Evaluation – Cityscape

The task was to design a cityscape and create it using with a black sticky-back plastic. The task seemed simple enough, I thought it would be a great idea for my portfolio, seeing as I'd like to study architecture. The difficult part was finding buildings that maintained the same perspective and depth.

I made only one design for my final piece as I was very pleased with it. The most two more noticeable buildings I used were designed by one of my favourite architects, Santiago Calatrava. The Alamillo Bridge in Seville, Spain (1987-1992) and HSB The Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden (2001-2005) (also the tallest skyscraper in the Nordic countries with 190m). The remaining buildings were taken from a magazine drawing.

Cutting out the pieces required a lot of patience. It was frustrating trying to find out the correct pressure to cut with, if I wasn't careful I would cut through the sheet instead of the first black layer, this happened multiple times & was fixed by taping the cut parts from behind. The small window pieces were also difficult as they were small and fiddly. The material was tricky to use as if it was not cut through completely it would rip when it was pulled, making it look rough and badly done, this was the biggest problem for the positive side of the final piece.

Although I was, in general, pleased, I do feel that I could have added more detail & paid more attention to the aesthetics of the final outcome, it could have been neater. I did think I made an improvement by cutting off the bottom half making it look like a panoramic point of view, like how you'd see central London from Primerose hill. I personally think it made it slightly more unique.

Evaluation – Snowboard

The task was to create a snowboard design on a foam board with acrylic paint. The task at first seemed simple, finding swatch like samples from magazines but creating an innovative, eye-catching design wasn't as easy as I thought it might be. Having said this, it didn't take me long to draw out 2 final designs taking my likings into consideration.

From an old Mandala drawing, I'd done a year ago for a philosophy assignment, I took the snowboard design inspiration. I've always been curious about nature and so far I've included nature in most of my finale pieces, where acceptable, thinking about how consistency in theme could affect my grade, for the better, and how much I liked the original Mandala piece I decided I would try and make it work. Since the Mandala was superficially more spacious than the drawings look better laid out, so on the snowboard I had to cut down and keep the essential parts of the Mandala, my favourite parts; the sky with the blacked out buildings which transforms into the sea with the jellyfish on the other side. The building and the sea show a great contrast of the nature in which we live in. Seeing as it's a snowboard, I thought nature would be a great idea.

I did think about adding text, having researched online for inspiration I saw that most snowboards had text in very beautiful typefaces, as snowboarding is an extreme sport, the typefaces were mostly rough and very street, like graffiti. Because of this, I didn't do it. I wanted a simple yet eye-catching design. I did think of adding text with a lower opacity, giving it a translucent look, over the jelly fish, but thinking over that, I didn't want it to look too tacky.

Although, I thought my design was good, I could have put more effort into it. I like the shape I gave the over all board, but I could have sanded it out more, covering the pores properly, making it smoother or at least painted over it better. In general I thought my design good, but I don't think I showed enough evidence in my book as to how I properly got my final outcomes. I did photocopy on side of the final design to do a coloured experiment, as is required, but I had the coloured idea in my mind and I thought it pointless to redo on paper if I was already going to do it on the snowboard. 

Gerrit Rietveld

Rietveld began his life as a furniture maker focused on practicality of his products and ways to mass produce them.

Once he became an architect his focus was the deigning of houses that could be build in a production line almost like furniture, houses designed to be practical to live in and practical to be built.

Rietveld concentrated his skills as an architect in trying to find solutions to housing problems, his designs were modern for his time experimenting with different materials trying to create standard models of buildings.

His approach to design appeared to always be trying to use his talent to solve problems to increase the practicality of products used for daily living, Rietveld did not seem to be seeking fame, his fame seemed to be a product of his effort to help people.

Rietveld was an innovator, who took risk and experimented not only with form but also with new materials which although are now common in architectural projects such as prefabricated concrete slabs, these materials were at the cutting edge of development and building techniques at the time.

His work was characterised for being practical before being artistic.