Back to Work!

After some much needed R&R, the students reassembled today upon returning from Spring Break. We picked up right where we left off and began to make new progress in our assigned teams. One group is currently focusing on operable features of the pavilion, another is focused on landscaping, another on layout of programming, and finally [...]

On the path of INNOVATION!

This year, we will be building the pavilion partly with a different material that has been used in aircraft! It's referred to as 'composite'. It is a great opportunity to experiment and explore applications of innovative materials and set an example!  As we are on the verge of completing the design of the pavilion, we [...]

Can I speak to your manager?

This week I have been wrapping up some initial designs with my nonprofit, Amor Healing Kitchen. Amor recently moved to the old Kaminskys location in West Ashley. Here they have gotten more foot traffic and recognition from the surrounding neighborhoods who are curious about what they do. At this location, there is a side and [...]

Wood you, could you, build a cabinet?

A lunch and learn is like an adult field trip. I visited Low Country Case & Millwork with coworkers from CEMS and I was truly amazed. Before entering the building we were greeted by an alligator sunbathing by the pond which I thought was the warmest welcome. LCCM recently moved into a brand new 52,000 [...]

Take a Look, It’s in a Book….

If you have ever watched the hit PBS Kids show "Reading Rainbow" as a child, adolescent, teen, really at any age, then you have heard the words of this post's title sung (I personally like Chaka Khan's version of it, but that's neither here nor there).  Anyway, we have been spending the last four or [...]

Draw, Design, Iterate…Repeat!

As small group design continues, my group assessed what each of our designs had in common and decided to have another round of individual design this week to incorporate the features from each of our projects that we want to move forward with. Today we came together and worked to create a final scheme that [...]

A day of Achieving milestones!

Yes! Our Frierson site is almost ready to cut ribbons and to be opened for the school students. We crossed another milestone with site inspection and all went well. The site was inspected by Mr. Michael Barry who is an inspector and engineer from the Office of School Family. (OSF). Another milestone was, we presented our [...]

DIYing Studio

After many weeks of group-centered projects and activities - spring cleaning, PLI preparations, site research – we have split off to generate fifteen different schemes to show the committee at next Friday’s review. Today marks the approximate halfway point of our individual design for a new community garden located in Singleton Park. At next week’s [...]

On the Boards..

This week we started on our design process for Singleton Park's garden! We were all excited to get into the weeds of it, and we had our first meetings with Prof. Pastre today on our work so far. We all were randomly assigned different "Site Approaches" which delineated generally where the main gathering space and [...]

Welcome to Charleston, Mr. President!

On Thursday, February 9th, the President's Leadership Institute (PLI) of Clemson University came down to the Clemson Architecture Center Charleston (CACC) in the Cigar Factory to visit Clemson architecture's Charleston fluid studio. Consisting of President Jim Clements and a cohort of faculty from Clemson University, including both Jim Stevens and Dan Harding of Clemson architecture, [...]