From the Sketchbook(12)

It’s a Oldie!

Early plaza layout renderings

About the second after I finished this page of sketches I received a phone call telling me the project went kaput. So that was that.

I think I was on to something here, but, alas . . . . .

Another rendering from this went nowhere.

Below is a rendering for a rather largestream and a series of waterfalls. The contractor I was doing this for had a track record of dragging his feet on starting projects on time.

In this case he didn’t even get these drawings and his proposal to the client before the homeowner accepted another for about half the price.

The finished project, I snuck in the backyard . . . was downright awful, I mean really bad. So bad, I almost drove home to get the camera, and sneak back in. wow it was bad . . . stream looked like a county drainage ditch full of rip-rap bad!

I think this is around 2002.

A Squidoo Lens on Moleskines

I decided to play around a little further with lens’ on the Squidoo site. This time I am showing some renderings and sketches from my Moleskine notebooks.

These Squidoo pages are a pretty quick, easy painless way to promote an idea, thought, process, group of something etc., and get it out to the World.

Publish your information quickly and then point folks that way to get to a specific subject about something your interested in.

I also see this as a good way to become “better” at working with web/internet stuff . . . especially for an old guy like me.

For you designers this is a easy way, and a more imaginative way to “publish your resume” in a unique way on-line.

Check it out. I have several pages at Squidoo, just go to the top of this page and hit the WCI/links button, the Squidoo links are at the top.

Speaking of — from the Moleskine

Hey, it's geometry trees!

From the Moleskine (11)

Hangin' Out

Design Principles (06)

I wanted to go a little further on this idea of thinking beyond the ground plane. I keep coming back to this for a reason.

Designing for the ground plane only

Beginning designers, intermediate designers, and designers who are just not very good get stuck here . . . here on this surface and cannot think beyond this dimension. They cannot see the 2nd and 3rd dimensions.

A Designer needs to look at the power of dimensions

Small Thinking

The other big hang-up for this group of designers . . . thinking about the small, the details, the plant(s) before the look at the entire space . . . nothing kills designing a great space like looking at the small picture before the big picture. I’ve seen, or heard it hundreds of times, and I mean hundreds.

Back to Dimensions

Let’s take a look at two plan view drawings that I whipped up the other night. A couple of quick doodles to show the deception of designing in plan only.

Plan view, steps, wall, terrace, plants, etc.

Okay, that’s one. Here’s another:

Here's the other idea in a quick plan view sketch

So along with the above plan view designs/concepts I had drawn above, below are two renderings in what could be called 2D, or others might call them sectional drawings, for now lets call these 2 Rick Anderson sectionals.

These are the same kind of sketches I am liable to draw on-site or in a meeting, to help the clients see/understand/visualize the potential for their space. I cannot state enough how powerful drawing in front of your client is . . .

The 1st:

The opportunities for great space when adding vertical elements

The 2nd:

Focusing on the ground plane.

Obviously the 1st plan view goes with the 2nd rendering, creating a okay space which looked really positive in the plan view drawing. In the virtual reality of the rendering . . .  just so-so.

Just the Opposite:

The 2nd plan view drawing above was pretty meh(not so good), average, sufficient. Now look at my rendering for the space, the drawing below the 2nd plan view.

Much more interest, a better definition of the space. look at how happy those people are. A place to hang out, find some shade, feel good and be with people or  . . . as a space to relax, rest, enjoy, or even contemplate our economy!

Forms to Spaces

Back to the beginning. The work in more than one dimension helps in greatly defining that space and bringing it to another level. This ground plane has many uses and performs great function-almost all of our functions, but as designers we need to reach beyond simple function.

We need to reach for great spaces and places. Memorable form, grace beauty, structure along with that function.

For those of you stuck on the ground, get off that singular plane and add more planes, create the forms. Forms that allow for the designing and creating of great structures, elements and spaces.

More to come.

Disclaimer: I drew both renderings before I whipped out those fast plan view versions of the space(s).

Another Moleskine Page

Notes during a Gordon Hayward talk

Here’s 2 pages from the 2008 CENTS Show. It’s a lecture on stone by Gordon Hayward.

A lot of his talk was showing work by Dan Snow and other stone masons/jobs/art peices up in the New England area.

Whenever a image popped up that I really liked I started sketching as fast as possible and attempted to keep up with his talk.

It was tough drawing, looking down, and following along on the screen . . . but it was worth the effort. A very nice talk on Gordon’s part.

Gordon showed a lot of great work and there were enough interesting images to get the creative juices flowing . . . how could I borrow off this peice, what could I add to another? Seeing built works and wondering how I could make them my own.

Fun stuff and a good talk.

The above page is a pretty good example of how I take notes during a lecture and I wanted to share that process with you and add why I feel it is important to take notes this way.

I know(for me) that this type of note taking has made me a much better designer and renderer(sp?).  The improvement in my design skills is unquestionable. Plus I have all those notes, drawings, thoughts, and ideas(20+ years) at my fingertips.

Here I go Again

I’ve written about this before, go to industry events and take good notes  . . .  not on loose paper or a legal pad-no way. Take those notes in a notebook(s), good solid notebooks, notebooks/journals that will last.

One other thing . . . we are designers. Designers do not think in words only, do not remember in words only,or written expressions and thoughts. Designers should remember in pictures . . . visual concepts, drawings, quick sketches, doodles.

Let me say this again as designers we are visual people . . . so let us remember visually, think in sketches, create in concept drawings.

The work you produce will be better for it. Make doodling/rendering/sketching a part of your life. It’s from those quick sketches that some of your great ideas will come from.

Oh, one more thing . . . something very important-are you listening? When a great idea, solution, brainstorm, awesome thought hits you . . .

