Competitions...

As a class our Semester 2 project has given us the challange of entering an Architectural Competition. This has been challanging in terms of coming up with an architectural solution from a landscape point of view. Below are some images I found which show some impressive Architectural Presentation boards. I took inspiration from these in terms of layout. In the end I opted for a highly edited A1 board with one main selling image. My intention was to catch the audiences attention with this image. I wanted to convey a feeling of lush planting as well as show the strength of the architecture.

This project was a real journey for me in design terms. As the brief is architectural I started with a strong architectural statemenet. As I analysed the site, I soon reaslied a new philosophy and thought about the landscape as a way to express this. It was then the project turned around for me. I knew that I was now able to proceed joining both architecture and landscape together in what I think is a strong design as well as answering the brief.

This journey was a great experience. It meant thinking about a very clear and precise brief, tackling it from the clients point of view. This was interesting as well. The client had a very particular point of view here and whether or not I agreed with them, I found myself working towards their etos. Which by the way is not a bad one.

I will upload my A1 presentation board in a few weeks. I have just submitted it to competition and I will wait until shortlisting has been announced.

Below are some of the presentation boards I found inspiring.

FOCUS WEEK MARCH 2010: TRIP TO CORK & PHOTOGRAPHY TRAINING

View of Patrick St Cork from North Aspect
picture taken by David Layton



This week I travelled to Cork, a gorgeous little city in the South of Ireland. Cork a port city has changed alot through the years. It not only has changed in Town Planning terms but also in a multi cultural sense.

Ireland now welcomes people of all nationalities to live and work in the country. This has given rise to an explosion of apartment building very much in the language of London housing.

I notice some lovely architecture as well as plenty of questionable buildings dotted around the city centre. However Cork has impoved alot both in style and quality especially after winning City of Culture in 2005.

The following photographs show Cork's regeneration of their main high street, Patricks Street. Cork County Council hired the services of Barcelona Architect/Landscape Architect Beth Gali. She designed a brave and pleasent road scape. Using interesting coloured paving she signifies pedestrian areas as well as road ways.





As you move down Patrick Street the urban scape opens into almost what becomes a plaza. This is known in Cork as The Grand Parade. Beth Gali has created some lovely lighting as well as interesting seating with trees growing from their centres.






Of course Cork is an interesting city with an equally interesting outlook. In many ways conservative but never dull. Apparently there was an indifferent response to Gali's design. Many a comment included 'Arah, it was fine the way it was'...

The next few pics are of a whole new development on Patrick St. They have knocked down an entire old block of the city and created this modern shopping complex. The architecture is nice, clear, crisp but the winner here is the new street created. It connects Patrick St to the cultural area of the Crawford Art Gallery and Cork Opera House. This is also effective in its link to the cafe culture of Paul St. The actual road layout is fairly straightforward but it has a nice link with the architecture in its patterns. There are random circular cuts into the pavement which add a little detail. I liked the lamps which are almost like wall lights. They have a pleasant contempory look.







This week was also an chance to develop my photography skills. I had an appointment with Niall in the Photography Lab. He helped me light and photography my model.




This pic was taken with a wide angle lens. Notice the cool quirky play with persepctive. Also you can see the studio backdrop in the background.


A detail of the pilotis.


The shot taken with regular SLR lens.

FOCUS WEEK JAN 2010: NATIONAL THEATRE LANDSCAPE EXHIBITION AND DIGITAL TRAINING

The first part of focus week we attended a small exhibition at the National Theatre. It was a exhibition of photographs which were entered into a competition. The photography was nice and featured some amazing landscapes throughout Britain. There were some interesting pictures which took an usual look at a landscape, focusing on the details. I did notice that about 95% of the images used photoshop effects namely Curves.


photography by Alice Hankin

photo by Alice Hankin

Photo by Alice Hankin

The second part of focus week involved developing my digital skills. I launched myself into CAD and managed to create a basic plan with measurements. I also attempted to use CADs 3D modelling. This was tricky but I think with practice both will be useful.

Using some online tutorials on Utube I also worked on photoshop skills. In particular I had some fun playing with effects to alter faces. Here is an example of before and after of Helen Mirren...

The Cruel hand of time...


The magic of photoshop...

FOCUS WEEK NOV 2009: MORE LONDON

OPEN HOUSE PHOTO COMPETITION

I attended the Open House weekend during the Summer. I entered the above picture as part of a competition they help as part of the weekend. The theme of the competition was juxtAposition so I choose to go for an abstract approach.

Visitors to the Swain House in Highgate were asked to take off their shoes. I thought it was interesting to show the different styles of shoes alongside the details of the architecture. I felt it added an air of mystery, little is given away about how these people look or even what the architecture looks like.

My entry can be viewed on line, if you go to the link in WEBSITES OF INTEREST here on my blog.

SECOND LIFE, ARCHITECTURALLY SPEAKING

A typical building in Second Life


An Avatar been 'created' or perhaps born?

