Architecture Investigation 3

Artist Statement

To explore a different aspect of my inquiry, how can horizontal and vertical elements juxtapose to impact the appearance and functionality of an architectural design, I decided to work around my inquiry in the realms of a residential design. Rather than having the the building itself incorporate these elements I played around with exterior elements, specifically walk ways to connect the buildings. The layering of the walkway elements serves the purpose of emphasizing areas of the building and elevating what would be entry ways to the building.

For this piece, I decided to take a break from drawing and worked with SketchUp, which gives the work a more professional, architectural look rather than a drawing. Once the design was complete I applied an architectural design style available on SketchUp which created the transparent effect. To finalize the work, I took screenshots from various angles that best show off the horizontal and vertical elements, and transferred the images in to Photoshop before printing the series.

The processes surrounding this piece were extensive and very experimental. While sketching, I had a fairly set idea that I wanted to incorporate three separate buildings and figure out ways to make them uniform and look like one unit. This initially led me to experiment with walkways, which became my focus from that point on. I experimented with a variety of sizes and patterns of lines until settling on the final one. My next focus was a matter of presentation, since this piece is very much architectural, more of a plan for a clients viewing than a traditional work of art, I wanted to present it in a more intriguing way, so I tried several of SketchUp's presentation styles. All in all I am very pleased with the way this piece turned out especially since when working in SketchUp little 'errors' often give you new ideas and inspiration and allow a project to develop further than its original plan.

Ideas: Incorporate functional horizontal/vertical elements in residential design.

Materials: SketchUp, Photoshop, black Micron pen

Processes: Created repetition/overlapping horizontal/vertical elements in SketchUp to imitate residential plan