Environments



Section Animation:

Expressive Sketches

3 developed creatures

Gary: Inspired by the national gallery of art from I.M. Pei. According to my description to this building, the most important concept involved in designing the project comes down to geometric complexity. So for this creature, I tried a few polygons. The appearance of this creature is also similar to the front facade of the gallery.

Pyra: Inspired by the Louvre Pyramid designed by I.M. Pei, because the building is largely constructed by triangular glass segments, therefore this creature has a solid structure in terms of its triangular shape.

Fiti: Inspired by the Fragrant Hill hotel from I.M. Pei, two ideas on my mind when I created this were: the balancing of symmetry and the relationship between the creature and nature. For the balancing of symmetry, I made the body to be shape of the word S. The reason that I added elements of plants to this creature is everything has a close relationship with nature in Chinese culture, which was considered by I.M. Pei when he designed the hotel, it is surrounded by lake, flowers and trees.

Week 2 independent studies: 3 more examples of selected architect's work

1. National gallery of art:

Details:

Location: National Mall in Washington,D.C.

Establishment: 1937

Building area: 1500 square metres

Visitor figures: 4.6 million (till 2009)

Scale: 7 stories

Description: The East Building remained Pei's most famous work. It will surely endure as one of his best. Here was the refinement he had felt unable to achieve in the detailing of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, the massing of the Dallas City Hall, and the spaces of the Kennedy Library. It combined the best of his planning experience gained under Zeckendorf with the full fruits of the later years of experimentation in geometric complexity and the exploitation of materials. More than any of his previous buildings, it was also informed by an inescapably Chinese sensitivity to light and space and subtle control of how the user experiences a work of architecture. The building was at once monumental and animated, a mature expression of all the Pei had been moving toward as an architect.

References: I. M. Pei Wiseman, PQ 724.9, p. 155-156 (accessed 26 July, 2011)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery_of_Art  (accessed 26 July, 2011)


2. The Fragrant Hill Hotel

Details:

 Location:In the former Imperial Hunting Grounds, 32km from downtown Beijing, China

Gross floor area: 36900 square metres

Construction: April, 1980

Completion: October, 1982

Description: This hotel stands in a public park within the former Imperial Hunting Grounds outside Beijing, not far from the Summer Palace and other key historic sites. Balancing symmetry and asymmetry, the 325 guest rooms zigzag out from a central skylit space to preserve the site's ancient trees. Each guest room opens onto a courtyard through a shaped "window picture" that frames the landscape and brings the outdoors inside. Building and gardens merge inseparably in an intimate reciprocal relationship.

Underlying the design is a strategy to provide a "Third Way" wherein advanced Western technology is grafted onto the essence of Chinese vernacular architecture without literal imitation. The skylight was the only major imported component; everything else was constructed by local craftsmen using age-old techniques and materials. Fragrant Hill thus draws from the living roots of tradition to sow the seed of a new, distinctly Chinese form of modern architecture that can be adapted, not merely adopted, for diverse building types. 


References: I. M. Pei Wiseman, PQ 724.9, p. 185-203 (accessed 26 July, 2011)
http://www.pcf-p.com/a/p/7905/s.html (accessed 26 July, 2011)

3.  Louvre Pyramid

Details:

Location: The Louvre Palace, Paris

Completion: 1989

Height: 20.6 metres

Week 2 independent studies

Cowctive:  He seems very aggressive,  unfriendly face with only one eye and sharp teeth,  however he would only be harmful when something bad happens to his kid, the video below would demonstrate that.

Freakie: Very enthusiastic character, back has grown a lot of circular shape bones,  he has got some great dace moves, with the aid of his horns,  he has his own styles.

Flirgy: She has feet of a frog, breathe through the organ on both sides of the chick, she even has a tail. She loves playing her three kids, the video below shows just that.

Folding+Models

Inspiration for my first folding: Luce Memorial Chapel by I.M. Pei

1st folding+3ds model:



Inspiration for second one: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by I.M. Pei

2nd one + 3ds Models:





3rd floding from Kevin Cai in my tutorial group

Inspiration: Imperial War Museum by Daniel Libeskind

1st folding + sketchup model:

2nd sketchup model: