Highly Confidential Carla Bernal’s Internship Journal
San Francisco Urban Design Š 2015, A Fourth Year Off-Campus Program College of Architecture & Environmental Design, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Carla A Bernal California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Bachelor of Architecture, 2016 Intern at Gensler Email: cabernal@calpoly.edu Phone: 925.381.5278 Program Website: www.calpolysfud.com/cabernal
San Francisco Urban Design Š 2015, A Fourth Year Off-Campus Program College of Architecture & Environmental Design, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Thank you Gensler for this once in a lifetime opportunity.
1 First day at Gensler was very busy. I got here 15 minutes early and while waiting I met Betty Lynn Senes from C.W.Driver at the lobby and Chasa Toliver. Chasa took part of our orientation. It was her first day in the marketing department as a PR. We started the day with Lauri Dukes. She went over a little background and history of the company and showed us Gensler’s intranet. Then came Maya Garcia and Princess Mumphrey for an accounting orientation. This was more for future references. They told us about boomerangs. Boomerangs are people that work and come back to the company. I am hopefully coming back for mine (fingers crossed). Next on the list was Jessica Galeazzi on knowledge Management which was an interesting topic about data. Data coming in and out. Gensler has a great built in platform for all 4,488 employees spanning across the world in 46 offices. You
>
Studio
>
Office
>
Region
>
Firm
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
You are a piece that make up the whole. Which helps make the firm more of an intimate experience. What makes Gensler a great firm is that people are a great resource to each other. If you cannot do it or need anything you can ask anyone even if they are in London, New York, or Abu Dabi. The way they do that is in Gensler’s people profile database. It is like LinkedIn. You can look for anyone with any kind of expertise for any professional project need. With the Employee profile comes a Project Profile and Client Profile. All in one place. We met Tim Wright-Field who is the studio director for Community Flex 1 which is the studio we are in. He sent us off to meet Rick Aldeguer at the mailroom and J.D. at the print room. Alex Palmisano is the Design Performance Leader and he gave us the load down on the Firm’s 4 synergies. Design Design Design Design
Management Experience Performance Realization
We ended the orientation with Joel Ranan and Kyle Miller on tech. The day was overwhelming. I am excited to hear what project Karen has for me. We will hear about it tomorrow. So far I am so happy to be here. Today I felt as if I was living in the future. My future self. However, it is the present.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
2 Today we started off the day with an open discussion forum called “First Cup” they are hosted by Joan Price + Scott Dunlap - Hot conversation, Cool Information. They are hosted monthly on a Wednesday. Today we had Dan Winey coming in from China. He is usually out in all parts of the world. Mainly in China. Dan is the Regional Principal and has been with Gensler for 24 years. The conversation started with the T2 competition award with Melissa Mizell for SFO. Everyone just celebrated the news last Friday and will be planning a party to recognize those who participated in it. They spoke of their story between passenger experience. Melissa went forward to speaking of the body language + content critique during the client questionnaire/scenarios. They hired consultants to prep them for what she referred to as the ‘cooking show’. “Never
apologize
“When you age that in
are a
for
being
successful.”
successful how unique way?” Dan
-
Dan
Winey
do you leverWiney continues...
