Interdisciplinary design project.

This week we've undertaken the interdisciplinary design project, looking at redeveloping the Tetley's brewery site on the south edge of Leeds city centre.

This is the project that we came up with.

I felt that the 3 days were quite an interesting learning experience, it was good to see what other courses did and how they worked however I did feel it was flawed.

There were too many architects in our group meaning that people were arguing with each other to try and get their own way in the design process, mean while the project managers, who were suposed to be in charge of us failed to have any real valid input in the design.

Overall I found the week useful but did finish up wanting abit more from the experience.

Tech hand in.

Handed our tech project in, the total slide count came to over 500. I felt that it was probably about as good as it could be.

We had some problems with our group, several members decided they didn't want to work with all of us and said they were going to continue alone only to form a separate group away from the rest of us.

I felt that that was a pretty underhanded thing to do and it definitely pushed us back abit, we just got on with it and did the best that we could so hopefully it turns out ok.

Personally I was happy with my contribution I was building up the details and looking at the programme of accommodation and was really happy with the way it turned out, there were members of our group who didn't pull their weight though which was disappointing.

Tutorial - Cube

After having a tutorial I decided to look into designing a square design that would fit around the existing grid laid down by the car park. I made a steel model to reflect this.

I first made a jig inorder to ensure that all the pieces of the frame were square, I then went on to build the model up step by step.

I really enjoyed using steel as a modelling material and felt that by physically welding the frame together I had a better understanding of how the structure works.

This is one of the most enjoyable pieces of work I've done this semester and am happy as it was well received by both my peers and my tutors.

Light Drawing.

As I've been using LED's in my earlier work I wanted to look at light drawing and have tried to do some light drawing in section.

I felt it was quite a successful exercise and it helped me to better understand the effect that small hand movements can effect a drawing or image.

Design Workshop.

Today we had a design workshop, we pinned up long rolls over paper onto the boards and had to respond to questions set by our tutors.

It didn't go very well for me because I'm still struggling with the concepts of my design, it did however give me a bit of a wake up call in that I need to do better at time management and planning in terms of getting my design work done.

101 things.....

I bought this book today, after flicking through it quickly it seems to be really helpful in reminding you to do the basics when your caught up in the designing process.

The Car park.

After talking to my tutor today I felt it was important to better understand the carpark underneath the site, I looked at it in both plan and section to help get my head round the structure.

I felt that this was a really worthwhile task, understanding the structure of the car park has really helped me think more deeply about my design, I'm now designing with a structural grid which I think will really help.

Creative response progress

This is my final creative response to the the site, looking at people movement over the site.

Following comments from my tutor Dennis I used fishing wire as the vertical elements rather than string so that it becomes almost invisible allowing the mapping to become the dominant element.

Overall I was very pleased with this piece of work, it helped me to visually understand the movement over the site better and allowed me to suggest a location for my building.

Istanbul Projects update

Following on from the film making I did before going to Istanbul I continued to work on it.

I produced two films both leading through the site mapping the route down at both day and night.

The first video was a combination of 4 different camera shots on the same screen, the helped to develop my editing skills further, putting the footage together and getting the timings right on it. However because it was at least a 30 minute walk down through all the sites it had to be sped up and the finished video felt quite shakey, something I wasn't very happy with.

The second video was done at night, using a combination of still long exposure photographs with light trails moving through them leading down the site. I was very pleased how this came out, it took 4 of us over 5 hours to get all the photograph taken and was a really satisfying piece of work when finished.

I've really enjoyed learning how to edit and create films over the past couple of months, I feel as though its a good skill to have gained and am really happy that the tutors pushed us in this direction.

Critical Study Progress....

We've been tasked to write 1000 words for our critical study and hand them in to out tutor on 24/10/11 I've been having quite abit of trouble writing mine as I'm still reading lots of different articles and journals etc. and still haven't properly settled on what I want the question to be.

I'm planning to really focus on it this weekend and get things straight in my mind.

