2008년 4월 29일 화요일

Week6

http://arch1392c.wetpaint.com/page/arch1392+C+Home/thread is our wiki

From the presentation last week, some issues were raised:

what is market rate?
why is it important?
why do they need market rate housing?
history of the region (green point peers) ?

The unbuilt architecture we used represented a rather elaborate market-rate housing to be built above reconstructed piers in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

For many households, rental housing is a preference; for others, it is a financial necessity. With few exceptions, only households at the high end of the low-income rangecould afford any of the houses that were for sale. For the rest, rental housing is often the onlychoice. Households with limited choices include in-movers, especially recent immigrants; youngworkers; long-term workers in low-wage jobs; and older residents with limited incomes.

Market rate housing provides some rental units that are affordable to low and moderate income households.

Maintaining an economically diverse residential base is critical to the health of a municipality. The addition of new housing units such as market rate hosusing in a growing area is a necessity and an automatic outcome of population shifts. In declining areas, developing new housing is often a challenge, but it is viewed as an important economic development strategy. By retaining residents or attracting new ones to the city, local leaders hope to capture additional tax revenue. New housing not only adds to the residential property tax base, but can also contribute to the commercial property tax base by attracting new businesses.

The reason for choosing "Market rate hosuing" was because of its cheap housing in a bad area. It would be full of junkies and squatters would be interesting to of play around, in such an open area with little furnishing, and dark gloomy shadowy lighting. On the other hand, its background has images of skyscrapers. We believed that the conflict between the two was interesting. The area may look dark and gloomy but as the viewer looks further ahead there would be bright sunny environment conflicting the area. It would be interesting to show this in a UT3 environment.

INTENT

My definition of itent is "If you are intent on doing something, you are eager and determined to do it." Intent in terms of digital collaboration is designs that are created for a purpose.

As mentioned in last week's presentation we started off with choices of buildings. Each of us intended to work on different buildings of their choices and narrowed it down to 2 buildings.

In terms of knowledge, the market rate building had the most information given to us in terms of plans, sections, views and so on. Conflict, as mentioned above, matching our three themese given. Through out discussions our intent was to choose the Market rate hosuing.


http://www.mc-mncppc.org/research/analysis/housing/affordable/CH2.pdf
http://urban.csuohio.edu/economicdevelopment/knight/tools/land/marketrate.htm

2008년 4월 19일 토요일

Week 5

My part in the group was to find out the different types of knowledge we need for the best outcome, researching on different examples of previous maps already made.

Knowledge
















The two maps from UT3 are both architecturally identical but thematically different. Creating these themes out of the same building acquires knowledge in many areas, such as colour, material, pathways and so on.
Knowledge in Flow









Flow is arguably the most important element of buildings, especially when it comes to high rise buildings with over 3 or 4 levels. It loosely provides pathways that a viewer could move around in a map interacting with components added. There are several characteristics that lead to good flow. The first and most crucial is the knowledge of layout, or the "blueprint" of the map--where the routes go and what connects where.

Layout can be broken down into several types of "set pieces." There are dead ends, long thin hallways, gigantic open spaces, and rooms with two exits. Then there are high-connectivity, medium-sized rooms with furniture, which are usually considered ideal. Standard Room-Corridor-Room layout (RCR) in which each room has exactly two exits, each leading to a long thin hallway, is a terrible layout because a player has only two choices: go forward, or go back. Much better is a room with at least three exits, preferably on different vertical levels, with interesting interiors for interaction. In general, wide-open spaces have numerous advantages over others as the viewer has a wide range of view from all directions. On the other hand, cramped areas are perfect for restricted movement and could lead the viewer to where you want him/her to go. Lastly, being the fact that the area is restricted, there has to be dead corners at each end. However, dead corners may also look interesting if there are interesting sceneries to look out for.