Dan continued to say that in an economic perspective it is slowing down. He spoke on how China president Xi Jinping criticized international architects such as Rem Koolhaas. I had actually read about this in an article by Arch Daily - “ Why China’s President says “No more weird buildings” posted towards the end of last year. China is creating more and more barriers to entry Dan continues to say. We end ed the talk on Shanghai Tower which is to be the tallest building in China opening this year on September just in time for the 50th Anniversary celebration for Gensler. Wow - and the tower will be the second tallest in the world right behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
3 It took me a good while walking down Broadway until I realized I was walking the wrong way. I arrived at the 20th floor of the Pandora building greeted by the spectacular view towards the Oakland Port. I met Bonnie Perhac who greeted me in as the Oakland office has only been opened for less than a month and they are still in the process of hiring a receptionist My first impression of the office was edgy and serious. Very different from the San Francisco office. The whole level is open to full wall height views of Oakland and beyond. I was introduced to John Falconer who than gave me a tour of the office and introduced me to the project I will be working on which is Workday in Pleasanton, California. The project is 4 weeks into the conceptual phase. Which is the midpoint until they start the schematic Phase. I was amazed that during this phase they needed to cover a menu list that includes Structural Systems, Program, Traffic and ingress/egress, parking concept, Loading Dock, Site circulation, Building and Parking Garage skin concepts, Conceptual Floor Plans, Building Section, MEP/HVAC, Stacking diagrams for vertical distribution, LEED Strategies. That is a long list. Reminds me of the deliverables for our Cal Poly third year design studio project. I spent the rest of the day going through the design competition Presentations. For the competition they had three which were Glance > Sneak Peek > Final presentation. John told me that the client only have allowed about 15 minutes or so to present. That meant getting to the bold and big idea/story behind the design. “That was hard� he says.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
At 2:30 I was invited on a GoToMeeting with the structural engineer, KPFF and the rest of the design team to decide which structural system would be best to move forward with. The client was opposed to steel structure because of the exposed ceiling being subjected to fireproofing. They want a more clean and simple feel. With that said, the team is proposing pretensioned concrete construction. On the call was the geotechnical engineers, Richard Rogers. The conversation started with an agreement of the 30x30 vs. 30x60 structural grid. The design team saw the 30x60 grid being a great opportunity for flexibility in the building. 30x30 was more efficient but did not meet the design goals. How do we take it to the next level? The parking will be below 20’25’ below existing grade and water table. Water table is the surface where the water pressure head is equal to the atmospheric pressure therefore we are dealing with hydrostatic uplift. This means that the static pressure is pushing up. What is better Mat foundation or tie downs? What is more economical? Mat foundation was most preferred vs the tie downs. The debate was mostly about the thickness of the mat. Than Steve suggested adding columns at the parking lot making the Mat slab thinner and shorter. Than we all agreed that adding tie downs was more economical. However, when it came down to piles vs Mat. Piles took out two downs all together. Next was calculating the costs. The team agreed that the concrete columns would be 24x24 with W36 pre-cast hybrid moment frames. KPFF was to report back with a structural matrix of mix between concrete and steel. The day ended with an office visit by Scott Dunlap and Dan Winey with popcorn and wine.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
4 Today I spent the first half of the day at the Oakland office. John filled me in more on Workday. I took the time to read some of the project folders. I learned that there was a proposal before the Workday project competition came about. However, the day they were suppose to break ground - Michelle, the client called the whole thing off. How cool is that? Whatever happened - good thing it did. I also went through all the project presentations. There was a lot of good information and process. I also found the book they made with photos of team during the competition phase. John told me that for the competition it came down to HOK and Gensler for the win. The final step was an interview with the clients. John said that Workday asked both firms if they have invested in Workday in the past. The rumor goes that Gensler got the project because the clients were pleased to know that they have used Workday for the past 20 years and HOK never had. Pretty juicy story. Proposal Inside-out Research C
Research Approach Approach
base
i
r
c
u
l
a
t
i
Space
n
Planning
Back-of Focus
o
House >
Collaborate
building >
Learning
system >
Socializing
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
5-7 These three intense days were spent in a 8’x10’ focus room doing Revit training along with Farid. The first day was okay - I was eager to learn about the program. I took lots of notes and listened to the lessons. Asked a lot of questions. It helped that Farid knew a little bit about the program - so that was helpful. Second day I started to apply Revit on some assignments. Learn By Doing. That was good because I really started to learn the shortcuts and how Revit thinks. It seemed to me that you almost had to ask for permission to do anything. It was like working with an autistic genius that did not process any emotions. I can see the benefits and flaws in the program. Either way I am excited to know all about it and keep practicing. Third day was torture. The lessons started to become too complex and intuitive. I could not sit for another 8 hours in a focus room. However, I took notes standing up and that helped. By the end of the day Farid and I were driving each other mad. I was happy to be done with training and excited to jump on the project. “Compliment, Innovation Accelerator > Brand Beacon > Talent
