School Events

LARP Lecture Series: https://www.design.upenn.edu/landscape-architecture/events/activ-ism ARCH Lecture Series: https://www.design.upenn.edu/events-exhibitions-0/events/weitzman-fall-2020-lecture-series Meyerson Hall is both closed and open. While students can get in and technically have workspace I know many of us would prefer to stay home. With the majority of classes online and the studio requirements adjusting to reflect that a workspace for model making and collaborating doesn’t seem to be needed. However the downside to…

Philly Aids Thrift

Philly Aids Thrift: http://phillyaidsthrift.com/ Shopping can be fun. A bit of a wasteful pastime, particularly if everything purchased is new every single time. Personally, I prefer the second hand market. There’s very few things that absolutely must be brand new in my book. The majority of things we own, tables, chairs, books, clothes, plates, etc are perfectly good second hand. I have rummaged through…

Home-School-Work

With the Pandemic going strong more spaces are coming to serve multiple purposes. My childhood home was no longer a cozy place of memory but a chaotic work-live space with five other people vying for the same resources. My apartment in Philly is no longer the place I go to relax and crash after a long day since I now spend my entire day…

Home Garden

While at home I had a much larger garden to plan and a series of projects inside and outside the house, my second home doesn’t need quite as much work. Having left my apartment in March I knew that coming back in August one thing would certainly need work: my garden. The before was just too sad to photograph but the after is quite…

Project Porch

The Back Porch has seen better days. Up until this past week (think June when this started) it has been the safe house for many miscellaneous items from the Florida sun, rain, and heat. As the redesign of the backyard ramps up the design has extended into this poorly used space. Project Porch was officially started earlier this week with a clean out. Bulky…

Penn’s Covid-19 Plan

Penn UPDATES: https://coronavirus.upenn.edu/ Penn has been as straight forward as possible about the pandemic plan. The University became entirely remote halfway through the semester. Professors were as accomodating as possible in handling technical issues, time concerns for students who traveled or left Penn Campus Area, and the resource gap between students. At the end of the semester the Universtity of Pennsylvania had a Covid-19…

The Penn Landscape Architecture Reader 2020

So admist all the Covd-19 chaos there is still a little hope of learning. The Landscape Architecture department put together a light list of readings for quarantine. This was originally released during the extended spring break. I have posted it now as it is a relatively long list and perfect for summer! The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens – Wallace Stevens, Alfred A Knof,…

Learning Japanese

I have finally decided to learn Japanese, again. My first attempt was a few years ago and had been going quite well. I failed when I stopped keeping a consistent schedule and began to forget words and structures. I had been working out of a Genki workbook and making flash cards to learn. This summer I intend to restart my learning process. I have…

PennDesign Summer Lectures

If you are missing school already, or just curious to get a particular professors insight, PennDesign has set out a series of lectures for the summer. There are lectures in every department on almost every day of the week. I am particularly interested to see how these lectures progress as the topics are undetermined or at least unannounced in advance. The closest you or…

Summer Reading!

For a quick pool side read to a thrilling page turner that keeps me up at night I am always looking for good literature. Here I have compiled a bit a of a split list, partly scholarly educational and partly ad hoc suggestions from those close to me. Reading List 1: This list was compiled by the landscape architecture department, all the faculty and…