A quick and dirty looking interior covered with massive walls all around would not be the best place for the viewer to look into.
Knowledge in Visualisation
One of the most critical aspects of a map's visual design is making it feel like it's a real place. The map doesn't have to be strictly realistic, but it has to look that way. For example, a six-inch-thick brick wall should not be holding up a humongous warehouse, no matter whether it would be likely in Real Life. It simply looks better to have a wall that is several feet thick, regardless of the plausibility of such a wall in Real Life. The most important principle of knowledge is making the space feel logical. It must feel like the place has a purpose and the best but trickiest way to do this is to fill space with our given themes.

This map below has everything from creepy audiotapes left behind by former residents to messages written on walls in blood. In Addition, papers litter the ground and books spill off the desk, giving the impression of a struggle and hasty exit. The room has an atmosphere that someone actually lived there. Therefore knowledge is required to make the place feel like the themes we were given with.













A map's atmosphere is what the viewer sees in the map. It is what makes a viewer feel like they are in, a place, or rather it is the feeling of the place that the viewer tries to emulate; a sense of location. To better the atmosphere, knowledge on polygons, texture, lighting and sound is crucial.
The first part of building an effective atmosphere is to consider the location. What would such a place look like? What sorts of objects would be in it? Why does it exist? How does it work? And, importantly, am I capable of doing this? Answering these questions often involves knowledge or a Google search.
One of the most important aspects of detail is that you keep it consistent. If we have one area that looks amazing and another that looks rushed, the whole map is going to look crappier than if neither area was detailed. Adding little details may stress realism in the atmosphere but adding too many may make the map feel overcrowded. For example, we won’t need to add each individual blade of grass, but too few of them would make the map unfinished. Baring these knowledge in mind, we will plan to mix our three themes in a way that each detail would contribute towards the whole.

Knowledge in Texture












A picture is worth a thousand words. The picture above shows how images can differ just by applying some knowledge in texture.

Knowledge in Sound
Though often overlooked, sounds can add a humongous amount of atmosphere to a level. The four most important aspects to consider are amount, volume, source, and choice.

The human ear cannot discern more than two to four sounds at once, so we should try and avoid having more than three at a time. Source is also an important factor as each sound has to have a believable place that it’s coming from. We may add background sounds, like croaking frogs or chirping birds, if it fits accordingly to our given theme. "Foreground" sounds like the dripping water needs to come from a visible source of dripping water, and the sound should line up with the drips visually if possible. It's important have knowledge on the choice sound you are going to add because some sounds can be annoying and furthermore interrupt with our theme.

Certain actors and instances almost necessitate accompanying sounds. These include lifts, doors, puddles, and dripping or streaming water. Commonly, electrical equipment and generators will have a crackle, beep, or low buzz. Background sounds are often natural, including chirping birds, running water, rain, or an electrical hum. The reason why these knowledge in sound are so important is because they need to be recognisable; as soon as the viewer hears a sound, he or she would want to recognise this sound as well as where it's coming from.

Knowledge in Lighting

While all the elements mentioned above are crucial, good lighting can truly make a map outstanding. I believe that bad lighting won’t really make the entire visual impact horrific in most cases. But insufficient knowledge on lighting could show lack of effort.

It is said that the first and the most important rule is not to use the default white lighting. The second is to pick a congruent colour scheme and complement it to the rest of the visuals that already would have our given themes. An "ambient" colour would make up most of the lighting, as secondary colour would add some variation, and a third colour for particular emphasis and more variation. Third is to make sure all lights are sourced, meaning that the light must appear to come from a certain location, whether a sun in the skybox or a torch in a hallway. Lastly, light/dark contrast, especially when we use shadows. It is a great way to set off a certain area and add a visual appeal into the map.




































































2008년 4월 15일 화요일

Week 4

We finally decided on the unbuilt buidling, which was Market-Rate Housing in Brooklyn, NY (Lewis Wadsworth, Yale School of Architecture)













We roughly divided our roles in terms of modelling, texture, lighting, sounding and animating.
We decided that for our presntation, we would require
- Large images
- Sound
- Points (graphical fonts) to describe the images
- Video record
for a clearer communication to the audience.

