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a-secondhand-sorrow · 4 years

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Dear Evan Hansen Gift Exchange!

This is my gift for the @sincerely-us DEH Gift Exchange for @thatfriendlyanon! Hey @thatfriendlyanon, hope you enjoy :D This is a bit of an amalgam of prompts that you offered but it’s mostly centered on Evan and Zoe a year later. Just for ease of timing/pop culture references it’s set in 2019/2020. Happy 2020! (here’s an ao3 link if you prefer)

Her first night back home, Zoe slips out the back door and just sits on the porch. It’s cold outside, like it always is in December, and it seeps through the old dollar store flip-flops she’d shoved her feet into on the way out the door. She shivers as a chilly gust of air bites through her purple and white sweatpants and old, graduating-class t-shirt. She’s like a collage of new and old school spirit, and some part of her hates it while the rest of her loves it. Sinking into one of the wicker chairs, she takes a breath for what feels like the first time since she stepped off the train in town, letting the hum of the cicadas drown out her other thoughts. She’s almost forgotten the different noise in the suburbs, the noises she was so used to in her first eighteen years of life. It feels disarming to be back in those noises after so long away.

Finally, once she’s sat in the feeling of the cold outdoors, her eyes drift up towards the sky. A smile picks at her lips, drawn by the faint points of light in the sky. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registers names of a few, although had she tried to remember them consciously, she’s sure she wouldn’t be able to say them.

(Maybe it’s two memories, ripe with different kinds of nostalgia, that stop her from truly remembering. Maybe it’s the memory of two different hands in hers under the night sky. The memory of childhood, of wild giggles spilling from her lips, of another protective little hand in hers and speaking in what they thought were whispers but were more like normal volumes, sharing those names with her for the first time. And later, a later memory, of grass underneath her and a once-still hand in hers and warm lips pressed just right of her ear whispering the names he knew and asking her the ones he didn’t.)

She...likes school. She really does. It‘s felt like a fresh start in so many ways, with new people and new scenery and an easier way to breathe. Fewer shadows to haunt her from the corners of her eyes, drowned out by the constant lights of the city.

She just wishes she could see the stars there, that’s all.

Not that the stars at home are bright, exactly. They’re still dulled and hard to see, but they’re a world away from how they look at school. They are visible even if they’re not the strongest.

So Zoe smiles and looks at them, ignoring the lights that spill out from inside the house and the two figures they reveal inside.

After some time, she stands quietly, moving through the air as though it is nothing more than smoke and revelling in how silent she can be just before opening the door to the indoors.

“Everything alright?

Zoe’s head snaps up, locking onto where Larry is seated just beyond the kitchen and into the living room. She shakes her head at her own jumpiness, freeing her feet from the flip-flops. “Yeah, just catching some fresh air.”

Already, that almost-suffocating feeling is back. She can breath, but the air doesn’t seem to quite reach her lungs.

“Yeah, I just wanted some fresh air.” Her eyes scan the rooms. “Where’s mom?”

Larry’s lip quirks at the corner, but it doesn’t really seem happy. “She wanted to stay up to talk with you, but she was pretty tired so she turned in early.”

“Oh,” Zoe says, and for some reason it makes her feel kind of small. She crosses the house, letting her feet acclimate to the warmer temperature through her socks. She studies her father; he has dark circles of his own, and his hand seems to shake slightly where it holds the day’s newspaper. “I’m probably just gonna go to bed anyway, unless you…?”

“No, that’s fine, sweetheart,” he says, and for some reason Zoe’s heart feels heavy. Larry hasn’t called her sweetheart for a long time, and something in the word makes her feel like a little kid again. “I’m sure you’re tired.”

She nods and grabs her phone off of the small coffee table, turning towards the stairs. The light is already off upstairs, she can tell. “Well, ‘night.”

A sound that’s suspiciously like a yawn, and then a “‘night” back.

On the second step, her father’s voice stops her. “Zoe? We’re really glad you’re home.”

She ducks her head back down, forces a smile in his direction, and then continues to her room without looking up from her feet.

Evan’s still working at Pottery Barn.

He told himself, time and time again after senior year, that he’d be out of Pottery Barn in a year. Off to college full-time, maybe commuting or maybe even living on campus. But it’s six months past that year-long deadline, and here he is, on the first night of Hanukkah only just finishing the common app for next fall. Or trying to, rather, around his Pottery Barn shifts and his general fear of opening up to other people.

On one of his shifts, he scrolls through Instagram during a quiet spell, having accepted the fact that his application would not be worked on during work hours long ago. Just his average feed, a few former high school classmates posting holiday pictures (Alana Beck, unsurprisingly, has color-coordinated with her dads, sister, and grandma effortlessly for Christmas photos) and some of those Central Park nature shoots the pretentious photographers he follows are always posting. He’s about to click onto his Explore page when a recommended account catches his eye. His heart sinks as he recognizes the profile picture and the name, simply titled “zo + ev” in place of full names. And there she is, Zoe Murphy, smiling so wide that some of her freckles disappear behind the others and her eyes are smaller than usual. Another girl sits just behind her, her lips angled so her face comes across as more “funny” than “happy,” but that’s on purpose, he thinks. Before he can convince himself not to, he clicks into their account, and it’s revealed that the other girl in the picture must be ‘Ev,’ or Eva, if her main account’s handle is trustworthy. His pulse slowing slightly, his eyes skim their profile.

@stargirlzo_m and @evamillthegreat_ / NYU ‘23 / covers + general goofery / dm to req a song!

From a glance, it appears that they’re roommates. Not that he’s like, actively trying to figure that out, no, it’s just that all of the videos seem to be filmed in the same place, and the previews of the comments have a couple messages like “that’s our fav down the hall neighbors!” and such. Evan’s not even surprised to see that they have a couple hundred followers, since when one of their videos begins to auto play, they definitely sound really good. Zoe’s playing guitar, and something in the familiar curve of her fingers on the strings almost makes him turn his phone off and shove it away to get rid of the deep swell of emotion he feels just seeing her like that.

After...everything, he never really saw her play guitar again. While they were together, it was almost constant, because their coexistence was almost constant. But he couldn’t bring himself to go to the jazz band concerts for the rest of his senior year, and he certainly wasn’t hanging around her house while she figured out a new tune. Hearing her play is bittersweet and nostalgic and he feels...off. But he listens anyway.

Her roommate has a really great voice, and it’s clear that in their few months of knowing each other they’ve played together a lot. He keeps scrolling. Eva, or Ev, has a few videos up of her singing a cappella, or with a background, some kind of...TikTok riff challenge, maybe? Zoe, too, has a few where she strums some jazzy numbers by herself, that familiar old smile on her face in a whole new light. But then he finds one of her alone in a denim jacket and a flower-patterned dress, and she opens her mouth and begins to sing, and Evan swears he could cry. She always claimed she couldn’t sing, but of course he disagreed. He still does, and as she softly sings Dodie Clark and her fingers pluck at the strings in some complicated pattern, he could never disagree more. He hurriedly keeps scrolling, since if he were to continue listening he’s not sure if he’d be able to make it through his shift without crying.

She and her roommate are playing Crush by Tessa Violet, then, and it’s a little easier to hear.

A customer comes into his line of sight and he quickly shoves the phone under the counter before he can hear Zoe come in to harmonize in the background.

Sometime after Cynthia accepted the fact that Zoe wasn’t going to share every detail of her college life with her, she set her the task of going through her closet and cleaning up. She’d already done it before leaving in the fall, but Zoe agrees, mostly just to have something to do rather than thinking about the bedroom across from hers. She still hasn’t really breathed properly, but it’s a little easier when she’s alone.

When her trash garbage bag is already partially filled with old tops from high school, old Harry Potter and Brie Larson posters, and some guitar sheet music she doesn’t remember buying, she catches sight of an old plastic storage bin. Her hand brushes the unmistakable feel of dusty plastic, and her fingers search for purchase so she can drag the container out. It’s heavier than it looks, and the most she can do is drag it out. She falls back onto her heels as she does, eventually crossing her legs criss-cross under her. She pushes her hair away from her face and lets her eyes roam over the container. It looks like it’s filled with paper, and as she opens the lid there’s an overwhelming scent of school glue and cheap acrylic paint. There are old star stickers coming off everywhere.

