Week 01 Folding Exercise

Week 1 - Task for Studio


0. Project 1 Assignment Brief is up on Blackboard under Assessments. Log on Blackboard to download it!

1. Choose One Architect from below:

• Zaha Hadid
• Peter Eisenman
• Morphosis
• Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa

2. Post to your blog your chosen architect. Choose one of their completed buildings and post a series of photographs to your blog, including references of where the images are from. You will be using the same architect for the rest of the semester. 

Folding Task

10am-12pm: 

3. The main task for today is a folding exercise to get you in the process of exploring ideas thru quick hands-on approach. You will each be given two sheets of A4 paper to create two folded objects with. The paper can be folded, curved, cut or ripped, but MUST remain a single piece of paper.

4. For the first step you will create an interesting folded form based on your abstraction of the building through the photographs. An approach could be to think spatially, structurally, materially, or in terms of surfaces.

12pm-2pm: 

5. For the second step you will gather a series of drawings, models, diagrams and any forms of media created by the architectural firm.

6. Interpret the media you have just gathered into your second folded form. Be selective. A good way to start could be by picking out recurring patterns, shapes, lines or motifs in the media, being aware of how elements are composed, or how your eye moves through the diagrams and drawings as you examine them. 

7. Take pictures of your folded objects with your camera phone or a digital camera. Be judicious in choosing the views and incorporate both close-up details and overall shots of your folded objects. 

Week 1 - Independent Task

Complete and blog the studio task, and:

1. Research further into your chosen designer using the library and online journals. You should end up with a minimum of 6 photographs, 6 representational archetypes (drawings, models, diagrams, etc) created by the firm, and a series of orthographics (plans, elevations, sections) related to your chosen building. Create a bibliography of your sources. Write a short analysis of the building based on your readings.

2. Create a 3 dimensional conceptual model in 3dsMAX based on a combination of your two folded objects. The idea is not to literally amalgamate two models together but to model qualitatively, selectively drawing out characteristics and syntaxes that appeal to you, discarding aspects that seem incompatible, and looking back at your sources to model out a thematic or conceptual standpoint. 

3. Experiment with creating a draft render and a draft animation of your 3dsMAX model. 

4. Blog all of the above before start of class in week 2.