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. 

Outside my Comfort Zone

After my tutorial yesterday, I have taken my tutors advice to go a little bit crazy with my roof. Last week I had been using physical models but Sketch up has been more useful this time around as I can easily and quickly manipulate the shapes.

I usually go for the more subtle (and I guess, fairly boring - which is where my problem was) design but this has really pushed me away from that and I've started playing around with forms that I would normally keep away from. But I kinda like where it's taking me and it really makes sense to have this disordered roof line which is in complete contrast to the formal style of the existing facade.

By playing around with the roof and, as my tutor described it, being more playful, it's started to influence the way my building interacts with the existing facade and how much of it I actually keep. Very slowly, I am loosing more and more of it, which is something I definitely didn't want to be doing a couple of months ago, but it actually seems to be the right thing to be doing, especially if I am going to keep down this route. 

I'm really curious to see where it's going to go next.

 

Resolutions

This week has been spent on developing and refining the last details of my building ready for the crit. 

My housing was the main thing to be resolved but once I got onto Sketch Up, sorted out my house design and just started playing around with the orientation on site, it all fell into place fairly quickly. I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn't achieve a scheme that both had vehicular access and was pedestrian only so I just had to work around this, creating pedestrian only spaces and designated vehicle spaces. The views and the access across and around the site were important things to consider as the scheme is very family and children orientated.

I also spent time resolving the final details of my building, the creche and community space in particular. After exploring the spatial possibilities in each of these spaces, I started remodelling just the creche on Sketch Up and as per ususal, I got completely carried away with the model and ended up also modelling the community space on the first floor. 
I went almost completely against my original approximation for the floor area of the space. Rather than having one large hall, I inserted an atrium-like space that then created a connection between the circulation downstairs and the space itself. Despite loosing a large amount of the floor space to this atrium, I feel that this actually works better as it breaks the space into smaller community areas and also fits into my programme in terms of connectivity.

Once I had resolved these issues, it was simply a case of getting back on to CAD to update my drawings. Over Easter, I plan on getting reacquainted with Revit and producing models and all my drawings in one programme - the plan is to make my life easier!

Catch up and CAD

I feel like my journal (along with everything else) has been slightly abandoned recently due to the sheer volume of work. This week was spent mainly on AutoCAD and Sketch up, getting my building finalised and drawn up ready for today. I'm all CADed out!

Having printed out my plans etc for studio today, I was ready for them to be scribbled over. And that definitely happened! Which was good. When I was drawing them out, I didn't actually see them but during my tutorial things were pointed out that will definitely improve my design along with other things that I need to look at over the next couple of days. While many of these are in order to refine my centre, there are a couple of things to work on with my housing as well. Especially the site layout. I'm closer than I was but it's still not there yet.

After talking with my tutor, I had the chance to talk with a practising architect to get some help with my technical drawings and structural details. Unfortunately I ran out of time this week so I couldn't develop my detailed drawings but this is something that is going to happen this week. My precedent actually comes from my tech case study so this kills two birds with one stone. I am also going to look at the arrangement for the building (the Ritblat Building) as it is part of a primary school, therefore designed for children. I am hoping to develop my creche and create an environment suitable for children. I am also going to look at other precedents to help me with this. 

I also seem to have actually forgotten how to draw plans. Like marking the door openings and hatching the walls and dotting upstairs floors and stairs and adding furniture (although I think the time constraint had some play in that one). This are all things that need to be (and will be) sorted out for the reviews . . . . next week.