Thomas :: Sormeh

The end of DigiScan.

thomasjohnston — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:24:59 +0000

So class is officially over. We have a closing ceremony at 5 at a restaurant by the water.

Crits in class today went well– everyone’s projects have really evolved in the time we’ve spent abroad.

We all have a lot to finalize when we get back to the States before our exhibit at RedLine in October but there seems to be a renewed excitement in all our work.

Our class also made it onto JDS’s blog! This was one of the Copenhagen architecture firms involved with the Mountain Dwelling I posted last week.

A near-finalized version of the graphic relay of the data collected by Dominic and I in Denver can be seen below, and an interactive component will be added when I return home. The tentative plan is to “dispense happiness,” distributing stickers at the gallery through a gumball machine that say ‘This makes me happy.’ The aim is to have people place the stickers wherever they choose, and email back photos. Stickers will be sent to the firms we have visited abroad so that their participation may be displayed in the gallery as well.

The Design of Happiness, the Happiness of Design

So that’s it, the end of Digital Scandinavia. For now anyway…

My travels continue on Sunday, as Sormeh and I meet in London to kick off our adventures through Southern Europe!

Expect more blog posts through July 22, though they’ll probably be quite sporadic. Thanks to everyone who followed along!

-Thomas

BUG, coming to an end.

thomasjohnston — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:07:16 +0000

This morning, everyone was wrecked and we all slept through breakfast! I didn’t get out of bed until 11. I grabbed a muffin from across the street before we met for a tour of BUG, a 3D studio and video post production company. They have a contract for a new Disney show called City of Friends, and have done a lot of advertising work. They were pretty big assholes. It was interesting to see such amazing small practices and then come to this one, growing from 7 to 70 employees over a two year span, working with big oil companies and doing a project for the Burj Dubai, and finding out that these guys came from the same place! They used to work at the Sardine factory, but moved into a more corporate America structure. Everything they talked about was tied to sales and money, and they seemed to have no investment in the creativity. It was a neat contrast, even if the meeting wasn’t that fun. A good way to end the class– showing us sort of the opposite practice than the ones we’ve been studying. They stopped collaborating and compartmentalized all of their employees, so everyone was specialized, instead of the interdisciplinary people we’d met previously. Anyways, it was a nice last tour.

I checked my flight info for getting to London, and my flight leaves Bergen at 7:25 am, meaning I have to catch a bus to the airport at 4:45! So I got my money back from the hostel for my extra night, since it’s not worth paying to sleep there for 4 hours, and I’ll just stay up. Sormeh will be really tired from her traveling too, so we can just sleep when we get to the hotel.

I’m just going to work on my project in the lab for the rest of the day– I still haven’t heard back from Dominic, so I guess the project is mine now. We have our final review tomorrow from 1-4, and then our closing reception at a restaurant on the water at 5. So the rest of my stay in Bergen is pretty set– finish school, and wash all my laundry on Saturday!

-Thomas

Here are photos from the past few days:

Fuggibaggi, Askøy, Dodos.

thomasjohnston — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:04:37 +0000

This morning we toured Fuggibaggi, a design group of architects and graphic designers. They had a really cool space in a 17th century timber building along the fish market. They showed us some pretty neat projects including the renovation of a local cinema and the interiors of the new light rail line that will go through Bergen. They seemed like really down-to-earth designers who knew what they were doing, and were doing what they liked.

After the tour I came to the lab before going to get some chicken with Erik to bring to the barbecue on Askøy. We took a ferry to the island, and then a 45 minute bus ride to the other side to get to the family’s cabin.

