Arly's Blog

  As an architecture student who still doesn't really know what the working world is like, I think our curriculum in broad strokes gives us a lot of tools and knowledge of many different areas that architecture is involved in. I say this because I literally think we are taught a little bit of everything: mathematics and structures, history, urban planning, design, etc. However, it is no lie that many times the workload becomes too much, especially because the vast majority of the subjects require a lot of time to develop, and today with online classes is even more difficult to reconcile that time with other people to do everything that is group work.   In that sense I think that group classes have taken away many opportunities to learn in a "practical" way, but at the same time, it has allowed us to specialize a little more in the use of programs that, at the end of the day, will be useful throughout our working life. As for teaching methods, I believe that there are ...

Hello everyone, in this post I wanted to talk to you and show you one of the most magical and beautiful places I have met so far, and best of all, it is in Chile: Pumillahue Bay. First of all, I went here 3 years ago on a vacation with my paternal grandmother and my younger sister. Just the three of us. I think this influenced my perception of the places I was able to see because I had the time and tranquility to admire everything calmly. However, Pumillahue captivated me in a different way. This place is located north of the island of Chiloé, very close to the city of Ancud and is a too beautiful bay, which is also characterized by the possibility of seeing various species such as the Magellanic penguin or sea lions, which was part of my experience there. And as I said at the beginning, I think that perhaps what marked me the most was the company of my sister and my grandmother and being in such an open place, so green and blue, with almost no people around, with lots of wind and ...

  To be honest I'm not so attracted to the idea of traveling to the future, because personally I don't think I would do it even if I could because of fear. I mean, there are many possibilities and what you see can be a very good thing or a very bad thing, because there's a clear possibility that the future will not be as we expect it to be. Although if I must do it if or if I think, I would like to see myself briefly in 10 or 12 years more than anything to see if my youth will be what I project now, because it makes me curious and at the same time, I feel it could be a motivation. Although as I said, it's something that at the same time terrifies me. In fact, if it's about time travel, I would definitely go back in time. Maybe about 10 years ago, when my grandfather was still alive, and I was very young to take advantage of those moments again. I think in this case I would stay there for a while because I know I had a very happy and carefree childhood.

 To be honest, it's a little difficult for me to see myself working in the future in what I study because I feel that there's still a long time to go before being an architect becomes a reality. However, I'm clear that I don't always want to work in the same sector, that is to say, I would not always want to work in an office or always in the field, and in a certain sense my tastes vary in that aspect too because I really like the area of urban planning and landscaping and also interior design: areas extremely different, being frank. And thinking about it while I'm writing this, I think that I can imagine myself having more than one job (if time permits that), so I would also like those future jobs to give me the opportunity to travel and get to know different places and realities because I'm someone who gets bored easily and I feel that the only way not to fall into monotony or hate my work life is to be in constant change and movement. Maybe it's very utop...

My best vacation was undoubtedly in the summer of 2005, when I was only 6 years old. It was probably the longest vacation of my life because it lasted about a month in which I remember going to many places in the south of Chile, but mostly to Curico and Los Angeles.  I went with my whole family and my maternal family (brothers, mom and dad, uncles, cousins and my grandparents), so we practically moved to everywhere in something similar to a bus and there was always a lot of noise and fun, which I think is the main reason why they are for me the best of all despite my young age at that time.  My family organized camping trips, soccer tournaments, parties and we also visited beautiful rivers and waterfalls that, despite how small I was, I still remember very clearly. I also remember visiting a farm and living with many animals and picking vegetables from a very very large garden. For all these reasons I treasure the memories of that summer with a lot of affection. 

For many years I have dreamed of knowing a bit of Denmark or visiting the Faroe Islands (an archipelago that also belongs to Denmark but that is closer to Iceland) because I find fascinating its landscapes, culture and the cold climate that characterizes scandinavian places. Maybe I don't know much about the destination to be honest, but with the passing of time I have also discovered some architecture projects that are there that I would love to visit, mostly in the city of Copenhagen.  I have always considered that in the not so distant future I would like to live at least for a while there, I think it would be an interesting challenge. However I would like to do it as an architect and not as a student mostly because danish is very difficult to learn (I tried to do it once).  This is a picture of the Faroe Islands

 The subject that I certainly enjoyed the most this semester was "methods and practices of urbanism". We had two classes a week: one of them consisted of seeing the more "textual" contents, such as documents or more specific terms, and the other class consisted of working in groups on a project located in a place of our interest, applying everything we have seen in the previous class. Although we obviously saw urban planning contents, the interesting thing is that they were applied specifically to the San Ramon Fault (geological fault in Santiago, Chile). In this way, we delved into the problems of roads, sustainability, overcrowding, evacuation, etc. I liked the course from the beginning (and I would repeat it if that’s possible) because I’m very interested in this area of study, but besides that, the teacher and his team were always so kind and committed to make us learn in an entertaining way that it was impossible not to pay attention. And finally, I really ...

  The last year, an assistant of a course showed me a website called DIVISARE ( https://divisare.com/ ) to search for references and projects of interest. The site is a sort of blog with a minimalist look that has categories like projects, designers, photographers and books, which contain a huge amount of neat sub-categories to find whatever you can think of. For example, the one I use the most is “projects”, where you can search for ideas by type of construction, location, materials, etc. I visit it several times a week, at least three or four days a week because I really enjoy learning about different projects and every time I have doubts I go in to read. What I like most about this website is that it is very well organized and it’s so simple that it’s very easy to look anything. Besides, the person who recommended it to me told me that the information that appears on it is generally reliable and the projects are usually by very good architects.

