My Latest Studio Project

[Mings]

Hey guys,

I'm starting to work on my final boards for our studio project and starting to get a lot of things wrapped up. The boards are 76x94 (to fit our rolling display boards). Not everything that I will have is currently on there. It is missing an exploded facade axonometric, a morphological diagram which will go between the plans and sections/elevations, a rendered exterior view to replace the line drawing, and another rendered interior view. At this point nothing on the board is absolutely final, and while it is decent (this is the second iteration of it) I feel it could be a lot stronger and balance the graphic aspects of the board with my design and the drawings (don't want the graphics to overshadow, yet want them to look good and compliment).

I would love to get your critiques on the board and the design of the building as well. Every single comment and criticism will be taken into consideration. The only thing I probably won't budge on is the color (Rouge=red in French and this is right next to the Moulin Rouge...but then again...that is kind of an obvious choice and could be challenged) and the font (Sorry Brian, Klavika is part of my whole branding thing, it is in everything I do).

So without many more words, here it is:

I look forward to hearing what you guys (and gals) have to say about it!

[Davidson]

to be honest, from this board i get very little sense of what the building actually looks like in situ.

i think you need a render of the outside of it to give a proper impression of what it is supposed to look like.

i guess you can kind of infer the types of materials used from the render of the inside shot, altho there are far too many people

obscuring the view of the room. you can only just see the bottom of the stairs.

i understand that these are diagrammatic plans, but they dont feel like an initial impression. it really feels like you need at least one

proper photorealistic image of the outside of the building.

also, that colour looks orange and not red to me.

[Mings]

Hmmm....looks like I need to tweak the transparency on the people there. As I stated before there are more renderings coming. I've got to do some revisions and tweaking to the model before I can do an exterior rendering. Also the color is a 75% Screen of Red 032C. It isn't printing orangy per se, but there seems to be a little bit of orange undertones in that color. I need a red that isn't fully saturated so that it doesn't take away from the drawings (which are full plans not just diagrammatic like you said....they are one step away from being construction documents but I think I knew what you were trying to say as they are diagrams in a way of the building)..so any ideas on a red that would work for that?

Any other reasons why it doesn't feel like an initial impression?

EDIT: Also forgot to mention that the rendering is of the main lobby/gathering space in the building, which is why there are a lot of people in the image. There is going to be a lot more detail added in the next few days.

[Mings]

Alright guys here is the first iteration of the exterior rendering. I also think a lot of Fraser's concerns on how the building looks in its site make a lot of sense, since with the limited amount of space and the amount of drawings I have to have on it, I'm not able to show as much context as I usually do.

Thanks for your comments so far Fraser, and I look forward to more as this progresses. There is going to be an update to the board on Friday. So keep the C&C coming and I will take it all in consideration.

EDIT: I'm dumb and forgot that Paris is pretty overcast and dreary a lot. That will be changed along with other things.

[Davidson]

its cool man but i reckon you could sharpen this up quite a bit, it looks very raw.

id do a bit of colour balance work, up the ambient occlusion a bit and defo take a look at that lens flair.

id also paint in real people to a rendered scene like this.

the concrete also looks pretty oppressive in the palette. on the south bank in london is one of the most

insane concrete monstrosities youre ever likely to see. but in the sun, from certain angles it can look

amazing. the picture below isnt a great example but the concrete itself doesnt feel quite as bleak as your

image at the present. but this is all just colour work.

looks good tho, its a good start.

[Mings]

I'm actually quite familiar with the national theater, it is one of my favorite Brutalist buildings. Yeah that was the first render so there is a lot of tweaking of materials to do. The concrete you refer to is actually a zinc panel, so I need to work with the texture mapping and add a reflective layer to it. I'm also going to do a composite and put it into a site image of the Moulin Rouge. The Lens Flare won't be there for the next one, I'm going to change it to a more overcast condition that is more common with Paris. As far as the real people go, its just a personal preference that I do silhouettes. I feel that using real people distracts from the building (but it is something I'm not against doing as I'm looking for something better than the normal black at various transparencies that I have been doing). Overall it was still meant to be pretty raw, I'm still in the design mode vs production mode as I keep going back and forth between Rhino, Hand Drawing, AutoCAD and Physical Modeling.