not Community Magnet >
mimic” Investment > Culture Touchstone
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
8 Today I met with Ross Guntert who is the project designer for the Workday project. He was trying to figure out what I could work on at this stage of the project. Right now they are half way through conceptual design of their 8 week duration. Ross and the team have been mainly working on the parking garage. Figuring out the circulation and total dimensions. Asking the question of what is the experience of a Workday employee from when they get out their car all through when they get to their desk. “We cannot move forward with the building, until parking is figured out” said Ross. That day the team met twice to discuss their schemes. It has gotten to the point where they are having to call in a parking specialist. Because it is an underground parking garage above two 89’ high towers - it is crucial that they know how the structure is going to work out. With that said and the team undergoing the parking garage - Ross had me work on sections to prepare for the client meeting happening next Tuesday at noon. I started off by just sketching a few ideas of how I envisioned the section scales and surrounding objects. After our discussion I took half of the day to take it all in. By the end of the day I was ready to start on drafting my sketches on CAD the next day.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
9 Today I spent most of my day drafting up the lines for the sections. I had about 5 revisions with Ross (or more). The marks were really bloody when I started. I learned in my past internships to always go for revisions even if you know it is not complete. There is always missed communication or your supervisor might have missed something. Ross was very patient with me through out the process. I obviously had never worked with Ross before and I know minimal about the project. I did not have time to be afraid to be wrong. Also, on your first assignment working for a new firm it takes awhile to get adjusted with their work flow such as line weights, drafting standards, and printers. Ross recommended to start by applying light line weights and progress to heavier ones. I also learned that I need to take notes while the red marking sessions is taking place. By the end of the day, I was pretty sure I was driving Ross mad - but I was ready to begin illustrating on Monday.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
10 Monday went by extremely fast. I started to illustrate the sections. At first I had everything pretty grayed out. Ross kept letting me know that I could do with the sections as I pleased or I saw fit. This was definitely new to me. My thoughts were How crazy can I get? What is too much? What is too little? Once Ross said, “Show me what you got.� I was ready to lay down some color, people, trees, sky, and ground. I mean I did not go all out but I showed enough so the clients can start to sense the scale of what is happening in the sections. I learned that I should always ask what is the intent of the task at hand. What is the objective? What am I trying to show? All day was spent on Photoshop. That was amazing. By the end of the day Ross was happy with the sections and gave me more to do before the client meeting at noon.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
11 It is not finished until it is due. Today was to be spent in Oakland. All the back and fourth seem to have paid off between Ross and I. The sections were beginning to look client ready. I added some annotations and did some last minute touch ups. Ross and I showed the drawings to Steve and he was pretty convinced. Thirty minutes before they were off Steve asked to add more trees and a sports court. Fifteen minutes before Ross asked to do some last minute adjustments. All in all it got done. For the rest of the day I spent getting Rhino on my laptop to start getting ready for the 3D printing massing models I will start this week.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
12 Today I woke early to get to the Oakland office. No reason I just wanted to. The whole team was to meet today. Linda Ye, Steve, Ross, and John had a meeting about section and model for the next upcoming client meeting. We discussed about what we wanted to do with the bridge at the entrance of the meeting. A major roll to winning was the concept of bridging the two towers together. However, the client wants Gensler to look into adding some program to activate the bridge. The team expressed that by adding program the bridge will start to lose value in its transparency. Was it worth it? Will the project gain or lose value? Exterior concept verses Interior experience. We further discussed about prototyping the building by 3D printing. This is when I stepped in for the job. I spent the rest of the day making sure the scale of the model will get everything that Ross and Steve wanted to show. As I started to work on the site for printing towards the end of the day Ross says, “Stop everything. Switch to working on parking analysis!� Something along those lines.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
13 Went Cleaning
to
Oakland up
parking
office and
to
pick
adding
up
surround
my
laptop
transit
and
>
SF
parking
Yesterday because I had to attend class in San Francisco I left my laptop behind in Oakland. Therefore, I decided to work there half day. Today I was going to be all about parking. Ross even gave me a book called The Dimensions of Parking. Linda and Ross already had come up with 5 parking options to show to the client in the last meeting. I was to work on merging option 3 and option 5. Option 3 had a smooth transition from the main street into the proposed Workday parking garage. Option 5 introduced a ramp connecting the street and Workday existing parking lot going down to the basement 2 parking garage level. The question was what is the experience getting to the ‘Front Door’ of the building for someone that is visiting Workday? For this I talked to John Falconer and he gave me really good advice on a few options that could work.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
14 Everything
that
could
go
wrong
went
wrong.
