Voices

Metric- Metric refers to something that is evenly spaced and measured. The Romans used metric in most of their buildings. An example of this would be the columns and arches, these were measured and evenly spaced. The Romans also put in roads and houses in measured well thought out rows. Blakemore talks about the roads saying… “they had developed a system of transportation through road building that allowed them to bring to Rome the artisans whom they so greatly admired.” (Blakemore 46) Probably the biggest invention Rome made that used the metric system was the. In order to create a dome you have to have a lot of measurements that are exactly precise or it will not stand. Blakemore talks about how important spacing was to the Romans… “The dimensions of the interior were enhanced by the spatial progression of the series of spaces along the axial arrangement, in which there was alternation of size of space, of light level, and of ceiling height.” (Blakemore 51) In my drafting class we use the metric system all of the time when we are drafting things. Just this week we had to draft our pats chair designs in scale with measurements. We used metric sort of the same way in studio we had to make our passageway designs to a certain scale. Metric is used every day and everywhere even though we don’t really use it in drawing class we still see it we have certain sizes drawings have to be. The picture below is an example of metric being used in a Roman dome.

Precedent- a precedent is something that is used as a model or a guide an inspiration to build off of in design. In my history and theory of design class we talked about Rome and how they used a lot of Greek buildings as there precedents. “The Romans assimilated Greek culture” (Blakemore 46) Also in my design drawing class we had to draw drawings of a building but first we had to go on the internet and get drawings of that other people had done and take inspiration from them. Precedent was also discussed in my studio class we have been making passageway projects and we had to look at our old passageways and use them as a precedent to make a new one. This drawing is shown with the precedent that was used to draw it.

Presence- the presence of something is important to design you have to be aware of the placement of things and how their presence will affect the mood. In the roman civilization the designers of the city and the buildings thought a lot about presence. They wanted the front of their buildings to look good and they wanted to make them big and to make a statement. When you get inside of the buildings they wanted to make sure that you feel something or that you have an experience. In the drawings that I did of the Foust building I had to try and to make sure that I was creating the presence that was already there and that I was creating a presence that wasn’t, by taking inspiration from my precedents. My design of a passageway involved the thought of presence like how would someone feel going through his thing that I am creating and where would it go. Presence can also be seen in my drafting class because we were required to do drafts of the different views of my models in the different positions. This picture is of my final passageway project.

Moments- A moment is something that is temporary or a piece of something that tells a story or makes you feel something. In ancient Rome just like with presence moments were important also he designers wanted to create things that would make you stop and take a moment and be shocked by the size of buildings or by the craft of buildings. Blakemore talks about the way that the Romans used things as opposed to the Greeks “Whereas the Greeks used the column for its structural properties, the Roman’s often used it in a nonstructural and decorative sense.” (Blakemore 47) In my drawing class I had to go to the Foust building and find moment in the building and draw them. These moments were just parts of a whole but a moment could be a whole building or a whole part of a city. The passageway designs that we designed in studio was a moment as a whole it told a story and it was interesting there were probably a lot of moments in all of the designs. These drawings are examples of moments one is my bedroom and the other is from the Foust building.

Duality- Duality is when two things go together or when they are both alike there is a duality about it. The Roman buildings and even the gothic buildings use duality in that they have a distinct style that relates itself to each other. “From these sources it is clear that the Romans relied on Greek prototypes of the Hellenistic period for their inspiration.” (Blakemore 61) Duality is seen a lot in design in my passageway design incorporated a lot of duality by making each part of the whole the same. Then in my drawings that I did that related to a precedent there was duality because they are alike in a lot of way at least in the way they are drawing no the actual picture itself. This drawing is of San Vitale it shows how different styles have been used together.

Summary- Overall the words did not relate as well this week as they have in the past but there are some relations. These can be seen in presence, precedent, and moments. Presence and moment relate in that they are both things that are a part to a whole or they are things that tell a story.

precedent analysis

Building: Disney Concert Hall
Construction: started in 1987 and completed in 2003
Designer: Frank Gehry
Location: Los Angeles, California
I decided to do my precedent analysis on the Disney Concert. I really like this building because of the fluidity of the design and the unusually shapes that are usually not seen in a building. The exterior of this building is made out of stainless steel. The design is very modern looking and is probably one of the most famous of Gehry's work. One really cool aspect of the building is the roof garden. I think that this building would be a great building to do my precedent analysis on because it is really unique and after looking on the internet there is not alot of information on it avaliable so I think it would be cool to find out more about the building and for others to also be anble to know more about it.

