some photos!( and I am in the Croatian news!)

Here is the link to an article published in the newspaper about our work. (you could use google translator if you really wanted to. :) )
I don't look very excited in the picture, but that's because we had just hiked up 2 km elevation in a 3 km hike, in blistering heat. :) we are learning about the monastery carved in the cliffside, it was amazing!

http://www.slobodnadalmacija.hr/Split-županija/tabid/76/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/115288/Default.aspx

The end product: a government happy with our results!

We have finished our work on Brac at the stone masonry school, and also completed the recordation work on Drvenik Veli. The 18th Century village that we documented was gorgeous...very overgrown, but we took pruning shears to the trails, and had to put up with the cuts and bruises.
By the end of the week, I had built up a "focus study" on wood frame roof construction, and had also completed the work measured drawings on half of the complex.
We returned to Trogir to present the work at an exhibition for the Ministry of Culture and governmental offices of the region. The turn out was a little bit disappointing, because someone in the department had passed away and the memorial service was at the same time as our exhibit. It was unfortunate, but most of the higher authorities made an appearance, and we had a very good reception of our work.
We had a total of 8 boards, 70cm x 100 cm, that we designed and printed without the use of internet while on the small island! (As architecture students in the States who usually have everything at their disposal, it was a learning experience for us to have limited resources!)

Overall, I was very pleased with my individual results from the studies, and our combined work was said to be very detailed and even more than what the Ministry of Culture Department was looking for.
This means: The village we documented will be put on the Heritage Protection Plan, and the site will be restored eventually.
The work we did on the island of Brac was documented and the stone carving school already wants us to come back.

I learned so much on this trip...not only about the field that interests me, but the fact that our skill sets are needed world wide if we ever hope to leave our history and heritage behind for generations.

Drvenik Veli for the last 10 days!

I have been on the island of Drvenik Veli for the last ten days. Population: less than 100. The average person is over 40 and either is a fishermen or olive tree farmer. There are two restaurants, one of which has the logo “Probably one of the best grilled fish in this part of Croatia”. We laugh at the “probably”. But we have no need to eat out, our hotel has a chef that has kept us “pescatarians” happy with HUGE octopus dinners, smoked fish, fig crepes, and spreadable yogurt. ☺
The only other young people we have met are three firefighters and three guys who ship the drinking water in on a tanker…Besides the three firefighters, we are the only ones in our small hotel, let alone visiting the island. It’s so peaceful!!
However…this quiet little town has not meant a slow pace. We eat, sleep, hike, measure, and draw.
We are documenting an old village here on the island, it’s about a half hour hike up to the top of the ridge. We hike through bushes and bramble, so much so that Iliad (the owner of the hotel and local herbal doctor) will get his various oil remedies and throw them our direction.
In the morning, we hike up to the site early enough to beat the heat. There is a nice breeze on this small island though, unlike the other burning hot places we have been.
I am working on: Measurements, photographs, and analysis of about 5 homes and a collection of agricultural buildings. We have split up into teams, luckily Liz and I were able to assign ourselves to a similar project.
In the afternoons: personal studies! I love this part of the day, because we each had to choose a “focus” for our work, and I finally was able to narrow down my interests. I am studying roofs, the construction types and how to build them! I’ve walked all around the island, looking at other abandoned villages and comparing them to ours. It is just fantastic!
Without internet, a cell phone, or a book to read, I could very easily get bored..but luckily I love what I’m doing and am genuinely interested in it. Especially when it comes to continuing the studies back in Eugene with an internship.
By the end of the week: We will have an exhibition of our work back in the city. The Ministry of Culture is the branch of the government that we have been working with this entire time. Our work will be translated into Croatian and saved in formats suitable for the government…and then this village will be saved in the archives as a “protected archeological site”.
The reason this work is so good for the community: This very small island has over 10 villages, and none of which have been registered with the Ministry of Culture. (it is comparable to the European Union’s Heritage Sites.) Last years’ group was the first to do work on this island. Ours will complete the work that they left off on, and make it possible for our connections in the government to finally open up these villages as a sort of “tourist attraction” for the island.

The best part of staying in this quiet place: There was one day when I woke up cold for the first time after arriving here a month ago. I put a sweatshirt and pants on. And then…it rained all day while we were up on the hill. These “island storms” come fast, but leave fast.
Lets just say that being from Eugene…raindrops on my face never felt better. ☺
Now back to the usual hot weather, sunny days, and beautiful sunsets.

Finished work on Brac, on to "break time" then more work!!

