EXP 2_ Final Submission

Strategy Statement
The aim of experiment 2 was to imagine what life would be like 100 years after humans through the remodeling of a famous building and the modification of the landscape created in experiment 1. I chose to remodel The Rudin House in a state of decay- 100 years later. I decided to chose The Rudin House because I felt that it suited my existing landscape the most, due to its simplistic characteristics. The natural disaster that I decided on that destroyed the building is a flood/ tornado.

The framework of the Rudin House included metal framework, concrete slabs, metal window frames and glass for the windows. My goal was to completely destroy a majority of the building, hence there is less than half a roof- usually in a tornado the first thing it would rip off a building is the roof.

The textures I applied was cracked concrete with moss for all the concrete elements on the building, rusted metal for the window frames and any other metal elements. Most of my glass I shattered to the point there was no more visible but the ones that are visible have a slight grey colour to it- this represents dust and dirt collected onto it over time.

For the surrounding environment I mainly just added a lot of grass and fallen down trees to present the overgrowth of vegetation over the years. I also added a lot of vegetation growing on, around and inside the building, to show how nature has taken over the house over the years. I wanted the building to almost blend in with the landscape to show how overtime it will just be combined with nature and soon to become nothing, as if it did not exist in the first place.

Draft Strategy statement found here.

Landscape- Before and After 

BEFORE

AFTER

Decayed Rudin House

Trailer 

Files

CryEngine File 

3Ds Max File

Week 05_ EXP 2

Write a paragraph describing your strategy for interactively demonstrating the notion of decay and post to your blog.

My strategy for experiment 2/ showing the notion of decay on the Rudin House is to use vegetation to cover up most of the building. I want to show how nature overtakes objects/ buildings when inhabited and the powerful force it has. As the Rudin House is made out of primarily concrete, I have chosen textures that look dull and moldy, The metal elements in the building- roof frame, door and window frames have a rusted metal texture applied to it because metal primarily rusts over time. Over time, especially 100 years a building would be quite destroyed and decayed due to nature, so that is why most of my remodeled Rudin House is missing a lot parts from it (parts from the roof, wall, floor etc.).

In my trailer I wanted to show that even though no one lives in the house anymore there is still a great significance to it, as it still holds the memories of those who used to live there. The empty rooms used to be one's special place.  

Progress Pictures

Just some pictures to show progress.

Week 04_ EXP 2

CryENGINE 3 Materials: an introduction and application Vol. 3

The images above are test materials/ textures that I applied onto boxes/ planes made in 3ds Max. I had some difficulty getting the materials to map over the whole object, but after a lot of experimenting with the settings I was able to get some decent textures.

Use Youtube to find at least 5 trailers for movies to use as a reference for EXP02. Link them to your blog.

1) 2012

2) The day after tomorrow

3) Knowing

4) Deep impact

5) The towering inferno

I think what all these trailers that I have selected have in common is the impact that natural disasters have on big cities and peoples quest to survive. Obviously, all these movies are quite dramatized but the detail put into how a building falls over/ destroyed is what I found most useful in developing my decayed building. All the trailers also helped me to see how they create suspense by the use of various clips put together of the disasters consuming the buildings and the land.

Reflection on the lecture
In today's lecture Russell showed us how to implement different textures on our building. The most interesting part was when he used a paint tool in 3ds Max to create gradient textures that merged together, this could be useful to create a graffiti look to the walls.  

Week 03_EXP 2

Do 3 sketches of your chosen house, of how their structural systems might fail over time without maintenance. Has your chosen house also endured a natural disaster or two? 

 

 Reflection on the lecture

• One point that stood out to me in the lecture was when artist Robert Polidori's work was shown, it enforced the idea of how everything comes together at once during a disaster. It showed the sudden change and how great of an impact it can have on ones life. In some of his works it showed portraits, which highlights the unique habitation of each home and how each habitation embodies unique stories and memories.

 

Week 02_ EXP 2

Choose three materials, i.e. concrete, glass, marble, and do some research on their properties, i.e. the process of making each material, how long they will last, what makes them corrode, structural pros and cons, what these materials are typically used for, environmental impacts... Post a paragaph of your findings to your blog.

