CONCLUSIONS

The entire Communication course has definitely been a worthwhile experience.

The hands-on nature of the course and the fact we could pick and choose which workshops we did made for a very entertaining and fulfilling semesters work.

From the first workshop, (Re)representing Representations, I learnt the value of the relationship between 2D, 3D and 4D as well as how this sequence can be used as a template for analysing any space. The conceptual depth of this workshop was its most fulfilling aspect.

From the second workshop, Storyboarding Interior Architectural Spaces, the main thing I learnt was the difference between design and architecture. So much emphasis was placed on this that I doubt I will even make the mistake again.

And from the third workshop, Architectural Drawing, I especially developed my perspective drawing skills and learnt about an amazing structure that I hadn't previously heard of.

Architectural Drawing Workshop: Week 4

Between last week and this week, I visited the Rose Seidler House. It was a great experience and a great home. Even though the house is from an era passed, it still felt modern; I really liked it. I loved the fact that all the furnishing was designed by Seidler too. My favourite fixture was the S bend two drawer desk in the study nooks in the corners of the bedrooms. On top of this, I really appreciated the open plan design of the home and how it helped me understand my drawings.

As for the Science Lawn task, this is what I produced:

After visiting the house, this drawing became much easier to understand. For example, before visiting the house, I thought the opening at the top of the ramp was a window! Beyond this though, I found the task unique. I really enjoyed taking the perspective given to us from real life and constructing a drawing from this. Also, the fact that the entire drawing was proportioned off a single dimension in the picture made the task even more different and enjoyable.

Also needed for this week was the final project. For this, we had to have at least two plans, two sections, two elevations and a single 3D drawing of the Rose Seidler House. This is what I produced:

Firstly, I should say that these drawings took far longer than I ever anticipated. This made it all the more better when I finished them and could actually say I liked them.

I produced a 1:2000 site model which showed the three houses on the plot of land. I wanted to emphasise the dense greenery of the area with trees drawn in plan, however they turned out a little too dominant.

Also included were two 1:100 plans of the house with the main floor plan being perspectival. The tutors really appreciated the decision to create a perspectival plan. What was even more appreciated was the fact that the point at which I took the perspective in the plan was the point at which you would stand to view my other 3D drawing, a perspective looking down the centre of the house from the middle bedroom towards the fireplace. I included this drawing because I valued how the stonework continued as an interior motif.

I then had my two 1:50 sections and elevations, which the tutors said were quite clear.

All in all, the workshop has been quite enjoyable. I especially liked the emphasis on perspective drawing as well as the major project.

Architectural Drawing Workshop: Week 3

This is what I produced for the perspective task for this weeks pin up:

Overall, I found the task quite enjoyable as it's more technical than still life drawing although drawing the fenestration was mildly challenging. Even so, I decided to use a different technique for rendering. I decided to smudge pencil as the trace provided a very even texture for this. Looking at them with everyone else's though, it seemed as if mine were lacking. From this, I decided to do another one point, as I felt this was the weakest of the two. This is what I produced:

Using a different medium and rendering technique made this particular drawing quite fun. Surprisingly though, it took much longer than most of the drawings I had produced thus far. I really liked the free hand quality of it and the sketchy style of rendering. I feel this makes it especially effective.

The in class task for this week however, was to render a space on campus using no lines. I decided to go back to my smudge technique as this worked quite well. With the aid of a few pieces of paper, I was able to mask certain areas thus creating strong edges with no lines. This was the result:

Even though the drawing turned out a little bigger than first anticipated, I really liked what I produced. I started by sketching the space normally and then using this as an underlay for the trace to produce my rendered drawing. As this particular space had many people walking through it, I opted to take a picture of the area and use this for light source reference.

Afterwards, we started on our last take home task which was to superimpose the Rose Seidler House on the campus' Science Lawn. Of what I did in class, I found slightly challenging. The reason being, I hadn't actually been to house and it was hard to draw from my iPhone.

