Form Study 1.1

Yay, I’ve now been an architecture student at TU Delft for four weeks! So I thought, why not post some of my creations in here.

This is the first thing we had to make for Form Study. I got a pretty good grade (8/10) for it too. We also had to write a little something , so here it is…

The composition has a clear sense of direction, which is achieved in placing most of the rectangular plates with their long sides mirroring the long side of the rectangular base. The structure is essentially asymmetrical; however its core component has rotational symmetry. In order to ‘tie’ up the building, the 5 cm size and its multiples are used throughout the structure (be it 2.5 cm or 7.5 cm). 

The structure is essentially open, with numerous lines of sight from most of the spaces ‘inside’. This fuzzes the boundary between open and closed, inside and outside; the space flows through and around structure, allowing to differentiate between the outside, while ‘inside’ is defined less explicitly. The divisions created by the positioning of planes are also connected, either through openings, or by an underlying plane connecting both spaces. 

The structure seems to be defined by its width and lenght rather than height, but with a closer look, we can observe elements that define the space also on the vertical axis, creating a more balanced structure. The difference in height between the vertically positioned elements is great enough to let them define certain spaces, but not great enough to place the emphasis solely onto the vertical plane. 

As references, I use the Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier, Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe, Brazilian national congress by Niemeyer and the Schroder House by Rietveld.  

Peter’s Top 10 and Other Notices

For those of you who are not privileged enough to be my ‘friend’ on Facebook, you might not know that  I promised a Top 10 of the best blogs I’ve written, all this trouble to mark the second anniversary of me blogging. Also, I just release 2 new ‘uncategorized’ entries and will add in a new category. I promise to work on the site (I eventually want a Mondriaan theme for it). So lots of changes.

Rock on

Number 10

Year Overview 2005

Considering it’s one of my first pieces it’s quite nicely done. Too bad it’s too short and not really detailed. It is also very self-centered, something I tried to avoid later in my “career”. Also the original unedited version sound too childish (yeah, I used the word ‘mum’).

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Year Overview 2005, 30 December 2005

I apologize to my imaginary audience for not writing anything in days. It was THE season, so I did not really have a lot of spare time to do it. I was busy doing nothing.

On the other hand, things are looking up a bit. Even though I am not close to achieving my goal, I have realized that people out there who hope to make me feel bad, will not do so as I cannot feel, but more about that later (in next entry).

This year was cheerful, passed my exams, got an iPod, still hanging on to some friends and managed to find some new ones. I would not call them friends yet, maybe just people who do not hate me completely, but seeing the way I act they could. Quite cheerful too, had a good laugh about Stalin’s monkey-mutants, until I find out the rumors were true.

My social life started take off slowly and still might come crashing to the ground like a Concord, but there is hope (only if my parents were a bit more liberal on curfews). After finally finding out how to say ‘hypocrite’ in my language I have used the world as often as I could, so that’s all good.

Definitely not giving up on my music but started discovering some other genres (superficially). So the year 2005 was the beginning of the end of old me, although I still have a long way to go to change into a person other people like (to hang out with).

As for my new Year’s resolutions, you’ll have to wait until the New Year.

Muahahaha

Peter S

28 September 2007

Hey, this is my diary. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you with my most personal stuff, I’ll just write about all the weird stuff that happens to me.

Today, my daily commute back to The Hague. The tram is full of people. We’re crammed in like sardines, the only thing that’s missing is tomato sauce. So it’s little wonder that unwillingly, you touch people. I did anyways. So I am standing next to this hobo, his trousers were all ripped up, his hair unwashed, he had a chewing gum in his ear, and he seemed to smell a bit.

And I touched him. Not even with my hand, but kind off brushed him with my rucksack as I was letting this elderly lady step out of the tram. What happened then was rather strange. The man started murmuring some chants and incantations in (presumably) Arabic. He even mimicked a spit in my direction several times. To add to the hilarity of the situation, he started brushing off ‘Peter’s rucksack cooties’ from his coat.

