rising

crevasse, mount rainier [june 2004]

drawing the ground

an intensity and rigor of documentation and invention that lets you enjoy the white space.

section as record of measurements [notice "datum" and relative "x" and "y" positions as structuring lines of the drawing] and using lineweight [read: hierarchy] to distinguish between ground and building – a distinction intentionally blurred here to suggest an integration of the two. something that your drawings, if not your shelters, should likely aspire to:

from pamphlet architecture 28: augmented landscapes, smout allen.

construction halting?

from november 13, 2008 report at dailyprogress.com:

Construction on the nine-story, 100-room luxury hotel on the Downtown Mall is about to grind to a halt — or is it?

hotel breaks ground

from march 11, 2008 report in the hook:

“It’s an urban project, so there are a lot of complexities,” says Bhatt, whose firm specializes in designing hotels. “It’s a very tight site.”

hotel ideas

from a march 01, 2007 report in the hook:

Indeed, architects learned that the old Boxer/Central Fidelity building was originally two buildings before the bank renovation in 1965, and that the eastern half of the building was the original home of Woolworth’s, which opened in the early 1920s and operated there for nearly 40 years. They also learned that the building may have been the only bank in the United States to be opened at the height of the Great Depression in 1931.

The Downtown Mall before it was pedestrian, and the Central Fidelity Bank building before it took over the nearby Woolworth’s building and added the black granite facade in 1965. Now it’s poised to become the ritzy “Beacon.” [photo courtesy: Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society]