A few days ago, a report appeared on TV that showed and talked about the problem of overcrowding that exists in some places in Santiago. And although it was something I already knew; I was shocked to see such harsh numbers and images. The notion that there are families of 10 people living in 30 square meters or 7 children sleeping in the same room left me thinking a lot and definitely I think that this is how my major -architecture- affects the world or being more honest: how it does great harm to the world.  Even though most of the time my field is also guilty of a lot of waste and environmental damage, I think that the biggest change it can make is more related to people. How? Trying, as much as possible, to make the quality of life of those who live in the places that we make be better collectively and spatially. And truly in the future I would love to contribute ideas, no matter how small, to make this happen.

I'm a big fan of taking pictures of everything that exists at the same time as me. My gallery is full of pictures of my family, food, skies, plants and my dog, but particularly this picture means a lot to me because Trinidad and Vicente, my nephews, are the most important persons in my world. For me it represents and shows many things that make me feel enormous peace. The warm light, my mom's plants, the blue wall of my old house are just some examples. This photo was taken in last year’s winter, just a few days before my hamster Hulk, who Trinidad was feeding with lettuce just in that moment, passed away. And not only that makes it special, also remembering how much those two little kids respected and loved that little critter. Being sit on the floor sunbathing with these 3 was without a doubt one of the best scenes of my 2020 and I really miss it so much!

One of my favorites preparations without a doubt are cinnamon rolls. If you don't know what it's, well.... It consists of a sweet dough "stuffed" with cinnamon powder, butter and brown sugar that is rolled up and usually has toppings or a sugar or cream cheese icing. They're easy to made but require a little time and patience the first times that you prepare them because the dough has yeast in it, which means that you have to wait for the yeast to activate and the dough to rise.  It's one of my favorite dishes because I love sweet things especially in winter (literally, a cup of tea and a cinnamon roll can fix anything). Besides, a while ago I made them for the first time and my family really loved the result and then I made more for my "fau" friends and for some reason it became in something that represents me. In fact, my friends always send me a picture when they saw or eat one. But obviously, like any cake or sweet preparation with a lot of sugar...

Well, certainly technology has changed our lives in many aspects. That is the reason why I think that I have many options to put in my top 3 (at least 8 objects to consider). However, how important is to me my computer doesn't compare with anything (not even with my cellphone). I got a new computer literally like a week ago, but before that I got one for a long time. And honestly since I was a kid I used to share everything (EVERYTHING) with my siblings, so when I get my own computer was... amazing! And probably that word's too weak to describe that feeling. Nowadays I use it for everything: to listen to music, edit photos, to watch series on Netflix, make photomontages, study, connect with my friends and family by zoom and an infinite etc., so it is on all day every day. I love the sound of the keys when I’m typing and I love it for the versatility of course, because I really can do anything on it. Even though my eyesight tires easily when I use it, I guess that without it...

When I was a child, I used to draw very often and the memory of myself drawing the layout of my dream house when I was about 8 years old is clear yet: a house with five rooms and a huge kitchen. So, I guess that want to be an architect was on me since then.  However, by my teen years I had been thinking that I had no talent for it so being a geologist turned into the only option until I was 16 years old. After that age, for some reason I convinced myself that studying civil engineering was the best for me because my math scores and I entered to study it (spoiler: it wasn't). Finally, I decided to choose my dream job overall and I left the career that I hated from the day one. Now I'm studying architecture and despite the tiredness and stress I love it, definitely was a good decision. I made incredible friends, I've learned a lot and I've been know many professionals that I admire now. What I miss the most of the face-to-face classes is being with my partners in the ...

Hello everyone! My name is Arly and I'm a 22 years old girl from Santiago de Chile. I've born and lived most part of my life here but also I lived for 5 years in Spain in a small town called Ripollet (I'll leave you a photo). Living there, I learned to speak catalan but over the years I've been forgetting some words.  About my family, well... We are a big one. I'm the third of four siblings: my two older siblings are engineers and my younger sister is a talented manicurist. I have two nephews of 6 and 2 years old and I really love them both so so much. Otherwise, my parents got divorced so now I live with my mom and we're very close. And last but not least we adopted a dog two months ago that we named Floki.  I started studying Architecture in 2019 after spending a year studying civil engineering (worst experience ever 😫) and I really like what I'm doing now. Some of the things that I enjoy the most are cooking and listening to music, especially Bruno Mars ...

 How safe is to give your personal information on websites such as Facebook, My Space and any others?     https://www.trecebits.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Influencer-rosa.jpg        I personally believe that social media is a double-edged sword. I've been on Facebook since I was 11 years old and I have Instagram since I was 14 and the experience in my teenage years was as good as bad. Many times I innocently exposed information that could put me in risk, like posting a photo with the location or even with de school uniform. However, now that I'm an adult and I've know terrible cases of kidnapping or murder I know that there's a limit. I try to keep my accounts private and have mostly acquaintances and friends. Of course I have to admit that -anyways- the information about me that's on social media is a lot.