opus basilica axon #4
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Yes, this one is not an axon. The most important part of this drawing is the perspective. I’m actually showing one corner of the barn. At each dotted line running vertically I changed the perspective so there are three different perspectives in this drawing. Each perspective has two vanishing points (all on the same horizontal level) and so each time the perspective changes two new vanishing points emerge. You can see 6 dots, each a vanishing point, in the bottom 1/3 of the drawing. Again I’m hoping to distort the content of the drawings to possibly stumble across something new and useable.
This drawing and the previous 3 were all drawn on paper in my notebook that measures about 12″ x 18″ which makes it really hard to scan in on my 8.5″ x 11″ scanner. I had to scan each drawing in parts and paste them back together. In the first image I tried to paste it back together so that it was seemless but I began to like the look of the varied appearances of each scan. I think it adds another dimension and this way I wasn’t too concerned about hiding the way it was put together.
opus basilica axon #3
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This axon is drawn from the bottom looking up into the barn. At the bottom I pulled down some of the windows and doors and at the top I pulled up some of the doors as well as the chapel on the second floor. This “perspective” was difficult to draw but again allows you to see the building as you normally wouldn’t.
opus basilica axon #2
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This is another drawing in a series I did for the Opus Basilica, a barn and chapel in Utah. I can’t say I really had an intention when doing these drawings. I was not trying to create a drawing to show something static. We hadn’t (and still haven’t) finished the design for the barn although we did know some of the basics at the time. So I drew what we had decided and then took liberties with what wasn’t to work out some ideas, rearrange some configurations and hopefully create something that would become part of the design.
I pulled out some section cuts which are orthagonal through the barn, as sections are normally drawn to be easily oriented. The section on the bottom-left corner was a little different – it is cut othagonal to the paper and to the viewer and so the cut ends up going almost diagonally through the barn (you can see where the cut line is drawn through the body of the barn but appears square to the viewer). It is subtle but something I will use in the future – unorthodox section cuts to create fresh perspective on a rather ordinary subject.
opus basilica axon
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ After doing a lot of work on the computer lately I started to do some hand drawing. I’ve also been reading some Morphosis cicra early 1970′s in which they used axons in the majority of their drawings so that’s influencing me at the moment. Morphosis would also overlay drawings, not necessarily in a way in which that orientation of those drawings would relate directly to one another which is what I did, pulling the floorplan and front elevation directly out from the exterior axon.
This project is a barn in Utah which contains a chapel underneath the roof that I’m doing with a friend of mine. We’re still working out some of the major design elements and here I was trying to figure out how the chapel, work bench, and possibly an exposed corner would relate. It’s forever changing so I hope to post a series of similar drawings.
bowtie house rendering #3
This render was tricky because I couldn’t just use a default sun source to light the scene. My main light sources were omni lights that appear hidden because they are all located behind an object, except those in the fireplaces, so that you cannot see the source. I also added about 10 spotlights which you can see shining on the front edge of the concrete slab and part of the lawn and also to light furniture groupings from above. I also used just a few rectangular lights to accent certain surfaces like the where the fireplaces on the far right meet the ceiling. I also placed double-sided invisible rectangular lights a few inches above the ponds/pool to make it look like the surface was emitting light.
Because I’m using displacement to render the grass it eats up a lot of memory so I had to render small sections of the lawn and then stitch them together in photoshop. The trees are just two dimensional, flat surfaces but I think the light bouncing off them looks realistic enough. I rendered a dark line of foliage just above the horizon to ground the image and I photoshopped in the sky in background – I was looking for a sky that was just after sunset so that there would still be enough light to show all parts of the scene.
I also turned off all of the glass in the scene, except the glass that serves as the guardrails for the balconies which are hard to see anyway, because when looking into a lit house at night you wouldn’t be able to see alot of reflection anyway. This way the render wouldn’t take as long because it wouldn’t need to calculate all those reflections which uses up a lot of memory. In photoshop I basically just added all the different render sections together, lightened the image, and then painted a ‘volume light’ using a white semi-transparent brush to show light projecting out on either side of the building gradually dissipating.
bowtie house rendering #2
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Here’s the 2nd of 3 renders I’m doing for the Bowtie House. This one took a little longer than the last because I’m showing the entire house and so there was more content to model. I’ve been working on this model bit-by-bit for months, changing it as we change the design but I don’t worry about material or how it will render until I set up specific shots like this one.
