Tosh K

Just buy a version or two older (in the case of AutoCAD the file version change is only every 3 yrs ’04, ’07, ’10, ’13; in Adobe’s case it differs), it seems like half the time I have to save down for a consultant anyway.  And if the client is in Revit, they have to save out the files into AutoCAD anyway.
AutoCAD and Adobe have gone to…[Read more]

Vaux le Vicomte (short train ride to Melun, then a cab from the station to the chateau) Canal du Midi (before they finish cutting all those plane trees down), Parc des Buttes Chaumont (Paris – read Beth Meyer’s essay ‘The Public Park as Avant Garde’ comparing Buttes-Chaumont and de la Villette before going), Parc de la Villette.  Alhambra…[Read more]

I suppose the follow up to all the small firm owners is ‘is it worth it to hire an on-call IT consultant’?

Is there a PC version of ‘Time Machine’?  Apple has ‘Time Machine’ as a way to restore your set up from a backup.

I’ve used Dells a fair amount in various offices, but their lifespan seems to be 3~5yrs (they run too hot at the higher end machines, and end up frying one component or another).  One choice may be is to get a Mac machine but run it o…[Read more]

It’s pretty sad how they forget that the exhibit looks like ‘habitat’ to people, but that the critters probably can feel the artificial quality…

I’d also be curious to see if people feel this is a Gen-Y thing or if this has always been more or less the case.

As a few of my professors told me: “it’s ok to have strong convictions, just be aware that, sometimes, you’re wrong.”

I’ve worked in a few different types of firms:
1. High-end design (12 people): designing pie-in-the-sky parks in the Middle East with (seemingly) unlimited budgets.  We looked at artists and their paintings as starting point and spent a lot of time drawing pretty pictures (2D CAD, 3D CADD, renderings, Photoshop/Illustrator, hand renderings, etc).…[Read more]

Maybe, but aren’t they all members of the licensure boards of 48 states plus few other jurisdictions?  Shouldn’t that tell us something?  And they do get a fair amount of volunteer time to help cover some of the costs.

In my experience they’ve been fine – I chose to take the ABCDE format in the last cycle it was offered, fully understanding the r…[Read more]

Nice accessible article.  I’ve always been fascinated about the perception of places – The idea of what Paris or Tokyo or Berlin is and how they can drive ideas of transformation (and often disregarding, for better or for worse, some of the problems that come with it).
On a related note I love how places are represented and used in movies and…[Read more]

We’re using Surface America’s poured surfacing (lot’s of colors); advantage being it’s flexible in terms of shapes, the disadvantage is having to hire a licensed installer.  The tiles we’ve used are ecore and playguard (best for rectangular spaces), the advantage is the easy install, the disadvantage is there is a bit of frost heave issue.

hope…[Read more]

Raid your local university program?  Dosch used to carry good images (though expensive), but for the most part I either cut them out (and add to my library from school) or when desperate go to one of the image websites (shutterstock, 123rf).

You could try: Central Park Conservancy, NYC Parks & Rec, Friends of Prospect Park, NY ASLA, or any of the big firms. Visa issue may be dicey, but I would think volunteering should be feasible.

Congrats and best wishes!

Indeed, be prepared to do a lot of research to figure out some of the vocabulary; my only piece of advice is that understanding that a Brit is writing it can help crack some of the text.

I gotta say they’re doing quite well – they got more of the theory than the attitude out of corner’s writing 🙂
I do love Martha, learned a lot in the short internship I had there.

Henry: Yeah, I’m not a fan of corner’s but it does get you knee deep and force you to learn the lingo (for better or for worse) and it does cover contemporary (albeit a decade old now) theory in a more general way than some of the other recent publications.  I did have a few classmates who did read it (backgrounds and strong theoretical interest…[Read more]

It’s about creative potential as much as interest: photography, botanical sketches (stuff from your basic community college arts classes).  Lay them out in a graphically thoughtful manner with a short paragraph on your thought process/post-production analysis of each work and it’ll be competitive.  The essay/letter-of-intent/letters of r…[Read more]

• What kind of skills do you need help with? Speed, efficiency, aesthetics?

speed and efficiency; related to it, adaptability (ease of changes, edits) as part of iterative workflow

• Are you interested in specific tutorials? For example, how to create different grass textures, etc.

very much so to expand on some of those included in the…[Read more]

BricsCAD?
http://www.bricsys.com

I recall my classmates using it in school in lieu of AutoCAD (basic version is $450); drawings looked great and it looked easier to use than the Vectorworks/AutoCAD.  I hear it has moderate popularity among smaller building architecture outfits.

Hire on contract – it’s not a bad thing to show your growth off initially and reward those that stick with you in the beginning.
Some copy/print shops have conference rooms for you to use for meetings; I’ve also seen a few folks use local workshare spaces.