Zac's Riva semester: August 2009

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Bellinzona

Yesterday my studio class went to Bellinzona. First we went up to Monte Tamaro and saw the Mario Botta Chapel and the view was AMAZING! Then we went down into Bellinzona and ate lunch at the Castel Grande, one of the three castles in Bellinzona. After lunch my professor and whoever wanted to go (and I did...) hiked up to the other two castles. After that we took our Mercedez Bus to a Hockey Pavilion and Pool. We swam in the pool for an hour or two and then came home to Riva. In Riva that night we went to a Concert in one of the churches. The concert was a group of singers from Oxford that sang songs (accapella) in Latin and English... afterwards we talked to them for a little bit (I love the accents!) and invited them to come hang out with us that night but they never made it. Today has just been a day of rest for us and I played a little soccer, but tonight we are going to try and go to the blues festival in Lugano... Fun!

View of Castelgrande from Sasso Corbaro

Castello di Sasso Corbaro

Castello di Montebello

View from the Castelgrande of the other two castles... both of which we hiked to!!!

Castelgrande

Lunch in the Castle

Here are most of my classmates... I only missed a few that were sitting on the same row as me...

The Classic Jumping Picture

I Was There!!!

I don't always have to be behind the camera! :)

Artsy Photos

Mario Botta Chapel

Monte Tamaro

This was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been! I love the mountains!!! God's creation is Awesome!!!

Friday, August 28, 2009

First Week!

Well we have had our first full week of studio and I have 12 study models and 1 mid-project model... we are working on a bicycle ramp for the UCI Road World Championships that is going to be taking place in Mendrisio, which is about ten minutes away by bike. My project consists of multiple ramps that are bending in different directions and all over the place. I am taking an Architectural Acoustics class and that is very cool... except that the acoustics in our classroom is terrible so our first project might be to fix that room haha. I have had a few Italian classes... it started out really hard but it has gotten better so hopefully that will continue :) The food here is prepared by 2 Italian cooks and it is sooo good! I am getting plenty of rest, because my studio desk is literally RIGHT OUTSIDE my room door. So whenever I want to take a nap I can just go in there. One bad thing is that every morning the church across the street rings it's bells 40+ times around 7am... it is pretty much my alarm clock! Tomorrow we are going to Bellinzona on a studio trip and then come back for a concert in Riva... so I will be posting some pictures later from that trip :) Hope all is going well on your side of the world!

Z

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Lugano

Today my studio class went to Lugano to meet with a representative from the Architecture firm Giraudi-Wettstein. She showed us a few projects that they have worked on and/or proposed. After that we had 5 hours of free time so we walked around looking some cool buildings we had passed by earlier and walked around some department stores... Since coming back to the Villa we have just been working on our studio projects. That picture is over looking Lugano... and these are two of my classmates: Kelsey and Keith(renamed Luca by our Italian teacher because she cannot make a "th" sound Haha!)