| Brood Brother |
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Joined: Fri Feb 14, 2003 9:52 pm
Posts: 4598
Location: Suffolk, UK.
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I bow to poular demand...... 
Enjoy, and snigger away! 
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Representation Report
I did not settle on any of the architect?s sketches immediately upon beginning the project- I instead looked at each one in turn and used my imagination to interpret these sketches in the way I saw fit.
After looking at these, I had a clear favourite; Frank Gehry?s wonderful flowing design was great fun to draw ideas from, and looked like an exciting shape to model up to a finished building?
Gehry has a unique style, demonstrated in the many famous and unconventional structures he has developed over the years, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Prague?s curvaceous ?Fred and Ginger,? to the wonderfully unconventional angular Stata Centre at MIT in America?.
Gehry takes an unconventional approach to his designs; abstracted shapes, unusual materials and distortions of common forms are key to his individual flair and make each building instantly recognisable as ?a Gehry,? CAD systems are heavily used both in the design, modelling and manufacture stages of his practice?s projects, enabling the extraordinary forms visualised in his mind to be transformed into practical structures.
I decided to take my building in a slightly different direction to that perhaps originally intended by Gehry- my take on his sketch has become more regular and sharply defined; while still retaining the organic, flowing look of the original. I stretched the towers upwards, making the shape more elegant (at least to my eyes!) and more visually impressive set within the context of out cityscape, as well as maximising the floor space available on the relatively tightly constricted site.
I decided to remove the sculptural detail on top of the smaller tower as I was trying for a very clean and sleek overall effect, and thought that this would distract rather. I also liked the way the towers looked when ?bare,? with a strong contrast between the heights and overall shapes of each half. In the sketch, I liked the cutoffs of the main bodies of the building just above ground level, with smaller structures underneath, so I developed this in my visualisations into clean continuations of the larger sections, with a ?stepped down? effect.
I attempted to create a very modern look for my building in the model- using clear and opaque plastics to give the impression of a glass and steel skinned tower, with large support beams following the curves around the model, and filling the interior with blocks of varnished wood under this outer skin to give the model more of a solid feel.
Ornamentation was a key part of my design- I used various plastics, cut, bent and sanded into shape to create the effect of shaped metallic panels, decorative vanes and piping which help distinguish the tower from any other high rise creation!
Comparing my design with that of Norman Foster, I feel that it would not look out of place on the London skyline; Foster?s Gherkin is an impressive and hugely unusual edifice, but it has been designed and built in such a way that it seems to have always been there! I believe my smoothly curving skyscraper could well have a similar effect- pleasing to the eye, architecturally inspiring, and well suited to its environs.
I imagined the building?s purpose to be either as a prestigious corporate headquarters, or perhaps as a multi-use community building, with facilities for tourists, regular visitors to the area, shops and other services.
Perhaps these are slightly dull visions?! ? Given the practicalities of land value and space in central London, I?m inclined to think they might be rather realistic ones, however much I might wish for something a little more exciting!
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The brief for this little essay was pretty small: "A 500-word report explaining your reasons for the uses of materials, textures and colours in your model" - so whjat I came up with isn't massively packed with detail... 
Cheers, ~G
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www.darkrealmminiatures.com
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