2005-07-06 - Welcome

BenSavoca • Layers
Welcome to "Layers" - the current configuration of my web space. This site serves as an ongoing chronicle of my architectural education, as well as work completed at the University of Cincinnati.

At the moment, the site features works from Fall 2001 to Spring 2004 (soon feature work through Spring 2005). "Portfolio" contains work done at the University of Cincinnati, "Professional" includes projects completed during Co-Op, and "Gallery" serves as an on-line photo exhibit.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. Please e-mail me at ben@savocaweb.com.

I'm biking the MS-150!!!

My dear friends,

As many of you know, I have become very actively involved in bicycling. You also may be aware that two people in my family have been afflicted with Multiple Sclerosis. I am finally in a position to help them and the 400,000 other Americans living with the disease.

This August, I will be biking the 'Atomic' MS-150, a 150-mile bike ride through the mountains of Northern New Mexico. The ride is considered to be one of the most grueling MS-150's in the country. The 75 miles from Bernalillo to Los Alamos are made considerably more difficult with a 5,000 foot vertical climb. Add to this the fact that the route begins 5,000 feet above sea level and soars to the nosebleed-inducing altitude of 10,000 feet, and even the pros begin to lose their vision at the top. The ride takes place during New Mexico's 'Monsoon Season,' so the blistering heat will be tempered by occasional cloudbursts of driving rain.

So why would I be doing this to myself? This is by far the most demanding physical challenge I've ever faced, and overcoming it would be a tremendous personal accomplishment. But of course there's more to it than that. I'm trying to raise $1,000 for MS research - or more, if I can. This is why I need your help.

Please visit my pledge page, read about my grandma and my uncle, and if you can, make a pledge. Whatever small amount you can give, I am incredibly grateful, as are the people of the National MS Society. If you do not feel comfortable making a payment online, please send a check (payable to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society) to my address, found on my contact page (It has recently changed). Also, if you cannot make a financial contribution, your emotional and moral support is just as appreciated and just as valuable to me.

Thank you.

2004-09-19 - Biography

I have recently graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture. I am currently located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I am employed at Architectural Research Consultants, Inc., a programming and planning firm. My interests in architecture include sustainability, urban design, phenomenology, and programming. The pursuit of understanding how the human brain perceives space - environmental psychology - fascinates me more than any other aspect of architecture.

Outside of architecture, I have plenty to keep me busy, and Albuquerque is quite conducive to a number of hobbies.

I enjoy cooking, and take pride in whipping up a gourmet meal for a friend. Family-owned and organic grocery stores abound here, and stock on their shelves some of the finest seasonal produce from nearby farms, so I'm never at a loss for quality ingredients. Naturaly, the best part about cooking is devouring the wonderful creations!

The natural beauty that surrounds the city - and the colorful day-to-day activities within it - supplies my camera with a kaleidoscope of subjects. Visit my Gallery page to see some of my photographs.

My Italian language skills had been slipping since I returned from Italy last June, but I've been able to brush them up with clsases through UNM and with the local Italian group that meets weekly over coffee. My desire to return to the land of my ancestors grows with each word spoken and with each drop of java sipped.

I came out West with the intention of leaving the automobile-dependent Midwest behind me. While Albuquerque ranks among the top ten US cities for suburban sprawl, it is also among the top three bike-friendly cities its size. I bought a bicycle my first week out here, and immediately fell in love; I spent two months in town before having to buy a tank of gas. In February, I bought a Bianchi Vigorelli, and I am now becoming involved with the local bike advocacy group BikeABQ and going on long rides with the New Mexico Touring Society.

Believe it or not, I've been learning to dance salsa under the instruction of one of my coworkers and his family. It's been quite a shock to me to watch my development over the past few months from knowing only marching band routines to performing complex spins and turns.

And finally, when relaxing at home, I often unwind by playing piano. Those 88 keys pour out anything from classics like DeBussy to New Age composers Jim Brickman and David Lanz to Pink Floyd's "The Wall." Tickling the ivories is among my favorite activities - right up there with eating and biking!

2005-04-06 - Dinner with Brian

Certain experiences have a way of granting a new perspective.

This evening, I was heading to the dining hall with my old roommate from Rome, Tim Scovic. It was a year ago this Sunday that we and eighteen others boarded a plane for Italy. Tim and I are just one quarter away from graduation, discussing jobs and grad schools and what the future holds.

As we head towards the cafeteria, I catch the eye of someone leaning up against the wall by the entrance. He looks familiar - there are few people on this campus I haven't at least nodded at in passing - and he seems to recognize me, but maybe it's just something in me he's recognizing. Without thinking much of anything, I throw my hand up in a half wave, and he stops me with a "Hey..."

"You guys have any guest passes or anything?" This catches me off guard, and I give him a second look. He's my age, and he could easily be a college student. Everything about him has a sort of tired vitality. His tight-curled beard, his plain brown t-shirt, brown pants, and his shoes. His shoes caught my eyes - brown workboots that could have come straight out of the "Boots with Laces" painting by Van Gogh that we've been discussing in my Theory class, symbolic of the downtrodden working man. His eyes were penetrating, clear, and wide with hunger and hope. He doesn't look dirty. A little unkempt, maybe, but better than most students I know.

"Yeah, I just got into Cincinnati today," he says while shuffling his feet. I realize that it's not he who's avoiding eye contact but myself. I figure it's a lie, but if the guy is hungry enough not only to beg for a meal but to lie about it, he's probably hungry enough to deserve it. We exchange a handshake and names - "Uh, I'm Brian."

Tang, ever-vigilant sentinel at the door of Siddall Dining Hall, swipes my card with the same smile as always.