Write it down or draw it IMMEDIATELY, it is this power of recording those ah-ha moments as quickly as possible in relation to when they occurred a powerful, powerful tool in your creative toolbox.

Get busy drawing, and keep a notebook, Moleskine, or any other bound journal close by!

Qucik rendering during lecture

*That above image is a close-up from the top image. It’s all quick fast lines. Draw the concept of the idea . . . not a final rendering. Just capture the thought.

The Stages of a Color Rendering

A client asked me to render a redesigned boardwalk area. These are the steps I went through to make that happen.

A Design in Pen and Ink

The above is a simple pen drawingdone fairly quickly, giving the client an opportunity to see what possibilities for the future may hold.

Color Rendering over Image

Above I have kept the color rendering on top of the black and white image so that anyone can see exactly how the proposed layout might look if the conceptual is followed through.

Black&White

Why? Why is that base image in black and white? I believe that contrast of line and the lack of color help my color renderings pop out and fully show themselves.

It’s like the Wizard of Oz, the movie starts in black and white and then . . . POW . . . color, color when it’s time to make an impact . . . when it’s time for a new place, a new beginning . . . a fantasy.

Like my drawings and what possibilities their space holds.

Color Rendering without Labels/Titles

Finally the drawing, scanned alone and with no labels and markers. Without an addition of embellishment-you know little dots, small marks, and slight color bleeds.

If you need something like this let me know.

If you want me to do a workshop let me know.

After all

The rendering tells the story, it offers possibilities, the drawings portend what could be.

Tangshan Earthquake Memorial Park

I was absolutely riveted by this perspective for a memorial park for earthquake victims in China’s Northern city of Tangshan the park will be called Tangshan Earthquake Memorial Park.

I can’t say it enough  . . . this conceptual really strikes me as something very powerful and thought provoking.

The architects for the project are Kjellgren/Kaminsky and it looks to be a  interesting and beautiful project with some very powerful interactive aspects within the park. For example . . .

MESSAGE STONES

Upon entering the park one passes a carved out block made up of 240.000 black stones placed in metal meshes. Visitors are free to pick up a stone, write a message on it with white chalk, and place it at their own special spot in the park. Eventually the walls will be torn down and spread throughout the park by the combined actions of thousands of visitors creating individual places of remembrance.

There is much, much more to the park and it would better serve you to go to the architects site and go through their description.

I thought I would post one other part of the description the opening. I want again to say what caught me was the above rendering, and that image led me to this site and the story for the park memorial.

I would think this would be a real challenge for the design of the integrated horticulture.

SILENT CITY  . . . TANGSHAN EARTHQUAKE MEMORIAL

Landscapes and cities contain information layers. These layers can exist physically, they can be visible or invisible, they can be abstract like cartographic grids, or remembrances.

For Tangshan the layer of the 1976 earthquake will always be present, in the collective memory of its inhabitants and through its physical remains.

For the memorial park we propose a monument that is omnipresent throughout the whole park constituting one of its many layers. Juxtaposed to greenery, paths and daily life remembrance becomes a natural part of the park.

The dichotomized relationship between grief and hope, black and white, past and future reoccurs throughout the project materialized in the relationship between the message stones, the lanterns and the two parts of the ruin.

A Moleskine Moment

I musta been trying to save paper

From the Sketchbook (10)

The Formal Garden in pencil

From the Sketchbook (9)

Figuring out the driveway.

This was drawn right on site. I was interested in getting down my initial thought for the driveway and possible parking spots.

The reason for all the squares for the paving is that I was either stuck on something, or I just kept drawing squares as I was daydreaming about the project. I’ve noticed that I do that a lot on these types of drawings.

I guess it’s my style of thinking.

Reality would say that on site sketches would be very loose, very conceptual, and devoid of detail.

I will continue to show these types of drawings because Ibelieve it’s the best way to learn about conceptual thinking and the design process.

Addendum: those color markings are from Chartpak markers that I had been scribbling with on another doodle.

Long Ago Design (2)

While looking for a drawing to do a comparative analysis I found this interesting conceptual design.

What I have is something very loose and “natural” on the right as opposed to something very geometric in design on the left.

The Drawing

Natural on the right, geometric on the left.

The idea was giving the client a chance to look at completely opposite ideas and then decide from there.

What happened was the immediately went to the ‘natural’ look, even though they had indicated to me they were looking for some extra surface for seating.

In the end the only real difference from the drawing on the right and the installation was the water feature aspect. The large pond idea became part of the project.

I thought I’d throw this out there because this is a good example of curvilinear(natural) vs. geometric design in the residential setting.

The Case of the Basement Bistro (2)

Based on the comments and some e-mail from the previous post here is a little better explanation of the bistro area.

I have enjoyed all the feedback and look forward to other thoughts. Sharing these ideas makes us all better.

If it's this, that's too much fence/railing

If you click on this you can read my notes better. there’s also a note on the far right where the 2nd door is located. That is where the indoor pool is located.

The more i think about it there will have to be some sort of railing/benches, something because those walkways are too close and there is the need to place a patio area to the right of where that wall is located.

The more I look at that area on the left the more inclined I am to hard surface most of the area and suggest pots to green up the hard surface, add interest and height . . . including the concern for the view(s) from inside.

The Architecture

The other problem for me is the house itself. The design is one of those typical meldings of several differnt styles,  a “mutt” house. Not fond of that but it seems that more often than not 5,000sq ft and above houses are built this way. At least in this part of the country.

So the process continues . . .

Oh, I have not come up with something specific in the way of hardscape/architecture in the front that is compelling me to tie it together with this back area. At this moment anyway.