This is NOT a Switzerland blog.

The title says it all...I am NOT going to blog about Switzerland...at least...yet.

I thought that I would give three important tidbits:

1. Last night I hopped in the boss's car with all of the other work folks and took a drive to Murcia. I was not there to go to IKEA as you all may be thinking, but rather I spent the night anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next tray of delicious canapés. Because of the boss's many friends in the design community and his previous residence in Murcia, we were all invited to the gallery opening for Edra at the designer furniture showroom CUARTA. The furniture was ALRIGHT, but the experience was AMAZING. Hanging out with my South American buddies, chatting up some important patrons of Spanish architecture (the best I could y'know), and chowing down on some seriously fussy and delicous hors d'oeuvres (including but certainly not limited to loads of Jamón Ibérico!) under the spanish sky was one of those surreal experiences which makes me NEVER WANT TO LEAVE!

2. We're leaving. Due to our complete distaste for illegal activities we will be saying 'hasta luego' to Alicante the day before my 90 tourist visa days run out. It is indeed incredibly sad for us, but as the previous spanish phrase indicates, we plan on returning as soon as the Spanish government permits us. To find the best airfare, we are being 'forced' to make a two and a half day layover in Dublin (Gracias a Ireland's EU but non-Schengen status!). We will hopefully load up on the luck of the Irish before we return to Arizona on the 10th.

3. I WILL eventually blog about adventures in Swiss architecture, but that will have to wait for the weekend. Lots of photos to go through and gussy up = Lots of work that I do not have time for!

Ode to Fat Kids!

Okay, okay, okay...I know that it has been a while since my last post, and I appear to have left you hanging. How was I to know that there would be such interest? I honestly figured that the only people who would care to know the answers to my Structures 101 quiz would be those who had taken such a class with me and therefore would already know the answers. (That is, all two of the CALA alums who read this...and one of those may be me! Though I believe that the comments from Mike are actually from a one-time architecture student.) Shame on me for underestimating the inquisitiveness of PDaddy and the ability of Mike to find me through an internet version of six degrees of separation. Well, I would love to give you the answers, but it looks like PDaddy has already given it! (If you missed his comment, PDaddy provided a link with explanatory photos that are much better than mine!)

The two structures are CANTILEVERS, which work like kids on a seesaw. If you move the fulcrum (the pivot point on the seesaw) off of center, then you need a fatter kid on the short side of the seesaw due to increased moment (or as Mike guessed with helium...a skinnier kid on the long side). In the case of the tram stop, the fulcrum (the mirrored columns which actually carry the entire weight of the structure...impressive at 8"x24") is FAR off center; leaving 90' floating without support on one side with only 30' on the other. Instead of sitting the 'fat kid' on top of the seesaw, he has been buried underground in the form of a large concrete foundation and tied to the short end of the seesaw with the curlycues that PDaddy noticed. (Though I believe that the straight steel piece is carrying all of the load and the curlycue is merely a narritive device to show the spring-like tension that is occurring there.) As for the steel and glass bars on the interior, the glass ones are indeed lights (which turn the tram stop into AMAZING glowing lanterns at night!) with no structural purpose, while the steel bars compensate for the lack of a bottom plane on the boxes by linking the sides of the boxes, providing lateral support and preventing torsion. WOohOo! Wasn't that a fun lesson?!?!

Well since structures was SUCH an INTERESTING TOPIC and I need to play catch-up with Alicante events, we'll continue your collective structural education!

Early on in the game we were already impressed with ourselves! (José Chilón on the left)

There it is! The second most impressive structure that I have seen in Alicante! It was a temporary installation that was erected for less than an hour in the living room of our Alicante BFFs José y Cecilia two weeks ago. Yes, these are the same two who shared an evening of Chinese food with us, and it turns out that we did not completely scare them off on said evening! The next week we were invited for a DELICIOUS and authentic Peruvian lunch prepared by José in their piso. If you were impressed by our performance with them before, get ready for utter amazement: 8 hours of hanging out at their place! We came early at noon to hang out as they cooked, ate a delicious plate of chicken and potatoes in a bread-thickened sauce of mild-chiles, enjoyed an Argentian dessert (they are always feeding me new varieties of Argentinian cookies and snacks at work), and passed away the afternoon and evening with conversation in Castellano and several games of Jenga.

Cecilia continues the work on our Babel-inspired creation!