“Oh, boy,” she mutters under her breath.

She considers just chucking it into the trash for a moment, but thinks the better of it. Tentatively, she plunges one hand into the pile of papers and promptly sneezes. Fucking dust allergies.

A few old math tests from elementary school are in the top pile, for some reason. She wastes no time in setting those into the garbage bag. She’ll sort the recycling out later, but for now she just wants to get the dust into one area. There’s an old, dried-up glue stick under the old tests and a couple of purple and blue markers with no caps. The faded yellow folder beneath them has clearly suffered for it, with big splotches of color on the thin paper. After tossing the markers in her normal trash, she picks the folder up. Immediately upon opening it, she’s hit by an image of herself as a little kid, her hand scribbling some crayon against printer paper with Connor at her side scribbling on the same paper. She lets out a sharp hiss of breath for nothing in particular. It turns out the folder is just full of old drawings, nothing special. Crayon stars on superhero capes, just about her and Connor’s combined interests. Seeing them on the same page feels like less of a gut punch after remembering them drawing together, but it still hurts all the same.

She knows her mom would want to keep the drawings, but she dumps them into the garbage bag before she can think to do otherwise.

The construction paper is surprisingly rough under her fingertips, but she smiles at the glue galaxies she’d created on the page, the letters of each star’s name written painstakingly next to them. She wonders where her good handwriting went and sets the page aside, figuring a little nostalgia won’t hurt.

There are several pages that just seem to be covered in glitter and star stickers, which immediately find themselves in the unforgiving cell that is her garbage bag. Some old book reports reach the same fate, as does a small journal that seems to be dedicated entirely to her writing with her left hand. If some of the handwriting looks like Connor’s, she chooses to ignore it.

“It’s weird,” Zoe says. “Who else writes with their left hand?”

Connor sniffs, looking indignant as he holds his pencil aloft in his hand. It’s held so gently and delicately in his artist’s hand, all long and thin fingers. “I think it’s cool. Right hand writing isn’t special.”

“And you smudge everything you write,” Zoe mutters under her breath. That didn’t stop her from trying to write like him, though. If he saw her, he ignored it.

It’s better to be rid of it, anyway.

The next item appears to be crudely bound by some old thread. It’s several sheets of printer paper bound together, and with a sinking heart Zoe sees the same crayon stars and superhero capes on the page. Monsieur Lumière. One of Connor’s pretentious French phases as a child, probably, fueled by the old English-French dictionary he found in his room.

She’d completely forgotten about the fake superhero they’d created, probably while huddled under one of their beds as their parents fought. A man to take away all their fear and sadness, who would bring the light of the stars wherever he was. Just a silly invention they’d dreamt up. A lot of good it did them.

This hurts more, this creation of their shared crayons on one page. There were probably hours spent on this, and she can’t even bring herself to open it and read a page.

She drops it suddenly as though the very touch of the paper to her fingers scalds her. She pushes it across the floor, away from her. She may leave it on some counter for her mother to find, rather than bringing herself to throw it away. She wants to get rid of it, but she can’t bring herself to pick it up again, not yet.

It’s only as she picks up the next glitter-coated paper that she realizes it gave her a paper cut.

“-right here—oh, isn’t this lovely?” Heidi says, her head turning back in Evan’s direction. She drops down onto the blanket she’s just finished spreading over the grass, crossing her legs under her.

Evan smiles. “It is, yeah, definitely.”

And maybe he’s just a little surprised by how much he means it. Because this is the first year in a very long time, too long a time, where January 6th has felt like something other than a slightly sadder mirror of every other day. When he woke up today, he didn’t feel that same hollow dissatisfaction on this birthday. He felt...excited.

It’s a nice feeling. Unusual, but nice.

He’d probably be excited even if he hadn’t woken up like that, however. Heidi had insisted she take the day off, and she herself was so excited to be off and to be with him that he couldn’t help but pick up on it. His mother was always like that - if she was excited, he was excited.

And she was definitely excited, given the honest-to-God picnic basket she’d packed for them and the new watch she’d given Evan just that morning “so he’d know when to look away from his inbox” (to which he’d feebly protested that it’s never too early to keep an eye out for forward movement, which she’d dismissed with a kiss on the cheek). As Evan carefully chooses a spot on the blanket where he is protected from the sun by the shade the tree branches above them throw, Heidi gets set unpacking everything, from small cans of sparkling water to grilled cheeses to bakery cookies to a bunch of grapes that looked like they’d had a fight with an anemic mouse and lost. Evan smiles as each item gets pulled out.

Almost automatically, his eyes start scanning over the park. It feels like it’s been a while since he’s been here, too, or at least since he’s taken a moment to sit back and observe the park in its entirety. In the time it takes Heidi to finish setting up, he’s not sure he’s discovered the source of the uneasiness deep in his stomach.

But Heidi is happy, and so he is, too. He turns back to her.

“I picked up this cheese from Shaw’s, it’s supposedly super sharp which I know you love, so it should turn out better than the Kraft Singles grilled cheese last week.”

Evan represses a shudder. “Oh, good.”

Heidi lies back slightly, smiling at him. “Here.” She holds out a plate full of food she’d just pulled out.

“Thanks,” Evan says, and when he smiles at her it's more genuine than most of the smiles he'd given her when he was younger.

She reached over and pats his cheek. “I like seeing you happy, you know that?”

“Yeah, I think I got that from the whole motherly affection thing.”

Heidi shakes her head. “I’d tell you to lay off the sass, but this is the one day I can’t, huh?”

“Oh, you love it.”

“Yeah,” Heidi says, picking up an apple and taking a bite out of it. “Yeah, I do.” She leans over, and with her free hand, she ruffles Evan’s hair.

“Hey!” He protests. “What was that for?” The action makes him feel like he’s a little kid again.

Heidi smiles at him again. He can’t remember the last time she smiled this much. “My little boy is all grown up. Twenty. Can you believe it?”

He shakes his head, looking up toward the trees. He really can’t believe it. Three years ago, he’d never have believed it. Seventeen was a bad year. But here he is, sitting in Ellison Park three years later, where he’d felt so helpless before. He’d be lying if he said there wasn’t an edge of that now, but it’s nowhere close to the wide expanse it had once been. He’s made it to twenty, and he knows he’ll make it longer. He smiles back at her. “Not really,” he says.

They eat in silence for a moment. Normally the presence of other people in the park besides them would make him anxious, but not today. He’s just another person, enjoying the afternoon sun with his mother. He blends in with everyone else. He feels like them. He wants to cork it up along with the feeling of the sun on his cheeks and the grass below him. With a start, he realizes his ache a little from the constant pull upwards his lips are engaged in. He’s smiling so much his cheeks hurt.

“I think you’re freckling again,” his mother mentions offhandedly. “I think you’re just about the only person who can’t freckle in the summer but can freckle just fine in January.”

“Maybe I am,” he says. “Like a superpower. Although it’s kind of a dumb superpower.”

“I don’t think so at all, sweetheart.” Heidi says.

He shakes his head, and as his mind fills with the image of someone else’s freckled cheeks, he may be inclined to agree.

“So you play a lot with Eva?”

Zoe looks up from her laptop, her brain unable to really understand the question. “What?”

Cynthia sits at the other end of the couch, and Zoe automatically tilts her screen in towards herself. “Aunt Christie mentioned it. She said that Sarah was talking about your...music Instagram at Christmas?”

Her cousin had ended up cornering her about her instagram account between dinner and desert. She was actually kind of happy to talk about it, since she and Eva do get along better than most roommates and it’s pretty cool to play with other people. She couldn’t really care about their followers, but they certainly had them, that’s for certain. Besides, it was a welcome reprieve from the dreaded “do you have a boyfriend?” questions, since she couldn’t exactly say no, i don’t have a boyfriend, since I’m still caught up on Evan, you know, the guy from junior year who lied about being friends with Connor and completely but accidentally fucked over the family in the public eye? But they didn’t know the half of that story, and she didn’t like to admit to herself how much she still cared for Evan, so the significant other area was a no-go and anything else was boring.