I read a report recently about this virtual world called Second Life. The article talked about a woman in the States called Anshe Chung who became the first Virtual Millionaire. Infact she is a millionaire in real life because of her clever business sense in virtual reality.

What could this mean? Out of curiousity and a student yearning to make a few bucks myself I downloaded Second Life and within half an hour I was creating my own Avatar.

An Avatar is your own character which you use to move about this world. It allows you to change every facet of your Avatar's physicality. This was fun. Needless to say my Avatar was a muscular male model.

You then teleport to whatever land takes your fancy. It takes a bit of time to get used to the system, but can be interesting. Some of the other Avatar's take all shapes and forms. Those that are human in form are all gorgeous. There are no fat people in second life. Then you have fantastical Avatars which range from flying dragons to unicorn-women. As I moved about a Victorian virtual scape I was greeted by a talking cat. Clearly the human behind this Avatar decided to represent him/herself in this form. Ok.

The money making in Second Life is very real. The game, if you can call it that, has its own currency called Linden Dollors. As a rough translation, every 100 Linden dollors equates to 1 US dollor. You can browse everything from clothing to new body 'skins' and everything has a price, a Linden price. The interesting thing is that items for sale are relevant to the virtual world. Users of Second Life or residents as they are called buy products to dress their Avatars and even buy homes for them to live in.

This is what interested me. I wondered could this be my angle? Become a virtual architect/landscape architect? I went to a training land to learn how to build. I was surprised at how accurate the building tools are. You start with a geometric shape (a prim) and go from there. The system allows you to add various textures or even import your own from photoshop. The measurements are pretty accurate to the metre. I guess as a 3D form of modelling its not bad.

I spend a little time playing with the building programme but found that it required alot of time to get used to. This of course is spend within the virtual world. So as your Avatar stands there building, other Avatars walk past. Some stopping to say hello or running into you. I was soon seeing the addictive nature of Second Life.

Imagine a world where everyone is beautiful? Imagine a world where your every desire is fufilled and your every fantasy realised...Second life seemingly offers all this. But who are the people behind Avatars? Are they sad lonely freaks who have given up on succeeding in the real world? Second Life was very quickly becoming weird to me. I wondered in reality how much time would it take me to make enough Linden Dollors to see a profit? I wondered what the price might be...

I also have read about people who spend too much time in Second Life, it ends up screwing with their perception. Apparently there have been a few cases at UCL of students not knowing which life they were actually in. I was only a 'resident' for less then two weeks and despite it been a game, it has a strange draw. At one point I was changing my Avatar's clothes. I thought I'd give him some style. By accident he ended up naked and I felt a sudden burst of embarrasment. It gave a new dimension to dreaming about been naked. It was at that point I decided I'd stick to my first life...

Perhaps I will get stabbed on the No. 29 bus, perhaps I'll be short changed somewhere and perhaps I'll meet the love of my life in Waitrose (which won't happen as I'm a student and can't afford to shop there. Perhaps Asda.) but I think I'll take a risk in the real world.

Second Life offers something unique and I do think it is a picture of what the future will be. I can imagine the internet will become a virtual world. So instead of buying products for your Avatars, you will instead buy for your real life. Until that moment comes, I choose control panel, uninstall Second Life. Delete.

PS. Worth noting James Cameron's AVATAR movie coming out on the 18th Dec 2009

FOCUS WEEK SEPT 2009: PAPER CITIES

Here are some images I have taken from the net to show some interesting concepts...









http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/architecture-on-the-ramp/paper-city-urban-utopias,290,RAL.html

This small exhibition is running at The Royal Academy of Arts on Picadilly. It was interesting to see and was more conceptual they I expected. There were some interesting ideas on display.

Part of the exhibition included a competition which asks you to submit a design for a potential city of the future. I decided to enter and have submitted my idea. I opted for an idea for a small city off the cost of a country. The city stands on pilotis and is a kind of metropolis. The transport infrastructure is under water with train and electric cars serving the island. You reach the city via high speed glass pod lifts wich connect to the various levels. The lower level are the corporate, banking etc, above that the administraive and flats for young professionals and then the housing again on smaller pilotis with lots of space between for gardens, communal meeting places. The very top level of the metropolis is a huge park garden. The island is split down the middle with a atrium over streets and walkways in the sky. This area is flanked on either side by two vertical areas for leisure and entertainment.


'ISLAND METROPOLIS' my competition entry


UPDATE 4th Dec 09

My entry was shortlisted in this competition. It was judged by a panel including Peter Cook RA.

"An amazing idea and proposition for a super-city structure located in the sea."

You can view this online, Image 9 by going to WEBSITES OF INTEREST on my blog page.

UPDATE 4TH MARCH 2010
This article appeared on the Kingston faculty website. It was written by my lecturer Ed Wall. Thank you to him for his kind words.



UPDATE 10TH MARCH 2010

I received a call from a journalism student from Kingston Uni who interviewed me re this competition for River Online, University students online magazine.

The above article appeared online on River Online on the 17th March.