Parts:Whole

Archetype; prototype; hybrid- Archetype, prototype, hybrid are all related in a way. An archetype is an object or building that is the example or the inspiration for something else and a prototype is a form that is the basis of something that is later made. Hybrid is related in that a hybrid is when you take information from something old but you add something new to it. In my history and theory of design class we talked about these things saying that Greek architecture and ideas was the inspiration for future buildings even to this day. “The Egyptians and the Greeks shaped powerfully evocative buildings meant to contain groups of people; public life was conducted in the out-of-doors, among these sculpted architectural objects… and this shaping of space became the essence of Roman architecture.” (Roth 247) Probably the most inspirational of all the buildings in Greece was the Parthenon the temple of Athena, buildings that have taken inspiration from it can be seen all over the world today. The Roman Empire took inspiration from the Greeks in a lot of their buildings there buildings are a great example of hybrid building because they took parts of the Greek buildings and they added their own information to them. In my other classes we talked about these things especially in our thumbnail drawings we took inspiration from an object and used it to inspire our drawings or we looked at the object and then changed it or added to it. The image here is of the Parthenon one of the most inspirational buildings from the Greek empire.

Source- The word source in definition is the beginning of something or where that thing came from. Over the past week in my classes we have been looking at sources. In my history and theory of design class we have been studying the foundations unit, this means that we have been looking at Greece the source for a lot of the architectural concepts that we are talking about this week, now that we are studying Rome. Blakemore talked a lot about this idea of source showing how other cultures have pulled ideas and concepts from the past. “Classical Greek and roman architecture has had astounding influence both structurally and decoratively in subsequent periods, especially beginning with renaissance Italy. Interpretations of classical architecture have been both literal translations and adaptations.” (Blakemore 28) In my studio class I looked at source in a way that was a little bit different, we had to come up with a pathway design based off of the story of creation that we read. The source we used were our creation stories which gave us the inspiration to take ideas from the story and create a pathway from it. In my drawing class we have been looking at sources, we were given the assignment to come up with a plan drawing of a building without looking at the plans. They are trying to get us to look at the actual source so that we can latter build off of it and eventually do an assignment from the ideas we collected. Furthermore in my drafting class sources have been important in our design of Pat’s chair. We had to go back to our model and do drawings of our ideas so that they can be used in the future as sources to build the actual pieces of furniture. The picture below is of the original model that I built that I made my thumbnails.

Entourage- An entourage in a lot of cases would be a group of people but in other cases it could be a group of buildings or drawings. According to dictionary.com an entourage in relation to architecture is the “landscaping and other nearby environmental features shown on a rendering of a building.’ In history and theory of design this past week we talked about the Greek empire and the entourage of buildings in relation to certain areas within the town. The main area in Athens was the Acropolis. In the Acropolis there is an entourage of buildings that are grouped together for one purpose. All of the buildings besides the Parthenon are there to direct your attention to the Parthenon which then directs your focus to the god’s. In my drawing class we have looked at entourage in the form of people. We have been working on drawing groups of people in interaction with one another. In my studio class as well as in the drawing class we have been studying thumbnail drawings. These drawings are basically a group or an entourage of sketches of projects and buildings. These images are of my thumbnails drawings that I did and abstracted down from the originals.

Hierarchy- Hierarchy is what you would call an arrangement or series of items. In my history and theory of design class we talked about hierarchy in reference to the Acropolis in Athens. The Acropolis was very important to the town and the most important building there was the Parthenon. “The first building to be rebuilt on the burnt Acropolis was the largest of them all, dominating the hill and the plain of Attica below; this was the temple to Athena Parthenos (the Parthenon).” (Roth 235) The order of the hierarchy here was the Parthenon which was the temple of Athena then there was the Propylaia, the Erechteion, and the Temple of Athena Nike. We also talked about how the Greeks wanted to appear higher above the rest of civilization they had “a passion for luxurious materials and techniques, a preoccupation with illusionistic devices which treated solid surfaces as transparent or otherwise optimized the dimensionality of the plane, and a predilection to elaborate any surface.” (Blakemore 55) In my studio class we looked at hierarchy in relation to our passageway projects we had to find five main points that have hierarchy over the other parts in the design and draw them. I did the same thing in my drawing class as we did in studio except in relation to the Foust building. This is an image of the Acropolis in Athens.

