2 days down, 4 to go

This week a motley group of current students, under-employed or unemployed artists, architects, and photographers (no wonder when I mentioned that I was applying to graduate school for urban planning half of the room started talking about what schools had better historic preservation programs or studio space) converged on the Quad at PENN with the guys from DesignYorDorm.com and a crew of security guards. I decided to join them… you know just for kicks.

What are we doing, you ask? We are taking ever-so-detailed measurements of the 750+ different floor plans in the 1100+ room Quad buildings. What for, you ask? So that DYD.com can build 3-D models of each room. Why would they want to do that, you ask? OK, OK, I’ll stop playing games. The company gets schools to join and they create models of each room so that incoming students can visualize their rooms before they get there. Therefore, they know exactly what will fit, where the outlets are, how high the ceilings are, flooring type, how big their closet it, what dressers come with, etc. On the website, the students can also pick out dorm stuff and see how it will fit in the 3-D model of their room before they actually purchase. Wow, kids these days are so spoiled. What will think of next? A box in your car that tells you when to turn left?

It’s important to remember that most of the buildings in the Quad were built in the late 19^th century. You’ve got to think outside of the box here… some of our rooms have 12 walls (18 if you count those “pillars”), bay windows, cathedral ceilings, wood floors, all that fun stuff. Plus, we didn’t trust our “laser measuring thingamagig” after it told us a 17-foot wall was only 13-feet, so we measured almost every wall by tape measure! Stay tuned for reports from the next ridiculous job that Marley finds on craigslist.