ARCH1142- Design Communications 

Introduction

Over the past 13 weeks I have learnt a number of new skills throughout my experience in the subject Design Communications. Over the course, we were presented with three distinct workshops where we were taught a range of different techniques, inspiring us to communicate our ideas and designs in many different forms and shapes. All workshops were extremely time consuming, although I greatly benefited from the experience and I will be able to take what I have learnt and apply it to the rest of my studies and future career in the field of Architecture. 

DRAW-it 

DRAW-it was our first workshop during this course and consisted of studying a particular house and graphically drawing them at a certain scale. The house that I selected was the Norman Fisher House designed by Louis I. Kahn, located in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. We were instructed to produced a range of different drawing types, all leading up to the final submission. Throughout the four week workshop we produced a number of drawing studies, such as: 

WEEK 1: During our first studio we were told to draw an object, I
chose my sunglasses and drew them from different angles.

Front and top view of the sunglasses. 

After the first weeks exercises we started work on our drawings for the Fisher house. Our final presentation called for, floor plans, elevations, sections and either a perspective drawing or a axonometric drawing. I opted for the axonometric drawing which took a few attempts to get it right, although it worked in the end. The following drawings are a selection from my final presentation along with the DRAW-it Poster: 

Ground Floor plan of the Fisher House, rendered 

East Elevation of the Fisher House 

Axonometric drawing of ground floor 

Section of South-East cube 

DRAW-it poster, final representation of my learning process

MODEL-it 

The second workshop of the course was related to model-making. Throughout the process we made a number of different models at different scales using an array materials. This workshop was the most time consuming of the three, although, I enjoy it as it allowed me to get practical with my work and create different 3D models that allowed me to understand the space in another dimension. 

During our first class we were taught a range of different modelling techniques and safety instructions to ensure we did not injure ourselves throughout the model making process. The image below show our first weeks exercises:

Simply house design using box board and balsa wood

BARCELONA PAVILION:

Our take home task for week 1 was to model the Barcelona Pavilion at 1:200 using mainly balsa wood. The images below show my version of the Barcelona Pavilion using balsa wood, box board and black card board:

Aerial view of the Barcelona Pavilion without the roofs

Aerial view of the Barcelona Pavilion with the roofs 

Floor level view of the pavilion, showing the stairs leading to the pavilion 

Top view of the pavilion showing all walls, pools and details

CONCEPT MODELS:


During our second week we were given a shape which needed to be included in three separate models as a section. As well as including the shape we were told to find an unusual material to add to the three models, I chose a foam-like material to include in my concept models. The following image shows my three models:

Three concept models using mainly balsa wood and my selected material 

FISHER HOUSE SITE PLAN:


For our second exercise during this workshop we made a model of the site of the Fisher House. We were able to make the model out of a material of choice, I chose to mainly use box board, with some balsa wood. This model concentrated on the contours of the site analysis and the placing of the house within the contours. The images below show my version of the Fisher House site plan:

Aerial view of the Fisher House site

Close up side view of the site, showing the house and surrounding trees

Full side view of the site plan

FISHER HOUSE:

Our final exercise was to model the Fisher House at 1:50 using mostly balsa wood. I opted to make the model in sections with removable walls to allow a clear view into the interior. The basement level of the model is stone, therefore, I used box board to show the stone and the large chimney by cutting different sized rectangles into the box board. The images below show my model of the Fisher House: 

Aerial view showing the top floor 

Side view showing the removable walls

View into the staircase from the first floor to the second floor

Front perspective view of the Fisher House with the tree

Side view showing stairs from the basement level to the first floor as well as the stone work 

Close view into the front facade, showing the lounge chair in action

The image below shows the final poster I made showing my progress throughout the MODEL-it workshop:

MONTAGE-it 

Montage-it was our final workshop for this course with the final outcome of three photo montages. This process included all aspects learnt over the course of the workshops combined into one final outcome. We were told to create a model at 1:50 of a studio for an artist of our choice. The artist I chose is a musician, Andy Mckee. Mckee is an acoustic guitarists who composes soft soothly music that allows its listeners to listen to the lovely acoustics. The images below show my final studio model: 

Internal view

After making our model, we were told to take photo's of landscapes that would be fitting for our artist. As Andy Mckee is a simple man, I opted for natural landscapes that show lots of vegetation and scenery. The images below show these backdrops:

This image is at Fagan Park, I used this for my external day-time photo

This photo was taken at Fagan Park and I used it for my internal montage 

This photo isn't my own, I used this for the dusk montage

I decided to have a norm in all three montages, so I opted to draw a red bench. I placed this bench in all three of my montages to provide it a sense of connection.

The final result of this workshop was three separate photomontages with different views, one day-time, one internal and one photo at dusk. The images below show my final results:

Day-time montage

Internal montage

Dusk montage 

Final MONTAGE-it poster showing my progress through the workshop