In addition, I went and looked at some Archmodels, which may help in our project for modelling

Below are some examples.











































































Record
Record can be done using virtually any form of energy, spanning from manual muscle power in handwriting, to acoustic vibrations in phonographic recording, to electromagnetic energy modulating magnetic tape and optical discs.
In regards to an architectural collaboration, it would be keeping or managing data from meetings or discussions and ideas. This type of record can be done by writing notes from the meeting. It would be one of essential factors that a group would need. This could come in handy when bringing ideas forward and also looking back at some previous ideas the group has made. Getting it typed up on blog will help the group members to have easy access to what they have done and what they have do. It will also help members of the group who have unfortunately missed out on meetings and help them catch up.
Recording information in terms of digital collaboration could come in many ways.
Writing notes
Posting it up on blogs
Voice recording
Video recording

Reference
Archmodel 22, 25, 26, 29, 33



















































































































































2008년 4월 8일 화요일

Week 3(2)

More unbuilts buildings that the group can choose from:











"The Sparks Medical Office Building and Pharmacy won the AIA Merit Award for an Unbuilt Project at the AIA Columbus awards ceremony. The pharmacy will be the first building designed in London in two decades. It will include a pharmacy and medical clinics and will bridge the gap between downtown London and nearby commercial and residential areas in the Madison County community."












Lawnwood Stadium Administrative Building (Unbuilt), St. Lucie County, Fla., by Edlund, Dritenbas, Binkley Architects & Associates PA

For this major renovation and addition to a stadium ticket office, the architects plan to construct administration offices above the existing structure. This “air-right” approach eliminates the need for stormwater engineering that would have been required for a new, freestanding building on this impervious site. In addition, the design adds a vertical and visual gateway identity for the stadium entry and an elevated view of the 85-acre park for management staff. It also offers a skybox stadium view from the conference room area. “The addition is a very creative and sensitive solution that adds to the whole facility while segregating the private office areas,” the jury enthused. “The overall design is well sited and properly scaled. It adds elegance to a really simple stadium.”Rendering courtesy Huddleston Art Studio.















Granfield Residence (Unbuilt), Jensen Beach, Fla., by Granfield Granfield Architects

The owner desired expansive panoramic and sunset views across Savannah State Park Fresh Water Lagoon. To capture these views as well as breezes on the setback, restrictive site, the architect placed the main living spaces on the third level. Three-story wall planes of 12-inch masonry units with a shell-tabby texture anchor the 24-foot “double-wide” structure. “Pop-outs” of operable glass and lapped siding provide views to the south and east, while the stair tower floods the center of the residence with light and offers views during one’s vertical journey. The jury called the project, “A unique concept. Very simple plan with wonderful spatial sequences and orientation of the interior spaces to the surrounding environment.”




















American Exposition Pavilion, by John Burgee Architect

As lead Architectural Designer, my concept was to bring people to the top floor of this exhibition building via a glass enclosed elevator which would give the visitor wonderful views of the New York City Public Library. This elevator is the front door. From there the visitor would descend down a series of ramps back out to the next-to-busiest street corner in NYC. The facade itself would be composed of electricallly controlled transluscent glass panels providing a surface for backlit street presentations at night. The panels would themselves be coriographed to alllow objects to appear to float around the facade. Inside there would be a virtual reality stations which would emerse the visitor in the realm of the displays.

Reference


Article: New York Times, July 30, 1992.

Week 3

In last week’s studio we started by discussing who could provide help regarding our project. Some of them were:
Engineers
Colour theorists
Architects
Interior designers
Product designers
Animators and so on.

Then we continued our meeting talking about how objects used will affect our projects theme. e.g rocks: stubborn and spring: aggressive. Some useful ideas came from the following:

Jan Svankmajer – dimension of dialogue
















“Portraits of human faces made of fruits and vegetables. This segment has the feel of a relief painting in motion... the plane of existence is flat, but all objects are 3-dimensional.”













“Constructed of mechanical drafting products, the two attack each other, until one has been "eaten" by the other. After "eating", the winning head vomits up the loser, who takes on a look which is a rough hybrid of the two. Of course, the two heads attack each other again.”