It was amazingly beautiful. We had to take 98 steps up to the house on a narrow path through the woods. Everything was lush and green. We dropped off our food and bags, changed into our bathing suits, and walked back down the stairs and then 15 minutes through the woods to get to an inland lake. It was far warmer than the harbors in Copenhagen and Bergen, and there were pockets of hot and cold water, fed by springs. We swam for maybe an hour before heading back to start grilling. Ken was being a huge baby, but we finally got him in the water. We had a lovely cookout and played some volleyball in the back yard. We were also warned about ticks– when we finished eating, I found one on my leg which we successfully removed. When we caught the bus back to Bergen, I found another one on my ankle. I was the only one who got hit! I felt like Steve Zissou and the swamp leeches during the island rescue.

We didn’t get back to Bergen until 10:55 so I didn’t have high hopes for making it to the Dodos, but I got dropped off really near the venue so Netanya and I walked straight there while the rest of the group went home to bed. We got there at 5 after 11 and apparently the show had started only 10 minutes before. It was about $20 to get in, and we managed to work our way up to the second row. It was a really odd venue– part of a museum, so it was just a big open room with a bunch of windows. The stage was right on the ground, and the light coming in from outside gave it a weird evening feel despite the time. The crowd was pretty subdued, but they sure had a lot of mustaches. It was a rather unremarkable show, not great, but not bad by any means. They played for an hour, with lots of new songs from an album due out in August, so all in all it was certainly worth it. And then I went home and went to bed!

-Thomas

More Bergen, photos.

thomasjohnston — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:43:25 +0000

After I left the lab yesterday, I stopped by the hostel but no one was there. So I just hit the streets again and wandered by myself, which was actually really nice. I worked my way up the winding paths and narrow stairs, and around every turn I got a more breathtaking view of the city. And when I finally reached the top, I just took off into the woods.

I found a little lake with some ducks, and walked a ways around it, but then headed back down before the sun set. When I got back, everyone was still out so I went on the roof terrace of our hostel to sit for a while. When my friends straggled in, everyone wanted to go to bed– they had been on the mountain too, we just never found each other. Michael, Sergio, Sam and I went out for a beer. Cheapest beer they had was 59 NKK, essentially 10 USD! Then we came right back and went to bed.

Our tour this morning was pretty lame– it was a boring presentation by an uninspiring guy, but whatever. We’ve had awesome tours so far.

Then we went to a gallery with four sound installations, which were all really cool. One was by Maia Urstad from yesterday. Another one, by Petri Henriksson, was pretty amazing. You listened to a little one minute composition in a blacked out room, and then went into an adjacent room with a series of three projections, each one a different visual for the song, each giving it a completely different feeling. It was really quite wonderful.

After the gallery, we walked to the park for a little pow wow about what we’d seen.

No plans for tonight, but I definitely want a nap soon, I’m feeling really beat. Tomorrow evening we’re going to an island with the family who is housing Rori and company to have a group barbecue. I also found out that the Dodos are playing a show tomorrow night at the Landmark here in town, a bar recommended to us by the guys at Planet Earth that we met yesterday. I really hope I can make it. We’ll see.

I definitely slept better last night than our first one here in the hostel, but I’m still really tired after climbing up that mountain last night.

Reports on more tomorrow.

-Thomas

Bergen photos.

thomasjohnston — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:48:48 +0000

Bergen. Where everything smells like fish.

thomasjohnston — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:39:26 +0000

We took a bus from the airport into the city center, and got dropped off just a block from the hostel. It’s a great location, and right near the main fish market right on the water. We’re surrounded by beautiful green mountains and a pretty harbor. The market is ultra touristy, vendors selling worthless crap sort of like Venice, but we should be able to venture outside the city pretty easily. I ate fish and chips today, for 100 Norwegian Kroner, clocking in at about 16 USD, plus a 3 dollar coke!

After lunch I took my iPod and went on a walk to this little shady garden on a quiet street a ways up on a hill and took a nap for almost two hours in the grass.

Then I walked back to the hostel and met up with the Boulder boys and they showed me a sweet swimming spot they found. It was at another harbor on the other side of the city with a bunch of locals lounging around. We jumped in a few times and then headed back to the hostel where I took my first shower– no one joined me. Then a few of us walked back down towards the water to get something more to eat (reindeer meat hotdogs). We watched the sun setting over the fish market before going home to bed at 11:30pm. The sun was still up.