“Yeah, we have an account,” she says, shrugging. “It’s just a habit we’ve gotten into, playing together. It’s kind of fun to share it.”

“Ah,” Cynthia said, in that ‘I’m trying to understand but honestly have no idea what she’s talking about” tone of voice. “I’m glad, Zo’.”

Zoe smiles.

“But are you sure that’s the...best thing?”

The corners of her lips turn down, and she can feel her voice hardening a little. She doesn’t want to be defensive, but she is. “What?”

“Well, after everything that happened with your brother...with the Connor Project.” When she realized that wasn’t a sentence, she continued. “Are you sure the public eye is the best thing?”

She bristles. “It’s hardly the public eye, it’s just an Instagram account, and my full name isn’t on it. And honestly, mom, it couldn't get worse. No one cares anymore. It’s been years. Most of that was taken down. And I can take care of myself.”

“I know, Zoe,” her mother said, and maybe she’s just being placating, but the hand she reaches over and lays on her arm really does lessen her defenses. “I know. But you can’t control those people, and I just want you to be happy and safe.”

“I know,” Zoe says. “I know you do.”

She’s sure they both remember the endless days of calls, coming in a time of confusion and new grief she doesn’t know if they’ve really moved past, yet. Zoe knows that, if she tries, she can probably remember the exact words they said, the exact tone they said them in. It was only worse when she believed them.

Cynthia sits back again. They sit in silence for a little while.

“I’d love to hear some, though,” she says, in that classic mom voice.

“Why don’t you ask Sarah for a link?” Zoe says, sure to make her voice sarcastic.

“Why have a lousy link when I’ve got the rockstar right in front of me?”

Zoe rolls her eyes. “Sure, let me just summon my roommate. She’s not in Buffalo at all, she’s actually been tiny sized and in my suitcase this whole time, just waiting for my mother to ask about my music so she can belt her tiny heart out.”

“Ha, ha,” Cynthia says. “Good thing you can sing, missy. I know this is where you’re going with all of your university sarcasm.”

“I can’t, mom.”

“Don’t give me that.”

“What would you prefer I give you?”

“An accurate assessment of your talents.”

“Sure, I know I’ve got one in my coat pocket somewhere, right with my sky-high self esteem and my 4.0 GPA.”

“Your GPA is more than fine and if you keep talking like that I’m going to worry. Why don’t you go pick it up from your room along with your guitar? Then I can hear the famous musician’s liquid silver voice while she plucks away with the speed of a god at her strings.”

Zoe cringes. “Always so poetic.”

“It’s a gift,” Cynthia says airily, and the two smile at each other. “Go on. I’ll get your father.”

“I'm not a child at a recital.”

“Why couldn’t you be? We just want to hear you play, sweetheart. We barely see you now, and next time it’ll be Carnegie Hall.”

Somehow, Zoe ends up retrieving her guitar. True to her mother’s word, Larry was there when she came back downstairs. She’d never expected to actually play for them, but this is the first time Cynthia has really pushed her on something in a long time. It’s nice, quite honestly, that she feels that strongly about hearing her play guitar.

“I really normally don’t sing,” she protests mildly.

“Nonsense,” Larry says, and Zoe smiles. She shifts the guitar in her lap.

“Eva absolutely loves singing this,” she begins, her fingers seeking out the beginning chords to Crush, because quite honestly she can’t think of anything else to play. Her parents’ eyes on her make her feel nervous. “She’s made me play it a million times. She’d probably be mad if she knew I was singing it without her.”

It’s...nice to play for them. They smile and clap as she plays song after song for them. She can feel their happiness at something she’s accomplished, for the first time in her life. But for the first time since she’s been home, she thinks she can feel the weight of a third gaze on her. She knows it’s just in her mind, but all the same, she hoped she’d left that lurking guilt from Connor far away, in the orchard, at the end of senior year. She doesn’t know how she feels now that it’s back.

He always used to listen to her play. Maybe this is what she gets instead of him, now.

“Zoe?” Evan says.

She looks...small, is the first word that crosses his mind. Which is funny, because although Zoe Murphy isn’t the tallest person you’ll ever meet, she’s certainly got the confidence and gravitas to make up for it. Stage presence, as his mother would say.

Maybe he’s caught her between the first and second act, then.

She looks up at him, her hands practically drowning in her chunky-knit yellow sweater. It comes up to her chin, half-tucked into a denim skirt at her waist, and where the skirt ends a pair of high riding boots begin. Some part of his brain recognizes that she looks impeccable just as she always does, even when the look on her face is so unguarded and shaken that he’s half surprised she’s still standing. Something passes over her face, and in a second it rearranges into something a little happier than before. It’s not happy or okay, not by a long shot, but if he didn’t know her better he may think it was. Barely giving himself a moment to marvel at just how cool it is she does that, concern overrides every alarm bell going off in his brain about being around her and talking to her and hurting her again (not again, not again), because the most important thing is making sure she’s okay, the most important thing is her comfort. “What-” he breaks off, shakes his head. What does he want to say? What are you doing? What are you feeling? What do you need?

What could he possibly say?

(He knows it doesn’t matter what he wants, in the end. It doesn’t matter.)

“What’s...up?” he finishes a second later, cringing internally.

Zoe’s mouth twists and her nose scrunches, and for a second he thinks she’s going to cry, but a moment later she settles on a half smile, and she looks so much like Connor did that day in the computer lab that he feels winded, winded by an image he couldn’t have conjured consciously. At once the weight of where he is hits him squarely in the chest, and Zoe must sense it, because when she speaks it’s gentle, almost, even though every fiber of her being feels like it’s been shifted on its axis. “Well, uh. You know. Not a lot. And a lot, also, I guess.”

Evan nods, and for a second he feels seventeen again, fighting against a torrent of words, because Zoe never talked like that. She always selected every word carefully, and if she can’t, there’s no hope for Evan. “Yeah, no I, I definitely get it. That makes, that makes sense. You’re um, I guess you’re home for break? Winter break?”

Zoe nods once, and for once he detects a hint of ice in the gesture. “Yeah. And you’re…”

“Still home,” he supplements quickly. “I’m, uh, applying, actually, but, you know…”

“Yeah,” she says, and Evan privately thinks that this may be the most painful conversation they’ve had. There’s still a look in Zoe’s eyes, something a little unhinged and a lot hurt, and he wants more than anything to get rid of it. He knows that it’s not his job, but God, he wants to. He wants to grab her hand and press a kiss to her temple just like he used to, to slide his hand along the side of her jaw like he did whenever she was upset. He wants to remind her to breathe just like she used to remind him to do, wants to trace the freckles on her cheeks until she’s giggling and her eyes are dry.

“Are you here to see Connor?” she spits out, as though surprising herself, and Evan finds himself nodding, because oh yeah, they’re at a cemetery. He absolutely could not tell you why he chose to go down to the cemetery, rather than literally any other place. He just...felt like he had to. For some reason, he felt like he needed to go to Connor’s grave to say sorry and maybe thank you for something he couldn’t quite understand. He hadn’t planned on running into Zoe, though.

“You are too? I can...I can go,” he offers, and he’s surprised at how quickly Zoe shakes her head.

“No, I’d...I’d like someone else there.”

“Really?” he says, his voice soft.

“Yeah,” she says, offering him a quick ghost of a smile before steeling herself and turning.

He follows her in silence, choosing to focus on the sound of her shoes on the concrete and examining the back of her head and the trees lining the rows of graves and new clouds that have crossed the sun. They must reach Connor’s plot eventually, as Zoe turns sharply and leads him through the maze of stones until they stand in front of one that is simpler than its neighbors. Classic, he supposes, although he doesn’t know if that’s actually a thing, a ‘classic’ grave. Connor Murphy is cut into the stone, followed by a birth and death date and a short epitaph of beloved son, brother, and friend. He squashes down an unkind thought before it can really grow at all.