Today I worked at the San Francisco office. Ross told me I had all day to finish the submittal to the parking consultant. I asked exactly what I needed to get done. He told me that today was okay to just have lines and that we could illustrate on Monday. I was having major line weight problems with AutoCAD. I was fixing my line weights so that in PDF it looked good. However, it was not adjusting to PDFs. It took me most of the day going back and fourth working with the IT to figure it out. Once I figured it out ALL my lines went out of scale. This was after Ross said it would be better to illustrate the drawings before sending them out. This all happened within an hour before the end of the day deadline. It was a very stressful last hour on a Friday but I got it done. We had to send it out with the lines out of scale. However, there was no time. IT could not figure out what had happened to the scale of the file.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
15 I was beginning to stress out about which office to show up at. Ross and I left without coordinating. However, I took a guess and showed up at the San Francisco office. Low and behold Ross was at the Oakland office. We emailed each other and I asked if it was okay to stay. I had a meeting with the Market Street prototyping festival team after work. That day I worked on fixing the parking file to get it ready for the client meeting on Tuesday. I remembered that I had saved the file prior to Friday and all I did was transfer the file and all the scales came back. Sometimes
you
need
to
walk
away
and
come
back.
I worked on illustrating the files and finished them to get ready for the next day. After work we met with the prototyping teaming and came up with ideas about how to lay out the portals at the art festival taking place in April.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
16 The next morning I went to the Oakland office and I showed up early. Ross sent me a late email last night and listed a couple things to do before the meeting today after noon. One of which I needed to count the parking spaces. On my Bart ride there I counted 1,472 parking spaces. When Ross heard the number he was very displeased. He told me that they had promised the client 1,600 parking spaces. He had me reconfigure the parking spaces and I came up with 30 more. At that moment, he decided to add another parking space level. The total came up to 1,601 parking spaces. Ross
was
very
pleased.
An hour before the client meeting Ross had me get the presentation board ready. I still needed to add Linda’s sections and plans. 45 minutes before I printed it out and he red marked the presentation slide by slide. It
was
bloody.