Siddall is set up in a series of stations all over the cafeteria - one for salad, one for pizza, stir fry, et cetera. Tim and I head to the nearest one to the door, and Brian dissolves into the swarm of freshmen. The line for the day's special is especially slow. Tim and I chatter about the 'good old days' of dorms and dining halls, and I catch glimpses of Brian flitting about. I think he made two or three trips by the time Tim and I got our first plate.

We sit down with him in the back room - I guess he felt better being away from any authorities who might rat him out. If someone is really in need, I have no qualms about helping them out, but I get rather upset when they feel they have to lie to me to get it out of me, so I called him out. "This is really your first day in Cincy? You know your way around the dining hall pretty well."

"I've been in a lot of dining halls. Most are a little easier to get into, though." He starts rattling off the security flaws in various dining halls all over the east coast. DC, Baltimore, North Carolina, and so on. I felt bad about accusing him of lying, but I still wasn't entirely convinced.

He said he was just in Atlanta, and he followed a friend he met who wanted to head up to Cincinnati for some anti-globalization conference or something. "Oh, you're an activist?" "Naw, man, this other guy is, he just wanted to see the conference. But man, globalization is evil." And that's as far into the subject as he got.

"So you guys drove all the way up here from Atlanta?" Tim asked. No, Brian and his politically conscious friend took a train. Reminiscing about my travels in Europe and New England, I talk warmly about rail as being the only way to travel. He looks at me a little quizzically and brings me back to reality. He is a railroad bum, a living, breathing stowaway on freight trains, and he and his friends accompany all sorts of goods around the country.

I was completely blown away. I had no idea that railroad bums even existed anymore, and visions of hobos with the classic handkerchief-knapsack-on-a-stick flooded my head. While this obviously was a romanticized version of what really goes on, Brian was able to be somewhat poetic about it. "You think about it, you're on this track with hundreds of tons of metal, just whipping by at like 50 miles an hour, and you have no control. You're just on there, and you're going."

He started talking about various stations all over the country. The one he'd just passed through recently near Lexington amazed him: 40 or so tracks, just a huge field of rail, with trains stopping and going all the time. "How do you know which train to hop?" He replied that sometimes the workers were kind enough to let him know, sometimes he had to figure it out himself, and other times he just guessed and got on. There was an element of pride and bravado as he talked about the excitement of hiding from security, the excitement of sneaking on and off the trains, and the quick friendships he would make, sharing a meal and a few good stories.

Too astounded to say anything important, I asked him how the food was. "Oh, man, I've been eating peanut butter on crackers for eight days, this is great." He bit into a veggie burger and hot sauce poured from the back of it. "Yeah, peanut butter and hot sauce on crackers is great, though."

He was an expert on hot sauce, recommending what to look for in the ingredients - "no vinegar base, you gotta have some carrot juice or something, and it's gotta be somethin' hot, like habañero. The hotter the better."

As he ate the burger, I noticed his hands for the first time. While the rest of him looked pretty clean, his hands were filthy, coated with a fine black dirt. A nasty sore about the size of a quarter occupied his left palm where it met the wrist. His knuckles were knobs at the joints of his fingers. He had the hands of someone twice his age, and he gesticulated with them wildly to illustrate his conversation.

"It's great that you guys have veggie burgers. If I go to a cafeteria, I won't have the meat there if they have veggie burgers. If I find some meat, though, I'll cook it and eat it no problem." This confused me: "You mean you'll eat meat from the dumpster, but the meat in the dining hall isn't any good?" He explained something about how the meat in the dumpster is still good, but no one would eat it and it'd go bad. The stuff in the dining hall, though, people will eat, so he'll leave that to everyone and content himself to scavenge the rest. I don't know if it was based on some sort of altruistic principle, or just some quirky kind of logic, but I let it slide.

Towards the end of the meal, he started turning the conversation towards us - what we're up to in school and such. Tim and I started complaining about some sort of graduation requirement that was just thrown on us two weeks into our last quarter. We moaned about it a good deal, how outrageous it was for the school to throw a required class our way on such short notice. All the while, though, I notice his waning interest and began to feel foolish. Here we were, talking about something trivial, something that probably won't even happen, and this poor soul is trying to figure out where he's going to sleep and where his next meal will come from.

Feeling a little embarrassed, I rearranged the mushrooms in my salad for a little while, not saying anything. After a while, Brian stood up, thanked us for dinner, shook our hands, and headed out.

And that was that.

2004-09-19 - Return to Cincinnati

In the past year, I have lived in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Rome, and New York City. In the nine months since I left campus, I have learned a good deal, and amassed some incredible experiences. Those three fantastic cities have changed my concept of Home, Pizza, and Personal Space. I have left the Midwest and seen what the rest of the world has to offer.

First, the unexpected return to my hometown, which gave me the opportunity to see Cleveland as the hidden jewel on the lake that it truly is. Then, the unbelievable journey across the Atlantic to the Eternal City of Rome, the capitol of a nation that has stolen my heart and will forever occupy my mind. Finally, losing myself to the Steel Jungle of New York City, which leaves one reeling from the size, the culture, the cost of living, and the unmistakably unique aura of the City That Never Sleeps.

And still, it feels right to return to UC. To reassume my duties as a student. To see the campus transformed by the flurry of construction. To become reacquainted with old friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in over a year. To return to a place with a familiar rhythm.

2004-03-14 - Special Thanks

I would like to thank everyone for their continuing support, suggestions, and comments regarding this site. This has been a daunting exercise at learning a number of new aspects of HTML code. While I cannot possibly thank everyone who helped, not even all of those who made major suggestions, I must send a special thank you to Anne Savoca, my sister, and to my good friend Jay Dial. Without you, this web site would not be what it is.