Zoe’s sat down on the grass, denim skirt and all. After hesitating, he follows.

“Would you like me to-”

“No,” Zoe says, but her eyes are focused on the grave, and Evan has the feeling she’s a million worlds away from him and it wouldn’t matter what he said. “You’re fine.”

So he sits quietly, and tries to think of something he’d like to say to Connor in the peace of his own head. What would he say, if given the chance? He doesn’t know if it would be worth anything. For him, he grew to learn that he was not who he thought he was on his worst days, no matter how many there were. But he doesn’t know if that’s worth saying to Connor. It wasn’t even really Connor who taught him that, in the end. He forced that message into his own brain, with the help of Dr. Sherman and his mother and even Zoe and the Murphy’s, in some roundabout way. He’s learned he can keep going.

Maybe Zoe still needs to learn that, he thinks, with a glance in her direction. She seems to be deteriorating, her hand absently twisting grass at her side, her face falling just a little more. She’s biting her lip and her brow is furrowing deeper. Or maybe this is just one of her bad days.

She stands up and sways on her feet. Evan clambers up after her, a hand reaching out to steady her almost unconsciously. “I’m sorry,” she says, and it’s only then that he notices the near-silent sobs coming from her, although there are not yet any tears. She just looks...sad. He hasn’t seen her look that sad in a while. Her non-grassy hand reaches up to her face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Evan says, and he aches to reach out and touch her, to comfort her in some way, but he holds himself back. He attempts a joke. “You apologize too much.”

He sees tears on her cheeks, and one indents where he’s sure she’s biting the inside of her mouth.

“Please,” he says, and it’s only then that she seems further away than she was before. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

She’s in no state to refuse, but she looks like she might anyway. He cuts her off with another ”please, let me do this” and she relents. She looks ready to collapse at any moment, and he’s terrified she will, so he keeps one hand hovering nervously hovering between her shoulder and back their whole walk as though he’s swatting invisible bugs away. He considers opening the door for her, but thinks the better of it and leaves her to fend for herself in that particular field. They’re silent as he gets into the car and shifts the key in the ignition, pulling out of the cemetery parking lot. They stay silent for a few minutes on the road as well, while Evan drives in the vague direction of her house.

“You’re driving,” Zoe says suddenly, and through the thickness of tears Evan thinks he can detect a hint of pride.

“Yeah, that I am,” he replies, shaking his head slightly.

He thinks Zoe may say something like “wow” under her breath, but a moment later she’s sniffling again and that’s all he can think about. “I have some tissues in the glove compartment.”

“Thanks,” she says softly, almost getting drowned out in the sound of tires on pavement, and the sound of her soft consonants breaks his heart. “I’m sorry,” she tries again, but Evan stops her.

“Don’t, Zoe. Don’t ever apologize. Really.” His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Believe me. You have nothing to apologize for.”

There’s another silence. It seems like Zoe has stopped crying, although she still seems unsteady, albeit less all over the place than when he first saw her.

“I swear I’m doing better than this,” she says. “I really am. I don’t, I really don’t know why that happened. I wish I could explain to you why. Why it’s still happening now, honestly. I’m doing better. I am.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations, Zoe.”

“I know. I mean, I don’t, but. I want to give you one, anyway.”

He nods. “Where to?” He finally says, the words stiffer than he wanted them to be.

Her voice is small, almost fragile. “Could you...maybe go to the orchard?”

He nods again, feeling a bit like a bobble head. “Yeah, of course.” He doesn’t add the anything, anything at all for you, but he thinks she might hear it anyway.

Sitting in the orchard with Evan again, it’s almost...surreal.

Zoe hasn’t been back since she met him a week before graduation. Being in the orchard brings all kinds of feelings of melancholy for her, a tangle of guilt and longing and maybe a little bit of hope, too.

Because when she looks across from her, Evan is there, and her own emotions are reflected on his face. They’re both sitting in the grass under one of the trees. They’re no longer saplings, which in itself is weird. The year has brought a lot of growth for them. Looking at Evan, she can’t help but think that they’re not the only ones.

He’s so much more...something than he was before. Is it happy? Confident? Whatever it is, it fills him from the inside. Even in the orchard, where his brow is furrowed and his eyes are focused on some faraway point in the distance, he’s sitting taller and fidgeting less than before. He’s doing better.

And she meant what she said to him, how she’s doing better too. Getting out and away to the city had really done wonders for her, finally being away from all of the shit that happened in high school.

She pushes her foot out, nudging against his thigh. He angles his head to her, and suddenly she gets the same urge to cry again. Her vertigo has lessened significantly since arriving at the orchard and stumbling to sit, but she still feels unsteady even while sitting. The corner of his lip perks up a bit as his eyes meet hers.

“It’s been almost a year,” she says.

“I know.”

There’s a pause; she lets herself listen to the rustle of the no-longer-saplings.

“Do you ever wish you could go back?” she says, surprising herself.

He takes a moment to respond. “To when?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. Her eyes burn and she’s not quite sure why. “Last time we were here? Last year? The very first time we really talked? This morning?”

Evan shakes his head. “That’s, that’s a lot of times.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I’d go back to this morning,” he said. “So I could...prepare myself for this. So I’d be ready to see you.”

She snorts. “I’d like preparation to deal with me, too.”

“That’s not what I meant, Zoe.”

“Oh?” She doesn’t know where this challenge has come from in her tone. “What did you mean?”

“I meant—I meant that it’s...different seeing you now. Because of...everything. And I don’t want to hurt you more.”

At once, all the fight leaves her. She passes a hand over her face. “God, Evan. I don’t think that’s possible.”

If she had meant to hurt him-and she honestly doesn’t know herself if she did-she certainly succeeded. Evan seems to curl in on himself a bit.

“That’s not what I meant,” she adds belatedly. “I just-you make things difficult, you know? Because this entire—” and here she gestures emphatically to the orchard, “thing is so fucked, and I want to leave it all behind, since it makes me feel fucked. But then I see you, and it’s like…” she lets out a puff of air. “It’s like I’m back to being sixteen again. Which is terrible on so many levels but is really, really great on one.”

He doesn’t say anything.

Her hand picks at the hem of her skirt. “I had you, Evan. And that made everything else okay.” She blinks rapidly against her blurring vision. “And as much as I want to leave everything else behind, I don’t-I can’t leave you. And that.”

“I understand,” Evan says softly.

She doesn’t say the other part that keeps her from leaving, the total guilt that fills her mind every once in a while when she thinks about Connor. She had a feeling he may already know that part.

“And the stars are here, too. I can’t leave them.”

She can hear the smile in Evan’s voice. “No, I bet you can’t.”

She shakes her head, tears slipping from her eyes. As he leans over and swipes them away with his thumb, she represses a choking sob from somewhere deep inside her chest. “I couldn’t either,” he says, his smile morphing into something sadder and smaller. His fingertips brush against her cheeks one last time, and belatedly she remembers those nights spread out on the grass where he traced the stars from the sky on her freckles. His fingers feel just like they did then, almost reverent against her cheek, his feather-light touch sending shivers from where it lands. Her eyes close, and without the hard ground beneath her and the sunlight that’s bright on her eyelids, she can almost pretend no time has passed at all, that she can have this entirely and wholly and painlessly. But Evan’s hand, and then his whole being, moves away from her, and she is left with only the phantom of his touch and the quiet noise of the leaves behind her. She lets her eyes drift open again, once the tears have receded slightly.

Evan stands, maybe sensing that she needs to get away or maybe just wanting out himself. “C’mon,” he says, holding a hand out to her. “I’ll drive you home.”

She smiles, albeit a watery smile, and takes his hand, ignoring just how familiar and easy it feels to slip her hand into his. His palm is warm, and he hoists her up with only a little difficulty. She smiles as she rights herself, and he steps back quickly once he’s sure she won’t fall. The faint blush that steals across his cheeks only makes her vertigo worse, but she manages to walk anyways, the blurriness fading from her eyes.

