Drawing IV

All done for Architectural Communications for the semester. I spent most of this week working on the drawings (and by most I mean Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and lots of time in between) and I think they turned up OK. I stuck with what I knew I was good at in this presentation. It was important to build my drawings around what I thought about the building but also include my drawing strengths. So I stuck with military projection! It's my favourite drawing approach (I also used in extensively in BENV1080), although apparently it's a bit outdated.

The 3D drawing was by far the most fun. Drawing the huge axonometric was great because even in its early stages you could see it piecing together, and it just made me want to finish more of it.
The layered plans was also built on this idea of the military projection. I wanted to build a sense of traveling between planes with this drawing, and I think/hope I achieved this with the centre axis as the stairwell. The elevation and section were placed next to the axis to sort of "build up" to it, using the profile of the landscape to try to draw similarities between the building and the environment it is in.

Either way the drawings are now off for a year to pretty much be never seen again (not that I mind). I happy with how this course turned out, it allowed me to practice what I wasn't very good at but still gave me an opportunity to strengthen some of my more developed drawing techniques. Check out my final submission below.

Drawing III

Only one week left now, but things are beginning to get a little more hectic with these drawings for the main assignment. Today was pretty easy and fun, explore how you believed you wanted your presentations to be laid out, and shade in some elevations and handed in all the in-class work.

The mock-up was a bit of a mess, I used two A1 sheets to try and develop a 1:1 scale of what I wanted to do. In the end some helpful advice from Ken made it easier to develop an idea with a solid theme behind it, it made what I was trying to say a lot clearer (see below, picture is a bit hard to see though).



The elevation shading was an interesting task. For a marked assessment it looked unremarkably easy at first, but then it got more difficult considering sun position and various other factors. It made me try to build the building into a 3D form from elevations and plans and then apply the sunlight to it. I think the end result in surprisingly effective, it makes a plain looking elevation look a lot more realistic and gives it a lot of depth (see below).



That's my final drawing for the perspective as well.

Progress with the drawings for the main assignment is slow but at least existent, some people haven't even started yet!

Drawing II

OK so today we had to bring our finished cup in (see below) for marking. Turns out it wasn't for marking but just to look at, and instead it will be due next week... but at least it's done early.



And today we had to draw a perspective. But only after we watched the little presentation on perspectives. I share a bit of a love/hate relationship with perspective drawings. I was never a fan of them back in high school technical drawing because you could never use measurements to define the "depth" of your drawing. Instead you had to estimate an 'approximate' that you think looked appropriate. This part is probably the hardest thing about perspective drawings for me, to initially determine what 'looks' correct. But I do like them because they look really good when they're finally done!

This was also my first experience using trace paper. I thought it was pretty neat actually, its got a certain plastic quality to it that makes rubbing lines out really easy, and it doesn't smudge as much as cartridge paper. So yea made some progress on that in class, hopefully will finish it up sometime this week.

Drawing I

Our first drawing class revolved around an introduction to drawing tools and general methods. I found the lecture slides on this very interesting, especially those that looked at the different types of drawing boards, as I consider myself much more of a detailed, precise drawer than one who uses freehand to communicate their ideas. The huge drawings boards just look as cool, I'd love to end up owning one where i can draw for hours without getting a sore back and having to rotate the paper to fill the drawing area on the small A3 drawing board I currently own.

Our first exercise was to draw a cup and saucer. I enjoyed some aspects of this task, like taking measurements and sketching up drawing spaces, but I wasn't happy when told I had to draw the circles free-hand instead of using my compass which I was used to. I guess free-hand drawing is a skill I should develop, but I've spent so long doing engineering drawings that are so structured and specific that I feel I can't produce a quality drawing without all my tools available to me. Nonetheless, I got a draft done (see below, along with technical drawing of measurements) which will hopefully help me when I produce a final one for marking.

Atlas of Colour IV

This workshop was tough but enjoyable. It was nice to loosen up on the technicalities of drawing and communications and focus on the more creative aspects. Like painting. Although my artistic skills seem to be lacking/borderline nonexistent, I enjoyed it because it was something I had not done for ages (being an engineer and all).

The general consensus amongst my peers is this workshop, comparatively, is a lot more work than other workshops. The Motion workshop was nowhere near this tough.

Here are the pages of my Atlas for you all to look and stare in pure wonderment at.

Atlas of Colour III

Today was a lengthy studio session. It involved going through everyone's esquisse and letting them explain it. Although I like this idea of group discussion, these presentations went on FOREVER. I think it would've been better to have just the tutor go through the presentations in small groups, as the amount of time that was spent on it severely cut into the time I was hoping to have to work on my atlas in class. I guess they only good thing about it was that I had a revelation about the navigation system for my atlas while I was meant to be listening to other peoples presentations. It's all revolved around the weather, but I'm not sure I'll use it yet, so we'll see how it turns out.

Anyway earlier that day we went for a bit of a field trip to the central synagogue (ironically nowhere near Central station) to have a look at the 49 veils work. This was a great exercise as it showed us how colour layering could produce different effects, along with harmony and contrast and other colour related techniques we had learned in class but not quite seen in real life. Although the task we were meant to be complete was a bit sketchy at first, we managed to finish up relatively early with enough information and measurements to finish it at home.

