Today was exciting! I arrived early and was greeted very warmly by Ashley, a staff memeber who handles a number of tasks from front desk to ordering supplies. Ashley assisted me with setting up my computer, showing me the office (kitchen, supply room, material library, and general work spaces).  Just before the office tour I met Christine, who I had emailed with confirming this externship, and Mark, a Penn alumn and principal at Curtis + Ginsberg. Soon after I met Darby, also a principal. During the office tour I familiarized myself with the office layout and met the majority of the office members, all of whom were very friendly.

Toby, a soft spoken woman, came by my desk after the tour. It seems she had been in the review process looking over resumes, portfolios, and statements of intent and had taken the impression that I was very curious and eager to learn.  She brought with her comments a stack of  marvelous readings. These readings range from row house preservation, to material catalogs, to publications on housing and funding projects (the last category being produced by the office). Naturally I am eager to read these quickly as it is aparent they tie closely to the work produced at Curtis + Ginsberg.

Soon after this pleasant visit I was set to work. First to assist with a quick square footage calculation and then to my final task of model making. Surprisingly, on Day 1, I am assigned to assist Daniella and Vance, two very nice members of the team, in making a client requested model, which the client may keep! Needless to say I was a tad nervous as I work slowly model making to ensure that everything is cut straight and cleanly. By the end of the day I had all pieces cut, layered, and ready to glue. Tomorrow I will finish sanding the pre-printed 3-D buildings and glue everything together.

Sadly I do not think I can discuss the project publicly as the office has not released it. However I will say that the project caught me by surprise and peaked my interest. Throughout the day as people stopped in to see the progress and chat I was glad to learn more about the process of obtaining the project, the various stages of work, and the overall timeline in place.

I look forward to what tomorrow has in store. The little I know of my schedule here is that I will not work weekends**, I may visit a construction site next week (yay!!), I may have a lunch date with some of the firm members, and the rest is a surprise!

**While I technically will not be working weekends I will still be posting about my time in NYC. All posts will be dated as Externship Day # but my appear in different channels.

Dress to Impress:

I was a little worried about work attire. I did some research (see my earlier blog post Externship Excitment) and reinvented my wardrobe a bit. Below is today’s look: