Tag: walker hall

on the wall at walker hall

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After several years of redevelopment, the new Graduate Center at Walker Hall had its formal grand opening a few weeks ago. Part of the grand opening included a special exhibition of several of my in-progress sketches, which I’ve shared here over the past few years, of the construction and redevelopment period. They blew them up into large colorful prints and have them displayed right now in the lobby area of the building, along with a touch screen where you can flick through all those sketches, along with a variety of historical photos from the past century. What an honour! I’m gobsmacked at what a nice display it was, and I got a lot of very nice comments from the people touring the building on that day. One of my personal favourites was of the building pre-reconstruction, the big panorama I did in 2014 when it was still in its old Walker Hall form, and that was nice to see big on the wall. There was another one – the ‘sneezy one’ – a sketch I started but abandoned after 10 minutes due to a massive attack of the April sneezing. I wrote “Atchoo!” all over the page and left it. Well they even made a print of that one! And that one is the one people mentioned to me the most. I think we all have those allergy experiences in Davis in the spring… There were several from that time when I was able to go inside and sketch the mid-construction shell, drawing bits of the interior in a hard hat just before dark, but most of the sketches were done peering over the fence or standing on a bench next to the bins. I’m pleased to have documented this project like this.

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I did draw some of the ceremony outside that was given by the Chancellor Gary May, Vice Chancellor for Finance Kelly Ratliff (not in the sketch, I arrived during her speech), Graduate Dean JP Delplanque, and several others also not sketched here. I used to be a graduate coordinator for years on campus and always liked working with the Grad Studies team, so I am really pleased to see them get this amazing new space. Especially for the graduate students on campus, as this is the first dedicated Graduate Center of its kind in the UC system, which is great.

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You can see all of my Walker Hall sketches in this album on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/petescully/albums/72157678149480548

Now on to the next campus drawing project! It’s a while now since I drew the Manetti Shrem going up, the old Boiler Building going down and replaced with the Pitzer Center; more recently I drew the Teaching and Learning Complex, which just opened recently. I like to draw things as they are being built because  they are moments in time that are not repeated, they will never look like that again, and spaces have meaning to people. Drawing them is a way of connecting with them myself and sharing a personal perspective.

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Yep, it’s been over a month since I posted; my home computer has been down, I don’t like typing on the iPad, and I’ve been sitting on a pile of scanning. I need a new computer but have been lagging behind a bit there. I’ve done a bit of drawing, a lot of sneezing, a lot of soccer coaching, and I got a new guitar which has been taking up some of my spare time. Still hopefully I can start posting my sketches and stories more regularly again soon. Summer planning is afoot and there will finally be some travelling across the Atlantic. Check back soon!

walker hall in the end

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walker hall panorama Jan 2022

walker hall - graduate center, uc davis

Walker Hall…is finished. Finally! The Graduate Center at UC Davis is the new home of Graduate Studies on campus and is located in the newly renovated historic Walker Hall. I have been drawing the whole process since before the renovation (see the whole album here) and so this month I drew a couple of close-up panoramas of the two courtyards between the three wings of this large E-shaped building. They were at slightly different times of day and different weathers but that makes it nice to see the two together. There is going to be a formal proper opening of the building in April (hopefully), and it will be nice to have the whole set to look back on. In fact here is how it looked back in 2014 before any of the redevelopment started…

panoramarathon: walker hall

Right, next project! It’s fun capturing a building being born / reborn.  

walker hall latest

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walker hall 051121

Another one of Walker Hall at UC Davis; this one was going to be a panorama, full colour, but I stopped and never finished. This is the brand new Graduate Center, which if you’ve been following this blog you’ll know has been built into the newly renovated historic Walker Hall. It’s all finished now, except for some bits in front of the building, and there are even staff working inside now, albeit at the limited no-more-than-25% capacity. I was even given a special personal tour of the building a few weeks ago, which was really exciting; the last time I’d been in there it was a demolition site, I wore a hard hat and was told to be careful I didn’t fall into big holes in the floor. It’s lovely in there now, I can’t wait until it’s properly opened up for the graduate students.  I will do a proper ‘final’ sketch of the whole building though they have planted these trees in front, which will make it a bit harder to see until all the leaves fall off; might look nice in the Fall actually. 

walker hall, nearly there

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020321 Walker Hall Graduate Center sm

This is the almost-ready Graduate Center in the almost-refurbished historic Walker Hall, on the UC Davis campus. If you have been reading this site for a while you might have seen this building once or twice; see all the previous posts at petescully.com/tag/walker-hall. Well the little huts where all the construction workers go have been moved away, and so I had a pretty good view from across Hutchison, though the fence is still up. I did this fairly quick panorama while I was on campus earlier this month. Click on the image to see a close-up.  

