It is a very chaotic city, yet very cool at the same time. Maybe i will take my family back there and i can see it from a different point of view!

Its been so long since i have posted anything! But here i go!



For the past week we have been traveling through southern spain. It was the most amazing time every. We traveled through Madrid, Cordoba, Granada and Sevilla. We spent 2-3 days in each city, and did sketches at buildings we visited and had a lot of free time to walk around.



Our first city we visited was madrid. We flew there last saturday, and saturday afternoon walked the city and got to go to this plaza that was huge. We spent alot of time sketching observations that we made and then got to roam back across the city to our hotel. I actually relaly enjoyed the walk because we got to see a lot of the city that we probably wouldnt otherwise have seen has we not. The second day in madrid it was raining, but we got to go visit a couple museums and draw some analytical sketches of the way new and old parts of the buildings relate and interconnect. We wlaked through this park in the middle of the city that had a lot of cool stuff in it, old statues and memorials and what not. That night we went out to dinner at a brazilian barbecue place, and then to watch the superbowl at a bar in the city. It was so awesome that we found a place to watch superbowl, there were a lot of us that were really excited. We met some people that day from Clemson that are living and studying in barcelona and a grout of architecture majors from wales. The next morning at the crack of dawn we woke up and caught a train to go to Cordoba.



Cordoba was a shorter stay, only one night, but it was a lot of fun to see the old Mosque and what not. We got to go into the mosque and sketch and it was a really cool building. It is not used for religious stuff anymore, so it has kind of been turned into a museum feeling space. I though we were going to see this really authentic mosque, but the christians came in and turned it into a cathedral. i was really disappointed to see some of the changes that had been made, but it was still a lot of fun to see something so old and really get to sit down and observe it and sketch it. The picture shows the inside of the mosque in cordoba, which is unique because it uses a double horse shoe arch, which when one arch on top of the other but instead of just curving down and into the column at the bottom of the arch it continues a bit more looking like its almost trying to complete the circle.



Part three was Granada. This city was so cool, and the first night we got to go on top of one of the hills to a platform and watch the sun set behind the Alhambra. The picture to the right shows the Alhambra after the sun was set and they turned the lights on. It was so beautiful it is hard to explain. The Alhambra is on top of the big hill next to where we were sitting, and behind it were mountains, some of them capped with snow. The next day we explored the city, went into the Alhambra and basically got to really get a feel for where we were. This was a city that was not huge but had a lot of character and was a lot of fun. I did a lot of shopping here, which i hadnt done in the other cities. I got paintings and a bag. Also, granada is known for its Tea Houses, and the teas that have pieces of fruit and what not in them. I bought a lot of tea, hopefully it will last to be able to give as gifts.



Sevilla was the last city we visited and definately my favorite. The first day i went down to the river and sketched and got to see the Calatrava bridge as well as a lot of other cool bridges that were on the river. Here i finally got to explore the makeup of this design that i had seen in a lot of the Moors architecture that we had seen. It is a star, but it is a little different then a lot of things that i had seen. We also went into the Cathedral de Sevilla, (the picture to the left) and Christopher Columbus' tomb is in it. There was a tower that when at the top you could look out over the entire city. This city just has so much i guess the way i would put it is flavor and character. It has a lot of old courtyards and stone sidewalks and old buildings. There is a complex called Real Alcazar that was a lot of fun to see, it was huge and had the most beautiful gardens.

Hmm, Updates.....well nothing new has really happened. Yesterday we had our first jury/review. It was really laid back, but was where we basically presented our work that we have done so far. It went pretty well, i got a lot of good advice and direction that i could definately use had i had some more time.
Tomorrow mornign we are leaving to go travel all around southern spain. We get to madrid tomorrow, then go to cordoba, granada and seville. It should be fun. There is a lot of cool architecture there so we will all be very entertained. And madrid is supposed to be a crazy city to go out in so we are all pretty excited.
Other than that there is nothing really all that interesting. I am sure i will have along post after this trip. SO until then, Have a good week!