Sculpting Biosynergies 2011

Well I’ve uploaded another update to the thesis booklet. I’m still planning on doing some more work on it, particularly with regards to environmental control systems. Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

The final presentation came and went very quickly.  Arrival was a quick as departure.  This past week has been somewhat of a blur, catching up on much needed rest and reflecting on the work over the course of the term.  Between catching up on other classes, getting organized and back to a normal life, it’s been a challenge and quite a recovery road that will take some time.

Overall, the review went well.  Critical and tough questions were asked, but I had considered design aspects for all the topics that were questioned prior to the review.  The main focus of the discussion was the original idea and the parti of the building. The clear diagrams and brief intro of looking to the site’s history sold the idea to my jurors through the connection of the traditional, colonial fabric to a modern, urban fabric.  The sequence of spaces which set up the design move to carve into the seawall to give back to the beach and create a space which blurs the end between craft and the beachscape.

A good, tough lesson was learned in terms of presentation at various scales: whether present or absent to direct the discussion, grab the 30 sec drive-by, the 3 min, the 10 min, and the 45 minute attention spans.  I plan to continue developing imagery for the presentation considering I need some interior image shots of the quality of my spaces.

Apologies for the poor photo quality stitched together for the final presentation.  My camera with final shots of my setup were left behind at home as I’m overstretched currently balancing the workload at hand.  I will repost later.

Well even though school is wrapping I’m definitely planning on using my time to touch up some things I couldn’t quite get to during the school year. Here’s the game plan:

ECS!! I’ve got a lot of thoughts about this but I didn’t quite get the time to photoshop my building section to display them graphically. The emphasis is on three main things: the flow of water throughout the building, I put a general plumbing plan into my model but it doesn’t pop so I’m going to highlight these elements, using thermo active walls to capture the heat that is generated through the decomposition of soils via mycelium and microbial activity, and using the stack effect in the main exhibition cylinder to aid with both natural ventilation and spore collection, also I’ll emphasize the roof and how it responds to the climate.

Next I want to spend some quality time doing some more renderings and photoshoping them to my hearts content. I love this part of the project but I always end up designing down to the last minute and I don’t give myself any time to do this. I have the model I just need the time to render. I think the first one I’ll do will be an interior view inside the exhibition cylinder. I didn’t model those railings for nothing!

I also want to spend some more time showing some good old details, this is something I sometimes struggle with because there are so many options out there but I just need more practice.

It came to my notice that my e-mail isn’t up on the site so if you have any suggestions for me I’d love to hear them.

Pop me an e-mail I’m at jhutton86@gmail.com