I also like to shut off or even delete parts of the model that I’m not going to render to keep the file small but there wasn’t much I could delete except some interior furniture and walls. I had to leave on both the background on the far side of the house and the water and tree line behind the camera because it shows in the reflection.
I didn’t use any displacement on the rock walls because they are too far away for it to make a real difference but I did use displacement on the grass in foreground, but only in the foreground because else where you wouldn’t be able to see it. All the trees and shadows are part of the model except some of the highlights in the room on the far left which I created using the dodge tool in photoshop to lighten up. The sky is photoshopped in as well as the wood siding and a patch of grass in the foreground that didn’t look right. I used the same sky I used in the last rendering.
There are some things I’d like to add like some entourage and maybe a different sky and a car in the driveway but it will have to wait until I finish the next render.
bowtie house rendering
Here’s a render I did last week. I’m working on some more renderings from different views as we speak so I thought I’d post a preview of what’s to come. Although this image only shows a part of the home it communicates what is important about the house – its transparency and relationship with the outdoors.
In order to render this model I had to break it up into 3 parts – the foreground the water and the background. Otherwise it takes way too long to render because my image is 2400 x 1288. I also like doing that because when you bring them together in Photoshop you have each part on a different layer. Because it takes too long to re-render the whole image when I find a mistake I can just re-render smaller parts using the “region render” tool and it will patch over the existing render. In my opinion if it takes 2 hours to render an entire image it will take significantly less than one hour to just render half that image using the region render so it’s a way to save time on most renders.
Once in Photoshop I lightened up the image, used a soft glow on all the lighter pixels, added the sailboat/flying birds and added about 15 lens flares in different places to get the look of the sky.
interior rendering project
Above is a rendering I did for a client recently. The project was an interior renovation for an advertising agency. It was a really short turn-around, I was given the information I needed to start on a Saturday and had the rendering finished by the deadline on Monday afternoon. The first image is what the model looked like when I received it and the second one is the final product. We had orginally talked about keeping it abstract but in my opinion that’s easier to do with exterior renders where the building can be seen as an independent object where the building’s geometry is complex enough to create a certain amount of interest. When its an interior rendering the goemetry is more often than not a box or a derivative of a box (or at least a six sided volume) and therefore the interest needs to be generated some other way, through the materials or detail or interior features – all things that contribute to making the render more realistic. So the final product ended up somewhere in the middle of the two.
I didn’t need to pull any all-nighters but it was close and I probably spent around 30-35 hours on it in total – not just rendering but also modeling. It sounds crazy to say that one image took that long but that’s how these things go. There was of course some mis-steps and I worked through a few different alternatives with the client but in the end this is how it turned out. For one of the alternatives I ended up using my Wacom tablet to draw in the people, chairs, computers etc., but it was too stark of a contrast with the more realistic materials.
I primarily used Sketchup and a little Rhino for the modeling, Vray for the rendering, Illustrator for linework and Photoshop for some post-rendering effects and for layering.
This was a non-rendered view of the model when I first got it.
I finished most of the major modeling and added an exterior light source.
I set up about 10 interior lights and removed most of the walls not pictured that were blocking light. Also began to add materials.
Added more detail – computers, shelves in the distance, more hanging lights and changed materiality on the desks and closest plywood wall. This was my last render in Vray before I moved to Photoshop.
Added entourage and exterior street scene in Photoshop but feel like the edges are too hard and the colors are overwhelming the more monochromatic color of the rest of the room. I rendered the chairs separately earlier and made them transparent and overlayed the image in Photoshop.
I exported the linework from Sketchup Layout as a vector image and modified it in Illustrator before bringing it back to Photoshop.
In an attempt to keep the rendering from feeling too real, and more abstract, I tried to draw in all the entourage, chairs, computers, etc. but it was too much of a contrast with the rest of the materials in the scene. I used my Wacom tablet which works well because it allows me to create layers and change the quality of the drawings. Anyway, I ended up not using the hand drawn portions.
I overlayed the lines on top of the render and increased the opacity of the entourage and background street scene. I purposely let the line work extend past the edges of the render because it breaks up the edge of the image and it helps highlight the linework on top of the rendering.
This is the final product. Lastly I added a glow to the image in Photoshop and painted white over the floor corners at the bottom of the image to soften the edges and dropped in some very soft lens flares where exterior light was coming in.
washington monument grounds competition
The first picture below is my entry for the National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds. There is no consideration to actually build this project but the goal is to generate interest and share ideas about redesigning the grounds of the Washington Monument. As is, the grounds are pretty much non-designed – they’ve defaulted to sloping lawns and serpentine pathways but there has been no concerted effort for a singular plan, although there have been many proposals in the past.
PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPppppppppppP pppp When I heard about this competition a few months back I knew I wanted to do it but things got busy at work in addition to doing a side project so I gave up any hope of submitting an entry…until about a week before the entry was due and in a fit of bi-polar ambition I decided to do it. So after about 4 or 5 nights of working on the entry after work one week I had a submission.
This is essentially phase one of the competition after which they narrow it down to 25 teams and then down to 5 in the next round and then the public votes to give awards to each of those 5 teams. During each phase the teams that move on are expected to continue to develop their proposals. I was trying to strike a balance in my submission between creating something that looks too detailed and finalized, with no room for change, and something that is not finished enough or fails to convey enough information to communicate the main ideas. It would also be a lie if I didn’t say that I had run out of time and had was forced to cut some corners to make the deadline which seems to be how I approach every deadline.
The competition was open to everyone and the guidelines made it clear that this was an “ideas” competition, not a design competition, opening up the competition to those trained and untrained alike. So there are no real-life concerns like budget, or structure, or feasibility, just pure and unadulterated ideas. I have no idea how many or what types of people entered this competition but my registration number was in the high 200′s so I’m guessing at least that many teams entered. Since it was open to all, my angle was to approach it as an architect would and perhaps that would set me apart in some respect (unless only architects entered the competition). Entrants could submit anything they wanted – pictures, plans, text, old receipts, drawings of Cher, whatever but everything had to fit on two 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper (picture above).
At any rate I’m happy with how it turned out in the time that I had to work on it. I tried to continue to emphasize the grand scale and classicism of so many of the projects in DC that are unapologetic and created to evoke a sense of civic pride. Many of the elements of this project were a reference to either the history of surrounding parts of the city and/or the site of the monument itself. It would be a shame to lose that story in any modern adaptation. If you’re interested in more specifics read the text in the graphic above.
final thesis presentation
Here are the two boards from my final thesis presentation a few months ago. The first board (left) serves as an introduction to some of the most basic concepts. The second larger board (first one below) has two axes: one along the top that serves as a timeline and one on the left that segments the presentation into strips grouped around certain aspects (diagrams, renders, site, etc.). By following the top axis (reading vertically) you can see the progression of the phases of the project – its divided chronologically. By following the side axis (reading horizontally) you can see how the project develops solely in terms of a single aspect - its divided in terms of areas of the project. None of the graphics are meant to stand alone, they are all meant to be read in context with every other graphic.
I also had a model to go along with the boards but I’ll have to put those pics up later. These two boards were positioned side by side both with the same height, spanning about 12 feet across, so they were big. I also printed them on glossy paper which made such a difference it makes me wish I used it for every other presentation I’ve ever done.
Although this is what I had for the final presentation I still feel as though the project is unfinished, and yes, those are actual voids left on the right edge of the board below. I’m happy with the design of the project, but not necessarily the way I’m portraying it. Basically there are a key few graphics that did not get done for the final presentation and I plan at some point in the future to finish them, although summoning the will to do so seems almost impossible at the moment. I would like to show a few graphics that show all the pieces in combination, activated by the lives of residents and the customizations they would bring. There’s a few key renders missing that would contextualize all the elements.
Before I started my own thesis I had always imagined that there would be more than enough time (a whole year) to explore every possible inkling, to fine tune graphics, to not have to make any compromises. That just wasn’t the case. Obviously the thesis is more complex than other shorter projects and therefore it takes longer to complete – so the amount of time is proportional to the amount of work. The same compromises that are made in a normal project were also made with the thesis project. Because you have more time just means you spend more time working on big-picture issues - fundamental concepts, research, different ideologies – and the end, the details, is a mad dash to the finish line. However to do the opposite would be even less helpful.
Our thesis involved two parts: the actual presentable project and a thesis book documenting research and, for me, the deeper reasoning behind the project. So really you evaluate each of those parts independently, so in a sense it is like working on two parrallel projects. The problem is is that you get stretched really thin and spending time on one can have the effect of detracting from time spent on the other. My book was possibly more important to me than the graphic presentation of the project, although not mutally exclusive, but this post goes to show that the two must stand independently. You can find a link to my book here.
more stuff projected onto other stuff
While I’m on the topic here are two more clips of projections onto 3-dimensional surfaces. The first clip is a music video of a face (and a few other images) being projected onto a face. The second clip is more CG oriented and there is no actual physical object being projected on, but digital volumes. Here they are: _________________________________________________
Kotchy – Sometimes I Get Down from Kotchy on Vimeo.