Order- order can be defined as a group of things or a list of things in a specific order. In my history and theory of design class we talked about the order of columns. This order was Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. We also talked about how the Romans tried to establish order in their cities with the use of paved roads and aqueducts. ”Roman engineers built a network of roads linking all parts of the empire, from the Portuguese coast to the ends of turkey and Syria.” (Roth 250) The Greeks also showed order in their buildings with the use of spacing and decorations “The dimensions of the interior were enhanced by the spatial progression of the series of spaces along the axial arrangement on which there was alteration of size of space, of light level, and of ceiling height.” (Blakemore 51) In my other classes we talked about order in the context of craft and placement. We drew people and thumbnails in relation to things defining order. These images are of the three most important columns form the five in the order.

Synopsis- Overall these words all really can be tied together. The words order, hierarchy, and entourage all really have a lot of the same things in their definition they all are talking about the way things are laid out and where they came from. The other words all really relate in that they are all words that talk about the origins of the ideas and how things and buildings became what they became today.

perspective drawings examples of styles

airport
thames
snow
cathedral
london

thumbnails

These thumbnail drawings are of the Foust buliding on the UNCG campus

Pat's Chair

In my drafting class we were given the assignment to design a chair using only a limited amount of materials. We had to make a piece that includes as many of the following things as possible, a chair, table, desk, and a server, and the furniture had to all be one piece. These are the drawings of the piece that i designed.

Opus #3

Scale- Scale is the measurement of an object in which you take its actual size and you recreate it exactly, except in a bigger or smaller size. In my studio class we deal a lot with scale. This week we had to recreate a wall section in a one inch scale so instead of the wall being 9 feet tall it would be 9 inches tall. My drafting class is where I use scale the most; we do a lot of house drawings and furniture drawings in which we have to recreate things in a specific scale. In my history and theory of design class we used the term scale in a different form. In this class we used scale in terms of size, like the pyramids we talked about how big they are. Scale of things can be used to change our view of things Roth explains it here “For the most part, there are many clues in a building as to its size- windows, doors, steps- but even all these may be enlarged so that our sense of scale is distorted.” (Roth 76)

Unity- Unity can be defined as something that is uniform and equal that can be tied together by its different parts. An example of a place where unity can be seen is in ancient Egypt. The prime examples here are the columns. The columns were built the same and they were spaced evenly apart. Blakemore talks a lot about how unity in space was used in ancient Egypt and then passed on to Greece, “The role of the orders was significant in defining spaces of the Greek interior; not only did they divide spaces horizontally but they were also instrumental in creating visual interest.” (Blakemore 28) Another example of unity in Egypt is the pyramids. They are evenly sided structures that come to a point that directs you to the heavens. The pyramids at Giza were built in groups of three (the power of three). The power of three is a strong statement of unity these groupings of three tie all the pyramids together.

Section- A section is a “part of something”, in the architecture world it often times refers to the view of a house or an object. In my drafting class we do section drawings. This week we drew sections of our furniture piece from the Pat’s chair assignment. Also in my design drawing class we often times have to take a section of something and draw it, this is basically what a vignette would be, a section of a whole that you choose to draw. In my studio class we had to build wall sections to scale. We built walls to house our artifacts that we made. In Egypt the columns again can relate in this instance to section Blakemore explains it here. “The cross section of the shaft imitated a cluster of reeds, resulting in a parallel series of narrow convex semicircular molding or, conversely a series of parallel channels.” (Blakemore 12)

Boundaries- A boundary is something that is used to keep people out or in or direct people where to go. In my history and theory of design class we talked about different types of boundaries. One of the main things we talked about was the pyramids. These huge structures were there to keep people out of the graves of the kings they are boundaries. “The pyramids are virtual mountains, at the time the largest buildings in the world” (Roth 197) One great example of boundaries that we studied in history and theory of design is the temple of Hatshepsut it was built before the Valley of The Kings so that you will see them on the way to the pyramids it is a boundary to the Valley.

Vignette- A vignette is a part or a section of something that is shown through a drawing or through literature. The vignettes that we have been focusing on are picture or drawing vignettes. The class that we have really talked about this in is my design drawing class. We have done some assignments where we had to draw vignettes of the teachers and of our studio and of a number of other things. In Egypt they used a lot of vignettes in there furniture and on their walls. “Paintings included geometric arrangements, religious subjects, plant patterns, and animal life.” (Blakemore 9)

Synopsis- All of these words are tied together in some way or at least play off of one another. Section and unity are a lot of times related as well as section and vignette. The section and vignette are related because a vignette is a section of something or a little view of something. A large topic this last week in History was Egypt all of these terms were seen in Egypt the rest of the world and today’s way of life came from Egypt.