However, I worked fast and I completed it by the time the presentation started. Ross and Steve were really pleased and they got a lot of direction and positive feedback from the clients. The rest of the day I worked on getting the file ready for the model I was suppose to get done by Friday.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
17 Yesterday because I had to attend class in San Francisco I left my laptop behind in Oakland. Therefore, I decided to work there half day. Today I was going to be all about parking. Ross even gave me a book called The Dimensions of Parking. Linda and Ross already had come up with 5 parking options to show to the client in the last meeting. I was to work on merging option 3 and option 5. Option 3 had a smooth transition from the main street into the proposed Workday parking garage. Option 5 introduced a ramp connecting the street and Workday existing parking lot going down to the basement 2 parking garage level. The question was what is the experience getting to the ‘Front Door’ of the building for someone that is visiting Workday? For this I talked to John Falconer and he gave me really good advice on a few options that could work.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
18 I got to the San Francisco office and Ross was there. I showed him my sketches and he gave me good to more forward conversation. Today was my second to last day and there was a lot of pressure to get this site model done. but the odds were not with me. I was designing the entrance to the building and little things kept coming up. Towards the end of the day all my line weights were lost. Linda and I had been sharing files and at some point in the process the scales went all wrong. I spent the rest of the day waiting/ trying to figure out with IT what had happened. On top of that I still needed to model the rest of the sea of parking and cut, glue, and put together. While that was happening I called A
R
C
H
to order the materials. They were to get delivered by tomorrow morning. IT finally said that we will not be able to get to it until tomorrow morning. So there was no reason to keep working on it tonight. I was so sad and stressed.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
19 T
o
d
a
y
was extremely stressful. It was my last day and I had a lot to work on. Also, to make matters worse I promised my second paying job in Oakland that I would be able to come to work after 6:00 pm till midnight for an event. In order to get there on time I had to wake up at 4:00 am drive to Oakland. Leave my car at the San Leandro Bart Station and take the train to the San Francisco office. It was about 5:30 am by the time I got to the office. I started working on the file right away. I did not move from my seat all day. Except when Farid and I went to go celebrate our 1 month at Gensler with a hot dog at the Ferry Building - that was nice. I managed to finish the file digitally and I was ready to print. However, I did not know how to use the laser cutter and it took awhile to read the manual and do some sample prints. I worked until I could not work anymore. Time was coming close and I knew I had a long journey back to Oakland. I took my last hour to fix the files and leave them so Ross or Linda can continue the prints. Ross was happy that I got this far. I ran back to Bart and made it to my second job just in time. I worked until midnight. It was a full day but seeing Ross happy and the $210 in tips was worth it.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
20 It felt good to be back at the office. Since I left my laptop in the San Francisco office I decided to come here first. As soon as I opened up my email I learned that I would be pulled for another project. The project was a prospective educational intitution in Redwood City. The team needed a site plan model for Thursday’s client presentation. Joey Favaloro introduced me to John Halverson who knew more about the logistics about the site plan model. John put me to work on the existing buildings around the site. During the day the scale changed as the team decided on how big the site should be. I actually thought that I was doing the site by myself. I found out towards the end of the day that John was already working on it. That could have saved me sometime... Towards the end of the day John and I discussed the plan for the next two days. Tuesday
>
Wednesday
Lay
out
laser
cutter >
prints,
order
material,
Assemble
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
Dun•geon /dengen/ noun 1. A room located at the third floor by the egress stairs beyond the printer room where the laser cutter and other materials are stored with no cross ventilation and preferably locked. 2. A strong underground prison cell, especially in a castle. 3. verb. Imprison (someone) in a dungeon.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
21 In the morning I met with Farid and seperated the work during the day. He ordered the material with ARCH as soon as they opened at 10:00am. To my suprise Farid did not know how to use Rhino and never cut anything on the laser cutter. I spent sometime teaching him as those were the tools we were using to make the model. We seperated the buildings on the site and made test cuts on the laser cutter. John ignited a lot of pressure on us seeing that we needed a lot to do. I worked on the buildings with the most square footage plus an insert of the site that came together with the bigger site. Towards the end of the day we got done with our part of the cuts. John stayed late to finish his cuts and encouraged us to stay late putting the pieces together. Farid left early. I stayed until 11:00 pm putting together the buildings and the site insert. Before I left I reassured John that we should be done by 3:00 pm tomorrow. He chuckled and called me a “rookie”. I was in for a big treat the next day...
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
22 Everything
that
could
go
wrong
went
wrong.
I got to the office early to keep gluing pieces together. My computer stopped working and had IT look at it for about 2 hours into coming in. They made me switch out my whole computer and had to reinstall the programs needed. That slowed me down big time. Meanwhile, I kept gluing pieces. At 10:00 am I called ARCH to order more material. John had run out last night. Problems started to arise when the buildings were not aligning together. We needed to asses proper dimensions to accomodate the material thickness. Mine worked fine however farid’s were not looking too good. At 2:00pm John finished with his cuts and let us know that we can finish our last cuts. While I was preping to get ready for the laser cutter - Farid goes down to do his cuts. On my way down I hear John get up from his seat in frustration (Stressing). Once I go down to the laser cutter room I see Farid pulling the WHOLE laser cutter apart. This was the peak to what would be a very long night.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
23 Farid
had
broken
the
laser
cutter.
