collage + truth

gaochun county catalyst

lotus pond ahead 

this trip to china was seven days fast and five cities deep. 

Yikes! yet again the summer has won and this blogbaby has been put on the shelf. i guess that means the same thing as it did the year before, and the year before that. we were on the move. moving about the western side of the US visiting cherished friends, making new ones, exploring fresh places, getting lost in mountain and city landscape alike. I am SO glad there was ample time to digress from school. it was two whole months of a true summertime, and perhaps the last for quite a while. but, that is just alright, because on the very near (read: tomorrow's) horizon is a quest to china. architecture, my livelihood and passion, is taking me here. i'm thrilled. the beautiful continent of asia will be gazed upon again. 

no promises but perhaps a sequence of china-based urbanism and design thoughts will manifest on here. 

[below]

a map of gaochun, the site of one project 

we will be visiting. polders abound. 

graduated.

master of some kind. most likely nudging pixels and drawing straight lines. 

NEWS FLASH! new location for this body: san antonio.
i never and i mean never would have said one, two, or eight years ago that i would move myself back to the homeland of san-an-tone. but the choice has been made and the job landing is extremely exciting. i am coming to hopeful terms with rediscovering this city. it is quite different than austin, and denver, and extremely different than berlin. 
but, here we go. another part of this incredible ride of life, and believe me, i'm on board. 

 

 

 

 

we be green

 

 

(if we're talking analogies)
progress : halfway :: sanity : zero
 

spatial catalog

a psycho-geography reading of berlin through experience.
a personal mapping of boundary and edge. 
an understanding of where identification was placed.

"But this is Berlin, the harsh capital of the northern barbarians. Everything here is too large or too flat, too distant or too close. Here, they can only manage vacant lots and demolitions. This was a garrison town; here was the Kaiser, and here was the war. Nothing is light and lively; everything is somehow off the mark"

[george diez]: article

so this one time. actually this 5 times,
i went on a walk. 

inspired by artist richard long. 

modern day cartographer.
[take 1]

                                                don't draw the wall

this particular map comes with an explanation lest it is misunderstood or not even understandable. either are a high possibility

the intention: to draw the pieces of the city (in this case berlin, dur) that gave hints to where the wall was going to squirm its way through the city. yes yes, the soviets thought they were making these decisions. perhaps a few they did, but from the urban form of the city the wall was turning and twisting in what appears to be a nonsense manner. my hope is that this map proves the nonsense wrong. in a practical way when we make a wall, it goes straight 95% of the time. in berlin the wall was based on the underlying infrastructure, or the boundary of a region, edge of a park, bank of the Spree river, even a bridge for crossing, it is in these pieces that the wall was given it's shape. or delineation that created west from east. 

                                       a phenomenal moment of two brother who are meeting
                                   again after 30 years of being separated by the berlin wall  

i'm determined to keep up a thought, snap-shot, map or four to this ever changing blog. i can't come to a complete halt just because i'm back on american soil. well, more so i'm jammed packed busy with a final studio project in this chapter of life and kind of forgot about this web space of mine. my mind is still on berlin as that is where my studio resides. my feet today are in austin. my heart is, well, often in the clouds. a close person told me "Lauren: you've been so emotional lately". that was a first for me. the past two years have seen the most change in my life...ever. new cities, sheesh, new continents, new faces around all corners, new companions, new languages, new living environments. the list goes on quite far. 

i'm pressed to allow pieces drift away. 

returning home (wherever that is) has proved tough for me. that is the truth. 

i would encourage each and every person to set sail. especially those who hold vast amounts of individual freedom. you will learn in ways never thought imaginable. i know i did.