Architectural Drawing Workshop: Week 2

The second week of Architectural Drawing started with a pin up of the previous weeks task. This is what I produced:

Overall, I was pretty happy with what I produced. It was genuinely a lot of fun and more like the graphics technology exercises we did in high school. The tutors really liked the fact I attempted a perspectival section as well as its neatness.

After this segment of the class was done, we started our next in class task. This time, we focused on the technicalities of perspective drawing and shading. This is what I produced:

I found the perspective part of this exercise quite easy, although the cylinder was slightly tricky. What I found more difficult was the shading and shadows. Making them look realistic was quite hard.

We then explored the campus in search of inspiration for a one point and two point perspective, which are this weeks take home task. We had to do this in trace layers, one with basic blocks, and another with detail and fenestration.

Architectural Drawing Workshop: Week 1

I started my third workshop this week; Architectural Drawing. Having done Graphics Technology in high school, I thought it would be a perfect way to end the Communications course.

After a brief lecture on materials and techniques, we got stuck into our first in class exercise, drawing an orthographic and still life representation of a tea cup. This is what I produced:

The exercise was a great way to get my mind back in the habit of technical drawing. It helped me pin point a few issues and errors.

After this, we got our first take home task and this was to create a plan, section, elevation and perspective of a room at each of our houses.

Storyboarding Interior Architectural Spaces: Week 4

For the final week, I produced a digitally created poster detailing a journey through my bathhouse design.

This is what I produced:

It seems as if there was a conflict between the tutors. Paola really liked it, and said it was clear and concise, whereas Cyrus liked the poster, but felt the vignettes were too similar to the ones I produced previously. What set my project apart though, was the use of colour, the utilisation of photoshop, and the fact that my scheme was completely explained on the poster.

I was happy to find that my poster made the exhibition.

GRADE: D-

OVERALL WORKSHOP GRADE: D-

Storyboarding Interior Architectural Spaces: Week 3

The structure of this week was similar to the previous week in that there was a pin up of our work.

For the take home task, I focussed on the Chemical Science building. This is what I produced:

The tutors really liked what I produced. They said the journey through the building was very apparent as well as my focus on Architecture rather than Design.

The discussion of students work took up more time than the tutors anticipated, so there wasn't any time to start the storyboard for next week. Even so, the details of the project were discussed. For the final work we are to create a storyboard of our bathhouse design from Studio 2. The option of using photoshop as a layout tool was also introduced.

GRADE: HD-

Storyboarding Interior Architectural Spaces: Week 2

This week started with a pin up of what we had produced from last week; the memory task.

This is what I produced: (The MGM Grand, Macau)

The tutors said that the continuity issue as well as the drawing style was much more resolved, but the emphasis was way off. They said that I focused too much on Interior Design rather than Interior Architecture. I didn't quite get this at first, but after a lengthy discussion, it was clear that the architecture faded into the background. For example, I focused far too much on the floor as a motif rather than the spaces within the building.

While the tutors were marking our work, they asked us to explore the campus to find a building we were to storyboard for next week. This was a lot of fun, and it was great to explore some of the buildings that we wouldn't have set foot in otherwise.

GRADE: P+

Storyboarding Interior Architectural Spaces: Week 1

This week I started my second workshop, which is also the second storyboarding workshop on offer. I chose this for two reasons. One, I don't really want to do either of the modelling workshops, and two, I wanted a more traditional exploration of storyboarding.

The workshop started with a lecture type presentation on storyboarding, which was basically common sense, but useful nonetheless. What was especially interesting were the examples shown. They were far more artistic and developed than I was expecting.

After this, we were given our first in class task, and this involved creating a storyboard of a space from memory. I found this quite difficult as I draw much more realistically when I can see what I am drawing.

After a genuine attempt, the tutors could see what I was trying to create but suggested I be more expressive with my drawing style and focus more on a continuous journey through the vignettes.

After this, I began drawing a single vignette taking on the tutors advice. The tutors responded much more receptively to this; they even got me up to talk about it.