Just before they get in the car, Zoe reaches out a grabs his sleeve, the fabric of it rough under her calloused fingertips. Time slows down for the barest second, and her world narrowed to the faint, warm brown of his eyes. But the moment passes, and she tugs him in closer to her, wrapping her other arm around his shoulder. She means to say thank you, but the words never pass her lips. Instead she pushes herself up until her mouth is right next to his ear. Zoe breathes, “Watch the stars for me, Evan. Please.”

She feels him nod against her shoulder, and finally his grip around her lower back feels like more than just dead weight. “I will, Zo.”

In a moment, she’ll reach for the car door and step away from him. In a moment he’ll do the same, and they’ll sit in an almost-comfortable silence for the ride home. In a while they will be at her house, and they will say goodbye, and Zoe will go back to NYU the next day and Evan will go to his shift at Pottery Barn. In a moment, this may be the last time they just exist like this with each other, or it may not be.

Either way, she holds him close in this moment and savors the feeling of his heart beating in tandem with hers.

#dear evan hansen #dear evan hansen fanfic #dear evan hansen fanfiction #dear Evan Hansen gift exchange #thatfriendlyanon #bandtrees #deh #deh angst #deh fanfic #evan hansen #zoe murphy #zoevan

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annasdesignblog-blog · 5 years

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Week 3 - The Industry

This week was all about researching the industry: careers, my options, awards, companies, etc.

I have first used the Prospects website, a site for all things job and career related (https://www.prospects.ac.uk/) to research the exact career within the creative industry that suits me best. After some reading, I am certain the role of Graphic Designer is what would suit me best. The other job options that were recommended for me as they directly applied to my degree were Animator, Production Designer and VFX Artist. However, I am not very interested in those. The reason I think that a Graphic Designer role is the most appropriate for me is because I fit all the qualities needed, have a lot of experience of the typical responsibilities described and are very interested in what the work involves. The full job profile can be viewed here, but I will highlight the key points I have found: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/graphic-designer.

“A graphic designer works on a variety of products and activities, such as websites, advertising, books, magazines, posters, computer games, product packaging, exhibitions and displays, corporate communications and corporate identity, i.e. giving organisations a visual brand. You'll work to a brief agreed with the client, creative director or account manager, and will develop appropriate creative ideas and concepts for the client's objectives. The work demands creative flair, up-to-date knowledge of industry software and a professional approach to time, costs and deadlines.”

Your typical responsibilities as a graphic designer include:

Meeting clients or account managers to discuss the business objectives and requirements of the job

Estimating the time required to complete a job and providing quotes for clients

Developing design briefs that suit the client's purpose

Thinking creatively to produce new ideas and concepts and developing interactive design

Using innovation to redefine a design brief within time and cost constraints

Presenting finalised ideas and concepts to clients or account managers

Working with a range of media, including computer-aided design (CAD), and keeping up to date with emerging technologies

Proofreading to produce accurate and high-quality work

Commissioning illustrators and photographers

Working as part of a team with printers, copywriters, photographers, stylists, illustrators, other designers, account executives, web developers and marketing specialists.”

I think I have proven to have be able to handle most of these responsibilities:

Developing design briefs - I have developed my own creative brief in a project last semester at university, where I created my own Japanese style restaurant and takeaway located in small villages and towns, enabling a variety of choice for a takeaway as it’s not just common Indian or Chinese restaurants and takeaways most know and are familiar with.

Thinking creatively – I always explore many options and alternative ideas before deciding on the final, and try to come up with concepts that haven’t been created previously.

Presenting finalised ideas and concepts – at the end of a project at university, a presentation is always involved, but this is also featured throughout the course and not just on final deadlines, so I have presented multiple times. Having a job currently that’s customer service based also means I have the confidence to present, as my job is based on talking to people.

Working with a range of media – I am comfortable using Adobe software, such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign as well as Microsoft Office, but I’m also very comfortable with sketching, painting, printmaking and collage.

Proofreading to produce accurate and high-quality work – my work almost never contains typographic mistakes, colour errors, etc. as I have a keen eye for detail. I can also work with a large quantity of text as seen in my university theory work such as the essays, and the lack of mistakes in them.

Working as part of a team – I have started working in groups on a brief for the first time last semester at university, and I’d say that this was successful as everyone participated, and I especially took care of meet ups to ensure everyone knew what they had to do and was up to date.

However, there are a couple of points stated that I have not had experience with yet, such as commissioning illustrators and photographers, estimating the time required to complete a job, providing quotes for clients, using innovation to redefine a design brief within time and cost constraints and meeting clients. I am not sure if I will have a chance to do these during my time at university as they are things done when working in a professional environment, however I’ll try to keep those in the back of my mind so I can be on the look-out and see if the opportunity to complete some of those appear.

I have next researched into more specific and detailed jobs related to a Graphic Designer using this blog, https://blog.printsome.com/graphic-design-jobs/, which explains all different branches a Graphic Designer could get into. The ones appealing to me the most are:

Marketing Graphic Design:

Marketing Exec – creating promotional materials, e.g. coupons or ads that show shoppers what the latest sales are

Branding designer – for a lot of really well-known companies, their branding is so strong that you can recognise one of their products instantly with a small piece of information (e.g. a specific colour)

Logo design – though it’s a niche, there are plenty of people whose entire job consists of creating logos. This is perfect for designers who love to spend a good time on the drawing board

Editorial Graphic Design:

Editorial design – coming up for designs for things like newspapers and magazines to get the perfect balance between images and text

Book editorial design – you can specialise even further and just focus on book cover design. These designers also work on supplementary materials to promote those titles

Layout artist – this is another niche of editorial design, meaning you only focus on layouts of print publications

I am unsure currently which out of these two I would prefer to take up as a career; if I were to apply for a job involving one of these roles with my portfolio as it currently is, I wouldn’t be able to apply for the editorial role as I don’t have many examples of editorial work – perhaps this is something I can work on.

Mentioning applying for jobs, I have used Design Jobs Board, a site dedicated for creative job adverts to view current roles being advertised. This website can be found here: https://www.designjobsboard.com/. This particular advert caught my attention the most:

This advert is for a Graphic Design Internship based in London; it is likely the type of roles I will be applying for after graduating. From the description, I think that this role would be ideal for me as it matches my skills and desires: eagerness to learn, humbleness, experience with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, understanding of design, passionate, organised and sociable. The location of London relates back to my blog post from last week, with Keith advising that if you really want to be successful, moving to somewhere like London could be extremely beneficial due to the amount of creative jobs that are found there.

In addition, I came across this book at the library when researching various roles within the graphic design are; it’s all about how to become a graphic designer. The book is simply titled “Becoming a Graphic Designer: A Guide to Careers in Design”, and it’s written by Steven Heller & Teresa Fernandes. The book explains the different areas of graphic design and tells the reader what to expect from them and how to get the role you want by what is expected in your portfolio; this information is supported by interviews from famous designers such as Milton Glaser and Chip Kidd as well as contemporary ones. Here’s a small preview of what the book contained:

In the industry, it is common for designers to recognised for their work by receiving awards. The most significant award in the graphic design industry is the D&AD Award (https://www.dandad.org/en/d-ad-awards/), which comes in the iconic pencil shape. As the website describes, “The D&AD Awards have been around for 57 years. They stimulate and celebrate creative excellence in commercial creativity, annually inviting 250 of the world’s greatest creative practitioners to judge the year’s finest work. The award is the symbolic D&AD Pencil, and for those who achieve one, it is career defining. The D&AD Professional Awards are recognised globally as the ultimate creative honour, entered and attended by the best from around the world.” The D&AD Award doesn’t only focus on graphic design, but design in general by including other disciplines such as architecture and fashion. Designers applying for the competition know they’re being judged by experts and the best people in the industry.

