Video 3

Blogs

Well, finally I'm writing my final post of english, I really want this to be the last one, because It means that my level of english has improved and I think I had improved a lot, maybe this is the class where I have learned the most, more than in school, because in this class I really have to make the effort of speaking and writing. I have enjoyed this class because I felt a lot more confident about my english level right now, I think that in my next trip it will be more easy than the other times.

The post that I most enjoyed was about what makes me happy, because I felt happy writing and remebering all the things that Arauco makes me feel, it makes me remember the air, the wind, the green and the beautiful landscape, and also all those good memories that I have with my family.

Maybe the post that I least enjoyed was the first day at Uni because it's too cliché and I have to make an effort to write all those words. But, in other way it is good to keep fresh all those memories that are significant.

For me all post had the same level of difficult except for the building of Santiago because I wanted to do something different and speak about a building that have significant for me that is my school, but I find least information about it, maybe that's why I never ended that post :s

I enjoyed reading Patricio's blog because you can check the improve that he have been making in this class. Maybe the same thing happen whit my blog, where you can check my improve.

I hope that I can pass this class so I can be proud of myself for the improve that I been making. By example, this post I wrote it in 30 minutes.

Manuel de Salas Experimental School

When I was four years old I got in the Manuel de Salas where my sisters were studying, but I only knew a little part of the school because the kindergarten was separated from the rest, but then when I got in first grade I knew it all, the park, the classrooms, the  field, the gym but the most important: the central hall. Before this building was a school it belong to Pedro Torres,

Arauco

Something that makes me very happy is travelling. Every year I travel to the country where my grandfather was born, Arauco, there we have a family cabin. My grandfather built that house because he was a builder, he also built a swimming pool for his grandsons. He take care of the garden and the animals, he had cows and sometimes pigs or goats.

 I liked to go with him to see the cows at the other side of the road in the meadow. One of the things that I love about the country is the fresh air and the cold wind in a summer day. There is nothing that cause me stress, every second that I'm in Arauco is relaxing.

 Every time that we travel to arauco we also went to Llico, a little fishermen village where my grandmother was born, we always take a walk on the beach and have lunch in a restorant, we order fish or shellfish pie.

 Later we went back to Arauco and, in the night, we walk to a hill that is nearby and watch the stars, millions of them, we can distinguish the milky way and a lot of constellations. After we went back to the cabin and start a fire in the wood heater, we often watch a movie or a tv show till we are tired enough to sleep. Every year I wait anxiously to come back to Arauco.

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video 2 part 2

VIDEO 1

Learning Music

Since I was a little boy I was interested on music, at first I learn how to play the metallophone and learn about a few notes and rhythm. Then I joined a orchestra named Lil Orchestra that was make up from students, lil students from 8° or lower. In lil orchestra I learn about the pentagram and learned one song per week also I started to play the piano that was very similar to the metallophone but you have to play two melodies, the chords in one hand and the phrase in the other hand. Sometimes I wish I wouldn't let my piano lessons, I think if I would still play the piano I would be an expert by now. 

Later I started to play the guitar in my school, I started playing songs of The Clash, Iron Maiden and folklore of my country like Violeta Parra and Victor Jara, this ones were very easy for a beginner. I used a software called guitar pro 5 that show the tabs of a song and you can put play and start following the tablatures. With some friends I started a band, we played songs of the Sex Pistols, then the band mutate to Pink Floyd and Pearl Jam. We stopped playing because we didn't find the time to play ): 

Someday I would like to learn more about music and improvisation. Become an expert about guitar, piano and also drums.

"For the music is your special friend

Dance on fire as it intends

Music is your only friend

Until the end"

The Doors

Cooking

I love cooking. Since I was a child I looked how the adults cook, most of all I watched Jani, my caregiver, and my mother, soon I started to create my own food dishes, like noodles with bread or strange drinks with lemon and salt hahaha... also I started, like all, making eggs, you can think it's easy but, to make them well and not dry you have to practice a little bit. Then I tried to make rice, I think is one of the most difficult food dishes, not even today I can make them as good as my mother's rice, the amount of water, the time, the garlic, the salt, there are to many factors in this recipe.

Now I like to invite friend to my home and cook togheter, sometimes I cook more than my invited but that's ok for me. This remember me to Hannibal lecter, when he invited people to his home and cook for them, but not pork neither chicken but human flesh! I love italian food, my favorite plate is lasagna, I cook it every year for my birthday but my speciality is gnochis, Jani taugth me that recipe. It's very tiring, first you have to peel potatoes, boil them, smash them, knead with flour and then make little masses, boil them again, clean all the mess and it´s not over yet, you have to make the sauce, and finally, you can eat, sometimes it take 2-3 hours of my life but it worth it.

Autocad, Pinterest and Archdaily.

Autocad is a software that I use to draw on my laptop, I draw plans, sections, elevations and axonometrics. I didn't know how to use many other softwares like sketch up or ilustrator so autocad is my expertise. I learned to use autocad on my second year at university when in workshop we had a unit about drawing and representation. I had to draw an existing house by a famous architect named Richard Meier, and the house it's called Shamberg House. 

                                               

At the beggining I found it very difficult and complex, there are a lots of commands that you need to mesmerize like trim, scale, move, rotate, undo, undo, undo, and undo, mistakes are common when you are drawing, but at the fifth hour of drawing it start to make sense and you become more handy and competent.

I use Autocad every week when I'm not on vacations because on workshop you have to show something new about the project every class. Sometimes I can spend all night on autocad trying to draw a plan or a section.

