"i'm in the grip of a hurricane, i'm gonna blow myself away"

I'm doing two projects right now that both are about Islamic cultures.

One is for my architecture and the City class, my group have been assigned Timbuktu in Mali. We're analyzing the structure and the grid of the town. History, demographics, traffic flows. Everything. And just as we speak I'm doing my first ever Nolli Map. Interesting stuff.

The second project is the one in Dubai. The design project. Every group has to come up with one site specific sculpture that includes some form of renewable energy. So much fun.

That's why I'm so happy I found this film on youtube. It's in 10 parts but it's so worth watching each one.

"the flowers you gave me are rotting and still i refuse to throw them away"

It's fun studying here in Brisbane! Right now I'm doing research on both Timbuktu and Abu Dhabi. A little bit different from Inverness to say the least. For the Abu Dhabi project the whole class is divided into research groups and then one from each group are joining a new design group for next week. Super fun. The brief for the project is from an actual competition. Definitely different.

My research group is investigating solar panels and photovoltaics, my task is to find examples of renewable energy in art. Just love Sara Hall's projects. And ZM Architects Solar Lilly for Glasgow City Council is really refreshing.

The research on Timbuktu is for the class Architecture And The City, one of the most interesting classes I have ever taken. And on the lecture the other day I won a large chocolate bar because I was the first out of 200 students to identify a picture on the slideshow as Paris! Haha.

I'll keep you posted on my progress in the different subjects.