And this is what it looked like back in January 2014! Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, as Bowie would say. If he were still alive. I wish Bowie were still alive.

panoramarathon: walker hall

walkin’ back to happiness

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walker hall (nearly done)

Regular listeners will recognize this building as Walker Hall, which has been under redevelopment for quite some time now on its way to becoming the new Graduate Center, which was slated to open in 2020 but looks set for 2021 now, unless you subscribe to the opinion that 2020 hasn’t really ended yet. (To be fair, 2016 only just ended yesterday). It’s starting to look quite different now and almost nearly ready, as a lot of the area in front of the building (I mean, the rear of the building, this is actually the rear, but I think it’s the front now) (a bit like Buckingham Palace, you know the part of the building we all see is technically the back? It doesn’t matter, it’s a building not a video game) has been paved and a lot of the construction huts are going, though it’s still all fenced off. The last time I went inside there was November 2018 when I got to draw the insides with a hard hat on (see: https://petescully.com/2019/01/28/inside-walker-hall/), which was very exciting, because your urban sketching street cred goes right up if you wear a hard hat. It has been fun to watch this whole building evolve (by the way I made a handy folder on Flickr to see all the drawings I’ve done of this building, for those who are interested: https://www.flickr.com/photos/petescully/albums/72157678149480548) but it will be nice to draw it from a different angle once again. 

That said, here are a few sketches of this angle (usually stood on the steps of Shields Library) from over the past couple of years during the rebuild, for comparison. Funny how I usually draw it in January, and twice now on January 15th, which was the traditional Deadline Day for PhD applications when I was a grad coordinator. In fact it was the former Graduate Dean Jeff Gibeling that gave me the idea to draw the redevelopment back when plans for the new Graduate Center was first unveiled years ago, as I had been drawing the developments at the Pitzer and the Manetti Shrem at the time. It’s fun tracking changes in sketchbooks. 

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Walker Hall UC Davis Walker Hall UC Davis

and it’s never gonna be the same

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Walker Hall UC Davis (nearly ready...) Still working from home, but coming to campus a couple of times a week at least to do stuff in the department, although the lack of people on campus really is depressing, the start of Fall quarter is usually about the buzz and energy of everyone being around, but there’s none of that this year, with most people working from home and most students taking their classes remotely. This is the Zoom Generation. What a year. Nobody really knows when this will end, but end it must, and construction goes on for when we are all back. I wonder what impact the pandemic will have on future architecture? I’d be interested to follow developments in the next few years with global pandemics in mind now that is a thing. In the meantime here are some sketches I did in the middle of September on the UC Davis campus of some of the ongoing construction projects. Above, Walker Hall, which is nearly ready. You can see all my other Walker Hall sketches at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/petescully/albums/72157678149480548. This will be the new Graduate Center, and I attended a virtual walkthrough last week which was really exciting. Last time I was in the building was two years ago when I was invited to sketch inside during reconstruction, I was able to explore the space and try not to fall through holes in the floor, and I got my photo of me sketching with the hard-hat which was what I really wanted. It’ll be great to see Walker Hall finally open.chemistry building uc davis (lots of work still) Here is the ongoing construction project at the Chemistry Building, that started at the end of 2019. This part of it anyway, the other parts of the huge building have been undergoing work for a few years already. You can see the sky was sorta blue on these days, the AQI was still high, but the smoky skies were intermittent. Not so on the day I drew the sketch below, when skies were dull and brownish/orange from smoke. I wasn’t outside for long, but I ate a sandwich at the Silo and stood outside to draw the view of the new Teaching and Learning Complex rising over the skyline. Building work keeps on going. silo smoky sky

