Guten Tag!

I feel like this week flew by.  I think that having a few larger projects at work made me less aware of time and all of a sudden, my work was finished and then it was time to leave.  It was also a fun week outside of work.  My roommate and I went to dinner in the beginning of the week like we always do.  We always like to try new restaurants together.  All the IIP Berlin group also had dinner at the end of the week with Intrax and we went to a cool biergarten.  This weekend was also the start of the UEFA Euro 2024 that Germany is hosting.  They have watched parties with big screens, and all the restaurants and bars have the games on.  It is fun to see all the fans dressed in the colors of Germany.  This weekend, my roommate and I went to Hamburg for a day.  It took a little while to get there, but it was worth it because Hamburg is such a cool and interesting city.  The harbors and how the buildings were situated were great to explore, especially with me being an architecture major.

This week, nothing has been difficult in the workplace except for sometimes some minor miscommunication, which is always quickly solved.  I appreciate my coworkers speaking English and trying their best to communicate what needs to be completed.  Sometimes miscommunication can happen when the language is not the most spoken, but this can also happen back in the United States, because of miscommunication.

At work, I mostly worked on projects that helped me sharpen my skills.  I continued and finished up the project for the renters.  It is all completed and ready to be reviewed by my boss for next week.  I think this project was interesting because I did something like this for my studio class that I completed in the Spring.  The studio was about creating a project for a low-rise high-density housing complex, and we had to think about renters and how to read plans and sections.  It was interesting to see how I did those plans and sections in studio and how they related to a real project.  I also had to create a geometric plan for topography.  One of the cool things about this project is the topography and how the two buildings sit on this large slope.  The geometric plan was marking the height, the distance, and creating a grid so that the landscapers can create multiple plateaus for residence to enjoy.

I also went to this site again this week.  My boss likes me to come with her and the team because while I do not understand some conversations, I get used to being on a site and seeing how things operate.  It is also cool for me too because I get to see the progress each week or what they have not completed when they were supposed to… 😊 I say that because the construction was supposed to already be finished weeks ago and it is still not finished.  My boss was not happy, but they all had a meeting this week and she was telling me how it went.  She was saying to me that there is a contract signed with the construction company and the engineers.  She said that no matter what, the contract needs to be followed or else there are penalties.  It was an important thing to think about because I never really thought about how that whole dynamic works.  I also never had to think about how that needed to be taken care of.

I also was given another task for the campus project that is for the company that develops machines.  Since we went to the campus last week and took all those photos, I had to assemble the photos into a document.  There were diagrammatic floor plans that had comments on them, and I needed to sort through the photos that my coworker, my boss, and I took and put a few from each room we went in.  I also had to put arrows in the direction that they were taken from.  My firm likes to do this with every project they have for documentation purposes, but also to show the company what the potential is.

I think Berlin is such a great place to study architecture.  I also think Germany in general is an innovated country that is different from your typical European architecture that you see.  Germany has a very distinct culture, and it shows in architecture.  Even on the facades as an example because there is a lot of free expression here and there are so many murals and graffiti and art in general that is makes it stand out and different.  I cannot believe this experience is already halfway over, but it has been the best experience so far of my life.