Metropolis from Colin Rider on Vimeo.
don’t trip
I’m not sure why I’m so fixated on this type of video but me likey. This clip is not dissimilar from the BIG video I posted below. This to me seems like the bridge between digital renderings and physical models, it’s both. In fact you could build the physical model and provided you worked out the perspective you could project a rendering onto it…or even better, a video. You can find the clip here on Vimeo. ___________________________________________
DONT TRIP from Calvin Waterman on Vimeo.
now you know – dropbox part 2
I’ve already talked about Dropbox in a previous post here but I came across the Ultimate Dropbox Toolkit and Guide. Some things I didn’t know: you can now get up to 10 GB free or 16 GB if you’re a student, sync your iTunes library across multiple computers and notify you when files have been modified (like if you’re wondering if your friend has downloaded the 15 albums you put in the Dropbox folder) and about 20 other features I didn’t know about before.
Dropbox will render your thumb drive obsolete. I have two computers that I’m always using, sometimes at the same time, and instead of putting files on a thumb drive and plugging it into the next computer I drop it in my Dropbox folder and open it on the other computer. My time is sooooooooo valuable I need to save seconds wherever possible.
iskorpitx
I went to add a post to my website last night, just to find out that GoDaddy had been hacked by “iSKORPiTX”, a turkish hacker that apparently has been doing this for years. It looks like yesterday he somehow hacked into some 40,000 sites hosted by GoDaddy and redirected them all to the page you see below. It only took a few minutes on the phone with GoDaddy to fix it but talk about a huge pain – what a jack-wagon. Way to go iSKORPiTX, you are the man – I’m sure you get crazy laid in second life by all the nonexistent people who are impressed by this sort of thing. So if anyone went to any sites yesterday or today and saw the picture below, that’s what happened.
the latent city
Now this is a thesis. How long did it take this guy to put this clip together?…I don’t even know how he did this many renders in one year. I’m seriously impressed with how much work went into this project. My friend/classmate EA Laag showed me this clip as we were nearing the completion of our thesis projects, at which point I walked back over to mine and kicked it down the steps.
The student who did this project, Yaohua Wang, was an undergraduate student at SciArc and won thesis of the year. He’s smart because he was clearly picking and choosing which parts of the city to focus on, he didn’t try to focus on every major element of a city. I can hear his classmates hatin’ now – (whiny voice) “But his city is round!..what the hell is that?”, “Why are all the buildings uniformly spaced?…that would never happen!”, “Why are all his characters white but speaking with Chinese accents?” You simply can’t focus on it all or else the important aspects will never come to the surface.
Our cities have always been largely 2-dimensional so I’m glad to see someone exploring that other dimension. I mean sprawl just isn’t working for anyone. You can read more about his project here. Here’s the clip below: __________________________________________________________________
Latent City by Yaohua Wang from Foral on Vimeo.
perry kulper
Since I’ve seen some of this guy’s drawings I’ve been looking for information about his motives or what makes him make these drawings, but can’t find much (and by can’t find much I mean I couldn’t find anything of note within the first 10 google search entries). This is what I did find on a site called dpr-barcelona who’s tag line is “beyond books – between art, science and architecture” which is exactly the type of place I would expect to find these drawings:
“Perry Kulper is an architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan. Prior to his arrival at the University of Michigan he was a SCI-Arc Faculty member for 16 years as well as in visiting positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Arizona State University. Subsequent to his studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (BS Arch) and Columbia University (M Arch) he worked in the offices of Eisenman/ Robertson, Robert A.M. Stern and Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown before moving to Los Angeles. His interests include the roles of representation and methodologies in the production of architecture and in broadening the conceptual range by which architecture contributes to our cultural imagination.”
Here’s a description I found of an article Perry wrote called Alternating the Currencies in the Journal of Architectural Education:
“… three key areas to extend the potential of alternative architecture: broadening the ways in which architecture is conceptualized; increasing design versatility by enhancing the awareness of diverse design methods; and expanding the seemingly impossible, conceptually and materially, through representation techniques. The roles of formal and programmatic typologies, extended material possibilities, and the power of learning from other disciplines lie nearby. These considerations are targeted at optimizing both architecture’s cultural agency and our spatial imaginations.”