Salvador Dali – Juxtaposition
Cybernetic Lobster Telephone







“In two exhibits with vastly different messages, the artist infuses common objects with surrealistic whimsy and delves into the psychic ties uniting love and death.”
In addition, materials that will be used could also give a different effect even with the same objects whereas timber could represent Sauna and steel for prison bars.

We also came up with some words that might help with our theme: Conflict
Hybridization
Synergy
Aggression
Confusion
Competition
Problem & solution
Resolution
Opportunity

This week I actually managed to buy a copy of the software. I have not yet tried the game itself but went over some of the UT3 tutorials that were provided with the software.
Discipline
There were so many meanings for this word that were directly or indirectly related to fields in architectural collaboration. Each team member has their own unique skills and knowledge about the project and it’s time to start making decisions. Many students in my group have mentioned their computing skills instead of other typical group work skills such as leadership and research. It could be said that some people with leadership are more logical and makes decisions whereas people with computing or design skills are more creative. Every project has to be planned for it to be perfect, especially when it comes to group projects and therefore I came up with some of the roles that could be divided during the studio for the final project.
Research of the building
Precedent studies of a similar project
Modeling
Texturing
Lighting
Time based environment
Sounds
Contradictions
Programming
Finalising
Problem solving

Reference
http://www.awn.com/heaven_and_hell/svank/svank7.htm
http://sf1000.registeredsite.com/~user748768/Dalis/Imagination/ioclt-A.jpg

2008년 4월 1일 화요일

Week2

Our group have decided on the following five topics:

A. Synchronous Messaging
B. Collaborative Document Editing
C. Shared Repositories
D. Social Networks
E. Virtual Worlds
F. Asynchronous Messaging

We are now in stage of finalising our choice for the un-built building in our assignment. We have assigned each member of the group to do one of the five topics and mine was:
F. Asynchronous Messaging.

Definition
Asynchronous Messaging in definition is “A form of collaborative communication, whereby communication between two people or more, two companies or a group of people is not instant. Fire-and-forget information exchange. Participants in an asynchronous messaging system don't have to wait for a response from the recipient, because they can rely on the messaging infrastructure to ensure delivery. This is a vital ingredient in loosely coupled systems such as web services, because it allows participants to communicate reliably even if one of the parties is temporarily offline, busy, or unobtainable.”

Examples of asynchronous messaging are emails, forums, fax and blog.

Emails
E-mail, short for electronic mail and often abbreviated to e-mail, email or simply mail, is a store and forward method of composing, sending, receiving and storing messages over electronic communication systems. The term "e-mail" applies both to the Internet e-mail system based on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and to X.400 systems, and to intranet systems allowing users within one organization to e-mail each other. Intranets may use the Internet protocols or X.400 protocols for internal e-mail service supporting workgroup collaboration. E-mail is often used to deliver bulk unsolicited messages, or "spam", but filter programs exist which can automatically delete some or most of these, depending on the situation.

Forums
A forum is a
web application for holding discussions and posting user-generated content. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as Web forums, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards, or simply forums. The terms "forum" and "board" may refer to the entire community or to a specific sub-forum dealing with a distinct topic. Messages within these sub-forums are then displayed either in chronological order or as threaded discussions.
Such forums perform a function similar to that of
Usenet newsgroups and the dial-up bulletin board systems that were numerous in the 1980s and 1990s. Early web-based forums date back as far as 1996. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games and/or video games, sports, fashion, religion, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of topics. Internet slang and image macros popular across the internet are abundant and widely used in internet forums.

Fax
Fax
is a telecommunications technology used to transfer copies (facsimiles) of documents, especially using affordable devices operating over the telephone network. The word telefax, short for telefacsimile, for "make a copy at a distance", is also used as a synonym. The device is also known as a telecopier in certain industries. When sending documents to people at large distances, faxes have a distinct advantage over postal mail in that the delivery is nearly instantenous, yet its disadvantages in quality and its proprietary format have relegated it to a position beneath email as the prevailing form of electronic document transferral.

Blog
A blog is a
website where entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal
online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.

Reference
http://www.looselycoupled.com/glossary/asynchronous%20messaging
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forums
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Week 2