ERASE RACE

Erase is a good word.  It corrects mistakes and cleans the smudges on drawing papers.  Erasers are mostly useful in wiping out large amounts of pencil or construction lines on drawings especially in drafting. Erasing is usually done after the penciling and before inking.  The eraser is equally as useful as the forever useful pencil.

PLAN SCANS

Recently, my mother's friend lent me a scanner. It is actually a scanner and a printer.  The printer does not work anymore she says but I think it only needs a good printer ink.  But I guess I wouldn't have to worry about that.  I wouldn't have to worry about replacing the ink for it to work.  I only needed the scanner though.  There are some pictures and papers I needed scanned and my mother's friend also wanted me to scan her pictures for her.  I was more than happy to do so as I started to ask her what's wrong with the printer.  She told me it only needs a printer wire to connect from the printer to the computer.  I bought the wire which only costs fifty pesos.  As I started to make it work, I worried about the printer driver.  Good thing I was able to download the driver from the internet.

TWENTY ZERO NINE

I have something new to explore today.  Though I'm expecting little changes, the newly installed AutoCAD 2009 that I'm trying right now sure did looked a little different from its predecessors.  And I'm sure there are some more newer than this.  AutoCAD 2010 and 2011 as well as 2012 should be on the market nowadays if you care to buy.  But again, it's the drafting and the design that counts.  AutoCAD could just still serve as the most helpful in architectural drafting nowadays.

WHY HIRE AN ARCHITECT?

These recent days our house feels like a place in disarray.  And though the only focus of renovation was the kitchen, it almost feels like the whole house is under construction.  From where I'm sitting now, I could feel powdered cement on the soles of my feet.  The parquet flooring seem to look a little gray now with all that cement powdered dust from all around the kitchen.  Because our steps carry on the dust, I see to it somehow that I don't get the floors dustier.

LOAD IT DOWN

I have been downloading stuff from the internet for months now. Who's not? I think everybody should do so too. It's practical for me.  Having to download songs, softwares, ebooks, and all almost everything for free. I do this so I won't have to keep thinking that I would regret not having listened, watched and read downloadable stuff. Downloading just meant that I won't have to be online everytime. I can read, listen, and watch stuff offline afterwards.

PASSED

Around a week ago, mother and I walked along a certain street in Davao.  As we passed by, I saw a streamer posted at their fence. It was a streamer posted for announcing or celebrating PRC Architecture board exam passers.  The new architects were not from UM but from UP or the University of the Philippines Mindanao. They have a 100% passing rate.

DRAWN NOT TO SCALE

It's almost Christmas.  On this side of the planet, we don't get to experience winter.  But December surely starts to lighten up everyone's spirits for it is Christmas season once again. Kids were now singing carols. All around the streets of the village, houses were now colorfully lit with electrical lights and decorations.  Almost everywhere, houses were adorned and some rebuilt or redesigned even for just the exterior.

THE ONE POINT SIX ONE EIGHT

There is this thing called the 1.618 ratio or called the divine proportion.  I only discovered this when I read the The Da Vinci Code.  I was just reading the book out of curiosity.  Because the book was so famous and all.  There was even this thing called the harmonic proportion. 1:2:3:4:5:6. . . and so on.  But recently I just found out that the 1.618 ratio was also called the Golden Ratio.The golden ratio is such described to be an irrational mathematical constant. It was believed that in the Renaissance period, many artists and architects have proportioned their works to approximate the golden ratio.  It is understood then that proportions as golden as this were derived from nature.  It means that this proportions are everywhere especially the flowers.  The truth is; I yet have to study the formulas, the codes more closely.  I can only recall the quadratic equation or the formula.  Who knows I might use this "Golden Ratio" someday.

MANUAL DRAFTING AND THE AUTOCAD MONKEYS

I still have some of my drafting materials since school.  I know almost everybody on the profession is now doing Autocad and all the new software that go along with it, it still seems to feel good to do drawings manually.  I feel sorry for some architecture students who were not trained to do manual drafting.  But I'm sure they were taught in school the way we were. 

NEW CLEAR POWER PLANT

A few months ago I was having ideas straight from somewhere inspiring me to form structures out of the things I see in and out of our house.  I managed to form something they call in architecture as modeling.  That time I would or should not call it scale modeling because I was not measuring every bit of the small structure I was modeling.  The first structure I saw and formed was made to look like a skyscraper.  You'd think It's crazy for I just happened to saw this stack of compact disks which were inside this plastic container.  It would seem to be structurally sound for it had this rod at the center where to put the disk's hole.  The rod really gives the structure the right  foundation for the compact disk skyscraper.

CAMERA

These are ever challenging times.  Architecture abroad seem to be so monstrous that one designer tend to mix or confuse its function to produce the form.  For as long as the building is erected with all the needed details abiding from the drafted plans, then its all good. There is no denying that some projects are subject to scrutiny and criticism especially from the professional world.  Some even are up to the task of making formal complaints to every building that that does not conform with the rules and standards setup by the authorities of the profession.  They would incessantly criticize every work that isn't done by some designer that they haven't heard of.  If some anonymous designer sprung out from nowhere and is found out, immediate actions should be taken so it wont happen again.  So what is your stand?

THE DRAFTING MAN

If we define the word through Google, we'd find out that the draftsman's nature of work is to translate a designer's ideas into a finished picture using drawing and drafting skills. So it doesn't necessarily mean that the draftsman would be the designer too. All the while an architect or a designer tend to give the draftsman the job of having his designs presentable. This means that a draftsman would have to do the drawings with the designer's approval or edits. So the designer would have to be the concept maker and the prime mover and thinker. In short, Draftsmen are individuals whose primary function is to provide technical support to the designers and engineers who work in construction.

A FLOOR SCHEME

This was done a few weeks ago.  It's for a friend who entrusted me to design a house for him.  He told me I should decide how it would look.  The house should represent him, he said.  I asked him how many floors and asked about the lot area.  He wanted the house to have two floors with an attic.  And I was just surprised.  An attic would be a great add-on. As then he told me no money would be involved at first.   And a commission to design for a friend just feels good.    The money always comes out later soon as the design progresses to be seriously feasible, and workable.  But could I do it?

INSIDE THIS DOT-COM GILDED CAGE

I am overwhelmed by the increasing magnetism that this dot-com gilded age brings.  And I hope that something really fruitful would come out of this.  It almost seems to look like a struggle having to keep abreast with what this Dot-Com Gilded age has in store for everyone.  From here around Davao, social networking sites seem to have made changes on people relations.  Some have made it a point to face the screen every moment of everyday. For who knows? Another marvelous thing might come up.