Friday, September 12, 2008

EXC2

Exercise 2 to me was a chance to improve on the failures of exc1. Following suggestions from classmates, I changed my style of presentation in terms of format and structure of drawings.
Likewise, following suggestions from Ainslie, instead of colour, I experimented with grayscale drawings which would be able to show materiality as well as depth.
The outcome was an overall success. As seen clearly here, although the exc1 drawings were "bright" and "pretty", they were not as effective as showing key features of what I wanted to show.


1:200 sections
While drawing the sections, I felt that the actual reading of the drawings were hard. The building itself has an angled portion which can create confusions when studying the drawing. To offset this, I did three plans; a floor plan, a second floor plan, and a ground floor plan. With these as aid, I felt the 1:200 drawings were read much easier and improved the general structure of that A1 sheet.


1:20 detail
The 1:20 drawing took over two days to complete. The building shape only took two or so hours, but the rest was spent on rendering. Note the rendering is not a standard style. Instead of showing materials with their "standard drafting representations", I opted to show them in terms of their material "heaviness". Thus, the concrete is rendered with tightly hashed lines, the steel is rendered with a full bodied grey and the glass is only slightly rendered at section cuts. By doing this, I felt the drawings were given not only a sense of their materiality, but a sense of its structural weight on its site.

The 1:20 also showed the reasoning behind the shape of the structure. I played around with the effects that shapes and lines could have on the thoughts and activities of humans. The side that "overlooks", is only the shape of the window facade, but it creates an illusion that makes people think they are overlooking the field. The other side has a soft curve that creates a less "imposing" atmosphere on passers-by, and also allows a conversation between the oppostie rugby club and itself.

With reflection, the drawings still lacked a few things that I will deal with in the following submission. Most particularly, the plans were not placed in enough context with the surroundings, and although I presented my thoughts of "why" the building was designed like this, the drawing did not fully show these ideas. Also, for the final submission, I will be sure to also include a longitudinal section as my building would benefit from such a drawing.

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