Exp02 Strengths and Improvements

Hi all,

its a short time before everyone needs to submit, but hopefully you will find these useful. If youre looking for things to improve further in your next design, this list is it! GOODLUCK!

For those who can spare some time in reading, you can see some similarities of the comments for your peers (Sabrina/Jennifer, Geoff/Ee Ning). You can see also some comments that run generally for the most of you. For example:

1)   making/suggesting spaces rather than shapes is generally a good outcome especially if it reflects the brief, and;
2)   paying attention to the scale of things is something everyone needs to improve on.




Akter, Sabrina

Strength: Strong hierarchy and clear distinction between two concepts; a observation-like structure floating above the platform vs a totem entity detached and anchored onto the ground. Light vertical frames and horizontal outlines adds to the tension between light vs heavy, float vs sunken.

Improvements: Plan dimension needs further deliberation - rooms, thresholds, and spaces in the horizontal experience. Step away from building as a straight line in plan. Landscape - more work on it please.


Bhuiyan, Faiza

Strengths: Dialogue between the architecture and landscape created with horizontal planes anchored into different levels of the site, suggesting a multitude of paths into the architecture.

Improvements: Sparsely deliberated spaces going no further than a series of slabs and a box form on the top.


Cho, Eugene

Strengths: Creation of intimate spaces through positioning of masses as planar elements, contrast of light and heavy "planes" occurs on the plan and the elevation, rather than leaving your spaces as block entities. More Miesian expression rather than Kuma or Aalto perhaps.

Improvements: Read the brief! We are not designing a house.


Gan, Violet

Strengths: Contrast in material thicknesses, prisms interlocked rather than stacked in response to an exercise of "aggregation".

Improvements: overtly object-like with a geometric overtone. Colors too overused and serves to further separate the architecture into its prism elements rather than drawing attention to surfaces.


Garland, Richard

Strengths: Attention to the internal experience in your monument, based on distortion of horizontal and vertical perspectives.

Improvements:  Over-preoccupation with the one effect mentioned above, exacerbated with the selection of your 5 imagery that all focus on the same phenomenon. Lets think multi-dimensional, think beyond the pursuit of a simple effect.


Greenbaum, Adela

Strengths: Model tested against different environmental conditions, demonstrating an understanding in manipulating the medium beyond the limitations of sketchup and other static representation softwares.

Improvements: First person experience missing, model very premature resembling a direct first draft iteration on sketchup.


Lam, Dorothy

Strengths: Experimentation with a range of material thicknesses evident. Presence of multilevel "paths" although where they end up is still a mystery

Improvements: Stick object scenario lacking in detailed refinement. Think spaces/forms rather than shapes/blocks.


Lau, Ee Ning

Strengths: Presence of internal experiences and details lifts scheme from being an assembly of prisms to a spatial product.

Improvements: Tight and overconstrained spaces, all geometries prism like in similar ticknesses all facing one direction. Clarity of three places not evident.


Nagaya, Maki

Strengths: Control of materiality, texture, light and shadow through the Crysis medium.

Improvements: Additive process of detailing - inserting forms such as arcs without a holistic consideration of the scheme. The 10 forms under-utilised as "skins" over a slab element. Consider variety of scales, from prisms as planar elements, to prisms suggestive of rooms/spaces, prisms suggestive of monuments.


Nguyen, Aurelie

Strengths: Prisms manipulated to a range of scales from thick, heavy monumental objects to thin planar elements. Clear delineation of two opposing structures that offsets in the plan, constrast with a light floating deck where two sides come together.

Improvements: First person experiences critical. Hesitation to articulate the detail components of the scheme - two monuments on the end remain as prisms and are identical apart from the sizing of the prisms.


Nguyen, Ha

Strengths:  Contrasting and varied ways in the translation of your prisms; alternating between prisms as pure structural frames and prisms as rooms and architectural spaces. Model proportioned to domesticated and intimate scale.

Improvements: Re-evaluate the use of "literal" detail elements (ziggaurat stairs = temple-like entries, domesticated windows/doors). Architecture drastically underscaled, compacted rather than monumentalised.  More rigorous unpacking of the brief into its components (here it is two monuments and a meeting place) is essential.


Nguyen, Yen

Strengths: Assembly between solid, heavy objects supported by lighter, thinner elements adding to the overall suspended, floating overtone of the architecture. Building nestles and recedes into the landform.