Creative Response.

We've been set the task of doing a 'creative response' to our time in Istanbul. I'm currently looking a creating some sort of mapping model tracking the movement of people over my site.

I've been looking at string models for inspiration.

Brief.

So we got our design brief today, there were several options one of which being a cinema.

I felt this brief would suit me due to the work I've been doing making films and also the fact that I work in a cinema.

I also think it suits the site that I've chosen, it's a public square ontop of a multi-storey car park in a residential area called Changir, its pretty much in the centre between two of Istanbul's main attractions. Takism Square and the Modern.

This is a panoramic of the site.

Istanbul

Just got back from Istanbul, had a fantastic time, the place was absolutely fascinating.

The definition between Western and Eastern influence becomes really blurred at times, and at others is very clear to see.

The importance of religion in their everyday lives is incredible to see, the contrast to our country is very stark.

I'm going to quickly upload a few photos and I'll do a couple of posts about the projects and specific visits that we did later.

Istanbul!

Off to visit Istanbul tomorrow, I'll post afew photos and thoughts when I get back!

Presentation #1

Presented our film and slideviewer to the group today, the film went down really well. People seemed impressed with the editing and the content. I wasn't very happy hearing the monologues that I'd written and read over big speakers as i thought my voice sounded awful but overall I was happy with it.

The slideviwer turned out really well too, here it is in use.

In terms of how we worked collectively as a group I wasn't that happy, I felt that most of the work was left to me and the other 3rd year in our group as we made both the film and the slideviewer while the 2nd years only supplied the research and images.

Personally I was really happy with my input into the project and feel if I can keep this level of hard work up it'll be a good year.

More Reading..

I've spent the last couple of days reading  Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul - Memories or a City

It's almost an autobiography of his childhood in Istanbul and holds great insight. Theres a specific chapter looking at Huzun which I've found really helpful in learning about the philosophies of it. 

It's also helping me to write the monologue for the film.

Critical Study.

I've also had a critical study meeting with my tutor Sarah Mills this week.

We went through all of our studies as a group and Sarah gave us all feedback on the booklets we've been working on over the summer.

She felt that I needed to read deeper into the subject and because it was so current I should be looking at newspaper articles as a source.

She also that I really needed to focus on a specific area for my study to be successful as the topic area is so broad.

I felt this was a fair response and am going to really try to get on top of it in the next couple of weeks.

Technology Lectures.

Lectures have started for technology this week, the brief for AT3.1 has been set and it is to reverse engineer a specific building, a project that in the past I've found to be really interesting and a great learning experience.

The building I have is the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield, designed by David Chipperfield.

I'm really happy with this building as it's something I've already visited in the past and quite like.

Istanbul

Spent the afternoon planning the trip to Istanbul. Me and another student are traveling together and fly out on the 8th for a week. Getting pretty excited about it!

It's going to be a great experience as the city is such a cultural and historical gem. I'm really excited to see the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque in particular.

Group Work.

The Group project is going really well, we had a tutorial today and decided to add a second part on to the film that I've been working on.

The plan is to respond the the Huzun film of Istanbul with a film of Leeds representing how we feel the city is. I think it's a great idea and it will give me the chance to film my own footage and learn that side of the video editing process too.

In terms of the Slide viewer we've had the 2nd year students collating information on Istnabul and Cinema and we plan to make it over the next couple of days.

This is a quick sketch of how we want it to look....

Video editing.

I've got hold of a program called Final Cut Pro X and have been slowly learning how to edit videos.

The main problem has been getting hold of suitable footage of Istanbul.

As you can see it's a pretty complicated program to get to grips with!

 Heres acouple of screen grabs from the film as it is, I've put a filter on all the footage I've found so that it all looks similar. I'm currently writing a monologue to go over the top of the film but more on that later....

Reading.......