As the competition hasn’t happened this year yet, I have looked at last year’s winners, focusing on the area of Branding - all of the winners and runner ups can be viewed here: https://www.dandad.org/profiles/jury/733267/branding-2018/. These are two of my favourites:

1. Agency: Jones Knowles Ritchie, Client: Ugly Drinks - https://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2018/branding/26723/the-ugly-truth/

“Ugly was the first 100% natural, fruit-infused sparkling water to market. To take its message to the masses, it adopted an approach that was every bit as bold and uncompromising as the product. The result? The Ugly Truth campaign that is both provocative and playful in tone.”

What I really like about this is the playful and lively atmosphere – a lot of drink companies attempt to do this, but I don’t think any manage to come across as bold and stand out as much as this one. I also like the contrast between the blue, a colour associated with peace and calm, and the exciting, energetic imagery. I also like the cartoon style.

2. Agency: Interbrand Australia, Client: Cotton On Group - https://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2018/branding/26746/g-ay-mate/

“G’day mate. The most famous of Aussie phrases. So, when the debate on legalising gay marriage turned sour, Cotton On Group decided to embrace the term as part of the collective fight back. G'AY MATE is a reminder of what it means to be Australian: friendliness, being laid back, and to always give everyone a fair go.”

The play on words used is so clever, which helps the audience to understand the message instantly. The reason why the message is so smart because the designer uses the famous Australian saying, and relates that to gay rights by taking out a letter, creating a missing element. The plain design and bold text helps the message to come across also, as there’s nothing else to take away attention.

I personally haven’t ever entered a design competition, however I think it could be a good experience - at the end of sixth form, I was awarded “Outstanding Student” in graphic design as my work achieved full marks and was always consistent in quality and I was so pleased to receive this, so to be recognised by professionals in the industry and win something meaningful could be great.

Library Visit:

From the library visit, I have decided to look at journals that focus on Graphic Design specifically. I came across Communication Arts, which is the largest international trade journal of visual communications, founded in 1959. The issue I looked at was published November/December 2018; it’s the annual advertising journal, where designers submit their best advertising work from the past year. This particular issue was of my interest as advertising is part of the branding area, which is what I want to get into.

The issue doesn’t only show a number of images of various advertisements; it also discusses how advertising differs nowadays in comparison what it was thought to be a decade ago. Crimi-Lamanna, one of the judges who decided on the images that were put in the magazine, stated that adverts are more common online and on social media nowadays, rather than on television and magazines where they traditionally would be found. She noted that this isn’t a negative thing, as social media advertising allows an opportunity to move from just story-telling and content creation on different platforms to more ‘story doing’, where costumers are invited to participate in a variety of brand actions that prove that brand’s values in unexpected ways. I agree with this, as you can’t interact with an advert seen on television or a magazine, as much as social media which does allow for a new concept. Crimi-Lamanna expands, and mentions all the tools available now that enable brands to get closer to customers; the intimacy created allows a greater connectivity to brands. Additionally, customers have a larger role in advertising now, rather than just being buyers of products – they can question how do we help serve?, and how do we raise awareness of the issues that need attention? Customers are realising that they are the masters of shifting public thinking, and those powers should be used for good. Again, this is something I strongly agree with it, and I think social media is to thank for this, as it’s very easy to create content to advertise and promote yourself if there is something one feels isn’t receiving as much attention as it should – customers are in the same position as advertising companies by doing this.

Moving on, these are some of my favourite adverts I saw in the magazine.

The social media influence is very strong in many of those adverts, in particular the first two. The first one is based on texting, however with a twist as it’s an interaction between a human and a body part of theirs - their liver, which is a really smart way to raise awareness of safe drinking I personally think - it’s fun, but very informative at the same time. The second one is different, as it’s the Coca-Cola company engaging with their customers by creating unique bottles with names on. The other two are beauty based - I really like the collage technique used in the first one, and the mixture of faces as no face on that advert is simply one face. There’s a sense of mistaken identity, which of course matches with what is being advertised as the question of “who” is being asked. The last one I particularly enjoy and especially its use of texture as a way to connect with the audience - common textures are used that most people have come across previously, and the posters don’t ask “does your skin feel like this?” - it’s more firm and assertive, telling the audience to visit this place if they relate.

Action Plan:

As I mentioned earlier, I would like to possibly get into the editorial industry in the future, however, at the moment I don’t have any work to put into my portfolio that is editorial. By the end of the module, I would like to re-create an already existing magazine article and cover, which can be later used in my portfolio as an example of my own editorial work.

Additionally, after researching job advertisements, I want to book an appointment with the Careers & Employment service at the university, so I can discuss about what is needed to write a good graphic design based CV, what to put in a portfolio, how to get experience etc.

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delhi-architect2 · 4 years

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Journal - One Drawing Challenge 2020: The 100 Finalists (Part 3)

Explore a further 25 extraordinary architectural drawings, each one a Finalist in the 2020 One Drawing Challenge. Let us know which are your favorites on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #OneDrawingChallenge!

← Previous 25 Drawings Next 25 Drawings →

“House by the sea” by Kees Fritschy, Atelier Fritschy

“As a recent graduate during this unusual times, I start my architectural career different than expected.

The worldwide lockdown made people more bound to their houses than ever before. In a post pandemic situation people might ask for a home that includes different qualities. My painting investigates an atmosphere in which the inhabitants can experience a peaceful surrounding. A healthy environment where inside and outside space merge. Natural elements such as the sky, water and the views are decomposed to form a balanced composition with the architecture and inhabitant. The surroundings play an active role in the experience of the space.

I got inspired by architects such as Luis Barragan and Mies van der Rohe. The use of color is limited to a few tones as a statement of reduction. Nevertheless the colors are more or less necessary to increase the sensation of the place.”

“Stacking Collectives” by Mark Heinrichs, University of Toronto

“The dearth of affordable in many contemporary city’s is an issue many urbanites are uncomfortably familiar with. The problem is ubiquitous, and solutions are similarly scarce. Possibly through implementing a novel development strategy, programmatic amalgamation and unorthodox site selection, a potential solution may emerge: a stacking of collectives. This drawing visually summarizes a theoretical typology that would combine communal living, collaborative design, and collective financing and allow for a number of distinct groups of individuals to occupy a single, co-owned mid-rise tower.

These groups (those present in this drawing ranging from frat-boys to a covenant of nuns) would be present from the beginning of the design process and would contribute both financially and aesthetically to their portion of the building. This would allow for flexible layouts depending on desired function and a greater sense of ownership over the resulting building. An urban mid-rise becomes a stacking of collectives.”

“Turnme” by Jono Yoo, The University of Auckland

“As Banham walks into the battlefield of car exchange, the Turnme market, he hears vigorous interactions between the motorists of Auckland sharing values over the automobiles.

A rusty 1970s Ford calls out his name, peaking at him amongst the chaos of battling, bidding, and negotiation between sellers and buyers. Drawn by the life story of the Ford, Banham purchases the dear loved car so that he can mend him back to health to put to good use.

First of all, the title, Turnme is a compound word of Turners and Trademe, the two most predominant second-hand car markets of New Zealand. The reason for this wordplay is to highlight the unexpected autonomy and free expression advocated in the interactions held during the trading of used cars which includes, the display of cars, negotiation, bidding and most importantly the exchange of sign-value…”

“Incarceration Alchemy” by Kathryn Cybulski, University of Waterloo

“The time an inmate spends at the facility is under their control, no matter the crime committed, but under one condition: they must reach the top of the structure.

In order to do so, there are 50 levels the inmate must unlock, each level containing an important skill that must be learned and mastered, a fun activity, or something needed for survival. At the bottom of the structure is a massive library that contains the knowledge needed to follow a path to the top.

The exploration of new ideas, a new mindset, a new perspective and the possibility of a new life is rooted in the imagination. This system keeps the mind and imagination of inmates engaged, as they are always working towards a goal. Inmates have to earn their release and in the process of doing so, are able to gain valuable life skills and rehabilitate themselves.”

