Reflection

Architecture in Motion:
I think the most important aspect I have learnt from this workshop is the realization that sketches, models, or handcrafted objects are much more appealing to real-life photos. This is because sketches and handmade models express a very unique human spirit through the roughness and imperfection of the production, while a real-life photo is dead and dull in a sense. I also think the workshop has taught me how to sequence ideas to produce a continuous flow in presentations. Reflecting on the final video, I thought it was not very successful in communicating the architectural space because the focus for the video was all on the plastic bag instead of the environment. This is one of the biggest flaw of a narrative-based video, as viewers are more drawn to the narration than to the background of where the narration takes place.

Fluid Thoughts to Action:
This workshop in my opinion is the most useful among the three I have entered. It has totally motivated me to continuously sketch and draw, and through all the drawing process, I have explored my own capabilities in drawing, experimented on different techniques to express a space or an object, and also improved drastically on my perspective sense and sketching. I also obtained a greater understanding of the continuation of space from the collages made in class. Although it was hard to grasp the meaning of "duration of movement" at the start of the workshop, after the final exhibition and discussion of everyone's work, I finally understood how to create a sense of movement even for a 2-dimentional picture. The technique in doing this was particualarly similar to the drawing style of William Kendridge, a charcoal artist introduced in the previous Architecture in Motion session.

Architectural Drawing:
The knowledge I have obtained from this workshop might not be as great as the previous ones, but the tasks were definately the most interesting of them all. From them, I have learned various drawing techniques from rendering to shading. But the most beneficial task of this workshop would be the final presentation of the set buildings chosen. Doing the task was not as useful as it seems, but it is when everyone exhibits their drawings out that you can clearly understand which drawing is actually successful in communicating to the viewers by comparison. Not only have I understood techniques to stand out and catch attention, but also how to layout the drawings for viewers to read at ease. Regarding my own project, I thought that my presentation had really failed to catch attention, and even though I have a central idea for the drawing, it was not successfully exhibited on it.

Session 3 - Architectural Drawing

In-Class drawings:

The above is a perspective drawing of the Botta house. I have chosen not to use any rendering for the building because the form of the building itself is already interesting enough to catch the attention of viewers. I have also added details of the brick using pencil but outlined the building using a pen, which provides a bit more detail to the drawing in compensation of the absence of rendering. To express the depth of building in the drawing, I have drawn three human figures (2 downhill, 1 uphill) at different depths. This not only gives clear indication of the scale of the building, but more importantly express the tranquility and loneliness of it.

This cup rendering task is probably my best drawing for this session. In response to the objective of presenting a plan, section and elevation of a cup shown in class, I have approached the drawing with a more graphical method than a technical method, where the outlines are faint and the form of the cup is expression through the rendering. Most of the measurements are guessed and it was a very satisfying process to solidify the shape and depth of the cup through memory instead of exact measurements.


This is a draft of the ideas for the final presentation of this session. The top shows one idea where one vanishing point is situated at the centre of the page and the drawings would stretch out from the centre. Other ideas experiment on the different layouts of the drawings in 2D.


A rendering exercise of the Healey house by Neville Gruzman. The time spent on this exercise was particularly short and I don't find the exercise as useful as it was meant to be.




Final Presentation:

The approach for this presentation is to place the drawings in a logical sequence but also exhibit the sloping element of the Botta House. The plans, sections and elevations are all places in a sloping fasion which references the slope section at the bottom right corner of the whole drawing. And by sequencing, the plans are lined from the bottom floor to top with a hierarchy of placement. The plans then leads directly downwards to the east and north section, and the building completes a whole rotation by adding the west and south elevation at the side with the same hierarchy of placement. Lastly, the elevation leads directly to the perspective drawing right below. This particular sequencing is to exhibit a journey of the process thinking of the building, where plans lead to sections, sections leads to elevation, and finally elevation leads to form.

2nd Session - Fluid Thoughts to Action

A4 Sketches:


The above are best samples taken from my A4 sketchbook for the final submission. As shown, the approach to some of my drawings are very bold with less variant in gradient. The purpose of this approach is solely to express the form of the objects drawing in the pictures. Some of my other pictures however is more expressive in terms of light and dark, and the nature for these pictures are more lifelike. All of the pictures are drawn with the same piece of charcoal and this proves that charcoal drawings can be very flexible and can provide wonderful images.


A charcoal drawing of the balcony of my apartment. A distinctive light and dark contrast is produced between indoor and outdoor spaces. A special note is how the scenary outdoors is blurred and sketched so the focus remains on the balcony.


A drawing of a wall lamp situated on one of the walls of the building i live in. This is an experimentation of not including line edges for objects in a picture, but to express form through different gradients. This produces a very soft but lifelike image instead.




Folio:

This is the folio where all the A2 drawings done are documented in. I have used a fold up folio for the final submission and the frame for the pictures are alternated black and white to provide contrast so each picture is distinctively seperated from each other.

For the first opera house sketch, I tried to provide a contrast between the roof and the wall structure by darkening the walls and bleaching the roof. I also attempted to provide detail for the wall structure by using different gradients.

As for the second picture, this is drawn from the side of the opera house and the objective for the drawing is to exhibit the duration of movement. Faint line footprints can be seen below the bold lines of the existing view, which are linework of the same wall drawn from a different angle. I have completely darkened the right side of the drawing to provide a sense of memory and hint the viewer of the existance of an extension of the space drawn.

The task for this drawing is to draw a space according to a short spatial description written by another student. The description for the above is as follows:

"An empty room that feels very lonely. There is only one door that is seen at the deepest corner of its fairly narrow shaped room. Only small amount of light is penerated throguh a small circular opening on a wall of the room (creating a 'spot light' effect). The room feels very cold because of its emptiness. A small wooden chair is located in the centre of the room. This chair once again conveys the meaning of loneliness of this room."

The above is a drawing of the window view on the 6th floor of the red centre. One of the buildings seen from the scenery is then to be enlarge to show duration of movement from a far view to a close view.

Tasked to draw various objects situated on a table, I have tried to leave a more obvious footprint so to articulate the movement of the objects through time. Pale linework can be seen at the background of the drawing which suggests an object previously present at that space.

1st Session - Architecture in Motion

Frames:


The above two pictures shows my attempt to combine a drawing element into a photo. The approach in my case is just to outline the plastic bag (the protagonist in my film) and add complexity to the drawing to produce a 3-dimentional effect. Face expression and and other effects are produced by sticking the appropriate part right onto the photo. This is my approach for the modelling aspect for this session and I personally think the outcome is very satisfying.

These few sketches are attempts to outline a photo to produce a full drawing of the scene, so that modelling mentioned above can be omitted in this case as effects can be drawn directly onto the paper. Comparing this group to the previous pictures, I would have prefered producing my video using the full sketch method. This is because the full sketches provide a real cartoony effect which suits the theme for my video and it also exhibits a consistancy where both the environment and the protagonist are handdrawn.

Video:


Above is the final video produced for the Architecture in Motion session. The story of my video is about a plastic bag which routinely cleans up trash in my bedroom, and I call it the "Garbage Dog".

In regards to the exploration of the architectural space, I have tried to give understanding of this space to the viewer in the perspective of the plastic bag. Most part of the video only captured the floor of the space so to give the viewer a rough estimation of the area of the space throughout the exploration/journey of the plastic bag. It is also a nice way to picture how a pet or a small creature would venture through a environment of a much larger scale.