LIFE @ SWA

Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing well! I'm finally feeling a little more adjusted back into work after being gone for spring break - but I really haven't had much to talk about. This past week really started to pick up though and thanks to the three day weekend I was able to explore a ton more of the city.

WORK: A Story of Life at the Office

This past week I've been showing up to work a lot earlier than normal and I've finally gotten a good morning schedule down. I'm having one of those quarterly epiphanies that I work better in the morning and thinking its something new every time. Without any distractions in the morning though, I've gotten a good bit of work done.

Project Appraisal:

This past week the main thing I was focused on was doing an appraisal of a project for a different company. I don't know the specifics as to why we were doing it, but the process has been cool. Learning how to create and organize a pricing sheet and all of the work that goes into it is really helpful for when I actually have to think about budget.

On a side note this has taught me a lot about how to not make my CAD files. Most of my time was spent going through and having to redraw half of the existing files to get the information I needed. But it gave me something to do so its not the worst.

Disk Golf Score and Game Card:

The other project I was focusing on was a graphic update to an existing card that went with a disk golf game to keep score and show the hole locations throughout the park. Well I had to go through the whole process of going through CAD and bringing it into Photoshop and Illustrator. I maybe did things the long way which wasted a good bit of time, but I learned some new commands in the end so its cool. I wasn't able to finish the whole card - but the plan was pretty nice.

Misc.:

I really haven't had the time to continue my work on the community entry monument this past week, but I was able to finish modeling most of the monuments I proposed and put them into a rudimentary presentation. I had to render a day and night view of each which was something new.

LANDSCAPE INSPIRATIONS: Views of Houston

Thanks to the three day weekend, I got to explore a lot more of the city this weekend and saw a lot of cool design landscape spaces that I thought some people may like. These spaces were so cool to explore and experience and I will definitely be using these as references for future projects.

Green Infrastructure and Sustainability

Butterfly Garden

Bioswale

Native Wildflowers and Bee Hotels

Artful Installations

This is an installation showing a herd of travelling elephants taken from a photo. Each one was dedicated to a specific elephant in the herd.

This is only half of the full installment. It was drawing in so many people for pictures and going through all of the signage.

This cool sun dial outside the Natural Science Museum that also serves as a little stage/pedestal on one side.

Centennial Gardens at Hermann Park

Master Plan of the garden grounds

I have been to this park a few times now and thought I had seen most of it - but this weekend I found an entire new garden within the park and it was my favorite part so far! Each portion of the park had its own unique feeling and design language but they all meshed together so well.