John announced at 3:30pm that we will be cutting by hand from there on. You can imagine everyone’s frustration at this point. John actually went about it pretty well. He was calm. I was quiet. Farid was scared. Good thing was that John had finished all the site cuts before the laser cutter broke. Farid was given the task to cut everything that did not get cut before he broke the laser cutter. I worked in the dungeon gluing the topo together. I was upset becuase that day I really wanted to go to a Workday meeting at the Oakland office. That never happened. At 5:00pm Bob came to see me in the dungeon. I learned that the insert was to come in and out to show the client where the proposed building would be. This happened 5 minutes before me gluing the site in. At 6:00pm John came to see me and told me that he will be leaving soon. He also looked at me in the eye and repeated to me that I be the one to drop off the model by the end of the day. No pressure. At 7:00pm Joey informed us that there was suppose to be a proposed building model. Good thing she came to see me or else they would have shown up at the meeting with no proposed building model. That would have been embarressing. At 10:00pm we were starting to have some issues with the hand cut pieces not fitting appropritly, some adjacent buildings were hanging out of the site model, and the roofs to the existing buildings elevations would not fit correctly. At this point there was a high percentage of human error. By 1:30am we moved the model into Gravity. Took us a while to clean the dungeon and give back borrowed material. By this time there was no Bart and I had to call someone to come pick me up. Thankfully, some friends that were also working late in the City came to pick up by 3:00am. Rookie for sure.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
24 I don’t even know why I came into work today. I guess I really wanted to find out how the client meeting had went. To put a cherry on top to yesterday’s madness we lost the key to the dungeon. So I spent sometime looking for it. John was really happy with the model. I had sent some finished photos to him last night. His opinion was the only one that mattered to me. The
client
meeting
was
a
success.
They said that they were so impressed with the model, they asked to keep it. I was done for the day after that. I mean physically I was so exhausted. I found myself falling asleep in the fourth floor. Sleeping is not allowed on the fourth floor. I worked on cleaning some site plan lines for the workday team and left. Since Farid broke the laser cutter I could not start cuts for the Workday site.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
25-26 Sick Days..
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
27 As soon as I got to the office I emailed Linda Ye for the new updated site. I needed it in order to move forward with the site model. She replied, “I think we will just hold on for the site, and focus on the context first.” With that said, I already had the context ready from having previously worked on it before I left two weeks ago. However, I used the time to refine some details. I discovered that the CEO of Workday had never seen the design. The team had a meeting with him and showed the current competition winning design and he hated it. He mentioned that the design was not iconic enough and could become out dated. The clients were comparing the design to the new Apple campus. This last minute decision cost the clients about $50,000 in design work. Most importantly, this meant that the design team had to come up with a brand new design concept that is “iconic” enough for the CEO of Workday and fits in with the context of the City of Pleasanton. That day we also go the heads up on all the work that we were going to do for the Market Street Prototyping Festival. Since the team was busy with figuring out the logistics I kept busy with preparing for the opening of the street art show.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
28 This Friday was the opening of the Market Street Prototyping Festival we have been working so hard on - on top of our office work. In the morning I helped Adam Strauss with hunting for some materials. I walked downtown to local art supply stores looking for spray mount glue, foam, and spray sealant. Than I came back and helped Kristi Loui with coordinating the artist display statements going up next to the art. A little background on the Market Street Prototyping Festival is that we (Farid, Brian Cronin, and Cynthia Ayala) have been volunteering our time to meet at Gensler after work to help design these exchange portals for an artist exhibition being display along Market Street for a weekend duration. We worked closely with Adam Strauss (Cal Poly Alum), Kristi Lou (Main Coordinator), Lewis Knight, Goetz Frank, and Vivien Chong and it was also a collaboration with Turner Construction. This day in particular was the day that we had to build the exchange portals and mount the art on Market Street. After I got done help Kristi, I kept working on site for Ross Until Brian and Cynthia came and we all walked to Market Street. We ended up staying there until midnight helping the team out with the construction of the portals. It was a great night of collaboration and team work. You may find more information at www. exchangeportals. #MSPF
