Thursday, August 11, 2011

Two Architectural Field Trips

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On August 3, we visited the Sunnyvale Congregational Church to sketch their pretty roof structure. The roof features a very interesting geometrical feature: it's basically a bunch of triangular prisms cleverly put together!

Our tour group was made of up of just 4 families so it was really casual and cosy. It was an experience I'm hoping we'll repeat at other architectural marvels around the SF Bay Area. We were also lucky to bump into the pastor who slipped us into the sanctuary to view the delightful stained glass windows inside. Beautiful!

I'm not able to post all the photos publicly without the church's permission so I haven't used mine but on the right is a snapshot of the facade taken from the church's website. Below, kiddo sketches the back roof portion of the church.

An intriguing anecdote: the twin twisters that struck the church in 1998. Tornadoes are rare in the Silicon Valley!

On August 10, our little homeschool group joined the architectural walking tour of Stanford's medical center and campus. We had a good look at how the architecture has changed over the years, starting from the "Stone" period, below center, to the more modern period, including the eyecatching Li Ka Shing Center, below right.

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Two interesting things we learned:
  1. The use of color to unify different architectural styles within the same campus.
  2. The use of "accordion" like fillers between buildings to make them structurally and seismically sound.

3 comments:

  1. I would have loved to come on those field trips. What a great learning experience!

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  2. What a great group to be a part of! I wish we could tag along, but the commute might get us. :)

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  3. Thank you Jill and Annie. We'd love to have had you join us too...CA is just too huge isn't it?

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