Thanks for the comments and look for another version of this rendering in the next day or two....plus probably another version of the interior rendering as well.

[Mings]

Update time!

On the latest boards, any image that is on there twice means that one (usually the smaller one) is a placeholder. On the long morphology diagram, that will be changed to have each individual step, plus there are a couple more drawings to be added to the board. I also took another stab at the rendering with some of the things that Fraser said to look at, so now it has a feel of late afternoon in Paris to it.

Hope you guys like!

[DrJack]

I didn't know there were other architecture students that frequented these boards... I'm in my final year of undergrad at U of Oregon right now. The project looks very nice, but Davidson is right - you need to show more context. I know space is at a premium, but some contextual diagrams, perspectives that include neighboring buildings, or a larger site plan would go a long way toward helping others understand your building. Maybe you could scale down the plans a bit to squeeze in some context.

I share your preference for silhouettes in renderings, and I like that you made them red/orange because it helps separate them from what is "building" and what isn't. I think your tree in the exterior rendering could use a little more realism. That tree will change the entire view of your building from the street and you can't get a good feeling of that with the way it is so transparent and gray right now. Its fine with the people and car because they are constantly moving elements, but that tree is as much of a design decision as the placement of your mullions or the different material choices you made. It should be represented as such.

Keep up the good work, I'll post some of my boards when I get them completed. As it stands now I'm 8 days from my final review!

[Mings]

Thanks man, I'm at 13 days away from mine. I have to revise the plans a bit more, but I'll see if I can't find a way to get it in there. I was planning on doing a context/concept diagram and the long one is going to be a BIG type morphology diagram showing all the different operations. I'll be working on this more and would have something to post right now but it is still fairly close to what is already posted.

Stuckey, good idea on the tree. I think I'll just do some photoshop magic on one vs a true render of a tree, the rendering times are getting a little up there (currently 8 hrs for exterior and the interior one I just did took 19 and I'm using VMware Fusion 3 which finally allows you to take advantage of both processor cores).

[Mings]

Hey guys, here is a finalized exterior rendering (unless you guys notice some things I can tweak in Photoshop)....Turns out a certain material I was using was inflating the rendering times so I just changed it to a bit map, so it was only 3 hours for this rendering (plus about 4 in Photoshop).

The board is coming in the next few days once everything is finished (other two renderings plus another diagram).

Hope you like! Its definitely the best rendering I have done so far!

[Hoopskid]

First off, it looks amazing, great work. As a possible future architect I find your work very inspiring.

I was playeing around with Revit Architecture (autodesk) a while back and was surprised by the amount of time it took to render, and it only took me 5 minutes. I simply can't believe it takes 3 hours to render! Of course mine was basically a box with a roof, but still... 3 hours is shocking.

[Mings]

Thanks for the kind words hoops. Revit uses a different rendering engine that doesn't work as well as Rhino with VRay. I use Revit at the office I work at and I always have to do a lot with it in Photoshop to get it to look as good as Vray does from the get go. My renders are also poster size (the exterior is 24x28, interior large one is 27 x 23) so that affects rendering time as well. I'm sure you also had it render at a screen resolution as well.

Speaking of large interior renderings....

Enjoy!

[Davidson]

it looks great, but the red people ruin it for me. you should comp in some actual figures.

[Mings]

I know some people hate the red people, but its just my personal style and preference. I just don't like renderings with real people in there, as they take away too much from the building. With the figures, you get a sense of scale and function but without the distractions. Trust me, my boss also hates it and for him I do shades of black. He doesn't complain too much because I help him win clients over.

Anyway, major major update. The board is finished (except for a few tweaks based on C&C) and the last rendering is done. Let me know what you all think!

[altosax29b]

That's really cool, nice job.

[Mings]

Thanks Altosax. I had a really great review. The critics only main criticism of it was that they thought I tried a little too hard on the exteriors when my interiors looked confident and almost effortless (in the good way....the simple, to the point, great space way). That is definitely a good review versus another project in my studio group who got "I don't know. This is completely subjective but I just don't like it".