Following my navigation idea, I drew up this sheet to help myself grasp the concept of how it would work out:

Atlas of Colour II

Painting. I love it. We did some stuff today. But most importantly we did PAINTING!!

It's been so long since I've used a brush (of all varieties, I don't comb my hair either) and it was so much fun to sit down in a group and paint the picture on the screen, see everyone's interpretations etc. The idea of exaggeration of a particular aspect of the building, be it of form or colour, was a good thing to practice for the upcoming project painting, plus it also gives the painting a bit more of an abstract feel. If its so realistic, why not just make it a photograph, and if it's so technical, why not just make it a drawing. Or at least that was my way of thinking about it.

This is my painting:


Obviously its not fantastic. My peers says it looks like Spiderman... except its a building. I keep thinking the building on the bottom left looks like licorice. It was unintentional though, I really was trying to paint a proper picture. But most importantly it was fun and I learned something.

Atlas of Colour I

First workshop rotation today. Before we continue I'd like to point out I got a CR for my film. Improvements must be made.

Ok, today was good, I'm looking forward to this workshop every week already. I very interesting presentation on colour theory (now I know why some of my clothes don't match, duh!) that was particularly relevant to not just architecture and architectural communications but also to how we perceive colour in the world in general. Very insightful.

A couple of colour related group exercises followed. These were great, everyone settled down and it was a chance to have some fun while still learning stuff about colour. Choosing our personal colours and looking at their meanings was interesting, and correct to a degree I guess. I picked myself as Yellow or Green, but to my friends apparently I'm more of a Navy Blue. Who knew?

Either way this was a good lead up to the first task, designing an elevation and giving it a colour theme. I got a bit carried away with the design (I think this is a bad habit, I should really be kept on a tight creative leash so I actually do my work), but in the end I came up with something that was half ship, half land dwelling and colored it accordingly.

Architecture in Motion IV

Well that's the first workshop completed. Before I have a bit of rant about what I though about it I'll show you my film.



Alright, overall I enjoyed this workshop. I'd never created a stop motion film before, and with the addition of models and drawings its quite easy to see why they are so popular, they let you integrate the unreal with the real, the drawn components with the photographic elements. In this sense I guess the workshop has taught me that drawing is a much more powerful tool in this sort of presentation. I don't think I used it enough, or effectively, in my film, and if i could change that I would. The only thing I didn't like about the workshop was that at times it felt people weren't entirely sure what was required of them, and I know a lot of us felt that way. It was very confusing, but I think this can be forgiven as it was the first time the workshop was run. It will certainly be interesting to hear what other later groups think of it.

Architecture in Motion III

Short one today. We presented our esquisse and did a small amount of other work, but unfortunately I missed a lot of the presentations due to the fact I was attending a Canadian exchange meeting in the International Office. Either way i presented mine early to get it over and done with and it was well received, with laughter and a lot of 'what on earth was THAT' faces. But that's how I like it, so I'm just going to keep up the good work. Everyone elses was of exceptional quality, although I'm a bit worried if I'm on the right track as the films seem to vary greatly in content and technique, but hopefully it will all turn out alright. I won't bother uploading the esquisse, its just a shortened version of the full one, so watch this space in a weeks time!

Architecture in Motion II

Alright, the film is underway. Couple of hurdles have presented themselves however. Since my parents have gone to Croatia, they've decided to take two of the three digital cameras in the house, and now the only one left belongs to my sister, and its not too crash hot (4MP i think, zoom isn't terrific). So it's been a bit of a hassle getting my hands on that but in the end I did and produced somewhere in the region of 50 shots for 'exhibition' today. Here's a couple of pictures that I've snapped so far.



Got the okay from the tutors and some other helpful advice on how to incorporate the various requirements into my film (such as drawings and relief models, etc.) which was good. Bit worried about the drawing part though, but maybe if I keep my trusty set square at hand I'll be alright.

Started work on my model wok. Doesn't look much like a wok. But that doesn't matter...much. With my current idea I should be able to make up for my lack of modeling skills with careful shots and a proper visual introduction to the scene.



That is my wok...

Architecture in Motion I

So we started Architectural Communications today. Pretty introductory stuff in the lecture, but I'm liking this 'workshop' format as it'll give me the opportunity to develop some communication skills in lots of different areas. Right now I'm thinking of doing Architecture in Motion, followed by Atlas of Colour, then the Drawing Workshop. So that's a film, a book and a series of presentation drawings. Pretty broad for just a semesters work, but I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Alright, we started Motion today with some pretty basic stuff. Storyboard stuff. Creative stuff. Like people blowing up and microwaves going berserk and then like a cloud raining matches... But don't worry, it all makes sense...to me at least. Hence here's my initial storyboard idea.



No doubt it will change in the coming weeks, but I'm liking the direction it's taking. Everyone's ideas are really good, it'll be interesting to see their esquise's in the coming weeks.