Felicia Marshall

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model two

In the second model I decided to venture away from the specific shapes and sizes of the objects in the scene and look at how certain angles of light change the frame of view.

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model one

For this model I wanted to explore how to make the specific shapes in the scene and how they interact with one another in the space.

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Signs of Human Life

In the following posts are two models designed based on Blade Runner 2049 and sketches drawn extremely rapidly while watching the movie. I chose this scene where the main character, Officer K, goes to Las Vegas (or what’s left of it) in order to find Rick Deckard, and at this particular moment Officer K comes into reassurance that Deckard is definitely there somewhere. This is the sign of human life where it was thought to have been abandoned many, many years ago.

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As an advocate for green design this plan for the Vertical Village in the suburbs of Paris is an elegant and astonishing design to revamp the area. The gorgeous towering mixed-use building uses white columns that are an architect Sou Fujimoto signature, providing a sleek, sophisticated design. 

From the rendering above, it seems to me that there may be some extraneous columns and material that is, personally, unnecessary especially if it is just for aesthetic purposes. They may have been able to use those spaces to provide green spaces for communal purposes or for a place to locate pv systems to provide energy for the building and send into the grid. They tastefully designed this building and were able to effectively communicate their ideas through their drawings, specifically the renderings which give a dystopian vibe to a hyper-dense living area that could be located anywhere.

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/04/17/paris-to-get-vertical-village-by-sou-fujimoto-nicolas-laisne-and-dimitri-roussel/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest&utm_content=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest+CID_527de5e8c1e58c8f84d8fe27cabff81c&utm_source=Dezeen%20Mail&utm_term=Vertical%20Village%20by%20Sou%20Fujimoto%20Nicolas%20Laisn%20and%20Dimitri%20Roussel

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The Good Direction

Apple is setting a good example to other corporations and aim to push renewable energy in the “good” direction, which is the right direction for helping the pressing issue of climate change. According to Apple, all of the retail stores, offices, and data centers located in a long list of countries, are now using almost purely renewable energy. The new designs of their buildings are as green as you can go, showing other people and designers that a world supported by 100 percent renewable energy is possible and doable.

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/04/10/apple-facilities-powered-by-renewable-energy/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest&utm_content=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest+CID_8ead5d7758ddb13c476e9422a836d9d1&utm_source=Dezeen%20Mail&utm_term=Apple%20now%20operating%20on%20100%20per%20cent%20renewable%20energy

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Stop Motion

The architecture produced in and for films has always interested me, especially when they are animated or not actually built. The technology used to create these masterpieces is something in and of itself. The artists’ inspiration has to come from somewhere, just like production designer Paul Harrod for Wes Anderson’s newest movie “Isle of Dogs”, who “takes its cues from the work of Japanese architect Kenzo Tange.” Harrod designed 240 sets and 44 stages for the movie which is an astonishing amount to me considering it is a stop motion clay production. Wes Anderson is known for his aesthetic and artistic movies and these sets for the new movie only show how creative and intuitive he and his team are. This example displays how architecture has influence in everything and that anyone who puts their mind to it can be a designer in their own way.

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/03/28/wes-anderson-isle-of-dogs-sets-metabolist-architecture-paul-harrod-interview/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest&utm_content=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest+CID_2ae9648ee65a8706acedc919577b95fc&utm_source=Dezeen%20Mail&utm_term=Dezeen%20interviewed%20the%20production%20designer%20from%20Wes%20Andersons%20Isle%20of%20Dogs

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WASTE, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

     In the lecture Jimenez brought up five main points with which he used at least one of Bureau Spectacular’s (B.S.) projects to describe and define what was being researched and discovered through each point: Posture, Materiality, Fitness, “Meta-Modernism”, and Afterlife. What impacted me the most was how he contrasted the Tower of Twelve Stories and Pool Party. During the Fitness portion Jimenez showed the Tower of Twelve Stories (Above 1), which was a project built for the music festival Coachella in 2016 in which B.S. began to ask questions like “Can you make a 3D collage?”, “Can you be contextual?”, and how they could make something cartoonish, into architecture. They built this fictional apartment building in a steel frame cladded with wood (Above 2) to be a blank slate allowing the project to be flexible and without distinction to any viewer giving them the opportunity to imagine what the will about the structure. Jimenez discussed that he disliked how wasteful this project was, realizing after the festival that all the material used on the Tower of Twelve Stories was to just be ripped apart and thrown away; this fact bothered him and his colleagues immensely.

     This consequence of unnecessary use of materials lead to the firms next large project, Pool Party (Above 3). At the beginning of this project they began asking significantly different questions based on what they learned with the previous project. They wanted to be able to design something by only finding and reusing materials that will also have an Afterlife. This project was the last one he brought up which I find compelling because he wanted the idea of recycling and reusing materials to stand out the most and give inspiration for the rest of us to do the same. Pool Party is surprisingly intriguing in its visual state and, more importantly, its deeper meaning that does not necessarily stand out to typical viewers. They designed this project with their main focuses on creating an urban living room specifically for relaxation and deploying a “’catch-and-release’ material strategy.” I find it so essential that all designers begin to think this way, our world has so many things that have become useless and we need to give those objects new meaning instead of trying to create more things that will ultimately become useless, lying in someone’s garage or buried in the dumps of reality.