My last week and a half in Croatia has been a whirlwind. Phenomenal to say the least.
Found myself in Pucisca, on the island of Brac for ten days. I wrote earlier that we were attending a stone carving school…it was the experience of a lifetime!!!
My days in a nutshell: Breakfast consisting of very strong espresso, cheeses, bread and amazing Greek yogurt. By 8 am---pounding all my frustrations out on a 1’x1’ chunk of limestone. We use every tool imaginable… my grey pants turned white, limestone was constantly in my eyes (no, not healthy). By noon---a swimming break! Run to the hotel, put a bathing suit on, run downstairs and jump in the water until lunch. After lunch---we go to a local coffee shop or church and draw, measure, draw, and draw some more. (cut up hands and swollen and bruised knuckles of course ☺ ) By afternoon---we drive in a truck up the hill to the local stone master’s home. He is probably around 70, and he almost cried when he took us up there.
Here’s his story: His parents lived up in the hills at what they call a “secondary settlement”. It was used as a safehaven during the Civil War, but also as protection during WWII because apparently the Italians would ravage and burn the islands. Stone construction was the only thing that spared his family. He hasn’t lived up in this country home since his parents passed away, but has kept the land in the family and they grow olives and make wine and olive oil.
Our job: To learn dry stone masonry from him and fix a wall so that his farm would be functional and protected again. We finished in exactly 3.5 HOURS!! ☺
Because we finished early: HE GAVE US THE TREAT OF A LIFETIME. We had a farm “cookout” at his house. His whole family came to roast a lamb, and serve us a 6 course meal that took 4 hours to finish.
Best part was the company we had!!! A Catholic Croatian priest,
After finishing his wall, we all felt quite prepared for our next few weeks on Drvenik Veli, where we will be doing field work on our own….not really anyone to look to for direction except our professor who is also learning the ropes!
A few more days in Pucisca meant field trips, more knowledge, and FINISHING MY STONE CARVING. I succeeded in making flat and textured surfaces on all four sides of my block. Then I did two profile edges…kind of hard to explain, but let’s just say this:
As a fan of ancient architecture and handcrafted materials…I have a NEWFOUND APPRECIATION for the sweat, pain and toil put into EVERY sculpted stone ANYTHING.

AFTER TEN DAYS: SCHOOL FINISHED! For the next four days, Liz and I had a “vacation”. All to ourselves, no responsibility, no sore muscles at the end of the day…
What to do with ourselves? I’ll tell you ☺
To save money: we stayed within the country. Bonus=Croatia is amazing and I don’t know why I would leave anyways.
We took a 4 hour bus ride to Dubrovnik, southern most part of Croatia. Went through Bosnia for a bit, that was interesting and the food was mmmm, to be honest, exactly the same. ☺
In Dubrovnik we stayed at this adorable guesthouse with a cute family…we walked half an hour into old city, where we definitely admired the architecture…but also were desperate to find something fun to do.
Our first day of vacation: TOOK A CRUISE. A $40 all day cruise…it was MORE than worth it. Included a gourmet grilled fish meal which most Americans would pay $50 for…and all you can drink anythings, including the best wine in Croatia. I’m not much of a wine fanatic, but I do know that when I watched the Croatians mixing the wine with water I FOUND OUT WHY. It is SOOOO RICH and dark here, you don’t drink anything straight. Wine is cheaper than water…so you never drink straight water. (Unless your Sonia!! ☺ )
The cruise was just what we needed…amazing food, stopped at 3 protected islands that were GORGEOUS…
Next day is when the fun began!
We were trying to catch a ferry to Korcula, an island where our next hostel reservation was. Everyone we talked to said there was no big ferry that went there, only small ones. We showed up early in the morning with our 30lb backpacks and waited, waited, and waited for someone to show up. Boats came and left, no ticket man came, we finally found out that the HUGE cruise liner sitting right in front of us was leaving in ten minutes…to where we needed to go. ADVENTURES! ☺
Finally on Korcula, Liz and I both instantly fell in love with the island. It’s the perfect mix of everything we have experienced so far: amazing, historical architecture, less tourists, cheap, and GORGEOUS.
Our apartment is up a TINY staircase down the street from Marco Polo’s house!! We went on a tour of Marco’s house….let me just say, that man knew how to choose a view!
This brings us to the end of my “vacation” and back to school. We have one more day here to enjoy Korcula…I already want to come back someday!
BACK TO SCHOOL/REALITY: We leave for Drvenik Veli: Population 120.
Population age and occupation: 40+, 99% of which are fisherman. (ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration…but I don’t think so!)
We will do field work (meaning, FIX THINGS), recordation of a ten home village…and try to find a focus for our cumulating project. I hope to focus on rain water entrapment and the landscape and topography…but we will see what there is to discover!!!
This trip has been amazing for discovery!!

Blood, sweat, and tears...but it's all worth it in the end. :)

As I said, this week we are attending the only stone carving school in the country, learning the skills of the original stone masons. It's awesome to learn from them...but extremely painful! between blisters, cuts, sweating constantly, and chips of limestone flying, we all have had our moments.

