SOM

I feel like a healthy topic of discussion on here would be AED (Art and Engineering Design) trip to SOM (Skidmore, Owins, and Merill Limited Liability Partnership) in downtown Chicago. We had to wake up at the crack of dawn to catch a Greyhound bus, so once we arrived to the office I was pretty exhausted already. We first saw in the lobby a mini-model of the entire downtown area as well as a large part of River North. It was really interesting seeing the relationship between geographic location and building height across the entire city at once, typically a little harder to observe from a single image. Following that we were escorted to one of the upper floors to meet with one of the employees of the company. The company took up 2.5 floors, and the lobby had models of some new buildings and structures they were working on. Accompanying those was another model of Chicago, this time though, there were gray and white buildings, gray buildings being ones that SOM had some hand in designing, which including the Hancock Tower, the Sears (Willis) Tower, and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millenium Park (the giant structure overlooking the stage more specifically). We were able to look at some urban planning the company was doing in Eastern Asia as well, which really showed us the diversity of some of the work. We ended with a presentation by 3 different employees on different jobs and tasks within the company, one of whom had a very sleep-inducing voice. The group then left the company with a few hours to spare before having to reach the train, so we visited Millennium Park together before splitting into two groups, one headed for the Art Institute and the other for the Water Tower before rejoining and getting on the train together. Overall, I learned a lot and enjoyed myself, so I would say it was a fun and productive trip