Improvements: Domesticated scale. Architecture works in the close up where we see how different sizes and scales come together, but overt block-like overtone becomes evident once we jump to the birds eye. Push detail elements further, transform the monuments as exquisite experiences rather than blocks.


Pearce, Brandon

Strengths: Very thoughtful interpretation of the massing exercise, two interlocking monuments in reflecting the exercise of aggregation. One carries the solidity of the earthed forms of Aalto while the other plays with the horizontality of semi-transparent elements. Landscape/Architecture connection well articulated; Aalto solids sfollowing the steps of the base while Kuma projects from the face. Well sized building to reflect a monumental scale.

Improvements: Generic internal experiences, think spaces of monumental proportions rather than long squarish plates. More judicious selection of imageries please.



Song, Tao

Strengths: Clear articulation between two monuments with its distinct aesthetics. One which seeks to bury itself into the landscape and the other to anchor.

Improvements: Monuments scaled largely however the internal resolution very thin. We are not designing office blocks nor concrete pads.


Su, Jennifer

Strengths: Refined scheme drawing out of the 10 blocks, one of the successful aggregation between detail elements and rectangular prisms in the class. Variety of material scales and thicknesses with attention to its proportioning. The contrast of Kuma and Aalto is evident; tension between the solid, vertical, tactile in Aalto vs the horizontality of Kengo.

Improvements: Next step, architecture as existing on multiple levels on plan, have the scheme engage with the topography of the site rather than bedded on a single level. Have the composition weave into the landform, as you have mentioned, disappearing into the landscape.



Tir, Geoffrey

Strengths: Incorporation of detail elements such as stairs and openings, taking us through shots in-between your prisms brings the scheme to an architectural and spatial experience. Video takes us through moments where spaces open and close upon crossing thresholds, where views cycle.

Improvements: Overtly horizontal and planar architecture with a domesticated rather than a monumental expression. Little variety in material thicknesses. Too much texture! drawing attention to everything and nothing at the same time.



Vase, Pranav


Strengths: Precision in the model close up. Highly selective mapping of tectures drawing attention to edges and corners rather than whole blocks.

Improvements: Accessibility, path of travel from the landform, premature underdeveloped scheme directly imported from the sketchup exercise with little design development and refinement.



Wu, Claire

Strengths: Well balanced scheme between two different concepts expressed by transparency, light, shade, and the contrast between the reflective and the solid.

Improvements: Model shrunken drastically from the design development phases. Miniature and solitary experiences have been designed rather than the monumental.

Has all received marks for EXP2?

I have emailed them on Tuesday morning to each of your student or zmails. If you have not received them please let me know as the feedback as crtical for your improvement on exp3.

Also, if you havent installed Curviloft into your sketchup at the moment and would like to get more functionality to do free forms, have a go at it....sooner rather than later. I have already done a demonstration with this tool during experiment 1.

Your Lecturer has appeared on TV!

Crunch time for EXP 3

Hi all, i cannot stress how critical it is for you all to have week 1 and 2 tasks plus the independent study completed by the end of next week in order to proceed. You all essentially have three more weeks to deliver a scheme comparable to the ones shown in the lectures and tutorial. Half of you have made no attempt to model a landscape in crysis last week, and as a result missed out on receiving bridging opportunities to think about for this week.



By next week be prepared to have everything blogged in order to join everything together and get advice to shoot you off to your next step. These include:


1) 36 one(18) and two(18) point perspectives with power related keywords associated with each one.

2) Mashup demonstrating a synthesis of the ideas behind three articles, reinterpreting a relationship based on power - this would form the concept for your next step

3) Landscape modelled qualitatively in Crysis, also in it demonstrating a preliminary testing of an elevator.

4) A first concept draft of your final scheme placed in the crysis environment, based on a set of H shaped models from two or more keywords. The selection of these prisms/keyword  should be inspired by the ideas in your mashup. In a way, think of this exercise as another mashup of different models and keywords that relate to your interpretation of the articles.




The last point will be crucial and throughout the week I will upload a few examples in drawing(out) from blocks and abstract shapes once enough people have made an attempt on them. Regardless, we only have two more classes left so don't waste the opportunity to receive crucial feedback by leaving the task unfinished and unblogged.

Pattern book

Pattern Book - Notes of Myung Dal Kim - Toronto

Reminder for tomorrow

As discussed in class last week, for tomorrow,

1) still bring your laptop and notebooks
2) blog everything so far! we will be reviewing in groups of three in front of the main screen, so whatever is not shown on the main screen wont get a review.

Did everyone get their EXP1 grades back?

I sent them all out last week, if you yet to get them can you shoot your email over to me.

Please be reminded that uni correspondences happens through your zmail or studentmail - your official uni emails. 

Assignment Submission Date Reminder, and more gems for thought

If you arent aware yet, the assignment is due on Sunday 6th May. Which means the next time we see will be the last time before you finalise your design.

Those who have yet to post any developments, you will be at a disadvantage. For those who've completed their electroliquid and geometric aggregation, blog and let me know and i will give feedback.

I want to see you all fine tuning your models continually until it fits with the brief and your concepts, taking snapshots as you go perhaps if you wish. You will need to get an attempt at this before next Wednesdays task in order to be prepared  for the final task.

For those who wont have crysis started before next Wednesday.......hope for a miracle!

More more Architecture and Landscapes

I've recently come across this building in a small place called Kitayama in the city of Kyoto. An open air art gallery, the name of which escaped my memory, designed again by Mr Ando san. A handful of concrete planes deliberated, sized, scaled, calibrated, and detailed to create a series of sequences, openings and thresholds through the site; much like what your task is now.

Is this architecture, or simply a series of blades in an empty site? Or maybe at best a sculpture (monument?) blown into a massive scale? What then constitutes architecture? Is it an artifact that fully encloses or shelters? Or is the mere presence of structure sufficient?

Something unrelated: you'll find two extremes of architecture in Japan, i call this one Optimus Prime.

Electroliquid Aggregation

Also, a lot of your electroliquid aggregation seems to sound very cold and highly "architecturally technical" to invent a phrase.

Again, think of a piece of literature. You can make a commentary on the brief - a statement about different architecture students and architecture studios perhaps? A statement on the nature of monuments? A statement that summariese Kengo Kuma and Alvar Aalto as role models for students?

A good idea would come out of thinking in terms of the concepts in addition to what they would mean to the brief, not just taking week01 exercise as an isolated case and trying to force it into the design of the three places in the final weeks.

Back to the idea of 1+1=3; we want to create something that is highly original yet specific to the design at hand.

Here are some electroliquid aggregation from last year, their brief is different and their clients are different but they all give the feeling of being a piece of literature or a statement instead of something that's instructional. You might then start to imagine how they might be interpreted in an anecdotal or an experiential sense, how you could unpack these into a story about your architecture, rather than working on something that's simply confined to the architectonic realm.

"Being strong and optimistic will lead to a gloomy and cold life."

 

"The Psychoanalysis observes

The studying professor often perform self inflected pain" 

 "If the rich and the poor work together, they can all become successful despite their difference in class, wealth and social wellbeing."

"A stubborn and anti-social person need not be two different people. More, one person following two different paths, of wealth and purity, to reach the same destination."

"Academics bounded by the rigidity of facts, wealth and social status must have a medium that is liberating; where reflection, meditation and creativity can stimulate new ideas."

  

More Topos and Massing.

Some of you have started to place your models into Crysis. What I want to see is a landscape that works with the design, rather than generating a flat surface and dropping your architecture into it like an inert object in space. Here are some of last years design to give you an idea of how the landscape/topography can engage with the architecture and so on. 

Not a students design but something where both the topography and architecture work together.

Falling Water - Frank Lloyd Wright

An architecture where the approach is important, where the vertical positioning is important. Think temple on top of a hill. 

Steven Ke

An architecture that interlocks with the landscape.

Keyan Guo

Architecture that hides and conceals itself, where the landscape encloses it. 

Zhiyuan Sun.

Architecture that bridges. Yen Dao (Above) and Chen Tian (Below)

Ps, your assignment 1 marks are in progress, being double checked.

Topos and Massings

From now on, the architecture would be lost if the landform is designed independently from it. Both your massing development/resolution and the sculpting of your landscape should occur concurrently, with both considerations completing each other in its beauty and in the synthesis of concept. Pay attention to the sketches (Concepts) and the built images of the following slideshows.



01 - Lima Houses, Eduardo Souto de Moura





02 - Mario Botta, Chapel of Santa Maria Degli Angeli





03 - Tadao Ando, Rokko Housing: Pay attention the process of sculpting the landscape that follows the placing of the masses





04 - Tadao Ando, Chikatsu Museum







05 - Tadao Ando, Naoshima Museum




06 - Jun Aoki, Aomori Museum of Art: Idea of space as that between the landscape and the mass, rather than the massing. 

Parallel Projection Fundamentals

Rendow Yee.

Next task before class

Just a reminder that the second stage of the task has been posted up on the main website already. You should all have bogged your stage 1 work, and read carefully what you need to do.

So the main thing is to pick two of your drawings and draw them as a combined geometry, think about the connection; are they going to.simply touch end to.end or are you going to interconnect them into each other?

The constraint is, your two base shapes mush be of different architects, so if u use kengo for one you have yo use aalto for the other to combine.

Week01 Task clarifications

Just to add to the weekly independent tasks, once youre up to your 6 axonometrics you may want to build it into sketchup, use the parallel projection option and rotate it around so you can get an idea how it looks like back to front for your next 6 axonometrics.

The skill to directly imagine a 3d geometry in your head and translate it into paper is a very important skill to develop, and the sooner you do the more better you will become especially as we start to progress through this course.

Crysis: you have two weeks to play around with this so go quite experimental on it. We see in the architecture of Kengo Kuma and Alvar Aalto that there is a contrast between the reflected/refractive/transparent on one hand and the diffused/filtered on the other hand. These qualities which are hard to spatialise in sketchup is something you should capitalise on once you test things out in Crysis.

Concepts

Kengo Kuma

Placement of planes as a filter of light
Dispersal and fragmentation resulting in the building's envelopment by the landscape
Reflection as a way to create infinite space and ambiguous boundaries and alters spatial awareness.
Lattice like repetitive facade creates sense of order in the building.??
Introduction of light through the skins porosity provides an integration into the environment.
Horizontality and low scale of the building complements the discreteness and invisibility of the architecture.


Alvar Aalto

Holistic use of singular material (Bricks) heightens sense of monumentality.
Emulation of the exterior by controlled light.
Mimicing Natures forms in the buildings assembly as a way to integrate with nature.
- Rhythmic arrangement of elements mimics the tactility of the forest.
Verticality of the elements stresses importance in the landscape.
Vertical framing and grand steps creates a climatic method of approach.

Works

Murratsalo House

Saynatsalo Town Hall

Villa Mairea

_____________________________________________________________________________ 

Ando Hiroshige Museum

Nasu History Museum

Stone Museum
 
Water/Glass

Alvar Aalto and Kengo Kuma

ALVAR AALTO

1898-1976

Notable Works:

Summer House at Muuratsalo | Saynatsalo Town Hall | Villa Mairea | Seinajoki Town Hall | Seinajoki Library | Jyvaskyla University | Church of the Three Crosses, Vuokkseniska

KENGO KUMA

1954-

Notable Works:

Museum of Hiroshige Ando | Kiro-San Observatory, Yoshiumi | Water/Glass Guesthouse, Atami | Kitakami Canal Museum | Nasu History Museum | Stone Museum | Noh Stage in the Forest | Takayanagi Community Centre | Nasu History Museum | Great (Bamboo) Wall, Beijing

For further reading, have a look at:

Botond Bognar, "Kengo Kuma: Selected Works," Princeton Architectural Press

Richard Weston, "Alvar Aalto," Phaidon Press

UPLOAD YOUR SKETCHUP MODELS AND PROVIDE LINKS!!!!

It seems that half of you have forgotten to do this, this may affect your marks!!

Clarification: 2 Sections

The confusion of the "set of 2 dimensional section drawings from your notebooks to your blog" relates to the task of the stairs. 


"For the chosen design develop the design of the stair in terms of composition, materials, balustrades and structure. Pay special attention to how the stair integrates with the surrounding architecture (i.e. you'll need to draw sections showing both the stair and the building fabric it touches)."

Last Tutorial Tomorrow before submission.

Just a reminder that tomorrow would be the last chance to really get things experimented on your model before the big submission day on Sunday, so i suggest everyone would have as much as they can to prop up for discussion.

The setup for tomorrow in tutorial is as follows: i'll spend half an hour reiterating the assessable outputs and round up with some presentation criteria for sketchup.

The review would be design related comments rather than any sketchup/modelling concerns specific to your projects, so those who need help with the program i am happy to do so..........for a limited amount of time after 6pm.

Follow Up on Week03 Independent Study.

A few people have been really slack and sparse on your blogs and havent made the effort to keep up with updating it. Please do so on a weekly basis. 


As promised just touching up on the Independent Task required before Week04. Refer to the Red Notes as my clarifications. As well as working up on your model with the ideas discussed in class, you should all:

1. Include two simple shapes (extruded rectangle, circle, outline of your artists artwork precedent etc) in your developed Sketchup model and apply an image of your artists work to them. They should be to scale and represent an approximate form and volume. (This is so we can see the relationship between the work and the space that it was constructed in).

2. Choose 3 of the textures you've developed and apply them to the most appropriate parts of the SketchUp model. IMPORTANT: you do not have to cover your entire model, use the textures to highlight certain aspects or spaces. See the video tutorial below on how to create a custom material in Google SketchUp:

IMPORTANT: You should use a 1024x1024 pixel jpeg image for your custom texture.

3. Upload 2 new images of your developed SketchUp model to your blog; these should show the artists work in their workshop. (IMPORTANT!)

4. Find a short movie (from your own collection or download from YouTube ... www.keepvid.com works quite well) that has something to do with the section, stair, or materiality and your scheme. Embed the video in your blog. (Entirely up to you, think about movement, sequence, camera angles, sight, sound, some of you have used some architectural prcedents perhaps refer to some "architectural dramatisation" videos you can find like this below)

Simple instructions on embedding a video from YouTube in your blog...

Sign up to YouTube. Once you have signed up, upload a video to your account. There's an upload button in the top right corner. Give the video a description and tags (make sure you include "ARCH1101", "EXP1", "2012" and your "Full Name" as the tags), then upload. Once you have completed uploading, you can play the video and look for a "Share or Embed" button. If you click that you will see the code that will allow you to embed the video on your blog. Copy this code.

Then go back to Blogger (make sure you are signed in) and start a new post. Click on the Html button (top left, to the right of the compose button). Paste the YouTube code in there. Write any descriptive text you need in the regular Compose tab. Then publish.

36 Words To Describe Materials - Class Pool

Transparent
Heavy
Thin?
Rough
Tesselated
Reflective

Shiny
Smooth
Dense
Flexible
Coarse
Pure?
Uniform

Delicate
Grainy
Lustrous
Silky
Refined?
Consistent
Flaky

Cloudy
Opaque
Frosted
Mottled
Irregular
Fibrous*
Striking
Crystalline

Matte
Brittle
Slippery?
Sleek
Porous
Thorny
Lumpy-Bubbly.

Corrugated
Interwoven
Luminuous
Feathered
Elastic
Aggregated

Clarification

Theres been a few instances these past few days with some of you emailing your work to me for review.

While i admire your enthusiasm and am happy to give reviews outside of class time (subject to availability of course). I'll appreciate it if you upload the work in question so that everyone could share in the discussion.

So henceforth, the rule is:


People requesting feedbacks on their work are required to upload their process work in question onto their blog, before emailing with the request.

Week 01 Comments

18 Sections:

Good, although some of you have been quite reluctant to use anything beyond a 0.3mm line. For the next drawing tasks thou focus on your control over different textures and lineweights to separate distinct elements, or to suggest things being in the foreground/background. 

Sketchup model:

Needs to be brought to class tomorrow (flash drive or laptop). Although theres more room for improvement Geoff is on the right track in terms of the criteria; its not simply solid blocks we are trying to interrogate but also the space inside, material thicknesses, and how it sits on the datum. Avoid using simple standard primitives or a building as a clutter of sketchup shapes (extruding a rectangle, putting a cone on top, putting a sphere next to it etc).

2012 Pritzker laureate - Wang Shu. Some sections

Some images of the recent Pritzker winners work from Archdaily. Read more at http://www.archdaily.com/212042/more-photos-of-wang-shus-work-by-iwan-baan/

All images sourced here and here

And remember how different materials and geometries ultimately come together; we are talking about a composition here. 

Week 1 welcome all

Hi everyone I think we kicked off to a good start yesterday. 


For those whose still unclear about the independent task for week 1, please take a look at the course essential tab on the right hand side. Its also beneficial to read it twice as Russell mentioned so you don't miss out on anything. 


The rules are: Upload all you work onto the blogs before the start of class, and also bring these work to class as well, especially the sketchup model file as we could start looking at ways to visualise it and improve on the architecture. ALWAYS bring your drawing equipment, moleskins, and laptops (if you have one) to class. 


I'll usually round up with a post once the first four or five students have uploaded things onto their blogs. 




PS: Rayathip, could you email me a link to your blog. If anyone elses blog is missing from the tabs on the right then please email it to me, or reply under the comments below.