Thursday, January 10, 2013

It's a New Year! Let's start it off RIGHT!

Clockwise from Left:  Isai German, Raphael Lavine Jr. ,
Hildemar Cruz, Professor Marcela Oliva, Martin Saunders,
John Snelling, Isabel Arroyo. Not Pictured: Ian Salamanca
Good Day Everyone!

That's right! We're BACK!  Since the end of the semester we have scheduled random meetings among our board members to keep ourselves focused for the work to come.  The day after Christmas we got together on Google+ Hangouts and discussed our upcoming involvement with a design competition known as Skills USA, which we are lucky enough to be hosting at our college!  More to come regarding this! Then on Monday, Jan 7th we met in the Historic Figueroa Hotel for our first official meeting of the year.  It was a refreshing experience to be talking about Architecture in a setting as this, as opposed to simply in the classroom.  We liked the experience so much we are considering holding meetings in other local landmarks.


It's hard to believe you're in LA
 Followed two days later with the first, of many more enlightening field trips.  We feel it's important to be connected to one's community, and our community has had a lot of hardships, but it is in no means a dire place.  As our club president, Isai German recounts:

An interesting Harmonograph
The Sustainable Architecture club took a tour of the Inner City Arts, a non-profit organization with spaces and classes available to the community.  The architectMichael Maltzan,  had the neighborhood in mind when designing the location and had programmed the site for growth.  With transparent walls and corridors visible from the street, the campus has a welcoming sensation even in the heart of this outskirted community.  All of the buildings are clean of graffiti, which goes to prove that the community supports this effort of art education.  The spaces nurture several types of art from performance to animation. The species of trees that encompass the land softens the sound pollution of the city and creates an urban forest.  The scale of the operations are such that they are supported with generous donations from the Annenberg Foundation, Disney and others.  To understand the our community  and bridge the arts to those who need them, Inner CIty Arts is a beacon of hope for the under served.

Beautiful spaces facilitate bright minds
Trips like this help us round out our learning, by exposing us to the good work of other local Architects.  We plan to have many more this coming year and will keep you informed!  On a related note, if you have a suggestion for our next learning trip please let us know in the comments section below!  Until then, it's good to be back and I can't wait to tell y'all of our plans for the start of the semester!

-Cheers