1. Glass

• The main raw material used to make glass is sand. To make clear glass, a special sand called silica sand is used. 
• This fine white sand is needed because it is very pure and does not contain other unwanted chemicals. 
• Glass production also needs limestone, soda ash and other chemicals to colour the glass. The production of glass uses energy, both during the extraction of the sand as well as during transportation and processing. Large amounts of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) are used during these stages, which in turn produce the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
• Glass doesnt decompose. It does take a long time to become a solid, but glass now will be glass in millions of years. Some types of glass can be made to decompose by adding chemicals similar to what etching does to glass. The term devitrication refers to the decompositition of glass but this is under forced chemical changes and not something that's going to happen in a natural state. Glass takes thousands of years to become a solid. Glass darkens as it ages as well. Lava glass or obsidian is glass found in nature and can be dated back to the beginning of the Earth, and is still glass. 

2. Concrete

• Concrete is a composite construction material. It is composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, limestone, water and chemical admixtures. 
• Concrete degradation may have various causes. Concrete can be damaged by fire, aggregate expansion, sea water effects, bacterial corrosion, calcium leaching, physical damage and chemical damage (from carbonatation, chlorides, sulfates and distilled water). This process adversely affects concrete exposed to these damaging stimuli.

3. Metal

• A solid material that is typically hard, shiny, malleable, fusible, and ductile, with good electrical and thermal conductivity.
• Metal does not decompose. Rather, it rusts. It depends on the metal in question and the alloying elements that are in it as to how long it takes metal to rust. 

Week 01_ EXP 2

3ds Max to CryEngine

 Importing the 3ds model to CryEngine was not to hard, especially with help from my tutor. The model is glowing red because there is an incorrect texture on it which will need to be replaced.

Post an image to your blog of each of the three selected houses and write 30 words on each. You could include observations on structural systems used, materials used, historical facts, information on the architects etc.

1. Barcelona Pavilion

 Source: http://www.archdaily.com/109135/

• Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)
• Designed for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, held on Montjuïc.
• A work emblematic of the Modern Movement, has been exhaustively studied and interpreted as well as having inspired the oeuvre of several generations of architects. 

The Materials

• Glass, steel and four different kinds of marble (Roman travertine, green Alpine marble, ancient green marble from Greece and golden onyx from the Atlas Mountains) were used for the reconstruction, all of the same characteristics and provenance as the ones originally employed by Mies in 1929.
• Mies van der Rohe's originality in the use of materials lay not so much in novelty as in the ideal of modernity they expressed through the rigour of their geometry, the precision of the pieces and the clarity of their assembly.

Source: http://www.miesbcn.com/en/documentation.html

2. Rudin House

Source: http://autobiographicalhouses.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/single-room-houses/

• Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, and built in 1993.
• The house is located in the Haut-Rhin département, in the north-east corner of France. It is surrounded by fruit trees and meadows.
• The Rudin House's deliberately simple silhouette has been likened to a child's drawing of a house. 
• It is finished in raw concrete, and is raised up on a platform, almost like a plinth supporting a sculpture. The architects themselves describe its shape as a "heavy and archetypal volume, that seems to be suspended above the gentle slope, demonstrating its desire to be perceived as an abstract object". 
• Almost all excess ornamentation has been dispensed with. Rather than spoil the façade with guttering, for instance, the architects devised a metal drip strip that guides the rainwater into a pond on the western side.

Source: http://www.themodernhouse.net/rudin-house/description/

3. House at Bordeaux

Source: http://www.orgone-design.com/blog/maison-a-bordeaux-rem-koolhaas/

• Designed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA.
• Completed in 1998, Maison Bordeaux sits on a small cape-like hill overlooking the city of Bordeaux.
• The house was designed for a couple and their family, but before Koolhaas and OMA were commissioned for the project in 1994 the husband of the family was in a life threatening car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. 
• Koolhaas proposed a rather simple volume that was spatially complex and innovative in terms of the interior organization and conditions.  Koolhaas proposed a house that was the compilation of three houses stacked on top of one another; each with their own unique characteristics and spatial conditioning.
• The house appears as three separate entities that fluctuate between opaque and transparent.  
• The lower level sits as a heavy mass that is carved into the hill.  
• The interior is cavernous and labyrinthian, in a sense, where all of the intimate activities of the family take place.  
• The middle volume is the most transparent as well as the most occupied space in the house.  It is the space for the living area that is situated partially indoors and outside offering extensive views over Bordeaux and allowing for a multitude of activities with its open plan.  
• The top volume is similar to the lower level in that it is opaque and conceals the bedrooms of the children and the couple. Unlike the lower level, the volume is penetrated with port hole windows that create views for the residents from their beds.
• With the three differentiated volumes stacked on one another, it appears as if the highest volume is floating on the middle volume because of the transparent glass.