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Urbanized Plant Life

Is the CityTree the next move to combat the urban forest?

This “first intelligent biological air filter” could change how cities look at and understand the harm of pollution. The use of different of different plants and mosses best known to collect pollution, the solar panel that powers the built in irrigation system that also collects rainwater, and the Internet of Things technology are all examples of what great design can be. It is a simplistic, yet extremely complicated design that has hidden aspects of intrigue for those really looking at the design. The added benches are another way to give back to the community in an appealing way. The photo shows that people admire it and are able to just glance at its beauty in passing, but it has deeper elements to allow people who are more interested in the details and why it is there. I hope that more people become invested in this project and others like it so that it can spread to other cities.

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/03/21/moss-covered-citytree-bench-combats-urban-pollution-london-uk/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest&utm_content=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest+CID_27077d95a2ea09799884da771213462e&utm_source=Dezeen%20Mail

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Peeking

Slivers of view into each defined space, containing no single room by definition and rather combining a series of rooms into layers. The definition of what is typically a floor is altered to have multiple purposes than to just walk on. 

The simplicity is beautiful and difficult to pull your eyes from, but I certainly hope there will be no children visiting. Without a chance to ever be alone, you could never be truly lonely; there wasn’t a need to have a personal space to lock oneself into so nothing was enclosed. The architects provided a blank, layered, and captivating home to fill with possessions, creating their own unique living environment. 

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/02/28/tato-architects-osaka-architecture-house-miyamoto/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest&utm_content=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest+CID_fce2e503d32813fe31c4ade9c13ef715&utm_source=Dezeen%20Mail&utm_term=House%20in%20Miyamoto%20by%20Tato%20Architects

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RELEASE

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/02/18/jenny-nordberg-silver-mirrors-fluid-add-ons-stockholm-design-week/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest&utm_content=Daily%20Dezeen%20Digest+CID_4aab1f8fde2087128c8df9c5a3e8901d&utm_source=Dezeen%20Mail

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To Blend In or to Stand Out? The architect’s ultimate desire.

“To me, the presence of certain buildings has something secret about it. They seem simply to be there. We do not pay any special attention to them” (Zumthor 17) and there are also buildings designed to stand out, to be noticed. An example of this is the Governor’s Mansion in Colonial Williamsburg, designed to be extravagant yet modest which is determined by the choice of materials used on the interior versus the exterior. The exterior of this home is rather plain, other than the well manicured and extensive gardens, whereas the interior is a beauty. At first entrance, I noticed the white marble floors and the towering ceiling height that was so grand it let in an unimaginable amount of light to shine down on the wood walls, giving them a glowing tone, similar to that of being in a forest at dusk. This mansion was not meant to blend in as Zumthor strives for his buildings to do, his desire is that what he designs will grow into the city or landscape and become one with it, rather that being its own object in space. This outlook on design gives me passion, because these are the buildings people really need and are going to use constantly even without notice of the buildings true nature or form. 

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CITIES & EYES 2: Zemrude

Deeply we dig towards the lower parts of our world. It is too often, and too easy, that we can fall into the depths of our minds, being entirely stuck in our thoughts. The city of Zemrude represents the altercations with self and how the city (or life) is viewed, depends on the mood of your eyes. With cheerful and joyous eyes do we see the many beauties and glorious sites that are out there; yet, with dispirited and melancholy eyes we can only observe with despise, seeing the negative, dirty, and darkness. Abandoning hateful sight is painfully difficult and strange, but the thoughts are vanquishable. Never to be fully subdued, they will occasionally haunt you and beat you down, but look up, gaze in wonder at the “window sills, flapping curtains, [and] fountains” (Calvino 19). 

Throw open the windows and let in your light!

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CITIES & SIGNS 1

Driving through the barren landscape of Death Valley “Rarely does the eye light on a thing, and then only when it has recognized that thing as the sign of another thing” will you reach your destination (Calvino 3). This first city dealing with signs brought first to my mind Robert Venturi’s article Learning from Las Vegas in which students analyze the significance of the signs in Las Vegas. The words Calvino used to write about this particular city describe to me, exactly what Venturi and his students where getting at in their paper. Leading up to each city is vast barrenness until a sign seems to appear out of nowhere, telling you that you are heading for something, that there is hope soon to come. Once upon these cities, the signs provide utter meaning to the buildings; giving them functionality rather than just the “very form and the position it occupies in the city’s order” (Calvino 3). These signs create a whole new meaning to the phrase architectural vernacular, because their entire purpose is creating an extravagant, opulent front to the buildings that are only there as serviceable areas to the people, a necessity. The signs contain all the real power in these cities.

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transitions,

the nations are always transitioning, from one to another,

people transition their borders, their boundaries, their lives

according to circumstance, whether by choice or by force of the                  more powerful,       more “civilized”.

Right or Wrong, it happens: past, present, future, no matter

will this feeling ever be overcome? the desire to conquer, to possess?