c o m i n gx i n t ox b e i n g |
part six of eight - the sixth week |
I start this week with a certain level of apprehension. One one hand, the break will not enough - given the rigors of travel both ways - for me to recover energy and to prepare for the work ahead. On the other hand, I am wanting to get back as the clock is ticking away. I have to admit to a level of anger that the majority of the problems that I face are the consequence of a decision made by someone not involved with the project, who does not know the complexities of the work and that this was done without any dialog with those who now bear the burden of doing what is for all practical purposes impossible. This is the very management paradigm that this facility is being built to change. I suppose that there is something poetic, as well as politic, in this fact. |
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...Sunday - 31/Dec/ 06
18 days to Opening |
...Monday - 01/Jan/ 07
17 days to Opening |
A new year today and the first project finished this year will be UniCredit. What this means I am not sure but it is the thought that came to mind early today. I started this project at the end of January, 06, after Davos. By opening, 17 days from now, it will have consumed six months of my time - out of this last year - since then. When it comes time to build Xanadu [link: xanadu project], what piece of my life will this vision demand? |
Gail and I went for a walk on the beach and found this redwood log. It came in from the sea yet had not been there long as it was still fresh and red. The seas have been high this trip home and it is always a surprise what can be found. I would not have liked sailing into this at night on Camelot [link: why camelot]. Earlier today, Matthias and I met and worked through some agreements for Stan’s project. The thought of being home for a few months in early summer and building this addition is a pleasing one after the last year of travel and less than 8 weeks home in total in 06. |
...Tuesday - 02/Jan/ 07
16 days to Opening |
Flying - I have come to dislike it. This was a good flight as these things go yet flying no longer holds the romance it did for me 60 years ago [link: 1947]. I worked on the description to Stan’s project [link: leopard addition] determined to stay in vacation mode as long as possible. I needed to get back and I was excited about finishing the project but I was not in the mood - yet - to do so. As a matter of fact, my feelings were somewhat negative. The challenge ahead seems more burden than fun. |
...Wednesday - 03/Jan/ 07
15 days to Opening |
Arrived in Torino in the late afternoon, checked into the hotel - comments about this later - and visited the Job site.
More coming... |
...Thursday - 04/Jan/ 07
14 days to Opening |
Arrived on the job site mid morning and discovered that Mike and I had not communicated regarding the solution to the the diagonal mast problem. He worked out a perfectly logical solution which lead to other complications. As pieces were already cut for all four of the trees there remained no option but to proceed. It is easy to go down a rabbit hole in the design process so that one “solution” to a problem leads to another problem and “solution” which leads to another... and so on. There are always increasing returns and synergy - this is the way of nature. The challenge is to stay on the track of positive increasing returns. Somewhere there is a solution and we have a few days to find it. I have never been in the position where I could not find a design fix that was at least acceptable. This project is very complex and the are a number of people who can effect the outcome in a material way. This Armature has been modified and a great deal has been added to it as the requirements have become known. Will it be able to absorb and “hold” all of this variety and still remain clear and comprehensible?
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...Friday - 05/Jan/ 07
13 days to Opening |
Spent the morning with Lisa, Anna, Paola and several of the UniManagement staff reviewing the design of the January 18, 19 UniCredit Group Leadership Meeting: the Architecture of Our Sustainable Growth.This review was about the basic structure of the event and a review of issues that we have to address.
More coming... |
...Saturday - 05/Jan/ 07
12 days to Opening |
For the third time, the project started to come together today. An almost overwhelming amount of work remains to be done by everyone - all contractors and suppliers - on all floors. It is possible, now, to see a finished product emerging from the fog of construction, however, the gap between where we are and the minimum of where we have to be is massive. It seems that my early October prediction that everyone will be working until two hours before the participants arrive, unfortunately, is going to turn out to be an accurate forecast. |
Permasteelisa has removed the protection from the glass balconies and stairs to the 3rd floor. I call this shot “looking up” and perhaps things are beginning to do this. The stairway is spectacular but is is going to be a problem for half of the Human population. The beauty-utility equation is not always easy to balance.
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Who was it that said that “it was the best of times and the worst of times?” This entire project has been both. When you do not get home but 7 weeks and a few days in a year - these are not the best of times. When, four months before the project is to be complete and manufacturing has to start, the requirements radically change, these are not the best of times. When concrete work and plastering is going on in the process of installing finish goods - this is not the best of times. The excitement and rush of FasTracking is the best of times. The tight collaboration of working with all the different engineers, designers and trades - on site - to find the best possible solution to each specific challenge - is the best of times. To see THE IDEA of the design unfold, day by day, is the best of times. To see a “near perfect” work of art and craft compromised by small flaws caused by a arbitrary, too tight schedule, is to be robbed of almost all satisfaction. To launch an environment as complex as this one without even a day to test it, is to not sleep much in the last weeks and to indulge in great professional risk. In the end, to see how it effects people is to realize that, perhaps, the costs and risks are worth it. However, no matter how this experience is balanced out and judged, this project was an investment of 1/100th of my total working life. How may of these increments are left?.
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There is no way to weigh, exactly, these questions. It is one thing to wonder about them, personally. It is another concern when the impacts on other people are rendered in the equation. Is this really transformation? What is the consequence and message when creative drive becomes mania? Can we achieve our aims if - and I do not know that it is - this way of creating is intimately flawed? Is it just the circumstance of a world in transformation - the creature of old habits that will change - or is it because we are captured, and will remain captured by the system we are working to transform? |
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GoT0: part one of eight - the first week
GoT0: part seven of eight - the seventh week |
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GoTo: UniCredit Handwritten Notebook |
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Matt Taylor
Elsewhere
December 31, 2006
SolutionBox
voice of this document:
BUILD TACTICS
EVALUATION
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posted:
December 31, 2006
revised:
January 7, 2007
• 20061231.999879.mt • 20070106.565912.mt •
(note:
this document is about 01% finished)
Copyright© Matt
Taylor 2006, 2007
Leonado Images copyright© Leonardo3 2006 |
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