Sunday, September 28, 2008

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.


Friday, September 26, 2008

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.