My Word

FINALLY came up with a word... it's kind of crazy. But here it is:

'Conicalic'

Basically, i combined the three words i think sum up my design best. That is, 'contemporary', 'classical' (in terms of traditional facade materials, such as brick), and 'organic' (natural features include carved interiors, and partial facade material is rustic, natural wood cladding, quite organic in appearance). 

'Con' - from 'con'temporary

'ical' - from class'ical'

'lic' - from organ'ic'

Making the first sculpti

Here's a picture of my sculpti making efforts! I made a table that i could put inside of my building - and remembering that an aspect of our building had to be captured, i tried to make it look as though it had been carved, just like the walls of my building, which are made of natural, unaltrered wood pieces, overlapped like roof tiles. This meant it'd have the curves we were after as well. I also made sure to capture the spasmodic movements from my stop motion as the camera moves.

Here are some screen shots after uploading:

 

Giving

The new topic for Project four is 'Giving'. We talked about what could be percieved as 'giving' - from giving presents,  to giving the gift of knowledge, or even life (through birth).
What does a building give to us, on an emotional and physical level? It could give us protection and security, or perhaps the somewhat opposing discipline (think court buildings, prisons .etc.)

I thought it's be intersseting to think about sharing and giving emotions. I was thinking about this, and thought about how, when someone smiles at me, I return the smile, and vice versa ..... :) This is a cool article that basically talks about how powerful the smile is, and how uplifting it can be. It's a random act of kindness that absolutely asnyone can exchange with someone else - friends, family, even total strangers.

http://www.motivationandhappiness.com/personal-development/give-a-smile-get-a-smile/

Stopmotion!!

It's taken me ages but I've finally managed to upload my stopmotion video to somewhere it can be viewed. I tried to upload it to my blog but the programme I've been using (Premium Pro) won't convert to media player, or anything else for that matter. So after finally getting it rendered, which it was refusing to do before, it's finally up on youtube! Thanks to everyone for their patience :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8L7Sd-ajSw

My 1:100 Site

This is my site, choosen because of the neighbouring architecture (think Vector Arena and the Train Station), the view such a site would offer, and also the road alongside. As can be seen on my site plan, the designated site overlaps a road. This is intentional. I want a space that has a sense of movement, and is unobtrusive to the roads already present. Something that, like a tunnel, might weave it's way through obstacles, rather than divulge itself upon them.

Gathering Brief - Inspiration for my Design

So it's the day before mid semester crit, and I'm about to get stuck into some serious drawing. But before I do, I thought I'd stop in with some ideas for my design :D We had a quick briefing today to just clarify a few points, which helped me a lot in terms of my propostition.
I've decided on my four colleagues for my Architectural Firm! Introductions?

• First, there's the Engineer. This is the guy who brought that building from the matrix with him... I guess he's going to need his own office, and after googling "what does an engineer need?" (original, I know), a lot of sites said that they need their own work room, to test out theories and gadgets and other ground-breaking, awesome stuff. So i guess my engineer dude is going to need that as well!
• Secondly, there's the Graphic Designer. A person to do all the cool CAD work and who knows a thing or two about all of the architectural software. They will also work closely with the Marketer, because thye put a visual face to a project that can be used in the marketing for the business. She's the one with a thing for doors, and demands this exciting and original threshold. As always, she'll need an office. What else might she need? Apparently a studio is a necessesity, to test out design ideas.
• There's a builder involved in the project, and he demands that there be a map with all the needed services mapped out so that everything is easily accessible to him, in terms of materials and other services. Once again, he'll get an office.... and i guess he's going to need a workshop as well, for all DIY needs.
• Lastly there is the Marketer, responsible for all the advertising and publicising of the firm. They can handle some of the finances for the business as well. They get their own office, with a room for meetings with the other colleagues to discuss business oppurtunites and also organise advertising campaigns.
• Then there's me, I guess. The Architect, designing this whole building where all of this is going to happen! What do I need? Well right now it's definately some inspiration. The tutors told me to have a look at some designs from the Japanese Metabolist era (so 1950s-60s), because when i discussed my design ideas with them they thought I had some similarities to that kind or Architecture! I googled round and did a bit of research. Here's what i found:

Courtesy of Wiki:
"In the late 1950s a small group of young Japanese architects and designers joined forces under the title of "Metabolism". Their visions for cities of the future inhabited by a mass society were characterized by large scale, flexible, and expandable structures that evoked the processes of organic growth. In their view, the traditional laws of fixed form and function were obsolete. Metabolism arose in post-World War II Japan, and so much of the work produced by the movement is primarily concerned with housing issues.
The group's work is often called technocratic and their designs are described as avant-garde with a rhetorical character. The work of the Metabolists has often been compared to the unbuilt designs of Archigram"

Need some pictures to get a better idea!






These are pretty inspirational designs, and surprisingly I hadn't ever seen them before, nor heard of the term 'Japanese Metabolists'. But it's definately given me some inspiration.... so I guess I can go start my drawings now!

What is this 'Startup Business' you speak of?

So yesterday we obtained this sheet, and it said that we need to imagine we are setting up our first 'startup business'. Hm. Initially I thought, oh right, starting up a business, righto. Then I payed more attention to that word 'startup'. Hm. Yea. I wasn't quite sure what it all meant! So I googled around as you do, and managed to work out (at least I hope!) what a 'startup business' is.
Courtesy of the ever-increasing intellect of wikipedia.org :D
"A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets."
All fair and well, right? Wrong. I am so uninformed on all things business. Need. More. Clarification.
"Startup companies can come in all forms, but the phrase "startup company" is often associated with high growth, technology oriented companies"
"A critical task in setting up a business is to conduct research in order to validate, assess and develop the ideas or business concepts in addition to opportunities to establish further and deeper understanding on the ideas or business concepts as well as their commercial potential."
And THEN they mention the internet, and it finally clicked. All this talk of technology and here I am using something started by one of these startup businesses. Well. I'm off to start thinking up some 'gathering' ideas!