walker hall, continued, continued

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Walker Hall UC Davis
They are nearly done with Walker Hall, the new Graduate Center at UC Davis being built inside the completely renovated and changed older building in the middle of the UC Davis campus. I’ve been drawing it for a few years, though obviously not much in the past few months. I will get down there again soon. In 2020 I only managed these two sketches, one on the iPad and one in the sketchbook. There are only so many angles I can draw and draw again, looking in from the outside, but you can really see the changes now. The glass is being added to the windows, signs being put up around it to let everyone know what this will be, it will really make a difference to this part of campus, just as the impressive Student Community Center next door has done.
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I get really obsessed with construction projects sometimes, especially if they are just a couple of minutes from my work (and easy to draw at lunchtime). It’s also that thing where you’ve drawn so much of campus and city that anything new, any changes happening, are worth tracking in a sketchbook. Before and after are fine, but during a construction you get to see things in a very temporary state. When I draw the Manetti Shrem being built, I captured views that I would never have another chance to sketch even later the same day. When using a sketchbook to record them, you are seeing them how your mind sees them, focusing on what you can. This is then also a record of how you saw the construction, what you thought was important enough to put on paper; same with every sketch.

You can see all the other Walker Hall sketches in this tag: https://petescully.com/tag/walker-hall/ 

walker hall, second half of 2019

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Walker Hall UC Davis
We interrupt the tales of my summer in Europe with an update on Walker Hall’s redevelopment at UC Davis. Well I say an update, what I mean is a bunch of sketches I did last year. The place already looks very different (but it’s not yet finished). As ever I can only draw it from certain angles that I can actually see into, I’ve not been back inside it in well over a year now. Above and below, this is how Walker Hall looked in August. On the one below, you can see that some glass was put into the side windows already.
Walker Hall UC Davis

Below is the front side, which as you can now see has the glass windows installed on this side.

Walker Hall UC Davis
And here is the front side again as sketched in December, when the leaves were colourful and falling. I’m still sketching it, but I’ll add my 2020 ones in a later post. It will be finally opening this year as the new Graduate Center, when the staff from Graduate Studies will be relocating from Mrak Hall, where I’ve always known them, into this shiny yet historic new home.
Walker Hall UC Davis

sneezes and walker hall

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Walker Hall UCD

A couple more sketches of Walker Hall. As you can see from above there are new metal pieces being added to the front. Progress continues apace. I hope there is enough office space for all the staff that will be working in there when it is done. I can’t wait to see what it looks like. I have not been back inside since that one time, I might see if I can go back in once things progress even more, get the hard hat back on. Anyway, the above was my second attempt at sketching, on the first (below) I was beset on all sides by the inequities of the sneezing, and the allergies of sneezy men. Blessed is he who in the name of allergies and good will asks the weak “what are you taking?”, for he is truly his brother’s keeper, and the finder of unasked for allergy remedies. And I will sneeze down upon thee with great vengeance and furious pollen those who attempt to sneeze on my brothers, and you will know my name is ATCHOO! when I lay my tissues upon you. ATCHOO! ATCHOO! ATCHOO! ATCHOO!

Ok, what? Where did that come from? I sneezed a lot. I sneeze a lot at this time of year. When I sneeze a lot it makes me think of Pulp Fiction. I’ve said before I don’t like being blessed when I sneeze, for one thing it doesn’t work, because I just keep on sneezing. “What are you taking?” “Oh nothing, I’m just hoping all the blessing finally works.” Someone actually said to me the other day after saying a couple of “bless-yous”, they said, “oh wait you have allergies, not a cold” like it makes a difference. I take it then that you can only bless someone who has an actual cold, but allergies are beyond magic spiritual faith healing? But maybe instead of saying “Bless-you!” people can instead go into the full “Ezekiel 25-17”. Just say the whole thing when someone sneezes, then they won’t feel bad for sneezing ten times over you. “What are you taking?” “Ezekiel 25-17.”

Walker Hall UC Davis ATCHOO

“Ask your doctor about taking once-daily Ezekiel 25-17. Side effects include constipation, a runny nose, flocks of seagulls, big brains, breaks in concentration, saying “what” again, saying “what” one more goddamn time. In some cases injury and death can occur. If you should notice any of these side-effects, you ain’t got no problem. I’m on the mother****er. Go back in there, and wait for the Wolf, who should be coming directly.”