But yesterday made it all worthwhile. We are now starting to build a dry masonry wall for an old stone mason...he's kind of too old to do it himself. ;)
We drive out to his olive tree farm...and hike out to one of his farm walls that has fallen down. With his Croatian guidance (thanks to a translator) we are able to move slowly along!
It's so FUN and it's such a blessing to be able to serve the locals. He said it will keep people from coming and taking his olives that he makes into olive oil!! WHICH I WANT TO BUY!! ;)

Other than that, we walk and draw during our free time, try to figure out how the work here is going to relate to our work on Drvenik Veli...which is unclear at the time. So I will update as that comes up!! :D

alright so!! :) a little frustrated cuz I just typed a whole blog and it didn't work. :( for some reason, everything is in Croatian. ;)
Long story short: I LOVE this program. :) it's hands on, and is getting my excited about what I am passionate about in ways that school in the US never did. I appreciate handmade stuff so much more now! those romans sure knew what they were doing ;) haha.
but really..this place is wonderful.

Last week: spent 4 days in Trogir, a small island town on an old castle. it's crazy amazing. First freak out moment was realizing that we were going to be in hostels, sharing a room with the six guys and girls from UO. Was a little weirded out by that at first, but it took just a few minutes to realize that I couldn't feel safer and that hostels really CAN be a positive experience. Ours was amazing, and met some great people too, sitting outside on the balcony late at night since class hadn't started yet. :)
In Trogir we met the local officials that we would be working with. Jasna, a woman not much older than us students, is the local preservationist for her entire region and has WAY too much expected of her but is never given any help from the government. So that is why we are here! :)
What was really sad was to hear various presentations about the political and international VERY DETAILED framework of preservation. the people of this country dont WANT their buildings preserved! Yes they see the value in them, but they don't want to pay the money or offer the time to help. it is truly sad. Jasna will fight and fight and fight with the locals about the need to leave their old villages alone and not destroy them with modern technology...but no one listens.

We went on various tours of palaces and cities, it was quite the whirlwind involving drawing talking and LEARNING! :)
We also had SOMEEEE fun i guess. :P we went to Krka National Park, which definitely is worth it...it's the Plitvice Lakes of Croatia if you look it up online. :) It was amazing to see those waterfalls.

But needless to say, by the end of our time in the cities, we were all ITCHING to get onto the small islands where we would be working.
In Pucisca, on Brac, we had no idea what to expect and I am still in awe.

We are attending a stone carving school for ten days, where the last mastercraftsman of the country are. There's nothing else like it in eastern europe!
We live next door in a hotel, with 30 mine engineering students from Zagreb who are brilliant and we love bouncing ideas off eachother.
I met one guy who really made me think, with all of our talks about America...I realized that these people know all about us...not always in a bad way, but they understand our country and yet we are totally oblivious to them...?
His name was Mario, and it was quite interesting to hear his story he is Italian...born and raised in Bosnia but with the war they had to run to Germany and then Switzerland. They finally moved to Croatia when the government stopped looking for his dad.

SCHOOL: we go to the stone masonry school at 8 am, and until 1 pm we are dripping with sweat in a studio with no airconditioning or fans...but rather, wide open south facing windows so that tourists walking along the water can stare in at our pain and torture. :)
OUR PROJECT: We are each given a huge chunk of 5 million yr old limestone that we are to carve down into a square or rectangle. harder than you may think. Our instructor doesn't speak english so the monkey talk is quite entertaining...but this man is like a machine and we all stare in amazement when he comes over to help us and stone chunks go flying. It's day two, and we are living on ibuprofren, lots of water, have multiple blisters bruises and cuts...blood smears on the stone add character. :)


MORE TO COME WHEN WE FINISH! :)

Nehemiah 6:9
They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, "Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed." But I prayed, "Now strengthen my hands."

Hi everyone! First of all, thank you so much for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers as I embark into my summer adventures! I am so grateful to have family and friends who continually support me.

I leave August 9th for Croatia, and will be spending two months with the Historic Preservation program through the University of Oregon which I currently attend for Architecture & Interior Architecture. Long story short, I am one of 3 undergraduate Architecture students going with about 20 graduate students.

I am minoring in Historic Preservation, and when I found out they had a hands on summer program with a fall internship, I jumped on the opportunity!

I have been so blessed already in my studies at the University of Oregon. I have excelled in studio design classes, and thanks to encouragement from professors, found my niche in Interior Architecture with a focus on restoration. My study abroad in Croatia will not only fulfill my minor, but will be a great life experience to see if international restoration work is what I want to do!

