#huxtablefellow

[david--morgan-blog]

d 42 | So its done. I’m buckled into my flight that is bringing me back to Boston. The next few weeks ahead of me are mainly going to be used to catch up with shop work and traveling to Canada for my brothers wedding. I’m eager as can be to make it back to Boston. However, I haven’t had a moment go by where I am thinking of the next steps to this work. I have come to terms that my blog will be my place of checking in, writing down my thoughts and throwing a bookmark in events that I want to remember for later. I have over 20 hours of recordings to hash through, and 6,000 photos to piece together. I’m not totally sure what is going to happen with this work but I’m sure as hell going to have a ball figuring it out.

[david--morgan-blog]

d 41 | With an early morning departure from LA, Soph and I packed up our things, said goodbye to Zimo and trekked back to Oakland. Once again, I want to take another moment of talking about #readyforresilience and the connection I’m hoping for with #practiceofliving.

When writing the proposal for this project to get funded, I knew that concentration of the work was going to be around the Resilient Living. The purpose of the project was to find out how people live, work, develop their architecture in regards to the elements of their climate and what they are doing to prepare for the future. As I’ve mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I have pulled most of this research by talking and interviewing a wide range of people. As I kinda knew that this was going to be my main method of information, so I wanted to make sure that I would have something there to balance me out for when I was too deep into my research. With the #practiceofliving work, I aimed to recognize the methods and places I was learning and practice my life. I strongly feel that we overlook our vision by always being able to log on and see other lives happening. So my first intention of the project during this research was to capture the places I was learning this shit from. But it evolved into a method of connecting and creating a bond with the person I was in front of.

So these two continuous projects were meant to feed off each other. Each time a step was taking for the research, I used the practice of living as a method to stay present and connect with the people I was face to face with. I gave myself a few guidelines to follow, but I ended up scratching most of them and letting the information and questions flow naturally into the conversation. I saw that then, I gained the best and response from the person. Fuck, I mean, all of this really is basic life stuff that you want to maintain daily. When you talk with someone, you listen and respond as best you can. Don’t dig for information that you don’t understand yourself. Study and know the life you are trying to find out more about.  

[david--morgan-blog]

d 40 | The last few days have been great for catching up with things. Spending my time seeing old friends and adventuring into new places in LA. I did want to take a moment to talk about the #readyforresilience project again.

So! During my little journey, I definitely encountered a lot of “first time” issues, between running interviews, research, documenting and blogging. All of these methods help me learn more about architecture, technology, design, education and investing. But I always seem to struggle a bit with getting everything started and connected. Something I found to be useful was that each time I was located in a new city,  I would make a point to talk with the locals about their city. By talking with strangers who lived and worked in the area I could ask them questions that would help me understand how the city lived. So I ask them questions like “how do you organize the city?”, “how do you get around?”, and my personal favorite “what place/area would help me understand the city the most?”. All these questions would help me piece together how people operated in the area while learning more about that person and how they saw the city. You really have to stay present during each day. It’s so easy to be looking for directionality by googling your questions since you seem to have more control during your hours of searching. But being in the area that you are researching will give you a more genuine and stronger connection to your journey. All in all, these are all different tools and methods to use locate the best information out there.

[david--morgan-blog]

d 39 | Early arrival in LA with a warm welcome from my family member Zimo. After a shaking and rough bus ride from Salinas through the night, we touched base at Zimo’s house while he went back to school to do some work. We used the day to explore Old Pasadena and walk along the beach of Santa Monica. James, a friend we met in Yosemite, drove to meet us and show us a spot to see the city. We chatted throughout the night… It’s always times like this that make life seem so simple. Your life runs into different people who you want to share a moment with, and being on top of a cliff overlooking the horizon of the ocean that Santa Monica sits on, with a group of people that barely know each other but can talk for hours really makes me too much sense for me.

We wrapped our night with a drive through LA. Saw some cool cars doing cool stuff. Saw some Gehry, bought some oreos.Life, win

[david--morgan-blog]

d 38 | Bags packed one more time, time to make way south to Big Sur! A simple road trip that showed the beautiful landscape of the West Coast, scattered across a sunny day. Couldn’t have asked for a better time.

Dropped off in Salinas to catch the bus to LA. Funny strolling through the life of another small town for a Friday night. The town was surprisingly set with cool stuff to check out, but there was a strange air that I couldn’t shake. For instance, we sat down for some pizza, and watched as a family pizzeria turned into a 2000’s nightclub that was showcasing three different DJ’s. People were really dressed up and looking nice. The party grew more and more, all the while Soph and I are sitting in a both with a unknowing level of hygiene and hiking bags stuffed with our life, eating some pretty shitty pizza.

[david--morgan-blog]

d 37 | Packed up some supplies and jumped on the BART to San Francisco. I had the fortunate opportunity to meet with Amanda Loper from David Baker Architects. We had a good conversation regarding her practice with affordability and resilience in SF. The battle of gentrification and sustainable living was a continuous evolving element for their design process. She also shared some design moves her firm does in order to capture the concept of each project. Gah, so much goodness!

Amanda told me to check out the roof deck for lunch. The building they were in was an old clock tower in (check). So a an hour or so spent looking over San Fran’s bay, and departure happened towards Chinatown. The smell of selling touristy goods from exoticlands rolled over each street, while locals watch as the strangers stared into their lives. Food was good though, can’t complain about happy hour :D

Climbed a few more hills, walked around a cathedral and did some people watching. Day, done.

[david--morgan-blog]

d 36 | Talked with Stephen Cauffman from NIST. Overall a great conversation that laid out a bit of his experience within the practice of resilience. One of the interesting keys was when he touched upon what his work wanted from resilience. He saw this movement as not only a look at protection, but how can it make it effective for everyone create better spaces. Resilience isn’t just environment based, but it’s strengthen in from the community and what not. This move will aim to get more people on board, and get both sides to work together.

Also, if you’re in Oakland, check out The New Parkway Theater. 

[david--morgan-blog]

d 35 |  I’ve been having this moment of realizing the amount of time I have left in my trip…. ah! its a bit of a bummer to think about. But, during this time I’ve been having a good amount of time to think about things…. mainly about my future in architecture. Since the start of the my education, I always had a difficult time with understanding how I’ll be useful. My drawing skill are meh, my designs process needs work, and my artistic capabilities are a hit or miss. However, I’ve always loved the organization and communication that goes into this field. We are involved with everything and must know how it works. We study life and how to create space for it all with the understanding of the data behind it. I hope I can push this forward and do more with it. But for now, when I get back to Boston, it’ll be time to find a job and get more experience.