I thought that this man might be a terrorist (now tell me that the USA  are not doing their job properly, now I see a terrorist on almost every corner). But after he seemed to calm down, I reasoned with myself a bit. I am not a decadent Westerner (yeah, I’m actually from Eastern Europe), I don’t wear expensive watches or jewelry and I don’t look like Victoria Beckham. I’m not a Chritian nor a Jew (I’m an atheist), so my religion could not have offended the man. Alos, I wash myself every day, so my personal hygiene was not in question (and my chewing gum was in my mouth not my ear). 

Then when he tried to sit next to this girl after a seat became available, he brushed against her sleeve. The whole peculiar ritual repeated itself, the hobo being rather uncomfortable. Anyways I think everyone was glad when the man finally got out of the tram. Seeing as he got off near a psychiatric clinic (Parnassia), he was probably somehow disturbed or paranoid (like Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good As It Gets, except the rich and clean part).

It’s really cool that you can meet all these weird and wonderful (although this guy was just weird, and a little scary) people in The Hague. 

Peter

Drunk Nation & The Shifting Borders of Eastern Europe

So, what shall I discuss today. I suppose I should discuss something. After all, it would be a waste of space to post this. Oh, I remember, let’s discuss two things at the same time.

First of all how often do you hear your friends say: ‘Oh, it’s Friday night, I need to get wasted ‘cos I haven’t had anything to drink since two weeks/ one week/ a day/ an hour ago’. Sadly, I hear this remark more often than I would like to. Not that I condemn social drinking, it just seems incredible to me that the main purpose of going out is not to have fun, but to get drunk.

Now you can call me Captain Obvious, because this is in no way a groundbreaking discovery. Drinking for the sake of drinking. Did our parents do it too? I suppose some of them probably did, even if I can’t point out any particular examples. But why, I ask you, why? There must be several reasons, such as escaping reality, acting cool because you are doing an adult thing. For once I cannot imagine someone with so much going for them, with all the conveniences of life in Western Europe trying to escape reality (honestly, would you rater sit in a hut somewhere in the desert, without running water, or in front of your huge flastscreen on a big leather sofa). And now, even if some of us don’t like to admit it, we are young adults (18-19 years old), and we shouldn’t feel the need to go prove it to anyone else. Maybe some of us use alcohol to become more sociable, but what you often get is just a bunch of depressed people making out. So that argument falls too (By the way, when I was in this bar once, there was great atmosphre so I acted a like a fool aka dancing, next day, most people were convinced I was ‘SOOOOOO DRUNK’).  Also, excessive drinking could be see as a rebellion against one’s parents, so now that many of us live elsewhere, it should decrease.

So why do we drink so much so often (not me personally)? In order to drink. It seems like a vicious circle. This is one thing I’ll never know. What I do know is that in 10/20/30 years, we’ll be telling our kids not to drink too much, and they, just like us, will promise not to. But in the depths of our hearts, we should know the truth.

So what was my point? Nothing (again).

Cheers (?)

Peter

Oh yeah, the Eastern Europe thing. You thought I forgot? Oh come on. All right, here it goes (hold on, it won’t take very long).

I remember when I came to the Netherlands 7 years ago and I said; “I’m from Slovakia”, most people said “Oh lovely, how is Russia these days?”. Now (as of September 2007) people reply “You’re Polish, right?”. We’re nearly there folks, maybe after a couple of years, you’ll know where Slovakia actually is.

Party 4 50 Cent.

So, after some time of my wishful thinking, 50 Cent actually committed professional suicide. I don’t have a personal grudge against him, since I don’t even know him, but one thing I never liked about him was the ‘music’ he was making.

I can’t rap  (yeah, I’m a white boy), I can’t sing or compose. So I should not be the one to criticize anyone in the business. As a matter of fact, the only thing 50 Cent can do is rap (and make tons of cash in the process). He can’t sing, probably, because if he could, he wouldn’t be rapping (but we don’t need another R&B singer with high pitched voice). As far as composing goes, you could probably compose a 50 Cent song shuffling the words ‘ho’, ‘bitch’, ‘hood’, and ‘got shot’ in any order that makes sense (‘got shot in the hood by a ho bitch’). Add in a few bad metaphors about sex (you know, the whole ‘lollipop’, ‘magic stick’, and ‘love doctor’) and you’re nearly there. All you need now is a beat, which is harder to think of, but you’ll eventually get there too.