                                                    

When my mind goes blank, I search on Pinterest or Archdaily projects that are related to my ideas of what I'm doing and also about how to express something in the draw. At the beggining I only used pinterest to search things about architecture but now I use it to search about juicy plants, cactus and terrariums that is my new hobby.

On my first day at university I arrived at class just in time , the room was very full so I sat on the first line and I watched my new classmates, I didn't know anybody. It was mathclass and the teacher arrived, she started to explain how will be the year, the dates of the test, the contents etc. At break I went out of the room and watch some students smoking marihuana in a bong and think just how I imagined it will be. I wasn't very nervous as I expected but no matter that I dind't talk to anyone. At lunch I meet with my girlfriend at that time and we talk about our first classes, we ate at San Borja's park. Then I had workshop, and when I arrived I read at the wall a sign that said "there are days and Díaz" (the last name of my teacher) I knew that it wouldn't be an easy year. Luckily my teacher didn´t came and the assistant did the class. That first class they taught us how to draw "croquis". I sat at a table that was empty and two guys sat with me, one of them leave the university at two weeks and the other one is now one of my best friends.

Bruges

When I was 12 years old I have the privilege to travel to Europe and go over 4 countries whit my family: Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. This was my first big trip and it showed me many things about other cultures, like their traditions, the people, the language, the food and many other things. We travel by foot, car, train and airplanes depending on the distance and the money we had. I was very excited  about knowing Rome and Paris because I hearded many things about their history but never listened about Bruges so it was a surprise for me. When we arrived to the inn I was very tired because of the trip but I got very impress about the architecture and the good hospitality of our host. All mornings we had a very good breakfast, they served us hot chocolate, marmalade and nutella with slice of toast, and so we began our day. We went to the market, the park, the river and walked around the city. This is a city of mysticism, of fairy tales and magic that seems extracted from a medieval world about 400 years earlier. In the parks we feed the ducks and swans and in the market place we got moved because of all the beautiful things they sell. I wish that I can come back and get inspired again of all the magic that the city inspired.

Smiljan Radic

I'm going to talk about Smiljan Radic, he is a chilean architect that was born on 1965 in Santiago, as the son of a marriage formed by Smiljan Radic Pirano and Cora María Clarke, he obtained the degree of architect by the School of Architecture of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 1989. 

In 2000 he won the contest for the civic district in Concepción, Chile, a project which won him the prize for the best Chilean architect under 35 years of the Chilean Architects Association in 2001.

He has given numerous lectures and his work has been exhibited in Mexico, Argentina, Spain, the United States, Norway and Austria.

He has built many constructions of different types, the most recurrent projects are characterized by making use of the small scale, houses, pavilions and facilities. In them construction details and material experimentation are reiterative themes, where rocks appear as heavy and massive elements as opposed to light transparencies.

This house is called house for the poem of the right angle, and it's used by him and his family  like a holiday house. The exterior resambles a cave, but inside we can realize the great permeability that exist. This house has only 3 doors, one in the entrance, another in the central yard and another in the bathroom, this is so that there is always a visual communication inside the house.

What I like the most about him is the sense of nature that his buildings inspired, and how the choice of material give character to his buildings.

Drumming

I started to play the drums when I was 18 years old. Before I learned to play the drums I played the guitar on a rock band that we formed with friends of my school. We played a lot of songs, most of them were pink floyd's songs and others that we liked of bands like pearl jam, the doors and sometimes we improvised. We didn't have the room and the equipment to play in our houses so we had to lease rehearsal rooms that were very expensive. After a few years, me and my family moved home to a larger house and I cleaned up a room that I found in my backyard so I had the room but not the equipment, but one day, I talked to a friend that had the equipment and another band but they didn't had the room to play, then we united force and shared that little home studio. My cousin gave me his old drums because he had entered college and no longer played it and we needed it too. After a while we stopped playing because we had different schedules and my friend could not keep having his equipment in my house but I still had the drums and the room so I started to learn how to play the drums. Now I the drums in a mand and it is one of the methods that I used to relax.

My favorite piece of technology

My laptop

My favorite piece of technology is my laptop because it is the gate to the virtual world for me and i think that the virtual world is becoming very important for this modern world. It's also my principal tool for the university, everthinig I have to make I can do it with it. I bought my laptop 2 years ago when I started my career. My parents has been gathering money for my studies since I was a child, so we decided to spend it on something that would help me with my career and on my career  I have to use plenty of softwares. It could not be a bad laptop, on the contrary it has to be powerfull so I asked my sister that was going to Canada if she could buy me an specific model that wouldn't be very expensive but powerfull. And so it goes, I have my precious and I hope to use it for many long years.

Why did I chose to study architecture?

I chose to study architecture because i didn't want to study something that would damage the earth or support the corrosive world of men. I believe that being an architect i can make a change to my environment. As a child, I loved to play with plasticine and create worlds with characters and history, then I started to build some skateparks in paperboard at scale to play with fingerskates. I've always love to build things with my hands and draw. While I'm learning about the world of architecture I discover that I like all things about the career, but most of all I love to draw and build models in the workshop. Sometimes workshop becomes very stressful and sometimes I don't understand what my teacher wants and that is very distressing but in the end it's worth it.

This is my last project, it was very difficult to make it.

A bit about me...

I came from a humble home, my parents met in the univeristy while them were studing psychology. Now them both are psychologist. My mother work by her own and my father teaches about health management. I have lived all my life in Santiago with my parents and my two older sisters. Me and my sisters studied in Manuel de Salas but i didn't graduated from there because i moved school to Barrie Montessori on 2012. On that same year we travelled to Chiloe and we adopted a puppy on a fair and we travelled whit him all the way up to Santiago. Now I'm 20 years old and studing architecture while my sisters are sutiding medicine and engineering in the same university.