Just thought I'd post on what I've been reading,


The New Ruins of Great Britain by Owen Hatherly
and Ground Control by Anna Minton

Both books are for my Critical study which I've decided will be on Architecture during the Labour governments time in power.

I'm personally quite interested in polotics so I think it's a good choice of topics, I just need to carry on reading and start to form an question and argument.

Istanbul Group

Had our first group meeting with the tutors today.

We've been set a desk top study project to complete and present before we go on the trip to Istanbul, I'm in a group with another 3rd year and two 2nd year students looking at Modernity and Cinema in Istanbul and Huzun, which is a particular emotion that its said the city expresses.

After discussing it together we've decided to make a couple of different pieces as a response. We wanted to stay away from the standard powerpoint presentation and have decided to make a film that will respond to Huzun and a slide viewer and map responding to cinema.

In terms of splitting up the work I volunteered to make the film as it's something I've never done before and a skill I'd really like to learn!

Back to Work

Just Enrolled back on the course, I'm really excited about 3rd year. I think having to resit my design modules for 2nd year has really helped me to develop my skills as a designer and architect.

I'm in a Tutor group led by Sarah Mills and Dennis Burr, our project will be set in Istanbul this semester which I'm really excited about!

My main aims for the year are:
To push my self creatively in my design work, not to get stuck and set on a single idea.
To continue to improve my computer skills both in 2D photoshop and 3D modelling.
And to try and think about the technological side of my designing more, as this is something that I have not properly done for a year and will have to really keep on top of it.

Final Model

These are acouple of images of my final laser cut model for Cambridge. I'd never used the laser cutter to do a model before this, I was really happy with how it turned out, next time I use it i think I will need to plan the pieces of the model better as this one became quite intricate and fiddly.

Redone Section - Holbeck

This is a section that I redid for Holbeck, it's the first time I've attempted to draw a perspective section.

I felt that this was one of the strongest pieces of work I've done all year, I think it's the best image in my portfolio.

I'm really pleased with how it came out and feel as though its a skill I can really develop next year.

Development models

These are some development models I created moving on from my intuative response, looking at how I could create a facade that world replicate and allow the natural elements to filter through the building.

I was really happy with these models and enjoyed using models in the design process.

Intuative Response.

This was my final intuitive response, looking at how the nature developed over the site as the seasons changed.

I really enjoyed doing a piece that was completely abstract to anything I've done before, it really helped to get my creative side flowing and get me excited to get stuck into the project.

Library Study

We were asked to analyze certain libraries, I got the stockholm library.

I was abit disappointed with the feed back I was given, I felt I worked hard on several images like the one shown above only to for them to be overlooked in my presentation of them.

I've got quite afew changes to make on my analysis for it to be a successful project.

The Wonders of the Internet

I've been browsing round the web all day today looking for precedence and other things. I came across a couple of interesting bits and pieces.

It's interesting how many of these simple little squares are immediately recognizable as the architects they represent.


This is the alphabet made from looking up at buildings from street level, brilliant.

Mapping.

This intuitive response seems to have taken over my life at the minute. Heres a really interesting video about mapping sound..

Celeste Motus (excerpts) from Abstract Birds on Vimeo.

The Middle sequence of this is beautiful

Intuative Response Part 2

I was looking at mapping and how things naturally occur so I decided to drop into water and see if I could control the outcome in some sort of way. This is the results.

Cambridge.

I'm going to do a proper post for my trip to Cambridge later but I thought I'd stick this on first. It made me laugh, it's me sat on a childrens climbing frame in the Acordia housing development.

This was the view from our studio this evening.

It was a really beautiful and quite inspiring moment.

Diagram.

I while ago I wrote about Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man and about diagrams. I've had a go at doing a sort of Parti diagram for my latest project. I'm really pleased with it.

Holbeck Model

This is a concept model I did for my latest project, 'Holbeck Heritage' I was trying to look at it as a volumertric study, aswell as a material one. I cut up some old bricks I found near my house.

I was really pleased with how it turned out.