Sleeping was terrible. I put headphones on to ignore all the other people in the room, but there was so little space that I had to have my pack on the top bunk in bed with me. There was an exit sign over the door that couldn’t be turned off and was right over my bed. I woke up with light coming through the windows in the room… at 3am. And there was some really loud singing outside. One of the strangers in the room shouted something in spanish out the window and they stopped. It took me a while to fall back asleep and then I woke up a half dozen times between 6am and 7:30 when I finally got up. There were the loudest pigeons in the world outside the window– at first I thought it was someone making weird sleeping noises in the room. So I’ve been pretty wrecked all day. Can’t wait for a full week of that. Oh, and the breakfast was identical to the one in Copenhagen, so I have no break from the meat and cheese every morning. Oh well. It can’t all be perfect! I’ve been so lucky with how amazing everything has been so far.

Anyways, we stopped briefly by the lab this morning to get our keycards and to be shown the lab room, and then we walked to the old sardine factory, which happened to be right where we went swimming yesterday. The old factory is just a maze of hallways and doors, all of which are studio spaces for different artists. We met with a sound installation artist who had a pretty cool setup, and we’re going to a gallery with her work tomorrow. After that we met with two guys in another studio, Mats and Fyxe, who go by Planet Earth. They do photography, graphic design, and video production. They’ve worked on projects with Royksopp and Kings of Convenience, and then showed us the music videos they did for Datarock, Ungdonskulen, and Karin Hunt. Really impressive work. They made me a list of Norwegian bands to check out, as well as a good local record store and good bars to go to while we’re here. A great resource, but this city is expensive like you wouldn’t believe. It’s 5 dollars for a 12 oz bottle of water. Not sure how many bars I can afford to go to. There’s also a music festival in Oslo from July 1-4 that I would love to check out. I doubt I’ll be able to make it over there, but it sure would be cool.

Anyways, that’s been the day so far– it’s actually really hot and humid, pretty nasty on top of how tired I already am. I might want to go swimming again, and then maybe take the fununcular train up the mountain to check out the woods up there and see the interminable sunset.

-Thomas

Last day in Copenhagen.

thomasjohnston — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:57:37 +0000

So the plan was to go to the Louisiana museum outside of the city, but we decided it was going to turn into an all day trip and we had other things we wanted to do more. Erik, Sam and I went to a flea market near the canal and strolled for a bit, and then gave ourselves a tour of the new Black Diamond library addition, which was pretty cool. We sat by the water in deck chairs for a while before heading over to the CPHPro skateboarding competition. I stayed for an hour or so with the two guys but started feeling pretty wiped out so I grabbed a free city bicycle and rode back to the hostel. I changed into my bathing suit and walked over to the harbor bath again to cool down, and then went and got dinner on the main Strøget. Then we went to The Moose, a bar recommended by Erik’s friend who was in Copenhagen last year. It was pretty cool and we got a few beers. I ran out of money and had two cans of beer in my bag, and as I was attempting to discreetly fill my glass with one, a bartender came up to me and said “And now you leave the bar. And I drink this.” I apologized profusely and she just said “You’re not sorry. They’re 20 kroner, not 20,000!” I again apologized and she stopped being mad, but I was way too embarrassed to stay so we left and headed back to the hostel. We left for the central station at 9:30 am and grabbed a train to the airport for our flight to Bergen. Got to Norway without a hitch!

Friday with Bosch Fjord, pinup.

thomasjohnston — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:57:25 +0000

Last night we went back to Christiania around 9 and caught the tail end of a reggae show in this beer garden, and then all split up into smaller groups and wandered around looking for more music which seemed to be scattered all over. We walked by a little bar and saw the Art Rebels logo, who we met earlier in the day, and saw a DJ set by their group, Fagget Fairy. It was not as good as I had hoped, but it was a really cool atmosphere and felt good to sit for a while. We walked home around midnight. The festival continues for the next two days, but everyone seems to be slowing down. Not sure if we’ll go back tonight.