“Mechanized habitable vertical farm for a COVID generation” by Ian Lai, University of Pennsylvania

“Everyone is working from home during the COVID pandemic. How is office space rethought to integrate with the housing typology and its integrated systems? Is sustainability inherently tied to conservative building schemes and forms?

This project addresses the growing need for buildings in Philadelphia to be repurposed and reused in spite of increasing unemployment and the crisis of housing shortage during the coronavirus. Despite the rising numbers of unemployment and people’s needs to spend money simply on rent, food and water.

The use of vertical space, access to views an sunlight should not only be reserved for the upper class but any low-income population as well. By taking and extruding a volume of 600sqft from the site FAR and twisting it to account for wind forces as well as sunlight in angles round the building and pixelating the facade to increase surface area for rainwater catchment, the resulting form is achieved.”

“Making of a Place” by Abin Chaudhuri, Abin Design Studio

Conceived to introduce a peri-urban context to the viewer, this illustration aims to convey a sense of scale, lifestyle and spatial demographic of Bengal’s countryside within which numerous projects of Abin Design Studio are situated.

Dominated by a Temple complex and dotted with small lakes and open fields, the graphic highlights the insertion of the studio’s works in the region that introduced an entire community to the impact of design and the ability of architecture to expand beyond its footprint.

The illustration was meticulously created using various software such as Sketchup, AutoCAD, Illustrator and Photoshop.”

“A CITY OF NOWHERE” by Haoyu Wang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“This drawing represents a notion of displacement in contemporary society by illustrating a fictional city that infinitely grows without a ground of belongingness.

While the world increasingly connects by technology, our lives and social existence are detaching from fixed places or communities. The pandemic of COVID-19 switches our work-live routines to virtual substitutes. On the other hand, social media raises the voices of migrants, refugees, and urban nomads on their identity crisis in constant resettling.

Can we translate displacements into architectural imagination? In A CITY OF NOWHERE, an infrastructural framework stretches three-dimensionally with interconnected mobility systems representing the force of technology. In contrast, the properties built upon the framework are independent of their neighbors in typology, culture, and social identity. This city nourishes a society where people enjoy optimized freedom of traveling and exploring while losing the materialized sense of home or community.”

“Smash Palace” by Jono Yoo, A12

“The next place that Banham visits is one that most cars of Autopia have been through, the Mechanical Theatre of Smash Palace; a place where his Ford finally transforms to become Banham’s unique counterpart. Banham trudges along the entrance, passing the oath stone of Mechanical Theatre stated by Karl Benz, that all Mechanics are devoutly tied by to clear their mind.

Inside, another scene unfolds. Mechanics at the surgical rooms diagnosing each car carefully, understanding that the car is an extension of the owner’s body, where above there is a showcase laid out for people to display and boast their modified car’s new look and performance.”

“Architecture without architects, a slum made out of stories” by Yennifer Johana Machado Londoño, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín

“It’s an everyday place in a nondescript slum in the outskirts of Medellín, but the longer you watch, the more you let yourself get unraveled in the stories that make the societal networks that, as if a tapestry, have been woven thread by thread by every humble Colombian family in the pursuit of a better life. It’s architecture without architects that, against violence and scarcity, stays on its feet as it hosts a community that makes its spaces their own and, little by little, rewrites its history. Its magic resides in the spontaneity, the ingenuity, the cooperation and the tight-knit urban relations that have been maintained and upheld even in the quarantine of 2020.”

“Unobtainable Cities” by Joanne Ho and Emily May

“Let’s face it: modes of production are being more efficient by the minute and we can’t stop it. We’ve developed 6-axis robotic arms that can 3-D print walls of a home. We’re surrounded by embedded smart sensors and intelligent systems that use our behavioral data to tell us what to conserve and when. Frankly, who isn’t speculating about the future of the infrastructure built by AI architects?

Through the use of Generative Adversarial Models (GAN), we have collected and trained over 500 images of architectural renderings and drawings. This drawing is a collage of images produced by the machine itself, and our personal stitching of an AI-built future entwined with nature.

“Unobtainable Cities” captures the atmosphere of the overwhelming enormity of a future where our lives are increasingly being designed for us, engulfing us in the thought of creating a superior intelligent entity, which ultimately writes our own fate.”

“Pilgrimage of Everyday Life” by Tzu-Jung Huang, The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL)

“Pilgrimage of Everyday Life is capable of generating over 1300 litres of water per day, tremendously ameliorating the inefficiency of water collection, as well as creating ever-changing landscape formed by the glistening, translucent waxed linen. Also, the spiral structure amplifies the abundance of religious and natural power in this area, providing a place beneath it for people to worship the blue sky and celebrate the harvest of water. The plaza space can be highly flexible, used for meeting, food preparation, mediation and festive activities and so forth.

The stone floor radiates out from the well with a series of bamboo columns, reinforcing the notion of community, enhancing the transition from sacredness to openness and re-integrating the stunning surroundings. Thus, going to the community centre becomes a delightful and spiritual journey which one can experience personal and social transformation and celebrate the importance of local traditions, communal gatherings and Mother Earth.”

“Perpetual Home” by Kate Korotayeva, Ryerson University

“In order to survive as a species, today, we have to stay at home. In the last few months, the limits of home became a battleground for our work selves, social selves, sexual selves, creative selves, and other ways we choose to manifest our humanity. This perspective of an imaginary and perpetually changing home emerges as a monstrous amalgamation of our hugely expanded bodies, technology, and built form.

The tumor-like forms encroach into the territory of the former clearly defined domesticities and transform the image of what was once a home into the image of a new programmatic anomaly – a place that does everything. After years of socially distanced existence, this home has illegitimately transformed itself into a monster, constantly changing to meet professional, sexual, aesthetic, creative, and other needs of its confined owner.”

“The Illusion of Boundary” by Maira Waqar, Khan Office of Design

“What is reality? What if we can manipulate all the existential data and create a new world or maybe a new dimension? One that focuses on generating experiences by using various architectural elements as a means of informing space.

They exist in numerous forms in buildings where their use may be superficial or functional. However, they have astronomical potential to dominate space and make their presence felt. The architecture, like a well written chronicle stands in all its glory. The romance among the abstract structures, the chemistry can only be discovered by experience.

Welcome to a mixed reality space where it navigates between the physical and virtual realms. While the physical exists as a ground condition, the virtual constructs enclosures and thresholds that are at both permanent and ephemeral.

They collide and transcend the boundaries of the real world, elevating it into a new reality. New possibilities with no horizons.”

The Melting Archive by Thomas Riddell-Webster, University of Westminster

“Based on sensitive speculation, this drawing proposes a temporary architecture to soften Hanoi city, amid a rapidly developing urban context. Hanoi’s 1000 year old tradition of kite flying provides a vehicle for the creation of temporary spaces that will facilitate Hanoi’s street culture, a culture that relies on permeability to provoke spontaneous interaction.

This drawing questions the path of Hanoi’s development towards a western city and proposes an alternative technology, in reference to Hanoi’s past, that provides the tools for the organic social reconstruction of the present and the future.

Pectin, Cellulose and Chitosan, extracted from kite production, combine to form bio-polymer building components that contribute to temporary spaces, designed to melt back into earth’s ecosystem after several years. Unlike architecture as we know it, each decay provides the opportunity for redesign thereby allowing a sustainable and affordable infrastructure to evolve across the city, in harmony with contemporary social requirements.”

“The Duckpit” by Jakob Jakubowski, Academy of fine Arts Vienna

“The Duckpit project is a critical interface for a collaborative reaction on a borderline of virtual and “real”, an architectural speculative device for re[dis]covering economical and social glitches in political propaganda. An old ruin in the alternative Sava-Mala district was scanned and so digitally preserved before it’s demolition for the Belgrade Waterfront development, a giant ambiguous housing and commerce implant to the heart of the city.

Through a fictional transformation of this ruin into a digital-underground art gallery, people are asked to use their voice (click) for a new kind of protest against the capitalist savage sign, Belgrade Waterfront. With the help of an elucidated website this project becomes a digital art installation itself, the subject of a parasite-sabotage from within a structure is introduced and growing with every voice to a governing manipulating virus, which transforms the construction site and so gives the city back to its habitants.”

