Exp 3 - Dos and Donts on Presentation

In the real world as well as university, a successful architectural product is half a design skill and half a well executed sales pitch. One can completely ruin a flawless design by presenting poor collateral. On the other hand, one can also make a banal architecture sell just through curatorial decision making, misdirection, and pure showmanship (well.....to a client at least. Architects are still marking your work)!

here are a list of do's and dont's for you to consider when you are presenting your work:

Do: Exploit the power of the "hero shot", and - if composing - thread together a hierarchy of hero and detail shots.

Dont: Show your design from a word document or a powerpoint layout. 

Do: Practice judicious selection of images - from birds eye view to human scale walkthrough, and from external to internal - to bring together an appreciation of your building in a multitude of scales and environments.

Dont: Repeat your images

Do: Guide the viewer along in understanding how your whole building fits together. Using videos may aid this too, even thou its not mandatory.

Dont: Try to conceal the fact that you are missing elevators (i'll jump into your cryengine files). Videos tend to be good at showing how elevators work too, although videos are not mandatory.

Do: Leave people in awe of your environment.

Dont: Submit low grade, pixelated images, or building that glows awkwardly in daylight, or untextured landscape onto your submission.

Do: If making videos, get them to the point. For example, show the interactive components and the walkthrough.

If you really have to make a long one, make it entertaining.

Dont: Put your viewers to sleep.

Politics and the English Language - George Orwell

As we have discussed in class, George Orwell's essay:

"The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing."

So, for your mashup - make sense of it. And apply Orwells five rules of writing a literature:

"

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

"

Heres the link: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79p/index.html

Bridge vs Bridging

" ...design a school that forms a bridge spanning a valley..."

A way to address this is to think of the bridge (a structure to span a physical obstacle) and the act of bridging in architecture (to connect, to link together and complete as a whole). Consider the structural significace of the bridge(noun), the relationships, hierarchies created from bridging(verb), and the merging of engineering, space, and aesthetics. Take this thinking to work out how these two strategies can come together to create an interesting architecture.


Bridge(noun)

Norman Foster - Millemium Bridge

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Norman Foster - Millau Viaduct

can a distancing from the ground inform an attitude to power?

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Putrajaya Bridge

can the expression of forces going through your structure express an attitude to power?

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Bridging(verb)

BIG Architects - Sowwah Island Bridge

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BIG Architects - Slussen Masterplan

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United Architects - New World Trade Center Proposal

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Steven Holl - Linked Hybrid

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MVRDV - Eurpoean Patent Office

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Kenzo Tange - Fuji Television Headquarters

And below is just a bridge.........so be a bit more thoughtful than this

Steven Holl - LM Project

Exp 3 Re-Cap

So people, As you can see Lynette has set the bar for the landscape component of this experiment so far, so lets all aim for that!

Also, half of you were falling behind on Tuesday, so i want you all to catch up on the work including learning how to move a rectangle up and down. Also now start on a draft massing model of your scheme (think about our last exercise, but instead of using 10 rectangles we are using the room list!).

Shaowen's group is a good example: http://arch1101-2013sw.blogspot.com.au/

Theories - Class pool

1) Form Follows Function
2) Form and Function are One
3) Touch the earth lightly
4) Less is more
5) Less is a bore
6) Ornament and crime
7) House is a machine for living
8) Mass and Void
9) More is more
10) Mess is more
11) Defensible space
12) The Stair is a room.

And from our civil engineers:

12) Whole is greater than the sum of its parts
13) Sum of all the forces = 0

Some from yours truly:

14) The duck and the decorated shed
15) The monumentally informal
16) Phenomenal Transparency

More 1 + 1 = 3

Some interesting 1+1=3 quotes from prominent people found in an old book of mine. Click to view original size.

The title of the book is 'The Art of Looking Sideways' by Alan Fletcher. Its either 600 pages of inspiring read and visuals on design, or a very useful doorstopper or brick depending on what your attention span is like.

Rule #1 with a room list - Space Planning

Rule #1, Diagram your spaces. Consider functional types. Slow down. In diagrams, think about how spaces will relate to each other, their co-location, their relative sizing.

http://www.paragon-architecture.com/architects/?page_id=278

Seattle Public Library, Diagram

Seattle Public Library, Diagrammatic Section

Rex on how he broke all the rules. 

Multi-functional Pavilions, Aleksander Wadas