Diggin’ the layers. These look like works of art you could expect to find hanging on someone’s wall but what makes them even more dynamic than that is that they are laden with meaning and analysis. In other words I’m sure there is a rigorous process behind the marks, I’m just not sure what that process is yet. Wish I had had this guy for a teacher. Enjoy the sickness below. ___________________________________________________________________
knots: the architecture of problems
The following is a post from Lebbeus Woods’ website summarizing a lecture he gave at Cooper Union called KNOTS: the Architecture of Problems. Here’s the first paragraph in which he explains the knot.
“We should always keep in mind that the goal of our work in this seminar is stating problems clearly, not solving them.
Most problems—especially the very difficult and ‘knotty’ ones—are never formulated, verbally or visually, clearly enough to understand exactly what needs to be solved, so we tend to throw up our hands in frustration and avoid them. Also a solution is often contained in a well-articulated problem. In any event, we should not let the lack of a ready answer be a reason to avoid asking a question. Indeed, the only questions worth asking are those for which we do not already have an answer. In this seminar we will not shy away from looking at the most daunting problems.”
He goes on to address three types of knots in depth: the spatial, the social, and the philosophical and how they interrelate to the problems of slums. What’s most impressive is his comprehensive approach and how he traces specific effects to specific causes rooted deep in history, or economics, or philosophy, etc. The lecture is its own knot.
Pics below from the lecture. Here’s a link to LW’s site. ________________________________________________________________________
influencers
Here’s a trailer to a short film called Influencers that comes out sometime this fall. It’s about the foresight that allows a select few of the creative type to become trend-setters in their fields. Can’t wait to see it. I’m influencing you to see it also. _________________________________________________________________________________
INFLUENCERS TRAILER from R+I creative on Vimeo.
skeleton of redemption
Apparently the only requirement for me to post something nowadays is that I must “like” it and nothing more. Here is one such project. Is it even architecture?…that’s debatable, but I would say yes. Skeleton of Redemption seems not to be watered down with any restrictive notions of possiblity – there is no temptation to conform to the requirements of a rational project.
Here’s an exerpt from suckerPUNCH:
“SoR is a surrealist projection onto Detroit, the most enlightened of all modern cities. The failure of Detroit was the failure of programmatic singularity, which depleted the city’s energy, turning it into futuristic ruins, or an artificial farmland. This proposal is motivated by the process of ‘redemption’, structured through the metaphorical development of a ‘catholic savior’. The recovery process is a surgical action and a process of the city’s cellular organ rebirth. An artificial injection programmatically penetrates the remaining farmland, gaining energy while providing the basic nutrients for the growth of new infrastructure and revitalized accommodations.
Framed through varied articulations of the exotic bizarre, the narrative is fictional and oniric, revealing the spiritual reality and hope behind the pessimistic skeletons of the city. An alternative visionary-urbanism is being rediscovered.”
It’s art - it’s speculative, it’s surreal, it’s interpretive - and unapologetically so. It is a “big picture” project and only through thinking without restrictions can something truly be innovative. I mean how else could you fit the terms “bio-mechanical airships’, “cloud of eyes”,”liquified ground”,”urban organs” and “catholic savior” into one project. You can see more of the project here. Pics below. __________________________________________________________________________
victoria & albert museum shortlist
I’ve noticed that some high-profile competitions require a model as one of the deliverables. Although this competition has some interesting design work (and of course it would with names firms like Steven Holl, Kengo Kuma, REX and Snohetta involved) and some slick renderings I’m drawn to the models. Pics below.
I’m also including a video at the bottom by REX just to show you the people they animated walking around the building. Extra props for the animated water and time-lapse video backgrounds. You can find more info. about the competition at ArchDaily here.
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staging ground
I’m always on the look out for pretty pictures. Staging Ground is a thesis project by recent graduate Andrew Tenbrick a former Masters student in Landscape Architecture at the GSD. It examines ways in which we have traditionally used levees, transforming deltas often leading to cycles of diminishing returns and sometimes ultimately failure, and how we can improve them. His diagrams are amazing, for me the best part of the project. The analysis is thorough to say the least, bordering on exhaustive (which is the point of a thesis right?) but always artistic. You can find more of his project here.
the emperor’s castle
Two posts down I talked about a project called the Migration of Mel & Judith by Thomas Hillier. On his website I’ve found another project worth mentioning called the Emperor’s Castle. The project is an adaptation of a traditional story of a Princess and a “Cowherd” falling in love only to be separated by the Princess’ father, the Emperor. The story is graphically represented by Hillier in the pages shown below. Hillier then goes on to translate the narrative into a more formally architectural project consisting of a “diaphanous knitted membrane”,”parkland perimeters” and “origami lungs.” The project is amazing. I’ll include the link for his website for a second time here.
