Vincent Hsu

Monday, October 20, 2008

Atlas Of Colour

Process Shots

BEFORE and...

AFTER... Atlas of Colour

Navigation

The Navigation of my Atlas of Colour is conducted though a combination of three techniques. The first is the use of colour coding to illustrate a sequence. The second is a DNA mechanism which navigates with both size and layout. The individual keys of the DNA double helix form a continuous spiral that guides the viewer through the book. The chance in size of the circles also illustrate a sense of distance, logically the view reads the closest or largest circle first and so on and so forth, hence this is the last of the three techniques used to navigate the viewer in my atlas of colour.

Construction & Material

The Atlas of Colour is Primarily constructed out of thick mounting boards. This is classified as a very heavy form of paper. Unlike other cardboards and paper types, mount boards are no where as flimsy, this allows my Atlas to stand on the table with ease. However, it is also a very heavy material, and requires very strong bonding to withhold its weight. My tactic to counter the disadvantages of the material was to utilize a slightly different way of binding the book. instead of binding individual sheets, I sandwiched a thin sheet of ultra thick transparent plastic book cover in between two mount boards with double sided tape. Unlike using thin flexible paper, plastic exhibits far more tangible and flexible particles. This allows it to withstand much more wear and tear, very suitable for heavy duty bonding books.

Image Balance

Although the DNA mechanism was efficient in navigating, it created problems itself too. The main problem was that every page would have a whole that got bigger and bigger after several pages. This made the layout far more difficult to plan and required series thinking. My solution was to use a consistant continuation of subtle dots from the face map to re-balance the weight and colour of the page.

Consistancy

Consistancy was emphasized in many aspect of my atlas. This was largely due to my precedent study where I realised how difficult it was to navigate and find information when the layout is inconsistant. Examples of my consistancy would be the use of subtle dots, concentric circles, image polarization and even the continous use of constantine binding methods.

Face Map

The face map is a crucial focus on Rem Koolhaas and the book navigation. Rather than just transforming the face into a map, I find it more important to make the work serve its purpose, I.e. a map used to navigate. This is essentially conducted through the use of dots and repetition and manipulation of the European Face.

3D Colour Wheel Edit

As Recommended by the tutor, I re-photoshopped the image to make the "orange" capsules more orange and "purple" capsules more purple.

Image Polarization

By polarizing an image I can emboss either the vertical or the horizontal aspects of an illustration. This is essential when featuring certain aspects of a pattern for example.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Model Building

Exercise 1

This was the first week exercise that required us to produce individual cubes that were close to being perfect. It taught us the technique of scoring for example. We then got into pairs to use these techniques to create more difficult models, in our case, one that moves.

The Following is Balsa Wood Replica of another partners "home".
The idea was so that we were able to manipulate a unfamiliar environment and ignore certain aspect of designs, such as a floor plan layout.

These are images during the process of making the roof showing its internal structure.

This is a box board model that I created for my partner to reproduce and manipulate

This is after the manipulation of the balsa wood replica. It illustrates both a subtraction, destruction and a surface fabrication. The perspex box is used to illustrate the contained destruction as well as the space subtracted from. The surface fabrication and the melting wax inside the perspex box was used to illustrate a sense of fluidity both inside and outsite.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Fluid Thoughts To Actions Reflections

During this session, I felt that my drawing style has changed. Although I haven't entirely lost my previous ways of sketching, I feel that when I sketch buildings and ideas, I prefer to use my new way of sketching. At first, I wasn't very comfortable with this way of drawing, it felt like as if i was scribbling all over the place, but now those scribbles are actually begining to make sense as I begin to be able to control them. I always had problems to draw straight vertical lines for instance, so every now and then I would turn the paper or my body, but my new way of drawing simply eliminates the need to draw straight lines all together. Everything is literally made out of little scribbles that go in all directions. It is a very fast way of drawing that eliminates a lot of high detail hand and eye co-ordination issues, and is very suitable for grasping fast ideas that pass through my mind when I design. When i use this method of drawing, my hand moves so fast, It was characterised by my collaborative partner as "parkinson's disease".

An example of this would be the Anzac bridge in which I had sketched. In regards to my old ways of sketching, I tend to only reserve it for very fine details and accurate sketches of human faces for instance.

In conclusion, the course under its tight time constraints forced me to discover new methods of expressing ideas, methods that I would not normally pursue, but are now quite comvienient to use in a variety of circumstances.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Architectural Communications

Fluid Thoughts to Actions

Week 1 task

Week 2 - Research

Cultural Background of Utzon
The cultural background of Copenhagen architect Jorn Utzon in some aspects can be revealed through his many significant works. His style is presented through his iconic monumental civic buildings. His complex inspirations are significantly influenced by Alvar Aalto’s sculptural quality and Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic structures.
Aalto whom was a major influence to Utzon was a master in form and planning. His ideas largely focused on details that relate a building intuitively and successfully to its occupants. Aalto was significant because a synthesis of rational with intuitive design principles allowed him to utilized several aspects of different design movements and prefabricate Finnish architecture during his time.
Frank Lloyd Wright was the other major influence to Utzon largely because of his new concepts of interior space in architecture. He refuted the use of enclose space to define an area, but instead uses screening techniques and subtle chances in ceiling elevation to redefine and allow a definition for a particular space.
Utzon’s design formula consisted not only traditional retrospective design methods, but also incorporates art that portrays his forms into poetic inventions and exhibits thoughtful function, structural integrity and sculptural harmony.
Upon these rubrics of his design formulas, Utzon had one other significant element in his design, that is, the manipulation of light. Because the climate in Sydney allows a large surface exposure of sunlight, this allows Utzon to utilize opaque Arabian-alike tiles to craft the roof top of the opera house. Utzon also maps the sun path and allows light penetration through glass panels during times of low sun angles.

Previous designs
Bagsvaerd Church
Utzon interplays all three of this day lighting themes in the Bagsvared Church. These three themes include:
· Understanding that reflected or diffused light is usually preferable to a directed view of a light source.
· Sensitivity to the sun’s daily and annual paths though the sky with reference to particular places.
· Realization that light receiving devices could be made into inhabitable spaces.
The structure itself is virtually windowless and the occupant confronts the opaque enclosing walls, yet one is astonished by the interior spaces suffused with illumination.
The sun travels low in the Scandinavian sky and hence often causes a glare issue. Utzon designs to occupant ergonomics via allowing light to enter through sky light and refractive and reflective diffusion via building surfaces. This prevents all direct sunlight from reaching our eyes and causing glare.
The “happy to walk” corridors are elongated and nearly every room in the church is surrounded by two light sources and an illuminated corridor and courtyard.
The Bagsvarerd church represented not only a technical, but also a psychological breakthrough in 20th century architecture.

Kuwait National Assembly
During 1970 – 1983, the Kuwait National Assembly was created. This time, Utzon was highly concerned with the relationship between man and nature as he comments that “The dangerously strong sunshine in Kuwait makes it necessary to protect yourself in the shade – the shade is vital for your existence...”

From the buildings southeast entry to its shaded square on the northwest, the architect creates a softened version of the harsh exterior climate for human inhabitancies.
The interesting thing about this design is that it consisted of conflicting elements in which defends against natures harsh climatic conditions yet concurs with Utzon’s notions of fabric forms and curved models.