architectural hardware

i liked drawing contour for the door handle, shading for the lock, and cross contour for the pipe binding.

The Geography of Sustainability

In this lecture we learned why green design is important. We focused on what our local environment challenges are, why the failure to live sustainably in America, our global scale challenges, and the geography of sustainability. Sustainability can be defined as keeping human needs within the constraints of nature. An example of this is a small Swiss town high up in the Alps building a damn because of the warming permafrost flooding down from the top of the mountain.
Some problems that we face are air pollution. The Triad is in the top 25 dirtiest air in America because of vehicle transportation. There were 7 code orange days in 2007. Our White Street Landfill has also closed from being overfilled. The urban sprawl is a major problem, this affects our water sources (which has come dangerously low) and causes urban heat island effect.
The five point framework for collapse is labeled as: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and society's response to environmental problems. The last reason is regarded as the most important factor, and can make or break whether we are able to create a sustainable balance between humans and the earth. There is a direct relationship between a society's belief in the Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) and how "green" they are. Our core values are rooted in individualism, growth, and private property rights. This stems from Adam Smith's "Hidden Hand." But this theory does not count in externalities and common pool problems. The more we cling to those, the less we are willing to sacrifice for a more sustainable lifestyle. We are relying too much on science and technology to solve our problems.

cellphone/sticks

i found drawing the 16 thumbnails of the twigs easier, because you were more free to slip up. With the cell phone if you drew a line wrong it looked weird and you could tell i messed up. I also like putting the details into the stick, nature is pretty.

the 64 cell phone thumbnails turned out pretty interesting. they are very simple but still most of the time do not resemble the phone as much as the 64 stick thumbnails did.

this is the 8 mixed thumbnails. I think they could be a little more complex but i like how graphic they turned out.

layering people

the object of this exercise was to be able to layer people. i thought i was doing a good job until i realized the front row was definitely not linear like it should of been.

galoshes

one rainy morning everyone wearing rainboots had to take them off and put them on the table. drawing the layering of the shoes was pretty difficult. not one of my favorites.

dogwood trunk

this was actually fun to draw. i like trees.

contour cubicle and cross contour chair

Suzanne had us do a contour drawing of our cubicle. I think these are really helpful because their simplicity allows you to focus on how things are put together.





Nadia had us do cross contour on a chair-desk. It was a little difficult at first and i still don't have it down packed, but i do like the way they turn out, it almost gives the chair another dimension.

ambidextrous hand drawing

it is really hard to draw a steady line with my left hand, but it is not as completely bogus as i thought it would look. I'm used to trying to write letters with my left hand but i had never really attempted a drawing exercise.

Architecture 2030 Challenge

This lecture focused on creating more sustainable buildings under the Architecture 2030 challenge. The goal is to cut carbon emissions by 50% immediately, and gradually reducing our carbon footprint to zero by 2030. Some goals to reduce our carbon footprint would be 100 solar panels for 4,000 square feet of rooftop that would heat 60% or more of the water, constructing buildings with 22.4% recyclable materials, or circulate 60 cubic feet per minute of clean air indoors. The AIA company has over 200 pages of AIA50>>50: 50 ways to reduce carbon to 50%.
The impact of sustainability was compared to a storm, which Linn defined as "a constructive/destructive dynamic event, agent of transformation, not a place or thing but a process." LEED (Leadership in Energy & Design) certification is an important step towards sustainability, but right now companies do not have very much incentive to become certified unless they are genuinely interested in sustainability. Linn also stressed buildings needed to have a "long life, loose fit." If the building is not going to be useful generations upon generations, it is not sustainable. He firmly believes that the most sustainable building is one that is already built, and is very pro restoring useless historical buildings into new, modern, LEED certified buildings. A major message of the lecture was to think holistically, "the whole world is greater than the sum of its parts."

issues with twig project

I still have a lot of kinks to work out in my project. My box is still very vase-esque, due to the shape/height of the rectangle and the twigs all poke out of the top. One way to maybe rectify this is to have the box constrict the twigs tighter and have them poking out of the bottom as well. In my original sketch model the paper i had peeling off to resemble the peeling bark of the twigs was crazy and all over the place, so i minimized it and made the peels much more simple and geometric. However, this did not convey the concept of the peeling bark as clearly and it was suggested that the paper be peeled in a more "planned randomness." Many of my twigs have a wishbone shape to them at the end, perhaps my paper bark would look more convincing if it incorporated that shape somehow.
The craftmanship also did not look as nice--cutting straight lines even with the assistance of a ruler or xacto knife proves to be a challenge for me. Fortunately i have my drafting board and hopefully that will create much cleaner lines. I am also concerned about the use of my binding agent--i used glue to attach the paper together. Although it looks nice, it was chosen for practical purposes and does not directly contribute to the project. But i also feel that i would like to focus on one central idea for my project, and the inclusion of a more prominent binding agent would add another "story."

lettering hmwk: favorite song

twig project precedent

my twig project is a rectangular vase casing with pieces of "bark" made out of paper.
This made me think of the vertical plant walls on buildings. The paper peeling off of the rectangular vase is like the leaves that seem to peel off of the brick. They both give inanimate objects a life-like quality. In the first picture there seems to a structural object that looks like "twigs" coming out of the top of the plant wall.

negative spaces drawings: bicycle and chair

I got caught up in trying to draw the bike correctly more so then trying to draw the negative spaces. Besides looking a little squished I think it came out alright.

The hardest part of the chair was the curving back support, the negative space wasn't as difficult to draw because you didn't have to measure how much space was between things since there is a lot of open space.

blind contour portraits

KURT

JESSICA AND MEGHAN

Kurt was much easier for me to draw, I don't know if it was because he was a boy or if it was the side profile. I struggled more with the girls, their features were going all over the place.

original project

sketchmodel drawing

i had a lot of trouble coming up with an idea, all of mine were way too literal. Graham asked me to pick what i liked about the leaf and it was the yellow spots, so i worked my place for a leaf around that. I wanted to make rays going through the leaf to give it its "place."

first try

But unfortunately the leaf was too delicate to puncture any holes in it, and the tissue paper i was using to be more translucent was unable to support the paper leaf on top. So i had to rethink my project again.

new idea for final project

the bottom will be yellow and round to represent a sun, and the "rays" will go through the more resilient paper leaves, and will also serve as the support by hoisting them up from behind. My leaf will be in the middle because it is the most special.

Final A Place For a Leaf Project

I liked the "sunspots" in the leaf, so i tried to base my place off of that.
The bottom is sunshaped with "rays" going through the leaf.
I didn't want to make the imitation leaves green because without
having an exact green, they would clash.
Instead I shaded an orange-ish color with oil pastels so it would
resemble the texture of the leaf, and it is more of an earth tone that would compliment it

a place for a leaf drawing without lifting pen

Nadia was right, i kept trying to lift my pen.

lettering hmwk 2

5 messes

KITCHEN SINK

MY UNMADE BED (USING BLIND CONTOUR)

PILE OF DIRTY CLOTHES (WITH BLIND CONTOUR)

CARDBOARD BOXES

OVERFLOWING RECYCLING BIN

lettering hmwk