This is it. . . . now to build the exhibition

Monday was the digital submission deadline and today is the printed one. Can't believe its nearly over. 

Nearly.

Now that portfolio is effectively out of the way, attention now turns to the exhibition and publication. The publication team met up last night to discuss what needs to get done and when it needs to get done by. The aim is to get the content gathered tomorrow so that we can start arranging it Friday and then start to but it together. We also have to transcribe the discussions held in studio which sounded like a lot to do but we are able to split it up into 30 minute chunks.

I expect we'll be meeting with the 5th years at the end of the week as well.

Alongside this, I started to work on my individual contributions yesterday by starting to fill in my sketchbook. I'm really pleased with it so far. I have also started to plan my drawings. The plan is to do one for the housing and one for the building. This is probably going to be the most time consuming part - the other ones took about 3 weeks to do. At least I already have the drawings.

Breaking the Rules . . . .

 . . . but with good reason.

One of our requirements is to produce a 1:1250 location. Which I did. But really struggled when trying to make it Wright-ish. I poured through all the books I had borrowed from the library trying to find an example of his site plans. There are lots of them but they are all very small sites so don't really help me. From what I can find, he didn't actually produce large scale site plans. The closest I got was his model of Broadacre City.

One image did keep appearing though.

Wright's Plan for Greater Baghdad is a large perspective drawing showing all of the projects in the area at the time. It's so detailed and shows his design for the university campus in the context of the surrounding city.

Which sounds like what the location plan on my brief should aim to do: show my designs in the context of Cheetham Hill. Bearing this in mind, that the drawing is more about what it is showing rather than my tutors knowing that I can draw at 1:1250, I have chosen to break the rules slightly.

So using a very similar scale (obviously, an aerial perspective can't really have a scale) to my original plan, I am in the process of creating my own Plan for Cheetham Hill.

Nearly there . . .

Can't believe the year is nearly over. 5 days until portfolio hand in which means that it's the final final crit tomorrow. 

Having been working on my portfolio all week (obviously) I've now reached my inevitable point of feeling like I have finished. It's something that I have gone through every single submission, usually about 24 hours before the work is due. Which would be fine, if it weren't for my fellow third years probably working well into the night and beyond while I am actually able to get my 8 hours. A different kind of stress.

So, I currently feel like I am ready for tomorrow's crit although I know I will be getting more work to do before Monday. Therefore, I am going to spend the evening and try to critically assess my work, anything that doesn't completely make sense or convey my thought process will be altered. (If only I could momentarily forget my project so that I could really review it properly)

My IDR is also more or less done now although I still need to add a page or two about the exhibitions and my drawings before that is done. Something for tomorrow evening I think. After submission, it's a case of getting my exhibition pieces ready and getting the whole exhibition ready for the show. I've decided on what I'm going to be doing and it should be fairly straight forward, just time consuming I think.

The first of my three items is the playing cards that everyone in my atelier are going to be producing. At the moment, this is just a case of getting them onto the computer - I've already listed what each card is going to be - and to write the 'Rules of Engagement', something that I'm still working on. The second piece is going to be an image. Originally, it was going to be a bird's eye perspective of my scheme but after producing my Frank Lloyd Wright-esque drawings, it makes more sense to do one (or two) of them. The last piece is like a cross between my playing cards and my portfolio, a small sketchbook that will summarise my project with about 30 images/quotes/photos/drawings/sketches/diagrams/whatever.

Last Leg

So, one week off, one week not as much work as I was hoping and then back at uni. Tech is done, essay is done and my IDR first draft is done. It's slowly coming together.

This week has mainly been focused on my drawings and their presentation. As I mentioned previously, I was told to find a style to replicate and although I've decided to ditch the Wainwright idea (it just wasn't really going to work) I have been working on my Frank Lloyd Wright styled images. The downside is that they are taking a very long time - having to trace the drawings in photoshop and then colour and add texture. I've almost finished them now but still have some context to add to the elevations and some finishing touches to add to the long section. After that it's just arranging them on the pages, again in the style of Wright. 

To help me, I got a couple (well, more like a small pile) of books out of the library. These are just filled with his drawings. I could easily just look at them all day. The drawings are so intricate and its even more amazing when you consider that he didn't have a computer to help him, let alone Google SketchUp or AutoCAD.

While my housing drawings are practically finished (until Thursday anyway), I can't really complete the presentation sheets for the centre until I have my 3D perspectives. So that's next on the agenda. The plan is to get these more or less done for Thursday - my penultimate studio day.

Back to the Tech Stuff

Having now more or less finalised my roof designs. I've needed to go back to thinking about the construction of my building. This involved looking back at the tech case studies and my understanding of the Ritblat Building. Essentially, my building can stand up without the aid of the existing facade. I really wanted to continue to use timber, mainly for the creche, and I think I came to the conclusion that I could use timber for the structure of my previous design so I am going to carry on with this idea. I have then been able to use a similar construction as the Ritblat Building. Having worked through this, I should be able to finally start CADding them up!
I need to finish working out how to join the existing facade to the new structure but I took a couple of books out of the library a dew weeks ago so these will hopefully help me to resolve this problem. 

I have a lot to do over Easter. One of the main things is my visuals. I've been told to find a style I love and essentially copy that style. There are a couple of styles that I really like and hopefully I can incorporate both of them. The first is Frank Lloyd Wright's drawings. Obviously, they were done by hand but I'm better at sketching than at photoshop anyway so this will be better for me. The other one isn't architecture related but not too unlike Wright's style. Being a hiker, I love looking at Wainwright's sketches of the Lake District and have tried to imitate them in my own sketches. While he very rarely, if ever, even includes a building in his sketches, the pen and ink style is definitely something I'd like to do.

Another thing that I'm going to have a go at is Revit. Now that I know the construction and form of my design, I think I can have another go at Revit. I did basic tutorials over the summer to get an idea of the program but not used it since, so if nothing else, I need to re-familiarise myself with it. 

Library Day

Being back in Manchester now, I spent Sunday and Monday reading. Monday was spent in the library and while some of the books I was reading didn't exactly seem relevant to my project, I was reminded about the houses of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was something that I remember reading but I've got a feeling it was from the book that my old Geography teacher lent me once briefly. 
The idea behind Wright's housing was to open up the living space, bringing the kitchen into the main part of the house rather than hiding it away. For the time, I can imagine this being quite a radical idea. Part of it was to allow women to continue to cook and prepare dinner while still being able to entertain guests etc. 

This idea can be carried into my own project and I've started to look at his Usonian Houses in an analytical way. Having one large living space makes a more manageable house for women (or men) who stay at home and also makes child care easier as most of the day time activities happen in this central space.