(Re)representing Representations: Week 4

This was the time of our first submission.

During the week, Christina and I gathered our thoughts and really tried to follow the advice given to us by the tutors. At this point, we still wanted to use transparency paper as our main medium but we needed to use it in a way that better served our main concept. We decided to create transparency slides of one facade of the space rather than a single slide of three of the facades.

Through creating multiple copies of the one facade, we were able to isolate a single hole on each layer, while keeping the rest of the slides semi-opaque. The idea behind this was that when the slides were overlayed, the holes would be very obvious against a fully opaque background. We also ordered the holes in terms of size, so the biggest hole was at the very back, and the smallest was at the very front. Even so, the user can arrange them in whatever order and orientation that he or she would want.

The point of the slides is to emphasise the holes but to also show that the holes are still apparent no matter how the slides are positioned. This is what was produced:

The tutors really liked our project. At first, Haris said he didn't know what it was and he wondered how it would work, but during our explanation, his excitement and enthusiasm was apparent. Meeray really liked the fact that we created two copies of the slides only because we felt the first weren't effective enough. She likened this to "being your own tutors".

GRADE: D+

OVERALL WORKSHOP GRADE: D

(Re)representing Representations: Week 3

In this weeks workshop, the tutors decided to have less of a focus on discussion and more of a focus on production. They went around to each pair individually to assess how they were going with the weeks task of translating last weeks 2D propositions into 3D.

Christina and I focused on creating a diorama like model of the space that was hinged off itself so that the user could manipulate the dimensions of the site. Amongst this were two smaller models, one of the water feature and one of the nearby tree. At this point, our idea developed beyond reflections and depth and focused on holes instead, as even in reflections, you can see holes. For example, the sky being framed by the trees in the reflection would be considered a hole.

We were really happy with the two smaller models, as they were exploded to explore the varying holes in each.

The tutors responded well to our proposition, but were afraid that by creating such a literal model, we were losing the metaphorical side of our idea. They said the model was architectural in construction but it needed to be pushed further to explore our idea fully.

GRADE: C+

(Re)representing Representations: Week 2

This week, my partner Christina and I presented a 2D storyboard of our thought process. It involved a large sketch of the space with small digitally captured images around it. These focused on particularities of the site that could perhaps form a larger part of our project. Here's what was produced:

The tutors were slightly underwhelmed by our presentation mainly because we had such a strong idea last week. They said that since our concept was so strong we should have taken it upon ourselves to extend beyond the 2D requirements of this weeks work and made a conceptual or working model.

GRADE: C+

(Re)representing Representations: Week 1

This week marks the start of my Communications journey.

I was assigned workshop 5, (Re)representing Representations, which the course outline told me was a Storyboarding workshop. My expectations revolved around the idea of drawing in a comic strip like fashion and not much else. I was definitely mistaken though.

Instantly, the workshop atmosphere felt fun and lively with the two tutors, Haris and Meeray, bouncing off each other in speech, ideas and personalities.

Haris started the workshop by reading us a quote and starting a philosophical discussion. Meeray then asked each of us to summarise what we had just discussed with a single word. From these responses, we were paired off with the person we would be working with for the next four weeks. We then got told we'd be exploring a particular space on campus as the catalyst for all the work we produced hereafter.

This space was the outdoor area next to Goldstein Hall, adjacent to the quad.

The area was quite dark and dingy, and looked severely underused and in need of revitalisation. Even so, we needed to draw a particular inspiration from the space.

With my partner, we developed a thesis around the ideas of reflection and depth centring around the spaces water feature. It was almost dried up completely, but from a nearby balcony, you couldn't tell. This was because the reflection was so vivid.

It was especially inspiring to note the reversal in depth that a reflection causes. For example, in real life, the trees are above the water, but in the reflection, the water is above the trees.

The tutors responded really well to our idea as well as to our proposition for how we'd model it. We were instantly attracted to the idea of using transparency paper as this best idealises a waters reflection.

The task for next week is to create a 2D representation of our idea.