Vienna 03.

Last Tuesday saw the first design studio with Prof. Alsop RA; of brightly coloured silts and blobs fame. Around 25 students crowded into a small studio space in his institute at the school of architecture. Although the course was heavily over subscribed everyone at the meeting was allowed to continue, which was a relief as despite my best efforts with the TUWiss on-line registration system all my efforts to secure a place had been in vain. Normally however it is the case that a few spaces are left on courses for foreign semester students; ten addition students however would usually pose a problem.

The project itself is a vision for Le Touquet, an elegant but fading seaside town on the northwest coast of France. It calls for ideas of any intervention that might provide a solution to make the town an exciting and unique place to visit, indeed nothing is ruled out from possibility of flooding the promenade to demolishing half the town, so long as it can be proved that it will be beneficial and ultimately shape Le Touquet into a desirable place.

The emphasis was therefore on the desirable and what can constitute this. Quite often architects are desperate to apply activity and function to an area whereas in contrast to this assumption the most pleasant spaces are often left bank and encourage activity rather than forcing it to occur, sitting and watching is actually far more popular in terms of numbers than beach volleyball or windsurfing. Perhaps the real reason people have traditionally been drawn towards the sea has been lost amid a confusing and distracting mist of amusement arcades and crazy golf, when actually all that is fundamentally desired is a sense of escape and space.

All of this took place after a frantic dash from the Arch. Theory school after a difficult three hour lecture with Prof. Jormakka dealing, coincidentally in regards to the above topic, with the body in space. This however this clash highlights one of the main problems with the organisational system, as institutes here have an annoying habit of scheduling lectures and tutorials so that they jar completely or overlap. This means that students have a real responsibility to organise their own timetabling and subjects often have to be dropped to make space for others.

On a very British topic the weather here has warmed up significantly and I have been taking advantage by going for a few runs mainly around the historic centre and the Prater. It also means that after three hour Practical reasoning lectures it is possible to wander into the centre and sit outside with a coffee/beer.