As for music video, you need: about 20 chicks with mini bikinis, 20 kilograms of tasteless jewelery, a fluffy coat, and pants as long as the ones you wore when you were 4 years old. The set can be any ‘ghetto’, but this must be equipped with a state of art club with lots of booze and fake 100 dollar bills. So there.

Yeah, I know he promised that he’ll still write for other artists, but why pay for stuff that you already know and can easily make yourself. To be hones, I think even Britney could write better songs (on a second thought, maybe not). The point is still that 50 Cent put his 2 cents in it and got millions in return. I wish him that. He should enjoy this money and not spend it all on drink (right Britney?).

So, 50 cent, please let it go. For 15 years I didn’t know you existed and all was well. I shouldn’t see why if you leave the business things can’t be well. And let’s hope that MTV has enough brains to spend the air-time they spent on running your videos with something useful, like a highly relevant social commentary show.

If all goes well, we can open the champagne and party for50 Cent, the man who gave up his career to bring more culture into our lives.

Cheers

Peter

Shameless Self Promotion

I was thinking, what should I write as my first real entry into this blog. Just when I began to believe that my creative peak was way behind me, I realized I could just write about (see title).

I always wanted to have high readership numbers, but I am realistic enough to know this will never happen, because I have my dignity, and I prefer to keep things a tiny bit intellectual. However, I have seen enough of the world to know what COULD raise my readership. So, if you have no shame, please take my advice.

1. Sex Sells. I don’t think that I should explain this. Just post a few naked pictures and people should start reading what you wrote either out of curiosity, or because they are perverts. The disadvantage is that there is too much sex on the internet already and unless you are fortunate, you don’t look all that good when naked.
2. Disasters. Even though we might not like it (if you do, you are officially a pervert), we are all drawn to blood, gore, and the misfortune of other people. Violence just works. End of story. The problem with this, just like with sex, is that there is too much violence around and you never know when someone will appear with an even more terrifying images.
3. Don’t mind your language. Using euphemisms such as ‘heck’ will only make you seem like a p*ssy. Also using asterisk will make you look like a you-know-what. Saying thighs like you-know-what will make you look like a… You get the picture. Swear!
4. Don’t respect anything or anyone. Look at Perez Hilton, do I need to elaborate?
5. Don’t write anything potentially clever or witty. That’s frowned upon by the wide public. Many bestsellers were written by people with less brain matter than a mosquito. How else could you explain countless Z-list celebrities’ books topping the book charts.
6. Use your daddy’s name and/or money to make you famous. If Paris wasn’t Hilton, she’d be just another spoilt, rich, drunk woman (even if that’s my first choice of the word). The downside is, you’ll have to be rich and your parents famous.
7. Pretend. Pretend you are poor, starving, traumatized. People will feel sorry for you and read your stuff out of sympathy. But you’ll have to get used to people ‘mercy-reading’ your stuff, they don’t really care anyways.

I am sure I could go on. But when I look around, I see that there are many quality blogs and none of them have these characteristics. Many people still read them. Why? Because they simply rock. So success can be achieved by fair means, and that people are not rotten. But it’s still sad that there are people on the top who deserve it less than those who put in all their effort. So Paris and Perez, I hope you’ll think about this (that is, if either of you ever reads this).

Bye for now,

Peter

Two Days, Two Introductions

Yay,

In the last two days I managed to leave my original blog  behind, start up a new one, until a friend of mine told me that this one is better, so I switched again. Well then. I suppose this is kind of weird. But to be honest, this one is a bit better, the themes are more classy and when I have more time I will try to make something I like better, but this will have to do for now. I hope no damage was be done.

If you are not at all familiar with what kind of tings I write, you can visit petsmisek.spaces.live.com/blog  .

Hope you like it.

Peter