#ExPortals
#GenslerSF
#Turner
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
29 There was a lot to do in the agenda today. I got in the office a little late because of last night’s late workday in the City. I made it just in time for the 10:00am community flex meeting. It wasn’t so much of a meeting - we planned to all walk down to Market Street and see the street art. Gensler also had designed a very an interactive ping pong table. We played a couple rounds and walked around looking at the other art pieces. I twas great to see the public interact with the art pieces and having strangers talk to other strangers in a way that in an ordinary day would not even look at each other. This was one of the street art show objectives. I would say it was highly successful. I walked back to the office with Adam and discussed how successful the street art was. During lunch I attended a seminar/forum called “Woman in Architecture and the Workplace. It was extremely empowering to hear successful woman speak of their journey and how they got to where they were. I took a lot from this forum and the conversation was extremely informative. I wish they continue these forums in the future. At 3:00 pm Cal Poly second year architecture students came to take a tour of the office. Mark (Cal Poly Alum) gave a presentation of the work Gensler is currently working on. To my surprise I found two of my Mentee(s). They were happy to see a familiar face and I told them about my experience so far. I received an email from Linda to start work on the site. Therefore, I worked at the dungeon for a couple hours. This is until the Market Street Prototyping Festival celebration!
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
30 Since I am working on the site I assumed that I will be working in the City since there is only one laser cutter and that is in the dungeon. I got the adjacent buildings done last week. This week I needed to make the final cuts to finish the site model. I already had the material from last quarter. The team was busy trying to develop new concept designs for a client presentation. There was also pressure on me to get the site plan done by that meeting as well. I was okay with locking myself away in the dungeon all day. The fourth floor seemed more intense than usual. Black 10.0% 50 Red 15.0% 50 Green 20.0% 50 Yellow 10.0% 50 Blue 30.0% 40 Magenta 20.0% 50 Cyan 40.0% 10 Orange 50.0% 100 Today I received my copy of Art Gensler’s new book in the mail. Farid and I made an appointment with his receptionist to have him sign it. I was excited to begin reading it.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
31 The team was in Oakland and I came to San Francisco office. Yesterday I finished assembling the model. Gluing all the pieces together. I took photos and sent them to Ross. He emailed me back right away. He noticed that the buildings were all one height. I remember working with John and figuring out the heights from the City because google maps did not have that information. In order to move forward I estimated them to the best of my ability the height of the buildings. In fact, they all were different heights and Ross sent me the Rhino file where I could find the heights. I had glued them down already so I had to do some surgery. However, at the end of it all I ended up cutting a brand new site because I was not happy with the last cut. It takes awhile to get the settings situated. and I had enough material to do one last cut. It was a success. I made all the cuts so that tomorrow I can begin gluing all the pieces together.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
32 It was worth cutting all the pieces one more time to their perfection. This time I did not glue down the buildings and I sent progress photos to Ross when I was done. He said I needed fencing and the parking garage left. I also took the liberty to build the bridge between the existing parking garage to BART. Today I met an intern from Puerto Rico. She was happy to meet another intern that spoke Spanish. I was happy that she was happy. We went to have lunch at Gap with Farid. That was the last time Farid was going to have lunch with us ever again. We spoke in Spanish the whole time. I needed to practice and she was happy I understood. She did not have anything to do for the rest of the day so she kept me company at the dungeon and helped me put together the last pieces to the model. I spent the rest of the day cleaning files and getting everything organized.Â
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
