Amazing perspective

This may sound as a bit to hippie but I find this way of seeing things very interesting. There is something in our condition of being human that make us, sometimes don't fully see the all picture. We need people like this to make us, use the brain again!!!
Have a look and leave a comment..:)

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_phillips_creative_houses_from_reclaimed_stuff?language=en#t-483943

Vertical maze

Short project where the aim was to create an intervention for the court yard of our University building.

Taking about 10 hours for the entire process (Concept > development > sketches> renders>page layout), the main consideration was the use of the vertical space in order to increase the usable area and by so, connect both buildings at different levels.
As always I feel driven for the natural instinct of checking how Nature does in cases like this (vertical spaces), and end it up by realizing that ants do it, we just don't see it because it is underground.
So, ants and their nest! It looks like a maze created by an infinite number of tunnels, which seem also to connect different small "rooms".
Those small rooms in my vision, can be communal multi-function spaces spaces, for open air lectures, exhibitions and much more.
The vegetation could be food grown in hydroponics and after used in the kitchen of the school, why not at least try make the starbucks a bit greener?

Chaumont sur Loire competition

I remember that was a bit of a struggle to have ideas for this project.

Interesting was what I have learned with it. in 15 mnts we developed a concept and a master plan.

The end result, which I really like, is an abstraction of the idea of obsessive collection. Is different, interesting and very simple!

Plan > 3D model > Views > Render

The process involves the creation of an AutoCAD model and the extraction of one axonometric , one isometric and 3 eye level perspective views. Using the images that were extracted from the autocad, I have used photoshop to render them.

autacad 2d plan line work view

autocad 3d wireframe view

autocad realistic isometric perspective 

Axonometric

autocad view 1

autocad view 2

autocad view 3

Isometric render in Summer

Axonometric render in early Spring

Rendered perspectives

Even though the result is not too bad I have the feeling the I still need to explore a bit more the photoshop, as I don't think that I have manage to create images with the professional level that I would like. The colors are too strong and for some of the textures it is easy to see were they overlap. Also in the 3th image there is a mistake related with the direction of light.

The following image shows what I would like to be able to do. The elements and colors are well balanced and the quality of light creates atmosphere, so  I still have a lot to improve.

Photoshop rendering basic techniques

Very simple exercise where two plans in the form of line were given and following some indications from Jamie (our teacher) we had to render it using different Photoshop techniques  (collage, bucket fill, brushes, etc)

The result:

Quite happy with the result, but there are still a couple of things that need improvement.  The drawings need more definition in terms of hierarchy, as the trees seem to be at the same level of the paving. I have tried to reduce the opacity of the trees in order to see the line work, but apparently instead of reducing the opacity I should instead define the tree layer blending mode as multiply, keeping the full strength of the color.

Bio-mimicry

Been a long time since my last post so let's try to catch up.

In this post I'll be speaking about a topic that some time ago got my attention and every time more have my passion. It is Bio-mimicry!

What is special about this concept, you might be asking. 

Bio-mimicry is a process of design where we (humans), mimicate the nature in the process of solving problems, so instead of trying to implement a new solution that still needs to be tested, we adapted the way that nature does with the security that this solution have tested for billions of years. You see, Natural selection doesn’t play around.  

Among of the thousand of examples that I could give where this idea have been used, but there is a Ted talk that I would like to share with you, that it is fascinating and truly mind blowing.

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pawlyn_using_nature_s_genius_in_architecture

Hardly anyone could say that it is not interesting or at least that it is not one of the ways to go forward.

At the same time I found relatively hard to implement this idea into my designs so I will keep looking at it as an aspiration with the hope that in the future I will have the opportunity to explore this concept further

Pleated & Texture

The images are 3 photo-montages where, a quick model based in the concept of pleated and texture, is used to explore the sense of scale and function. I have also tried the play a bit with the Photoshop bending mode to give a bit of character to the montages.

... a trace of the same model in a axonometric perspective. (tracing paper, filter pen)