My hope is that I experience architecture in an international setting, and learn how to serve others with my gifts.

Abandoned stone villages of Drvenik Veli

A little history:

At the close of WWI in 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known as Yugoslavia. Following WWII, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal Tito. Although Croatia claimed its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of bitter fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands. Once one of the wealthiest of the Yugoslav republics, Croatia's economy suffered badly during the 1991-1995 war as output collapsed and the country missed the early waves of investment in Central and Eastern Europe that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall. Despite this long and rich history, Croatia is today in the position of recreating many institutions and programs that existed previously within a centralized Yugoslavian government. The faculty and students of the Croatia Historic Preservation Field School are participating in their efforts to document and preserve authentic traditional landscapes and architecture, as well as promote resettlement programs for areas where the population is seriously diminished because of emigration. This work is not only vital to the economy of Croatia, but our work will shape the vernacular reconstruction of a war torn country, in its most rural settings.

Trogir, on the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, is the location for the capstone exhibition of work accomplished by the students, involving an oral and visual presentation to the Croatian government and civil restoration committees.

Trogir's Office of Ministry of Culture is the local sponsor of the field school which will focus on two island sites under its administration, Brac and Drvenik Veli.

What I am doing:

To date, the majority of heritage conservation efforts by the Republic of Croatia have focused on World Heritage Sites such as Diocletian's Palace. Our conservation efforts seek to address the vernacular matrix of common everyday houses and village settings of everyday life. The goal of the Croatia Conservation Field School is rural and urban heritage regeneration. In other words, we seek to "activate heritage" as opposed to viewing heritage as a closed entity for commemorative purposes only. It involves both large capacity building, such as our educational mission in Brac that focuses on the continuation of traditional stone masonry skills through hands-on training and recordation analysis, and adaptive reuse planning.

Students from 2009 program analyzing village layout

While our beginning efforts are focused on preserving and interpreting local architecture with an eye towards protection, it is hoped that through cooperative efforts with the Ministry of Culture, the Mayoral offices of Trogir, and local citizens we can achieve an economic, social, and ecological sustainable planning strategy. Such intentions are referred to as Heritage Led Development.

Students will learn how to address heritage conservation policies within an international framework, and actively participate in the stabilization, restoration, and eventual adaptive reuse of historically significant resources. Once such goals are achieved, a book will be produced based on our collective efforts and multiple disciplinary insights. Such a conservation handbook will outline best practices for building treatment, the identifying features of historic resources, and encourage broader acceptance and appreciation of these valuable traditional architectural resources that shape the Croatian Dalmatian Coast.

Field Recordation

Where I am going:

The first half of the field school will be located primarily on Brac Island, the longest and most elevated island in central Dalmatia. On Brac, we will be trained at the Klesarka Skola, a stonecarving/masonry school. We will be replacing a dilapidated stone roof of the Eremitic monastery "Blaca". After being trained by the instructors at Klersarka Skola, we will spend 7 days under the supervision of the last remaining traditional Croatian stone roofer. He will direct us, and we will finish as much of the monastery as possible. (Backpacking up the high elevation of the island and carrying loads of local stone quarry. Hot days under the sun! yay!! :))

"Blaca" Monastery on the Island of Brac that we will be restoring

Last year's work

accommodation while on Brac

The second half of the program will move to the island of Drvenik Veli, located 2km from the mainland. It is only 12km long, and is home to 168 people. This is an elderly population which lives by agriculture, fishing, and some tourism. The island was first inhabited in the 15th Century and is covered with abandoned stone villages. Young people and families do not locate there because of the scarcity of economic opportunities, lack of school, and potable water.

Work on this island will be focused on strategic recordation and documentation of abandoned villages. We will aim to develop strategies for sustaining and growing the population and developing sustainable economic growth; this year's project will be specializing in rainwater entrapment. We will analyze the island's water collection system which provides the only potable drinking water on the island.

Field Analysis

Instructors from Klersarka Skola

Prayer Requests:

-Safety in all my travels. -(Two weeks after the program I will travel with a friend through Eastern Europe. We will be taking a boat over to Eastern Italy, travel to Switzerland, up to Prague, to Budapest, and back to Croatia to fly home.)

-STILL a war torn country...-There are still land mines. Needless to say, we will be avoiding going off the beaten path.

-Strength on the job! (it's going to take physical and mental strength to survive weeks of manual labor. And no special treatment just because I'm a girl! :P )

-Patience with the small program- I am one of 3 undergraduate architecture students, and about 20 graduate level students. Enough said. :)

-An open mind- To be open to the idea that I will either be called to international restoration work, or I will simply use the knowledge and apply it to work in the States. Either way, I'm just happy to have the experience!

1 Chronicles 28:20

David said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished."

Ecclesiastes 9:10

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.