Architecture Investigation 4

Artist Statement

This piece is the fourth and last of my sustained investigations that surround the inquiry question, how do horizontal and vertical lines impact the structure and appearance of architecture? My last pieces have been focused on small lines and slats, each piece being some form of a variation of the next. However, for this piece I chose to branch out and explore a different way of incorporating horizontal elements, this time making much larger slats and having them be the basis of my entire structure. My original inspiration for this piece came from a wooden box that looks almost entirely like the main building. Once I had a basis to go off of I just played around with SketchUp and initially came to my final design. While designing, I knew I wanted to incorporate elements of old and new as my main building reminded of a barn or farm house, so to juxtapose this I wanted simple, bold modern lines.

This piece took several sketching steps to create, both digitally and on paper. I had an immediate inspiration as my starting point for this piece, so I made an incredibly rough sketch of the shape and moved onto SketchUp. SketchUp has definitely been an incredible resource to quickly visualize ideas and let them come to life, which is precisely what I took advantage of with this piece. On SketchUp I often made copies of the base design to try out different small alterations, for instance adding a beam above the gap over the stairs versus leaving it open. My last step was to export the final SketchUp model to Flash Print and prepare it for 3D printing. At this step, it was crucial to continuously check for errors in the print and attempt to fix them so that the final print comes out as clean as possible.

Between the original idea and my finished piece my project evolved a lot since I had a very narrowed and simple basis for my project yet needed to still connect it back to my inquiry question. The process of creating this was long and tedious, and full of revision as my sketches were always evolving and often quickly made but then had to be altered and redone to print properly. Overall, the process of creating an architecture model, specifically when the end product is a 3D print, has brought me many positive benefits. For one, I realized that errors in models can be incredibly inspiring as suddenly you are given a whole new perspective on your model that you may have never seen before. Digital modeling and sketching has also allowed me to create intricate designs quickly and to see my project from all perspectives with just a click.