...And We're Back

Well I must confess to being particularly derelict regarding the blog. I've actually been working behind the scenes on a feature story (to debut soon) which is a new development given that my previous posts have basically been written off of the top of my head. I had an internet-free vacation at my parents house for Christmas, but instead of resting went all out on photography logging almost 700 images in locations from Columbus to Cincinnati to New Jersey. You can see some of the goodness on my flickr photo pool or just wait for future installments of FOTOFriday. As a result of all that effort once I made my way back to St. Louis I became entirely worthless for about 5 days other than eating and sleeping copiously.

I have always been a person who does not mind expending any amount of effort for an interesting or noble cause I can believe in and this semester at Wash U. seems to do just that. Whether because of Dean Lindsay's social outlook as pertaining to architecture (which this campaigner applauds heartily) or simply because of the alignment of the stars, I have been lucky enough to once again dabble academically in both issues of shrinking cities/abandonment and in community-based design and development; the first with Gia Daskalakis in a seminar examining the convergence of landscape architecture and urbanism and the second in a seminar involving the design of a community market in the historic African American neighborhood of The Ville. I should find out my option studio assignment tomorrow and that has the potential to either sweeten or balance the package, but it is looking up so far as compared to last semester.