November & December 2007

12-23-2007 Season's Greetings!

I hope everyone has a great holiday -whatever it may be- this season of holidays.

12-16-2007 Abstract Expressionist House 3

This iteration presents a slightly more polished version and adds a few new elements as well. Since these things are rather time consuming to make I'm going to take a break for a while. I have ideas for other houses in roughly the same vein but I'll let them stew a bit more. The first image is from a late intermediate stage which perhaps some of you might find interesting.

12-16-2007 A Couple of Quick Models Done Between AEH2 and AEH3

I needed to play a bit between the two models. I was actually experimenting with some ideas to incorporate in AEH 3.

12-9-2007 Third Attempt at an Abstract Expressionist House/Sculpture

Still feeling my way forward with these. Trying various things to see how they work. As I noted in my previous post, I've come to view the models as architectural follies... feel free to interpret that as you may. I do think they might make enjoyable summer homes.

12-7-2007 Second Attempt at an Abstract Expressionist House/Sculpture

This turned out much closer to where I was aiming. I'm a bit conflicted about this design path. The models, if they had to be placed in an architectural type, would fit most comfortably in the "folly" category.  In other words, playthings for the rich and powerful. Not that anyone is going to build one of these, but if anyone did, it would be a plutocrat. Oh well, they are just models, and they are fun to make.

12-7-2007 First Attempt at an Abstract Expressionist House/Sculpture

This turned out to be a dead end in terms of my goal, but perhaps interesting on its own terms. It is yet another example of how important the process of iteration is in design work.

12-7-2007 A Some Preliminary Work Playing Toward a New Design Idea

These are a few pieces I did last week as I was doing some experimenting for an Abstract Expressionist house/sculpture design idea.

11-26-2007 A Vaguely Zaha Hadid Style House

The house really doesn't feel very Hadidish. I think that is because I simply put walls with curves under a curvy roof. I didn't really let a Hadidish shape drive the model. Anyway, here is the house.

11-18-2007 Some Abstract Work in Prep for a Zaha Hadid Style House

Lots of curvy parallel lines. The first two images below were from my second model and are much closer to where I'm aiming. The two images after are from the first model in which I started exploring these ideas. It is a nice clear example of how design is a process.

11-13-2007 A House in the Style of Frank Gehry

I wanted to use TINs for the curvy walls but TINs won't work easily for walls with thickness if the curves are too curvy. Having just made the dreamscapes below I decided to use the Follow-Me tool to drive curved wall profiles along curvy paths. This worked reasonably well but I plan on trying another version with TINs (and less curvy walls) in a few weeks. The model for this house -which the 3d-warehouse wouldn't take- is attached at the bottom of the Nov. & Dec. page. I put a good five or six hours into the model with a lot of interior work. I think it would be a fun house to inhabit. I've got some ideas about how walls like this could be constructed but I have no idea if they would actually work in practice. 

11-13-2007 Dreamscapes Created with the Follow-Me Tool

I didn't put a lot of time or thought into these but they were kind of fun experiments.

11-5-2007 Latest House 2.0 Test House

I'm quite pleased with how this came out. Partially I think this is because I spent more time than usual thinking through the design before sitting down to model it on the computer. The model, start to finish, took about three hours. I have all the techniques down now, I just need to refine the process.

11-5-2007 More Fall Maple Leaf Models

I wanted to try a few more things with one of the fall Maple leaves I recently scanned. Following are the results.