“A Tribute to My Grandmother : Her Real Battles with Dementia” by Ker Xin Lee, Loughborough University

“This drawing is my architectural interpretation of my grandmother’s daily struggles with dementia. As a young girl growing up with her, I witnessed how her dementia progressed as she aged. The drawing illustrates her journey with dementia and encapsulates a glimpse of her confusing memories.

It depicts her vivid childhood memories of China as a young girl before she fled, her struggles to find her way home when she got lost in our neighborhood, her hallucinations and delusions, and finally, her last few weeks in the hospital due to failure in parts of her brain, inhibiting her feelings of hunger or thirst.

Dementia causes the brain to deteriorate and can be disorientating to the patient. I wish to raise awareness about Dementia and hope to someday be able to design purpose built architecture, which helps slow the deterioration process and improve the quality of life for those with dementia.”

“The Unity Center” by Joana Benin, Ryerson University

“In a future communist society, humans must be taught how to interact with one another in a world that fosters equality and stability. To avoid conflict and live peacefully, the Unity Center is youth’s first exposure to volatile emotion and social interaction. The center aims to provide spaces where youth can experience different types of emotion within a safe environment to build an emotional tolerance to conflict and distress.

The movement through the building is a ride that conforms to the idea that the physical nature of the Unity Center no longer needs to be restricted by traditional design standards, allowing for molding of the architecture purely for user experience. The structure is a membrane that shapes according to the youth’s emotional capacity, becoming ’a womb;’ from which a new understanding of emotion emerges. The four main spaces exhibit the most commonly encountered emotions: frustration, fear, melancholy and joy.”

“VIRTUAL | REALITY” by Giangtien Nguyen, Afreen Ali, Aziz Alshayeb and Erik H Kusakariba, INVI LLC

“When our streets became empty and we are isolated in our own homes, humans will feel the need to connect through our digital infrastructure. As our reality becomes more physically unconnected, while our virtual city strengthens in connectivity, it creates a juxtaposition visually between our crowded virtual city and our empty reality.”

“Hemp Tech Garden” by Umar Mahmood, University of Pennsylvania

“The drawing is a top view of a new market designed in Callowhill district of Philadelphia. The market provides facilities of Hemp products. It is designed by building, carving and rebuilding reliefs from defamiliarized neighborhood artifacts. The market is serving the city with sustainable, environmentally friendly and ethical products. It carves its identity in the city as the density of ubiquitous elements while having unique courtyards of rare figures.

The market has five quadrants, each has a mat density of crisscross Cartesian elements which break their own limits and intersect with elements in adjacent quadrant. The main difference between each quadrant are the unique figural artifacts. Functionally, the market operates on four sections. The retail space, industrial section, harvesting area and public gardens. Each program operates on different level. The market has an industrial and synthetic programmatic interaction with the city. Moreover, it inhabits nature by providing urban farming platform.”

“Phantasmagoria: A Cautionary Tale” by Rawan AlWazna, School of The Art Institute of Chicago

“As the world pauses at this moment in time amid a pandemic that, more than ever, has been exposing various aspects of deception, image-making and defactualization in existing structures and systems of powers, we confront ideas about our built environment; a manifestation of the habitat or the inhabitant? The structure or the institution?

Phantasmagoria is a meditation on such struggle, fear and censorship in storytelling, an invitation to extend our perception beyond the physical appearance, and ultimately, a statement about the right to narrate our own stories.

Structures transform into active protagonists in this rig-like city which disguises gruesome truths through its festive facade. The “All-seeing-eye Tower” stands tall, higher than everything else, making sure other characters like the “Injustice Police”, a character of arbitrary detention, and the “Instant Oases”, a character of constant displacement, do their job well. These carnivalesque machines are the characters that make up this city.”

“after work” by Yoonsoo Kim and Christoph Schmollinger, TU München

“Many people predict that in the future automated systems will replace our work. There will be countless unemployed people, who will receive universal basic income(UBI). Then, where should we go and what can we do?

Hannah Arendt classified human behavior into three different categories. “labour” is obligatory behavior for survive, “work” is useful behavior for production. Through “Action”, we can express our identity. And “action” cannot be replaced by automated systems.

The underground space in this drawing is a space for “action”. The more you go down, the more powerful, social and communal action takes place. Hannah Arendt subdivided the action into three further. Accordingly, we structured the underground dome-shaped space. In the space of “Willing” at the top, individual actions are drawn, in the space of “Judgement” at the bottom, collective actions are drawn, and in the space of “Thinking” at the middle, the process between them is drawn.”

“Archicov19” by Angela Ruiz Plaza, Polytechnic University

“The new Archicov-19 system is invading the world. It can solidify sand, or float amid clouds, parasite old cities or dive into the sea. It is a living organism made out of fungi, bacteria and nature, in symbiosis and behaving like an ecosystem. Earth can finally breathe, and we live happy and healthy in its bubbles.

When it grows in the desert it uses Bacillus Pasteurii bacteria to solidify sand so it is an artificial oasis in the dunes. When in the sea it makes shell structures with microalgae diatoms, and using the oxygen it produces. When it floats, it uses Helio in the bubbles of the architectural skin. When it parasites an old city, it uses garbage to grow, recycling materials. Life has changed so much since 2020, and now we live in peace, in this bioarchitecture, living according to our soul, in ecological balance with the whole nature.”

“Pinnacle at White Hill” by Philip O’Brien, Johnson Roberts Associates Inc

“‘Pinnacle at White Hill’ illustrates a self-contained, covered city at time when the Earth’s atmosphere has been degraded to the point that life in the natural environment is no longer sustainable. The caramel sky and red-brown earth visible beyond the protective film of the city cover tells the story of an environmental disaster out of control.

The central portion of the city is free from vertical supports with the exception of the Pinnacle. The Pinnacle is at once the center support for the dome’s superstructure, the focal point of the city, and the seat of city governance and management. Planning and zoning is evident in the layout of the public ways, parks, artificial waterways, and building limits. Green space dominates the city and is used as the organizing principal in the layout of White Hill, where recycling and reuse — including air, food and water — is required to survive.”

“Redwood” by Gregory Klosowski, Pappageorge Haymes Partners

Dubbed “Redwood”, this series of sketches are pure architectural escapism, testing exceedingly optimistic visions of possible futures, assuming the resolution of base societal issues through exotic approaches (limitless fusion energy, asteroid harvesting for raw materials, robotic assembly techniques). Intentionally fantastical, the intent is to spark imaginative thinking outside of practical constraints of current structural technologies.

In this iteration, towering structures drop into place, akin to redwoods falling in a forest, allowing new structures to shoot upward from the carcass, pulling cabling and piping upward, forming swaths of elevated fields, suspended transit systems stringing between the towering forms, and an endless array of habitats, blurring construction and organics.

While arguably irresponsible to brush aside big problems, its worth exploring, given decades of apocalyptic visions are have not proven persuasive. Taking an alternate approach, encouraging and positive visions might better spark the imagination and inspire consideration for wider timescales and broader solutions.

“Apartment #5, a Labyrinth and Repository of Spatial Memories” by Clement Laurencio

“In this frightening period of the pandemic, travel has become unsafe and restricted. The future bears uncertainty, if and when we may travel to experience new places, and re-visit places of our past. Places which once drew people are now “indefinitely” and “temporarily closed”, with no certain opening date. We are isolated in our homes…left with our memories of those faraway places. Locked in our dwellings, we long to be able to escape to a past before the lockdown, to places far away from here.

Residing in London, the dwelling curates spatial experiences from a recent voyage to India. Set both in real space and imaginary space, the project seeks to re-create those atmospheres and spatial conditions of the places remembered through memories.

The memories are rekindled, by manipulating scale, forced perspective and atmospheric phenomena of the places. However, they may become embellished, corrupted, re-imagined; a labyrinth of memories…”

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