Tuesday, May 19, 2009

About next week...

Hi All,
Please make sure you have a full draft ready for next week. Next week the students who have drafts will get all my time.
Helen

Monday, May 18, 2009

Experiment 2 Feedback - Reverse Alphabetical

“The intention of publishing the feedback below is so that all students can benefit by understanding the strengths and weakness’ of a range of projects. Please take the time to review other students work with these comments in mind. If you have any questions or would like any further clarification don’t hesitate to ask me during the studio session.”

Wilson Lee
Key strength of the scheme: Very good axo’s. Well chosen still shots that clearly illustrate the best elements of your design. The cascading forms of the overall composition work very well and give the whole scheme a coherency.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: The whole scheme is thin –as if it was put together in a small space of time. I would like to see you begin earlier and do more development work next time. Without the excellent stills you chose and the v. good drawings you would have not quite passed with this amount of work.

Uzair Shaikh
Key strength of the scheme: The variety of patterns you have used in your textures shows imagination.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: The work is incomplete – No UT work.

Rio Sun
Key strength of the scheme: The inside room is very nicely composed. The textures help to emphasis the proportions. Also the up and down circularity of the ramps is clever. They work both functionally and as a decorative element within the room as a whole. Excellent drawing!
Most significant weakness of the scheme: It is difficult to see where the meeting place and the ext lab start and the end. Overall the exterior is not as well resolved as the interior – in parts it feels muddled, there are places that are impossible to walk through and the views as not particularly exciting.

Petrick
Key strength of the scheme: Good use of textures and lighting in the interior. Well-proportioned and interesting spaces esp considering how little time you spent on it!

Most significant weakness of the scheme: Lack of detail. A rush job. For example in the exterior lab we are unable to even access ½ of the space. You have not addressed the idea of the ramp which was an important part of the brief. I am also not sure if you really have a meeting space either.

Penny Zhang
Key strength of the scheme: You have been experimental and exploratory in your approach to this design – which is great. Looking at the plan and section on the editor map I can see a good sense of balance and proportion in your scheme.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: You have over designed the outside space and under designed the inside. You have used so many “effects”, textures and forms that one becomes very confused and disorientated in this building.

Paula Idun
Key strength of the scheme: The way you used conceptual ideas to form aspects of your architecture. This works best in the exterior space where you explore the notion of the veil. This makes this area the most successful part of your scheme. It is nicely proportioned and carefully detailed.

Most significant weakness of the scheme: The textures you have chosen for your inside space almost completely obscure the form of the architecture. Also this space is not detailed in the way the exterior space is so it ends up being a bit bland.

Pascal Roberts
Key strength of the scheme: Use of subtle detailing works well in many places. The articulation of the ceiling heights is interesting in the interior. Perhaps you could consider the floor also in your next design.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: While the proportions and arrangement of elements are overall fairly good many of the spaces they have created feel a bit too basic. In order to bring more drama and /or poetry into your design you will need to take account not only the pieces or details that make up the architecture but also the voids.

Owen Liu

Key strength of the scheme: Great textures. Very good use of lighting. You have explored lots of different ways of enclosing space – some of which are very successful (e.g. floating blocks). It is good that you are trying to use concepts to inform your work. (Please get some help from an English as a first language speaker to write your posts.)
Most significant weakness of the scheme: You have used too many different elements at too many different angles on the exterior. This makes the spaces feel confusing. If you are using lots of elements you need to have a clear idea of what effect you would like to create otherwise the work becomes confusing.

Leslie Shen
Key strength of the scheme: You have used conceptual ideas to form your architecture very successfully. The scheme has a poetic feeling that is closely related to the ideas you were working with – well done. The meeting place where both ideas come together works particularly well. The ramps are also very well resolved.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: The use of textures in the exterior space (the wall treatment in the interior space) are appropriate but they have such a “sameness” that the elements of the architecture do not read very well. You could perhaps have added an edge detail of some forms in order that they do not merge into others. Ask me if you are not quite sure what I mean about that.

LENA CHEN
Key strength of the scheme: You have created some really fastastic views (of the exterior) – but I do not think that you have captured the best in your stills. The exterior lab is very nicely composed and works well. From the outside your building looks beautiful – but of course I am marking from the point of view of walking around inside.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: The interior spaces are a bit bland in comparison to the outside. They are also in the main too dark. Next time try to use as much creativity and compositional skill within rooms. Finally I could not really find a ramp that led from inside to meeting space which was a very important part of the brief.

Joshua Maule
Key strength of the scheme: Use of lighting to highlight form is good in many places. Generally the scale and proportioning is fairly good. You have also moved far away from the forms found in domestic architecture which I know was one of your goals in this project. Very good drawings
Most significant weakness of the scheme: Much of the selection of forms and the interior articulation feels arbitrary and so that the scheme is not cohesive. There is also an overall lack of detail.


Jabez Ho
Key strength of the scheme: Great that you attempted to engage with ideas about the client in your work. You have worked creatively and explored interesting spatial arrangements – while the proportions do not always work – this does serve to make your architecture more dramatic and powerful.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: The links you made between ideas and architecture are quite weak. Many of the spaces are far too dark. The technical probs that led to a loss of textures in many areas makes your work look unfinished. – You need to make sure you work out how to fix this for next time.

Hayley Ng

Key strength of the scheme: Your experimenting with ideas and are working quite conceptually which is great and will certainly stand you in good stead as you move on through architecture school. Walking through your building makes me think that it is trying to tell me something or make some comment (which is exciting) but I am just not quite sure what it is! Are you being ironic in some places?
Most significant weakness of the scheme: The scheme feels like a series of ideas rather than a coherent design – this is true even within each client’s space.

Gleb Zinger
Key strength of the scheme: Excellent attention to detail. Particularly where one element is used in several ways e.g. seat becomes balustrade and is visually made complete by an echoing change of material in the oppose wall. The many interesting and dramatic views are created through an interplay of different height spaces.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: Some scale issues e.g. exterior stair seems to small in relation the rest of the scheme – it felt too small when I walked down then later when I flew back the look at the building as a whole it seemed out of place in the overall scheme. I am not entirely convinced by the proportions of the exterior space. The very brutal beams are a bit of an odd form and are extremely heavy – the way they are constructed and integrated with the rest of the walls, however, is very good.


Cameron Gage
Key strength of the scheme: The ramps are cleverly put together (particularly leading to outside). The combination of texture/colour and form is exploratory and interesting. It may have worked better as a corridor for your interior ramp rather than as a room.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: Overall there is not very much work here! The exterior space is very basic and looks like a first draft of the space. It is an interesting form and so you could have ended up with a very successful space if you had developed this further.

Brian Culla
Key strength of the scheme: Great Axo’s interesting forms, very well rendered. The shots you have posted of your model are great and demonstrate you are aware of where you have created interesting and dramatic spaces.
Most significant weakness of the scheme: Both of the lab spaces are fairly unexciting. Perhaps you could have used some of your earlier drawn explorations to refine them. The scheme seems to have been designed all at once rather than had refinements and developments made over time.

Alex Jaspers
Key strength of the scheme: Your design intentions were thoughtful (in terms of the brief and what felling you wanted to create within the spaces) and creative.

Most significant weakness of the scheme: Since there were no draft versions and there was consequently no development of your scheme. This model is what I would expect to see in the early stages of design.