My old bedroom

When I was growing up my father designed our house along with the help of an architect. He also designed my bedroom! Of course at the time I had no idea what it was based on and only later in life, after a trip to a De Stijl exhibition, did I realize where the inspiration came from.

Today I thought I’d spend an hour or so to try and remember what it was like and to model it in 3ds max. This is the result.

Random models

 
 
 

Maybe I should rename my blog “Random Sketches and Photographs……and Models”!

City of Dreams pavilion

This was an architectural competition based in NY which I entered at the end of 2010. The idea was to design a pavilion to be placed on Governer’s Island. The 2 images show the idea I was working with before my computer went kaput and died on me 2 weeks before submission. So I was not able to send anything in the end to my great frustration.

 

The idea involved a number of themes, including virtual travel, broken distorted memories and a place to exercise self introspection! The frame is fragmented so you can see bits of the island as you walk through it. The inside of the frame is clad in mirrors and you see a reflection of yourself juxtaposed with the island and looking further to the opposite side a glimpse of New York . It’s a bit like how dreams are fragmented. I read Freud while reseraching the project. Wow, that guy has a one track mind!

Later I might post some of the sketches and ideas I had to this blog, if I have time.

Building in Ireland

Around 2001 I was working on a design with an architect for a new build house in Ireland. The basic idea was to make the house spiral around itself. The images below show the initial very early designs.

It actually always bothered me that we never finished it.

A few days ago I had a dream where I saw that house again but it looked very different. As soon as I woke up I grabbed my notepad next to my bed and drew the image that I had in my head. I tried to get as much of it as possible before I forgot what I saw. It is very sketchy of course but I do hope at some point to try and develop it only for myself to see if I can make a proper building out of it. It could be interesting if I can work out how the rooms work. I will post the design later if I end up with something decent.

And another quick sketch I did today.

Red And Blue Chair

Feeling ever so slightly bored this morning I decided to build a quick model of my favourite chair just for fun.

This is the Red and Blue Chair by Gerrit Rietveld which was built in 1917!

When I was a child my bedroom was designed in a similar style to the Rietveld Schroder House in Utrecht. I didn’t know it at the time of course. Many years later, when I saw this chair as part of a De Stijl movement exhibition at age 18 I became convinced that I had to go and study architecture, so it’s a bit special to me.

2 photos and an Installation

 
First photo taken in Paris. It think that’s where Edith Piaf lived if I remember correctly. And the other taken in London of the Southbank.

 
A proposed installation in central London. School project.

House in central London

I worked with an architect on this project. The existing building had unique features that we wanted to retain while at the same time attempting to redeign the interior into a 6 bedroom house. We needed to show clients what it would could look if it was converted into a house. I built models and made a couple of presentations to express the size of the property and tried to highlight what made it different to other buildings in the area.

House in Kensington

I worked jointly on a new build with an architect here in london. The design was to house a family of four with the addition of optional office space below. I was responsible for the initial survey and the development of the concept from initial ideas we had up to the final design that was submitted for planning.

 
Models I made to further develop the idea.

 
Back elevation and the provider/divider.

House in Russia

In 2007 I was asked by a landscape architect to help with a simple landscape proposal for a house in Russia, situated in forest just outside of Moscow designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. There were other people bidding for the job and we only had a few days to come up with a quick concept.

The client wanted to live there with his daughter. Having recently seen the film Pans Labyrinth, which was also situated in a think forest, I decided to create a secret garden for young girl that is separated from the rest of the grounds so she play there with her friends. The planting around that area would create a visual shield and a small river cut that area off from the rest of the house giving her a sanctuary space.The landscape architect has ideas about what plants to use.

The idea of adding a river was because I wanted it to appear as though it was cutting into the building and emerging on the other side. A swimming pool inside the house existed on the same axis and wanted that to form a virtual link to this river. There were lookout points, and paths that stretch across the site and various other bits and pieces that created links with views and created tension in various parts of the site.

The scheme was accepted by the client and the design was handed over to the landscape design company to develop with ZHA. As far as I know, the current design being built is has not changed much from the basic sketch above.

3 images from a rough model I worked on at the time. I was carving up the landscape to insert the river and the paths. (The original building model was created by ZHA)

Selection of work images

>

This is a sample of some 3d images that sometimes produce. Most of the work is related to refurbishment of existing buildings. The 3d’s are meant to serve different purposes. The most important is to communicate to the clients the proposed designs, the other is to use 3d to work out structural details and to find out beforehand how certain things like staircases will fit into a particular space and finally images are used to show proposals to planners for comment.

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

Building I designed

>http://www.youtube.com/get_player

A building I designed for a school project. These are only work in progress animations. I seem to have lost the final designs.

3d Car

>
The model was built from scratch in 3ds Max and rendered in mentalray.

Gallery

A couple more images of my comic books gallery design.

Star Wars inspired Racer

>

I modelled this ship after seeing the Phantom Menace trailer years ago. It was before I got a good look at the pod racers so I didn’t really know what I was modelling. It think in the end it turned into a mix between the racer and the naboo fighter.

This was done in Bryce.

http://www.youtube.com/get_player