This morning I woke up at 8:30 and had breakfast before our meeting with Bosch Fjord at 10. On the way there we walked through the beautiful King’s Garden, but didn’t have any time to explore. The meeting was really cool, and Fjord himself showed us some inspiring work they did at a Danish school and library. It was interior design work, very much focused on differentiating experiences in spaces, and activating places and behaviors in unexpected ways. Rather whimsical.

After the meeting we all headed back to the lab; we have to prepare our projects for a critique at 1.

And that’s it and that’s all, man.

-Thomas

Here’s a cow with plants growing out of its udders from King’s Garden.

Thursday: Onesto Mong

thomasjohnston — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:33:05 +0000

Just hung around the hostel last night and had a few beers in the lobby with Ken and most of the group. This morning we forgot to set an alarm and slept through breakfast, and had to go right to a tour with Onesto Mong + Partners.

We didn’t know exactly where we were supposed to go so once we reached the general area we just walked into this awesome little shop and someone greeted us saying that we were early for our 2 o’clock meeting! So we found the place by accident and got to hang out with some cool designers for an extra half hour. The design group basically markets cool ideas to help improve the city, hiring freelance designers to execute the actual project. They came up with an idea to change “no’s” (no parking, no dogs, no walking on the grass, etc.) into positive signs, i.e. something like “you can dance here,” and posted these signs around the city. We didn’t get the exact slogans, but the aim was to provide the same necessary message of not being allowed to do something, but presenting a positive alternative. They invent a bicycle that could hold turntables and speakers and would ride around the city starting spontaneous parties. They also built a 30 square meter raft that they sail around the harbor with a dj and barbeque. They once hosted a 1 minute rave on their boat as they passed under one of the city’s drawbridges. Really awesome guys. So after they were done showing us around, they told us they had planned a surprise– and took us out on their raft and actually gave us a tour around the city while bumping some music. They dropped us off at the hostel and then I headed to the lab! Tonight there is a music festival in Christiania, and one of the people from the company is playing a dj set there which we’ll have to check out. We also found out that one of the guys was at the same bonfire under the bridge on midsummer with us. Small world.

Check out the photos, and more tomorrow.

-Thomas

Midsummer and meetings.

thomasjohnston — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:55:55 +0000

Last night was fun– we rolled up to the beach for midsummer festivities and tried to meet up with Chris and Erik who were with Daniel (the Dane), but it was such a crowd that it was rather impossible without any phones. We found a nice fire and had some beers and wine, and made our way back to the city at midnight. When we were crossing the canal back to our hostel we found a rather underground scene of subculture kids under the bridge with a bonfire of palettes on the wharf and a dj playing some interesting electronic music. We had another beer there and watched the gigantic fire for another hour or so before going to bed. It was actually a really low-key night, but surely a good one.

This morning was a slow start, ate an early breakfast and then went back to sleep until noon. We met up at the Danish Architecture Center for a meeting with a journalist from Copenhagen X , which was super interesting about their documentation of architectural events happening throughout the city. After that we grabbed a late lunch (a bacon-wrapped hot dog) and went straight to a firm tour with JDS, the other firm that came out of the Plot divorce which also produced BIG. They had equally impressive projects and models, and a neat studio, but it was a much smaller firm of 15, and we didn’t visit any actual projects. Very nice guys though. All the tours so far have made me want to practice in Europe– all opinions say they are much more open to the progressive.

I think the rest of the day will be here in the lab trying to figure out a way to further my project. No plans for tonight but I think it would be a good idea to take it easy and go to bed early. Walking around in the hot sun all day really takes a lot out of you.

That’s it.
-Thomas