Album Cover

So close to the end of summer term!! This is our final media project, to create an album cover for our house project. My emphasis was on the foundation rock walls that extend into garden walls, the building planes, and then the roof planes extending and becoming the landforms.

I felt like I was back in 2nd grade holding up my project to show everyone. but oh so refreshing to be creating art!

Final Review ARCH 680

Final Pin up format

Process-created an outline of what elements i wanted to include, the space they would occupy and then how to place them to create a complete shape. Then created a timeline of what drawings I wanted to get done each day.

Media- Velum cut for my sizes, so was able to trace my other drawings, black pen was used to highlight the important aspect of each drawing then rendering in pencil. Mounted on butcher paper, overlapping and creating a double layer down the center where the larger 22" wide drawings fit. pins were small sewing pins with small silver heads that I had at home. Printed all my text and then hand traced it onto the images.



Context and Program

Site Plan Material study

Structural diagram, floor planes, post beams and joists


Sun, Wind, Water, and Energy production




First Floor Plan Second Floor Plan


Section B


Perspectives


Section A, main house looking south

Final Model:




My Model! all material was found in the scrap pile, including the trees.

Thoughts-My self imposed timeline was great, although it caused some anxious feelings on Saturday afternoon, but then realized that was what most people would be feeling on Sunday afternoon, so I was able to use my Sunday (that was originally allotted as free time) to finish and put it all together.

I stuck with just pencil rendering because I wanted to see how I could bring my drawing skills into the controlled environment of architectural drawings, how to make them bold, focus on the ideas I wanted to portray, and maintain a relationship to each other. I did not include color as a conscious decision of not feeling comfortable with how to bring in the color really subtly. Next time I will play around the color more!! But I did appreciate the elegance that resulted in the final presentation. I will also learn photoshop/indesign to work with the layout and how to print my hand drawings so they continue to keep the feeling of the hand.

Great feedback from the reviewers, I truly love the review process for what it reveals in our presentation, and what it shows as able to get across versus what stops people from understanding the underlying concepts. The main things I need to incorporate next time is how to have minimal text and create DIAGRAMS that represent the underlying design ideas. Example: the strong foundation and the axis within the site and buildings. Primary Ideas-represent those, the secondary ideas aren't as necessary. The structural diagrams started to get at that, but did not incorporate the way the outdoor spaces are additions to the interior the way it is revealed in my first floor plan. One reviewer asked what my three main concepts were for the project. I had a hard time coming up with those without having previously thought what they were. They are there, just hadn't been fully laid open as the main reasons for my decsions during the process.

I found a rock in the Willamette river that is a pyramid shape (photo to follow) and will have that on my studio desk as a continual reminder to find the three main concepts, push them, alter them, but continually be reminding myself of them.

Summer Studio Week 7-ARCH 680

Week 7-
Assignment-Tying it all together for the final review

Process- One week to refine the ideas and bring them together in a compound that sits within the site. Create new model that also represents materiality, make tower fit with the other buildings, define the terraces in the outdoor space, and enjoy the process of bringing my drawings to a new level of completeness, use bold lines, and also create a very hand drawn feeling, the computer lines seem too static and too concrete to me, I like the way a pencil shows the strokes of the hand that rendered it.

Images-see the final review post

Thoughts-ahhhh

Summer Studio Week 6-ARCH680

Week 6
Assignment-Main House continued. Work on the program for the main floor, focus on connecting to the site, and outdoor spaces.

Process-The seamless transition from the inside space to outside is really important on this site. The outdoor space is one the clients will use as an extension of the small inside space, and the large surrounding meadow is an extension of their property lines.

Images-

Structural layout of buildings site plan with outdoor space


Reworked second floor


Perspective drawing looking from the north east and from the kitchen looking west.
Then we had to add colored pencil. . . .

Color perspectives


Thoughts-The downstairs floor plan is a little cramped to get the program in, I omitted certain aspects that detracted from the overall scheme and made sure to includes mechanical storage for the solar batteries and water catchment!

Using colored pencil is still a very weak part in my artistic repertoire. I lost the contrast that I had with just the pencil rendering, it did add a bit of materiality, but it didn't seem very successful, next time I will try to just represent aspects of the material, and leave the rest of it pencil rendered with shading. Really subtle colors may help keep it from looking like a cartoon drawing as well.