 Source: http://www.archdaily.com/104724/

Lecture reflection:
Today's lecture was a good introduction into experiment 2 and what is required and expected of us. I was most inspired by seeing previous years students work and it allowed me to think of ways to make my project stand out and unique from others.

EXP 1 Submission

The Strategy
The letter and number combination for my island is N and 5. I have used 3 strategies to reveal and conceal my letter and number combination. The three strategies are placement of objects, shadows and the shape of the terrain. On the macro scale, I have shaped the island to be in shape of an N and 5 by creating rivers running through and around the terrain, with smaller islands around it. In some parts of the terrain I have strategically placed objects- natural and man made to shape up my letter and number. As for the micro scale I have used the vegetation to create the letter N and number 5, for example, small sticks stacked to form an N or rocks placed together to form a 5. I also used the shadows of the trees to create the letter N, which I think was the most difficult thing to achieve. Also for one of scales for my number 5 I have placed 5 barrels in my terrain, the reason for doing this is that I think it is a very subtle way to reveal the number as the viewer is expecting to see the number 5 instead of 5 shown through items. 


The Trailer

5 scales
Letter: N (Vivien Chan)
Number: 5 (z3466375)

Letter N  

 Micro to Macro

Number 5

Extra images of the island

Strategy Statement (Draft) and Draft images can be found below:

Drafts Link

CryEngine File
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hwwfnb8io880adt/g8ohjDAlP1

Week 6

Reflection on lecture (Movement)

In this lecture we watched a few trailers from different movies, this helped a lot in terms of gaining inspiration and insight into how to create a trailer and the different angles to use. Some of the trailers basically gave away the whole plot of the movie and I felt that the movies that provided less was more successful because it leaves the view curious as to what will happen. For my trailer of my island I want to leave the viewer in suspense, so I feel showing less will actually benefit what I want.

Week 5

Write a paragraph describing your strategy for the concealing and the revealing of your letter / number combination, to be embedded into your island.

My strategy for concealing and revealing my letter (N) and number (5) combination is to have a mixture of some numbers and letters being very obvious to the point where it is impossible to miss but others will be more subtle and hidden. My reason for doing this is I wanted to explore the different techniques of revealing my letter and number ranging from macro to micro. I want some of my letters and numbers to be created using the natural form of the island, for example, shadows, rock formations. This will really push how creative I can be and after some experimentation it is quite difficult to achieve letters/ numbers made out of shadows, I will have to further experiment and explore what I can use in CryEngine. Some other letters and numbers will be used out of man- made objects, for example, 5 crates and the letter N made out of planks of wood.

Complete a full draft of the outcomes required for EXP1. See the OUTPUTS section of the EXP1 brief for what is required; a full draft includes all of those outputs. While each of the outputs might not be finished they do need to present a clear indication of the strengths and opportunities of the scheme.

Reflection on lecture
 This lecture was on the subliminal and we were shown a lot of examples of subliminal messages in commericals, movies, posters, tv shows etc. This gave me inspiration on how to reveal and conceal my letter and number in my island. I found the symbols within logos very interesting and it was one of the things in the lecture that stood out to me the most, for example, I never noticed there was an arrow in the FedEx logo. These examples in the lecture will help me to further come up with ways to reveal and conceal my letter and number.

Week 4

Fishermen at sea by JMW Turner
[http://0.tqn.com/d/arthistory/1/0/y/h/jmwt_mma_01.jpg]

Before:

After:

Progress pictures:

Lecture Reflection:

• Concept --> Edmund Burke - The sublime is connected with terror- beauty + terror = frightening because it is unknown what is within the nature.
• Wanderer above a sea of fog by Caspar David Friedrich --> "We see no face, so it is impossible to know whether the prospect facing the young man is terrifying and exhilarating.."

The two points above from the lecture helped me understand more about what the sublime is about and looking at nature from a different perspective. I have always seen nature as something beautiful, not as frightening or to be associated with terror. This has inspired me to create an island that will not only encapsulate natures beauty but also create a sense of the unknown and to portray nature in a different way from the norm.