Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Reflections of Architectural Communications

As an engineer I found this course as an intriguing insight into how architects can communicate their ideas. The three workshops I was involved in Atlas of Colour, Fluid thoughts to Actions and Architectural Drawing we very interesting and I believe I learnt quite a lot. Although each workshops’ theory was quite interesting I found the physical projects challenging especially the Atlas of Colour and Architectural Drawing. I didn’t realize how much effort goes into each drawing or page of the atlas.

Throughout the course I had many highlights with my atlas and some of my fluid thoughts to action drawings being shown in different lectures, due to how well I went. I had a lot of fun during the workshops, especially when we did team tasks in Fluid Thoughts to Actions, as it was interesting to engage with the architecture students.

There weren’t any real lowlights within the course except that I found the lectures to be long and uninformative as they usually just went over what was done within the workshops. It was fine for those workshops that I did not participate in but the others were just a brief over view and to be frank I found them a waste of time. However it would have been nice to have a final lecture where the best projects from each workshop over the duration of the semester were shown.

Overall I had fun and learnt numerous techniques, theories and tricks of the trade that are certain to help me in the architecture subjects I will encounter.

Reflections on "Architectural Drawing" workshop

I found this workshop enlightening to how much time and effort goes into once single architectural drawing. Being an engineer I had no previous knowledge of how to do anything that this course asked, which was a bit scary when I first thought about it but then this allowed me to learn so much from Felicity and Ken. I found it interesting and challenging to produce scaled drawings of elevation, section and plans of houses and tea cups. I found completing the final project hard as I was ill and I didn’t really like what I produced. On a more positive note I did learn a lot of techniques and tricks of the trade that will help me throughout the architectural subjects I encounter.

Architectural Drawing

First Week
Within the first week we spent most of our time being introduced to the tools with which one should use when producing architectural drawings. We then also produced our own section, elevation and plan of a tea cup and saucer.

Second Week
This week we learnt about perspective drawings and how to set these drawings up. We then attempted to drop the building we had chosen for our main project (in my case the Botta house) into a perspective drawing that was given to us.

Third Week
The third week was when our in class exercises were due. For the first bit of the workshop we had a look at the finished perspective and tea cup drawings everyone had produced. From here we did a mock up of our final project drawings. We also did an exercise were we added depth to an elevation through adding shade. I found this exercise very hard but intriguing.

Unfortunately I was unable to get any photos for these exercises.

Fourth Week

Our major works were due this week. I did the botta house and within my drawings i tried to produce the sharpness of geometric forms that make up the house. I thought the house was so geometrically shaped, with such precise lines that in my mind to represent this house i would have to represent these aspects. Here is what I produced

Reflections on "Fluid Thoughts to Action" workshop

I simply loved this workshop. At first I didn’t think I could draw as well as some of the other students but then I started to relax and came into my own drawing style. I ended up having heaps of fun and learnt quite a lot about drawing techniques and how to use different weights of line to portray perspective. In the end I thought I produced some beautiful drawings.

Fluid thoughts to Action

First Week
Within the first week we trekked down to the opera house to draw the iconic building through our own eyes. Firstly we tried drawing a part of the building allowing only 5% of our page to be sky.
















Secondly we drew the opera house whilst changing our perspective every 10 minutes by moving 20 meters along the board walk. Here’s what I produced.

































During the actual week we had to draw each morning and night parts of our room. Here are some of my drawings from that week.


















































We also had to pair up and you had to write a blurb of a space describing the light and tone. From this we had to draw our perception of our partners space.

















Here is the description i had to work from:
"The space is of a large void that creates an empty, dark feeling at initial gaze. However, there exists a variety of small passageways that lead to unknown, mysterious places which emit bright, beaming lights heavily down against the floors of the passages that permeate subtly into the dark, desolate void of space. The contrast of a singular large, empty area with multiple enclosed passageways distorts a sense of scale from whether the place is open or claustrophobic, perhaps it is both. What is certain is that the space as a whole engulfs those within to feel a sense of overwhelming, monumental power as one observes the panorama of the space as a whole. Time is disoriented; the large, gloomy space is perhaps created by the extreme overcast that penetrates subtle natural light through windows, which is greatly juxtaposed against the beams of artificial lighting made from the mysterious passageways. The space is monumental and empty, yet tranquil and silent. "


Second Week
We continued with drawing whilst changing our perspective in class this week. Except this time we concentrated on still life objects such as bottle, cups, scarves and toy drums. The constant change of perspective made us try and show the motion of the objects movement around the table within our work.





















We also drew the view looking out the of level 6 of the red centre, trying to show two different perspectives (close and far away).























Throughout the week we had to draw a house or structure in the morning and night light each day. Here are some of my drawings










































Third Week
Within this week we did a couple of group works. One was an exquisite corpse, where the first person of the group drew a picture and then sent only a small part of this picture to the second person. The second person then drew a picture using this part of the first picture. They then sent part of their picture to the next person and the process continued on until everyone in the group had created a picture. I thought of it as Chinese whispers but with pictures!

The other group task was to all draw the same part of the room in the red centre and combine the images together to make a multiple view point drawing.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of these tasks :(

Through out that week we were asks to draw an interior and exterior each day in the morning and night. Here are some of these drawings.


















































Fourth Week
This week we presented our drawings in a folder we had to make ourselves. This is what my end production looked like.














Monday, August 25, 2008

creation of atlas of colour

Within the 2nd week we were taught the basis of colour theory in architecture. For an exterior of a building to include colour but still look beautiful and in proportion there are four different colour combinations that they should abide by. These include harmony, rythm, balance and contrast and proportion. Here are some buildings that fall under these catagories...
















and these were my versions of harmony, rhythm, balance and contrast and proportion within buildings.


























Reflections of "Atlas of Colour" workshop
I enjoyed all of the colour theory within this workshop. It was interesting to see how colour is used in our everyday lives and how much we subconsciously react to it. Most of the activities were insightful and fun and I thought the 49 veils were beautiful. Overall I found the production of the atlas long and tiresome. i also found a challenge in trying to provide navigation in my atlas but in the end I was happy with what I produced.

Atlas of colour

The creation of my atlas of colour was intense and took many long hours!
The cover of my atlas was made from all of the red scrap material i could find in my sewing. I sewed all of this scrap material onto a larger piece of material and wrapped it around, binding it with a japanese method.















here are a couple of pictures of my final product.
i tried to experiment with different types of materials including transparencies and tissue paper.