Working away...

Since I last posted, I’ve mostly been doing work for our classes over here – mostly reading, sketching, and taking photographs. Sandy and I are doing a “personality of place” project on a small garden I discovered off of Kensington High Street. At left is a very quick sketch I did of the sundial in the middle of it. It’s tucked back behind St. Mary Abbots Church and along Kensington Church Walk. It’s been a couple of cold, gray days here but the hostel finally got heat and we have all been sleeping a little later in the morning snug in warm beds. The lecture at the AA on Wednesday night was a bit of a disappointment – it was two professors from Ohio State who unfortunately fit the stereotype of arrogant Americans and weren’t too interesting. Zaha Hadid is scheduled to speak at the AA later this month – it’d be cool just to say I’d been in the same room with her!

Thursday afternoon we trekked across the city (and walked across Tower Bridge over the Thames!) to the London offices of Australia-based Woods Bagot near Butler’s Wharf and met with Steve Reinke, an American architect who has been living in London for 18 years. Their office will serve as our critics for the two design projects we will be working on and they seem like a very creative but down-to-earth group of talented people. Speaking of design, we will take the train to Windsor en masse on Monday morning to visit the site for our first project there. We’re paired up for this project and I’m a little nervous because I’m supposedly working with one of the three interior design girls who are with us… I fear our approaches to design will be sufficiently different so it could be interesting.

A few of us are thinking of heading off on the train to Salisbury (hooray for Gothic cathedrals!) and Stonehenge for the day on Saturday – I’m kind of looking forward to getting out of the city for a bit.

We found free wireless internet yesterday! Unfortunately, it’s in Islington which is about a 20 minute train ride from here. I’m hopeful to get there to upload some pictures soon – the speed of the internet here is not quite the same as at home so it’ll take longer to transfer the files. Check back sometime early next week.

Things I miss the most from home: the clear blue sky, Mexican food, quiet, my family (please call me!), Chris H., and my Sadie.