In an interview Hillier describes architecture, and, hence, the logic behind his projects, as the “theater of space.” This is exactly what makes his projects unique – they are theater first (a story-line, a narrative) and architecture second but always both portrayed spatially. It is rare that you can find that level of craft or creativity existing on its own anywhere but it is even more rare to find them in the same place.
the lomex is the anti-lorax, and I like it
Does anyone else find it a little ironic that the LOMEX, which easily could have been the most disasterous built undertakings in modern history (although I kind of like it on paper) shares a name that is very similar to one of Dr. Suess’s characters, the Lorax, who “speaks for the trees against the greedy Once-ler.” It is equally strangely coincidental that both were created within the same time period (the Lorax in 1971 and the LOMEX between 1967-1972).
The Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX for short) is an unbuilt project of Paul Rudolph that was to be a huge multi-layered megastructure devoted primarily to a series of highway networks that go right through Manhattan. Apparently the LOMEX (which even sounds kind of sinister and corporate) was a proposal in response to Robert Moses masterplan of connecting the Brooklyn Queens Expressway via the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges with the Holland Tunnel - I mean I knew Moses was intent on slicing up New York with invasive highways but this would have been on a whole new level. This was during the time when the car truly was king. Part of the plan was to level entire neighborhoods en masse including SoHo, the Lower East Side and Chinatown including THOUSANDS of buildings. Picture that for one second… the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, SoHo, the Holland Tunnel, the Lower East Side, Chinatown and most of lower Manhattan would have been disfigured beyond all recognition.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Broome, Delancey and Chrystie Street along with the Bowery were identified as major corridors for the Expressway. The 200-foot-wide, 8 lane highway swath along just Broome Street alone would have required the demolition of buildings housing at least 1,972 families and 804 businesses. That’s one street.
Essentially Moses proposed the 8-lane highway system and Rudolph tried to humanize it by introducing massive apartment buildings/offices to flank the expressways. I’m not saying this is good architecture, but I am saying its interesting. Here’s an exerpt from the Cooper Union website:
“Rudolph envisioned an approach to city planning that would conceive of movement throughout a city as the most common shared experience; multi-use transportation networks would be integrated into one design that would replace plazas as the prevailing urban design element. Plans for the LME therefore included not only an underground highway but also elevators and escalators connecting to the subway system, living spaces, a moving walkway, parking lots, and shared public spaces.”
There was an exhibit last month put on by Cooper Union and the Drawing Center at Cooper Union (7 East 7th Street) showcasing drawings and a full on model built over a 2 month span (33 x 16 feet to be exact) made by Cooper Union students. If the LOMEX had been built we might just now have been able to reap some of the benefits of the obsolete and hence civically repurposed megastructure. We could have the Highline on steriods. However, the damage it would have caused to effected neighborhoods would have been irreversible.
Thank god it didn’t get built and thank god again for Rudolph’s unreal drawing skills.
models + diagrams + toys + narrative = this post
I’m not even sure where to start to describe this post. The project is called the Migration of Mel & Judith. Below are pictures describing a narrative of a couple, Mel and Judith (real or ficitonal, I’m not sure) who pack up their belongings and become nomads customizing their caravan as they travel from city to city to simulate the comforts of home. Here’ the link to Thomas Hillier’s website (www.thomashillier.co.uk) who created this project.
There’s something refreshing about the lack of seriousness in his models. I’m also wondering how he was to make them all small enough to fit in the same lampshade. I’d also like to take a closer look at every thing else I see in the background.
I just realized that I’ve seen some of his stuff before. He went to the Bartlett in London and I posted one of his winning delineation entries in a previous post – here. Skillz!
mudbox much?
I think I just found my costume for Halloween. Found is actually a misleading term because found implies little to no work…this gem could take many labor intesive days to make, and it might not even work out. By the way, I found this project here: www.testroete.com. The guy explains step-by-step how he made the mask. I’m not sure I understand it but it involves photography, 3ds Max, Mudbox, Photoshop, Pepakura, Textools and some cutting and folding.