The crowning achievement of the night was not even the great time we had and our self-satisfaction in our spanish conversation abilities, but the most amazing Jenga tower that has been or ever will be! This was our final game of the evening which ended in structural failure (as do all games of Jenga) caused by a combination of slenderness-ratio, excessive lateral loads and my wife.

I'll do my best to get back in the blogging groove, but work has been quite busy lately. We finished our housing projects competition and the boss gets back from Boston tomorrow. I only have internet at work, and am usually wanted at home when the work day is over at 9pm....this leaves literally no useful time for blogging. Unfortunately for you, living the Spanish life is much more enjoyable than writing about it, though I have many more semi-exciting stories to relate (some of which you have not already heard about from the more reliable Alicante blog). And I will hopefully have more to come. This week will not be a great one for updates due to the upcoming adventures of the Swiss-Family-Sanderson. But Wifey's description of our UN-style Thanksgiving Extravaganza should hold you for a while!

Sub-Spanish

Happy All Saints' Day Everyone! Last year I FINALLY went to see the All Souls Procession for "Día de los Muertos" (the Mexican equivalent to this Spanish-Catholic holiday) and it was definitely worth it. So any of you in or near Tucson should definitely check it out...super fun!

OK, now lets get down to business. I know you've all been dying to know what FAMOUS architects I've been hanging around with and what language BLUNDERS I've made lately. Well, I thought that those topics would be separate posts, but unfortunately for me and you those two worlds have recently collided. Yes, come near and I will share with you the story of my recent humiliation in front of Alicante architecture community.

I am holding the card of some AMAZING Alicante architects that I received from them when I went BY MYSELF to visit their studio. OK, I'm sure that even my friends from school have never heard of these guys, and even my boss is much more widely published, but they are FAMOUS to me.

I had been very familiar with this website before realizing that it is the product of Alicante, and I considered myself very lucky to meet its creator when I interviewed for the job here. (There was a FANTASTIC semester-wrap-up symposium of which he and my boss were the directors.) His site, though mostly in Spanish, is very popular in the international architecture blog world. (Could mine be the next for the big time??? Doubtful.) It was on that blog, that I first heard about the project featured in the images in this post. I had recently returned from my first journey to España, and was bummed that I had not seen it when I was in Valencia (though I never got near Alicante). It turns out that this TRAM stop is not only a few km from our place here, but the first completed project by Subarquitectura.

It also turns out that Subarquitectura are three young guys (as in the oldest of them is only 4 years older than me!) that were once students and employees of my boss. We have had a few great collaborations with them since they formed their own studio, including this widely published project where we shared the bill with some of my architectural IDOLS! (Sounds like a great reality show...¿no?)

Anyways, I was compelled by my boss to call up these guys ON MY OWN, and presumptiously ask if I could swing by their studio to get to know them. I was also to offer my English letter-writing services which have been an asset to my boss. It was GREAT! They are three really cool guys who went through a mini-presentation of every project they have done in the last two years, and they are BAFFLED as to why an American would end up in Alicante. The studio consists of three friends hanging out, getting geeky with architecture and trying to make a living doing it. LIVING THE DREAM in my opinion!

They did ask me to write a letter in English to take advantage of my boss's adventures in Boston. I was supposed to utilize José María's contacts to get them the opportunity to present their work at some school there. After a few weeks of struggling with the vague description of the letter I wrote it and sent it to them and the boss.

WAIT....where's the humiliating language blunder in this?

Turns out that I found out 15 minutes later in a reply email from the Subs (really, many locals refer to Subarquitectura and those who work there as "los Sub") and the boss, that I COMPLETELY misunderstood my letter writing assignment. I was SUPPOSED to know from my conversations with the Subs that they had previously been approached by the director of structures at that school for information about the project you are looking at. He developed a relationship with them and included this project in the structures curriculum in their graduate level courses. I was SUPPOSED to then write a letter as if it were coming from the Subs to endorse a meeting with my boss while he happens to be in Boston. WHOOOPS! (Anyway I THINK that is what I was supposed to do...I have not heard anything since my last submission to them.)

As for the TRAM station. It is INCREDIBLE! Sorry for the grainy photos...I had left the ISO at 1600 from taking a picture of a delicious salad. I will give a special prize to ANYONE who can tell me how these 10'x10'x120' steel cubes are appearing to FLY IN MID-AIR!

Also, because of my advice to him, my boss was able to watch "his" team get their second World Series victory and attend their homecoming parade. I received several text messages and camera-phone pictures from him describing how "AMAIZING" (sic) it was.