LEARNING JOURNAL ARIEF AHMAD AFANDI
WSA2 CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
INTRODUCTION This is a collection of the works that I produced during the Second Year in Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. For this learning journal, I separated the works based on the skills, and then give a thorough critiques on my skills and things to be improved. Then, I included some of my interests and inspirations as a designer, and then attempt to form my own belief/ philosophy in architecture.
PAGES Interests/ Inspiration.............................. Personal Philosophy in Architecture...... Sketches.................................................. Fine hand drawings................................. Digital Rendering- Photoshop................. Digital Rendering- 3DS Max.................... Use of Diagrams..................................... Mixed Media........................................... Model Making.........................................
INSPIRATION- ARCHITECTURE I started to develop an interest in the materiality after the trip to Grundtvig’s Church in Copenhagen. The celebration of brick work sculptured with the play of sunlight really captured and prompt my soul. I drew a conclusion the space was so successful because of the clear emphasis of the materiality
INSPIRATION - ARCHITECT I was always inspired by the work of Luis Barragan, a Mexican architect. The play of coloured walls sculptured with the play of light evoke the poetic genius loci. I was particularly inspired by how he really emphasis the materiality by different devices to capture the natural light.
INSPIRATION-READINGS I was heavily influenced by the writings of Alain de Botton in his book ‘the Architecture of Happiness’. In this book, he tried to explore the psychology of an architecture, particularly on how people dwell in a space and how a certain type of architecture speaks of a certain virtues.Here are some of the quotes from the book that I was inspired by: “Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.” “what we call a home is merely any place that succeeds in making more consistenly available to us the important truths which the wider world ignores, or which our distracted and irresolute selves have trouble holding onto.” “Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.” “We depend on our surroundings obliquely to embody the moods and ideas we respect and then to remind us of them. We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves. We arrange around us material forms which communicate to us what we need — but are at constant risk of forgetting what we need — within. We turn to wallpaper, benches, paintings and streets to staunch the disappearance of our true selves.”
INSPIRATION;MODEL-MAKING I was inspired and interested in the work of one of the Msc Student, Rachel Witham in her dissertation project, Curating Curation. In her project, she used a disused London tube tunnel and turned it into an architecture. I particularly interested in her model makings where she managed to break out from the normal typical model making and explored different technique/ material to demonstrate her idea.
PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY IN ARCHITECTURE Second year is a year for exploration. And after the wandering, I started to pick up the virtues along the way and started to sculpture my on beliefs and philosophy in architecture. This means the marriage of my personal interest and what I have learnt so far. Personally, I developed an interest in fashion, particularly in menswear. For me, fashion is an art of expressing the owner and the experimentation of fashion alway revolved about the proportion, the textile and the silhouette of a particular fashion piece. I then start to realised, architecture too is an art of expression, where the exploration always orientated to the play of scale (proportion), materiality (textile) and form (silhouette).The particular piece (both fashion gourmet and architecture) emphasis on the overall look in expressing the virtues of the owner and they start to reveal minutiae detailing and craftsmanship as our eyes moves into the details. This is rather vague analogy but I am keen to explore the parallel of these two art.
Burberry campaign Spring/Summer 2012 where the campaign emphasis on the tailoring and the detailing. The promotion video showed the attention to the detailing of both the coat and the architecture. The video showed the rich tailoring of the menswear and the rich detailing of the London architecture. The images shown are the screen captured of the video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_phxLpmf3QY) The sartorial and the tailoring of the ornaments work together to create an overall look of the building ; each speak of the sturdy and the masculinity of the stoneworks.
Then I started to compare the clean cut edges of St. John Caruso’s architecture with the sartorial of menswear. They both emphasis on the well thought detailing.The menswear is well proportioned to the torso while the architecture is well proportioned to the ceiling heights and floor widths. They are both a symphony of materiality; the fabric of the man’s coat speaks of the richly weaven cashmere wool while the architecture shows the crisp of every single brickworks.
During the study trip to Copenhagen, I developed ways of sketching to capture a certain virtues of a space which interest me the most.
ANALYTICAL SKETCHES The sketches are meant to study certain aspect of a building, mainly physical measures. The sketches are rough and show less aesthetic pleasure. But I have to develop more in term of accuracy of the proportion and shows more information in a single sketch
spatial movement within Viking Museum.
sectional sketch trying to understand the spatial quality some of the galleries of Lousiana Museum, Denmark
SKETCHES TO CAPTURE ABSTRACT VIRTUES The sketches are more to aesthetic pleasure in trying to capture the spirit of the space and capturing the abstract measures of a certain space. For example, the showing the tonal value of a space, behaviours of light in creating the genius loci and detail works.
Drawing trying to capture the pastigeness of the madieval town of Helsingor, Denmark.
