Arrived in Torino in the late afternoon, checked into the hotel - comments about this later - and visited the Job site.

More coming...

Arrived on the job site mid morning and discovered that Mike and I had not communicated regarding the solution to the the diagonal mast problem. He worked out a perfectly logical solution which lead to other complications. As pieces were already cut for all four of the trees there remained no option but to proceed. It is easy to go down a rabbit hole in the design process so that one “solution” to a problem leads to another problem and “solution” which leads to another... and so on. There are always increasing returns and synergy - this is the way of nature. The challenge is to stay on the track of positive increasing returns. Somewhere there is a solution and we have a few days to find it. I have never been in the position where I could not find a design fix that was at least acceptable. This project is very complex and the are a number of people who can effect the outcome in a material way. This Armature has been modified and a great deal has been added to it as the requirements have become known. Will it be able to absorb and “hold” all of this variety and still remain clear and comprehensible?

Spent the morning with Lisa, Anna, Paola and several of the UniManagement staff reviewing the design of the January 18, 19 UniCredit Group Leadership Meeting: the Architecture of Our Sustainable Growth.This review was about the basic structure of the event and a review of issues that we have to address.

More coming...

Permasteelisa has removed the protection from the glass balconies and stairs to the 3rd floor. I call this shot “looking up” and perhaps things are beginning to do this. The stairway is spectacular but is is going to be a problem for half of the Human population. The beauty-utility equation is not always easy to balance.

Who was it that said that “it was the best of times and the worst of times?” This entire project has been both. When you do not get home but 7 weeks and a few days in a year - these are not the best of times. When, four months before the project is to be complete and manufacturing has to start, the requirements radically change, these are not the best of times. When concrete work and plastering is going on in the process of installing finish goods - this is not the best of times. The excitement and rush of FasTracking is the best of times. The tight collaboration of working with all the different engineers, designers and trades - on site - to find the best possible solution to each specific challenge - is the best of times. To see THE IDEA of the design unfold, day by day, is the best of times. To see a “near perfect” work of art and craft compromised by small flaws caused by a arbitrary, too tight schedule, is to be robbed of almost all satisfaction. To launch an environment as complex as this one without even a day to test it, is to not sleep much in the last weeks and to indulge in great professional risk. In the end, to see how it effects people is to realize that, perhaps, the costs and risks are worth it. However, no matter how this experience is balanced out and judged, this project was an investment of 1/100th of my total working life. How may of these increments are left?.