33 Today was really nice. My new friend, Mariela and I were invited to lunch by all the cool young designers from the fourth floor that spoke Spanish. This time we went to Baby Gap for lunch. It was really nice. We all spoke Spanish and I met new people at the office. I liked the original Gapeteria better. For the rest of the day I helped Joey with some photoshop. She was having a client meeting on Friday about a door and light fixtures on a building renovation project and needed some assistance. I sent out emails to people at the firm about the interviews we were to conduct for our professional practice class. I sent one to Barbara Bouza, Peter Weingarten, and Hao. Peter emailed back right away and we agreed to meet at the Oakland office at 2:30 pm tomorrow for the interview. That day after work Farid invited me to a ULI event. It was really great and we got to see the second floor of the Ferry Building where the event took place. Low and behold I saw Peter Weingarten there, I told him a little more about the interview. I networked a lot with all kinds of different people with the different backgrounds in the industry.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
34 I took the morning to prepare the meeting with Peter Weingarten. Since I left my laptop in San Francisco I worked from there first. I also needed to check in with Joey about the lighting project. The interview was about Principals. However, I had minimal clue as to what I should ask him. I hope he somehow takes control of the interview. During lunch I made my transition to the Oakland office. I took my laptop because Joey wanted me to change a couple things before her client presentation. It felt good to be back at the Oakland office and see everyone again. I watched up with a couple people and than I had the interview with Peter. The interview was great and honest about the industry. The rest of the day I worked on Joey’s file in the office. I took my laptop since I was not going to be coming back.Â
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
35 Today we got our Art Gensler book signed by the man himself. He was truly great. Art comes into work everyday if he is not in another country. With all of his success he still manages to be a well grounded individual. He signed our books and we took a photo with him. I needed a minute to compose myself after that. We had a great Community Flex meeting. Lindsey a new designer from the Chicago office spoke about herself, John and Mark spoke about the Nvidia project, and Bob spoke about his India trip for a construction site visit for a Gensler project. Barbara Bouza emailed me back and agreed to have the interview from Los Angeles via GoToMeeting. I was so happy to hear from her. She is a very accomplished woman and admire her work.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
36 I prepared the meeting with Barbara Bouza that morning. I was already prepared from the last interview. We began the interview at 10:00 am. Barbara Bouza was really great. She took complete control of the interview and she gave me so much information and insights about the profession. Barbara Bouza is a Managing Director and Principal at Gensler’s Los Angeles office. She currently leads the global practice of health and wellness sciences market. She has more than 25 years of architectural design experience. She graduated from Cal Poly Pamona for her undergrad studies in architecture. She then went on to London for her master’s degree at the Architecture Association School. She has worked with Fosters + Partners, Morphosis, I.M. Pei before working for Gensler. Her projects have been featured in Architectural Record, Interior Design, and Architectural Review. She recently was named “Woman Making a Difference” by the Los Angeles Business Journal. After the interview I took an Uber to our TEF Design We met Alyosha and he told and the project we would be learning about. LinkedIn cafe before our professional practice
case us a After class.
study interview lot about the we all went to It was a great
with firm the day.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
37 Today I started my day at the Oakland office. I had meeting with Matin about the Summer internship. She wanted to learn a little more about me and my work. The meeting went really well. I showed her my portfolio and she handed me an offer letter. After the interview I took the train back to the San Francisco office since I did not have my laptop there. I heard back from Hao (Design Architect) and Crisitan Asher (Marketing Director) about the professional practice interviews. After organizing I took the day to prepare for a presentation as a guest speaker to my former community college, Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. I was to speak about the profession and transition from school to the office. Instead I took the liberty to speak on exclusive insights about architecture as a student at a community college transitioning into a 4 year institution. The students connected with it a lot. I saw them take notes and I had a lot of great feedback at the end. I felt so famous. I was thankful to Gensler for letting me come and give this talk.Â
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo_Architecture 480_Internship Journal_Carla Bernal
Carla A Bernal California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Bachelor of Architecture, 2016 Intern at Gensler Email: cabernal@calpoly.edu Phone: 925.381.5278 Program Website: www.calpolysfud.com/cabernal
San Francisco Urban Design Š 2015, A Fourth Year Off-Campus Program College of Architecture & Environmental Design, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo