Progress: Assignment 1

At this point (7 days until tutor-led crit, submission in 9 days, Sunday, September 8th) you should have a 'locked-down' building design, the model of the built form should be complete, your design for the layout of internal space should be complete, and the modelling of that internal space should be substantially underway, if not close to completion.

This means that you should be completely done with the model by Monday or Tuesday at the latest, giving you a further 4 days to prep the deliverables for the crit on Friday. I have reproduced the deliverables list here:

Deliverables:

1. A computer model of the building, using SketchUp
1. 3x representative 3D views
2. animation (10-20 seconds) around the building (using SketchUp bookmarked views) to show the building from all angles
2. 1x cross section
3. plans of each level (dimensioned)
4. elevations
5. schedule of spaces (including areas)
6. calculations of building areas and volumes

You should be aiming to present a 'completed' assignment to the crit on Friday, so that the jury (tutor and students) can respond to the entire project. Best case? There are no comments forthcoming from the crit, and as a result you can submit there and then and have the weekend off! Otherwise, you will have 58 hours to use comments received during the crit to improve your submission for midnight Sunday.

Submission is via PDF file with embedded views and animation, as well as the SketchUp model itself. I will post some information on embedding multimedia into PDF across the weekend.

Studio Exercise 3

Stage 3: Posterboards

Over the last few weeks you have looked at several different aspects of how to represent a chosen idea (a building / a painting or sketch) in both 2D and 3D, how to extract information from one representational form in order to reproduce it in another form, and how to abstract an idea. Last week you spent time developing a kit of parts of the different representations of your chosen research subject, and then also interpreting that work and developing imagery to suit the interpretation.

This week I want you to take all of those parts and produce two presentation boards that synthesize the materials you have collected and analysis you have done. You will need to use, at a minimum (you can do more than this if you want to), the abstracted form of your paper folding exercise, 2 of your analysis views from last week's studio work, and at least two other representations of your research subject. This material must then be brought together in a coherent, graphical form on 1 or 2 presentation boards that represent the ideas you have discovered. These boards will be presented electronically only, so precise sizing is not critical, but you might consider them in terms of an A3 printout for sizing purposes.

Note that these boards should be able to convey those ideas WITHOUT you there to interpret them for the viewer! Also, your boards should not just be a parade of image by image by image, but should be trying to use ideas of overlay, overlap, overlook (!) to give the board a stylistic richness that attracts the viewer.

During the last week you should have spent time looking at examples of presentation boards from previous students, from design practices, and any other sources you could locate. Additionally, you were expected to provide some commentary on why you like the boards you chose to add to your blog - what worked about them, what didn't work. Use this process to help you define how your own boards might work, but try and come up with a style and an idea that represent you and the way that you look at your research subject.

You will have the full studio period to carry out this project, but you will also need to ensure you have left yourself with sufficient time to get the results up on to your blog. Your tutor will be reviewing and marking your boards starting immediately post studio, so if you have not competed your blog post by the end of the studio, you will be marked down.

Also make sure that you have gotten an opportunity for a chat with your tutor about assignment 1. There will be tutor led critiques of your assignment in next week's studio, and then it will be due by the end of next week, so this is the last opportunity before you put together your presentation materials...

Research Exercise 2

This exercise is a follow on from Studio Exercise 3. In Week 5 you will be creating a presentation board to bring the week 4 studio exercise and this research exercise together.

Find at least 3 examples of graphic presentations styles, and methods and analyse what it is that makes the board effective from your perspective (others will have different reactions to the same boards...). Post the presentation boards on to your blog (with attribution!) and write a couple of sentences as an explanation of why you like each one. This should result in you having some background and ideas from which to get started putting together your own boards during the week 5 studio.

These boards are intended to be a set of graphic designs that 'sell' the design to the viewer. They are not necessarily a direct, literal, display of factual information (such as plans), although they certainly should include such material where it suits your broader purpose. Rather, they should evoke emotion, interest, intent - whether through design, colour, movement, or other contrivance. They might be conceived as a graphic version of the abstraction process you went through as part of the paper folding exercise.

An example of a presentation board can be found here:  http://marthamasliarch1390.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/final-submission.html. This is a board produced as part of the final submission in last year's Digital Representation Studio. I do not intend that you spend as much time producing this as Martha will have put into the example shown here. Another example is: http://mwsl-arch1390.blogspot.com.au. Have a look at other boards from the same class. We will be looking at presentation materials and styles as part of the lecture time in Week 5, and this will lead directly on to working on the boards in the studio time.

Studio Exercise 3

Stage 1: (should be completed by 12:30pm)

For buildings / built forms:
Gather together a 'materials pack' that has the various views needed to provide a 'complete' understanding of your building. This should include at least plans, elevations, sections, and various 3D views. If you are unable to find all of the representations you need online, then you will need to have a go at drawing some of them up yourself.

For artwork:
Examine your chosen piece of art and abstract it into a 3D form. Pretend that the artist has taken a 3 dimensional starting point and turned it into a piece of art - your job is to turn it back into it's original 3D form.

Stage 2: (to be completed by end of studio)

For buildings / built forms:
Analyse the various materials you have collected and provide some analytic / interpretive responses:

• use colour to represent the difference between public, semi-private, and private spaces (plan and section)
• use colour (on another set of drawings) to represent the primary, secondary, and tertiary movement paths through the building (plan and section)
• Use linework to indicate the major 'edges' and primary forms (primitives?) that can be extracted from the built form. Simplify the building to these forms in one or two 3D views
• If you are doing a bridge (ie. Calatrava), then consider creating a simple structural forces flow diagram... how does this thing hold itself up?

For Artwork:

Draw plans and an elevation or section for your artwork. Explain the process used to develop the 3D form from the artwork. Indicate the relationship between the elements in the painting and their position / scale in the 3D environment.

Note that the results from this exercise will be used within the next research and studio exercises, so make sure you have ended up with a good set of data!

FAQ: Assignment 1

Some of the questions that have been asked in relation to Assignment 1:

1. Can I distort the basic primitive shape?
1. As long as the original primitive is still easily identifiable, yes. A good test is if another student who does not know your project can immediately identify the shape as the primitive in question. Also, a distortion must not turn the primitive into another recognisable form. In other words, changing the diameter of one end of a cylinder turns it into a truncated cone, and is no longer considered a cylinder. However, flattening out a torus to an elliptical cross-section can still be easily recognised as a torus, and only as a torus.
2. Edges parallel to the ground...
1. As  noted in the brief, only one surface can be parallel to the ground. This means more than one edge CAN be parallel to the ground.
2. Don't forget to check your top surfaces. A pyramid that is exactly upside down will have its' top parallel to the ground. A cylinder will have its' chord (the imaginary line running down the centre of the cylinder) parallel to the ground, as will a torus.
3. A box breaks this rule. Technically, a box on the ground has both its top and bottom surfaces parallel to the ground. This is ok for this assignment.
3. Can I use 3 of the same primitives?
1. No. The building envelope (it's basic external form) must be made up of 3 (only) primitives, and they must be 3 different primitives. In other words, you could use a box, a cylinder, and a pyramid - or - a torus, a cone, and a box - or - a cone, a torus and a cylinder - BUT - using a box, a cylinder and a box is not acceptable.
4. How much must objects be tilted?
1. Once you tilt an object, the tilt must be at least 10 degrees
5. Must we furnish the spaces?
1. Yes, this is part of the demonstration that the spaces you have designed are actually useable. A good source for furnishings is the Google 3D Warehouse, but the source doesn't matter for this exercise.
6. Can we exclude parts of our shapes?
1. Yes, but the base form of the primitive must still be recognisable
7. Can I put my building into CryEngine?
1. Yes, but the base deliverables as previously defined must still be delivered in Sketchup. CryEngine (or other environments) can be used to provide additional views beyond those in the brief if desired.

If you have additional questions or comments, please post them here and I will add them to the list.

Calculations spreadsheet

Steve has created an excel spreadsheet for calculating stairs, areas and volumes which may help you designing your project 1 house!  Follow this link to have a look:

 

http://arch1390-2013sp.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/calculations-spreadsheet.html

 

Also note that entity info in SketchUp will tell you the area and volume of your individual primitives, BUT when you overlap those primitives the total volume will of course be different (and presumably less!).

 

Can anyone suggest a way to calculate the resulting volume in SketchUp?

Time settings

Could everyone please set the clocks correctly for their blogs? Many of you seem to have posted your studio exercise blogs the night before actually doing them (ie. Thursday night)!!! Please make sure you have it set to Australian Eastern Standard Time.