FINE HAND DRAWINGS- PENCIL DRAWING For this exercise, I spent some time on finishing the drawings. I took the time to pay carefully on the detailing and trying my best to capture the atmosphere of the space. I drew a second living room back at home. It is indeed a sanctuary that full with memories and reminisce; these virtues that is tried to captured here. image: pencil on paper drawing
HOME This humble and unpretentious space has grown into a knowledgeable witness; it has watched homework being written, it has observed swaddle babies freshly arrived from the hospital, it has been surprised by family laughters on how melodramatic daytime soaps were and some funny spot on the grainy concrete plastered walls evoking reminiscer and into the never ending conversation on how stupid everyone was when we were kids. It has provided not only a physical but also a physiological sanctuary that is deluge with love. After all, only love makes a house a home. image: pencil on paper drawing
PERSONAL OBSERVATION OF AN URBAN SPACE: QUEEN STREET, CARDIFF I developed an interest in manhole covers where I curated series of pictures trying to show different variation of the covers. They embellished the ground with their ornamental designs but are overlooked by pedestrians and abused by motorists. These repositories of industrial art proudly display their patina of use with their smooth rounded surfaces and tar-covered edges. This craft in the ground not only seals off and provides entry into an underground world but also contains the opportunity for exploring the cultural heritage and identity of a town. As a collection, they make up a portfolio of layers, which can tell us a great deal about the historic fabric of a town. On a smaller scale they can reveal details about the surrounding context, exposing patterns of use and environmental conditions. The manhole covers and other street utilities are the only visible signs of an incredible subterranean world that exists in every urban environment. They simply exposed another invisible city. N Water Drainage Utilities Others
A drawing trying to capture a sense of surrealism of an ordinary daily urban space, in this context Queen Street, Cardiff. By exposing some of the drainage works, the subterranean world is unveiled and makes me think of possibility of how we view a ‘space’. pen on A1 paper drawing
FINE HAND DRAWING - PEN ON PAPER an exploded axonometry of an old victorian building, Honeyclub in Rhyl, North Wales. I decided to spent some time producing the drawing to fully understand the building and every line stroke of the ink on the paper do their justice in emphasing each wall
DIGITAL RENDERING SKILLPhotoshop During the Autumn term, I was interested in exploring and practicing my digital rendering skills; partly because of the DPM module. I constantly using Photoshop to create the drawings and I am very confident with my ability to use Photoshop. This shows through the renderings that I made through out the semester. I was inspired by the digital renderings made by a Columbian architect studio, Paisajes Emergentes. Their digital renderings tried to capture the actual spirit of the site and trying to break away from the typical architectural digital rendering with brand new shining proposal. I then stared to adopt the style and tried to use the style in my digital renderings for both projects throughout the semester.
I was asked by Malaysian Society of Cardiff University to produce series of poster for a play which was held in the St. David’s Hall. This includes series of meetings with the director of the play to discuss the idea that should be portrayed through the poster. I learned on how to deal and satisfy an actual ‘client’ without losing my aesthetic decision as a designer. It is also a chance for me to improve my Photoshop skill. I learned on how to manage the time between the projects and the society work.
I explored some of the Photohop techniques and try to create a ‘sublime’ and surreal atmosphere. The digital photo collage that I create for one of the assignment for the DPM module helps me to visualise the idea. I learned some of the technique and feel quite confident with my Photoshop ability and skills.
Digital rendering of the proposal for the Figure/Ground project. The rendering tried to capture the atmosphere of the place at night.
Digital rendering of the proposal for the Figure/Ground project. The rendering tried to emphasis on the new architecture against the old pastige existing context.
Perspective drawing showing how the scheme connects to the Northern part of the site. Image: 3DS MAX modelling, photo collage with Google Earth images and rendered with Photoshop.
Elevation drawing to demonstrate on how the scheme was imagined to connect to the neighbouring buildings. Image: 3DS MAX modelling, photo collage with Google Earth images and rendered with Photoshop.
Perspective drawing showing how the scheme connects to the southern part of the site which connects to the existing green courtyard of St. David’s shopping mall. Image: 3DS MAX modelling, photo collage with Google Earth images and rendered with Photoshop.
The drawing shows a perspective showing on how the retail space on the ground level was imagined like. The idea was to evoke the ‘arcade’ atmosphere and deluged with natural light by having central green courtyard. Image: 3DS MAX modelling, photo collage with Google Earth images and rendered with Photoshop.
DIGITAL RENDERING SKILL -3DS Max I started to develop an interest and started using 3DS Max software during the DPM Module. I find it very helpful in building a digital model with a very accurate parameters. Hence, for the House-Escape project, I used the software to demonstrate my proposal and creates series of section drawings with minimal Photoshop rendering. As for the Figure/Ground project, 3DS Max was used as a tool to analyse the light study of an interior space. Here, I learned on how to build the digital model in more accurate and more detailed. I am interested to improve my skill in using the software for my next project and perhaps producing a more detailed 3DS Max with Photoshop rendering to create more realistic digital rendering.
3DS Max rendering of an interior space of dance studio for my Figure/ Ground Project. I am quite satisfied with the final product, but the renderings are still less realistic. This might be because of the quality of the material used.
