Life at Grimshaw...in NYC

yes, i live in ny :) lately though it just feels like i live at work which happens to be in ny :P

long long days and nights as we try to finish all the documents to begin construction, well to at least begin bidding. night before or i should say day before i left at 6 am and came back in at 12! i know it's crazy!

i do enjoy my job, but it's been a bit brutal. however, last week was quite exciting since we just won a major competition here in ny to do a housing project in the Bronx, a building type and client which grimshaw has not worked with or on much. you can read more details in the ny times post yesterday about the project. in the future i'll try to put some images.

the project still continues to interest me and have it's exciting moments despite exhaustion, but i am a bit anxious to know what my future will be after this project. i'll work with new people in the office and potentialy a completely different building type....and perhaps even jump across the pond to one of the other offices? hmmm well i better resist thinking of that till it's a reality

i should not say there is nothing happening besides work it's just that it's more about my day to day interaction with co-workers (which is always interesting and a story in itself)...hectic moments with the team...lots of visits to Arup engineers, but no pix to post of interesting spots in ny that make for more than just me chattering about work, as if this was more of a journal blog as i am making this post today :)

it's a very weird feeling such intensity..just eat and work, reminds me of studio days back at u of h. my room mates and neighbors came down over the weekend to join me and were surprised to see a full office on a sunday night! now they finally believe me that it's not just me being my perfectionest self :P

well that is all there is to post anything about these days. February will be the same i think, now march hopefully more wonderings than from my front door to the office!

More Graphics Fun

I get these weekely updates from this website called Flavorpill, it's like a sort of city event/activities guide. Some of the stuff is not for me at all but some of the events are pretty cool, it ranges from music to art etc. Anyway every week they have a new funky artist do the graphics for their website, this image came from there. thought it was pretty cute :) the artist is called KANARDO, i think they are French.

More on Grimshaw

I know this is not a Grimshaw blog but since i spend many of my days and nights :) working here it's hard not to report the latest since this is what consumes much of my time.

Here is the latest article on the Transit Center in the NY Times and rendering as well. They have a great annimation showing the entire scope of the progect/ re-development.

Only in NY...Barbie and her furry patriotic friends

i saw these dolls in the window of a fur shop in SOHO and i could not resist taking a picture!

FIRST GRIMSHAW BUS STOP in Manhattan!

one of the first Grimshaw Bus Shelters by Grimshaw industrial design has just been erected around the corner from our office. will be exciting to see more as hundreds start to pop up all over the city : )

Underground City Hall Subway and beyond

Before I forget to post something about it and get into my parents visit and all the places we covered i must make a few comments on this amazing tour i went on of the old City Hall subway station in lower Manhattan that is now closed and only open for special tours. it closed for many reasons one interesting one is that with the arrival of larger longer subway cars the platform at the old city hall stop was not long enough.

In addition to the old stop with all it's architectural historical interest a small group of us from grimshaw were taken on the most amazing guided tour of all the underground tunnels and spaces that exist in and around this closed subway stop. there were even old bunkers for storing ammunition that dated back to the 1800's. the stop is also very near the water and one edge/end of the Brooklyn bridge, so we saw some of the very massive footings that anchor the bridge deep into the ground.

Unfortunately my lame battery failing camera could not photograph all this so i only have a few good pictures from the excursion.

this rare opportunity to see these underground spaces was made possible by the fact that i am working on the transit center downtown and the MTA being our client has special privileges such as all access to all parts of the subway system, well i know i am a nerd but it was pretty cool stuff so i just thought i would share....there are some perks to working for the MTA : ) among the headaches.

FINALLY!!! i am back : ) sort of

well i am on vacation in the city and it's wonderful after the long weeks of being in the office and not being able to do any wandering! my parents are in town so i am also enjoying being able to see and appreciate the city all over again with them. here is a frosty nose pic of me in the subway with my dad and his Indiana Jones hat : P

Ernesto Neto @ th Pantheon

I wish I was in Paris to see this, the Pantheon freqently has installations like this that really utilize the huge spaces in the antheon in the most amazing way.

you can find more on Neto and the exhibit at the Kultureflash website.

Oh yeah, not sure if I mentioned my other favorite city besides NY of course :) is Paris (at least so far).

FSTC compared to the rest

This is a cool little image a co-worker sent me that compares the Fulton Street Transit Center project i am working on to some of the tallest building in the world.

As you can see ours is considerably smaller :) in comparison but it's always cool to understand the scale of things when you see them compared to other familiar towering pieces of architecture. Double click on image to see it larger.

You will never guess what I've been up to!

W O R K I N G ! ! ! !

i am very happy for my wonderful job here at grimshaw but these long weeks and weekends in the office are definitely cutting into my blog post worthy activities :)

work is good but i don't think images of my stair and escalator drawings that i am slaving away on at the moment are very exciting to anyone but me...and not even that exciting to me for that matter. ahhhhh

today was particularly trying as the weather was beautiful! a bit chilly but nice enough for a stroll in central park. well my parents are coming at x-mas so i hope to get in some good wondering about the city then.

ok have to get back to my drawings here.....i mean the night is young, it's only 11:30pm :P (just hit 74 hours for this week on my timesheet! yikes...)

maybe i should change my blog name to "working" in nyc instead of "wondering" in nyc ; P

A warm welcome back from 64 morton

well all of my roomies and neighbors back at 64 morton welcomed me back last night from h-town. we got together to send off sammy (4th from left in pic), a short time resident of the guys in 1c. first time in a while we are all at home and no one is traveling for work/ family etc. so we took a few silly pix to mark the rare moment. some times i really feel like we are on an episode of friends......except fortunately much more diverse :)

NYC vs. Houston

“New York is a granite beehive, where people jostle and whir like molecules in an overheated jar. Houston is six suburbs in search of a center.”

Back in H-town

Well it's been a while since i managed to find time to do a bit of blogging but now that i am on vacation i have a free moment. however, i am going to go outside my usual nyc finds to post a few pix of me hanging out with my familia here in tejas : )

it's quite the different slow pace here in Houston compared to Manhattan. not to mention the weather is perfect! i know god gave me these warm days here (70 and sunny) before the freeze back in nyc.

earlier this week i felt like a fish out of water driving in my parent's SUV on the 16 lane freeway :P rather than hopping on the subway. i met a friend for dinner at a restaurant here so big you could have fit all 5 of my favorite restaurants in the west village in it! needless to say i am having some good times here catching up with family and friends but i had forgotten how different the south is from the BIG diverse apple :)

BLOG UNDER CONSTRUCTION

hmm well i switched over to this new beta format for blogging and it seems i messed up my blog a bit in an attempt to improve it.

that is why you should not mess with your blog while you are at work and can't take the proper time to work on it :) well maybe on my upcoming vacation i'll have time to use all the new features to improve my nearly year old template!

until then sorry for the annoying archive that now show up first on the side bar. more changes to come........yeah and what happened to my map?? guess i'll have to re-insert that in my template :(

Design Charts

i did not do a whole lot this past weekend, mostly tried to catch up one my rest and hang out at home :) with my roomies......not much exciting blog stuff to post or write about.

but i did want to post a link to this great list of cool websites for all you graphic web design lovers out there. i already sent it to some of you but here is the link if you missed it. Grimshaw is #37. enjoy....

CLICK HERE for links to cool websites and graphics