DIAGRAMS-
DEMONSTRATING DESIGN PROCESS Throughout the semester, I constantly used series of diagrams to demonstrate my thoughts, particularly showing my design process or showing certain aspect of my proposal. I found using diagrams are very helpful in pinning down my thoughts clearly and demonstrate the idea to the critics. The diagrams are very crucial in bringing the clear logical understanding of a particular proposal. The diagram in the page demonstrate my design process of my proposal for the Housing-Escape project based on Voronoi algorithm. The media used was CAD drawing with Photoshop rendering. The critics found it very helpful in understanding my proposal and understanding the logical sequence of my design process.
DIAGRAMSDEMONSTRATING PROPOSAL
THE
During my Housing-Escape project, I developed a way of drawing to demonstrate on a particular aspect of the proposal, in the case of the diagrams shown is the public accessibility (blue line) and private accessibility ( red lines). I found it very helpful by using the same diagram but each demonstrating different aspect and collectively they help in understanding the proposal. I used CAD drawing with photoshop rendering as to create a clear and bold line drawings to bring a clearer understanding of the diagrams.
EXCERPT OF THE PRESENTATION LAYOUT
CONCEPT- Lightweight tectonic of the new architecture against the heavy tectonic of existing building, precedent: Laban centre, London, Herzog de Meuron
This in an excerpt of one of my presentation layout for the Figure/Ground project, where I use different media ; ranged from hand sketch to a photograph of a model and a photograph of an image found from the internet. Collectively they demonstrating my idea, in this case is the usage of Polycarbonate facade. I started off with explaining my concept ( using the simple sketch diagram) to precedent photograph and how I apply it into the design. I am quite satisfied with the layout as collectively they speak of the idea and the critics during the project understand the board without me explaining to them. This gives me an indication it would be helpful to have a clear concept diagram for every aspect of the proposal, then to the precedent and demonstrating on how I apply it into the design.
CONCEPT- Solar aided ventilation; heat convection to avoid over-heating during summer
MIXED MEDIA -
Handrawing with digital rendering I started to explore and used the mixed media technique during the Figure/Ground project, where I tried to make full use of the materials. This includes using Photoshop to further render some of the hand drawings. My tutor for the project asked me to hand draw the scheme proposal rather using the CAD software. By hand drawing, I fully understand every single weight line and I paid attention to every single line drawn on the paper. I then use Photoshop to further render the drawing. I am quite confident with my hand drawing, but for the next project I might try to explore the CAD drawings and further render them using Photoshop to lay out more information in a single drawing.
MIXED MEDIA Model making with digital rendering I started to photograph my model and render it digitally to overlay with more information and improving the spatial quality of the particular space. This particular drawing that was produced is poorly rendered, but it shows the spatial quality of the space. By having said that, I am very interested to explore the possibility of model making and marriage them with another media to make full use of the work produced.
MODEL-MAKING SKILL I am quite confident with my model-making skill. I am more comfortable to demonstrate my ideas through the model rather than drawing as the model capture the imagination 3-Dimensionally and giving a clearer understanding to the critics. Through out the semester, I developed different ways of model making; each trying to communicate different virtues of my proposal, which collectively trying to bring a clearer picture of my presentation. By saying that, I am interested in exploring different ways of model making and trying to break away from typical model making. This includes using exploration of the material used and different techniques to sculpt the idea. Here, I will try to demonstrate different types of model making that I used/ developed throughout the semester and tried to critic each of the model type.
INTERIOR MODEL For this particular model, I tried to model the space as detailed as possible. I was quite satisfied with the final product of the lighting model for the Figure/Ground project. I personally could work on very detailed model and I have good craftsmanship model making. I was also interested in using different ways of model making to play with the light and creates a good quality of a space.
DIAGRAMMATIC MODEL The model tried to demonstrate the idea behind a particular proposal. This model could be quite ‘diagrammatic’ where the emphasis is the idea rather the actual proposal. This particular model tried to explains on how the proposal trying to create an urban force and starts to connect both sides of the town together.
SCHEMATIC MODEL For this type of model, I was interested in showing on how a particular proposal works. The model should be modelled quite literal to the actual proposal. The model shown is the model for the House-Escape project. I was interested to show on how the each level of the proposal work. The model of each level are stacked on top of each other to bring a better understanding of the spatial arrangement of the proposal.
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ABSTRACT/CONCEPT MODEL This type of model trying to portray the artistic point of view of a particular project. I am interested to explore on different ways of portraying the concept for my next project. The model shown the tectonic expression of my proposal for the Figure/Ground project where the new lightweight architecture starts to evoke from the existing heavyweight building.
SECTIONAL MODEL This type of model tries to capture and try to bring the understanding of the proposal. I found making a sectional model explains the proposal quite successfully as the critics could understand the spatial arrangements and the spatial quality of the proposal very easily. This model became the centre piece of my presentation during the final crit of the project.
ARIEF AHMAD AFANDI WSA2 2011-2012 WELSH SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, CARDIFF UNIVERSITY, UNITED KINGDOM ariefahmadafandi@gmail.com/ahmadafandia@cardiff.ac.uk