Untitled from James Wong on Vimeo.
In the design process of this project, I made a concerted effort to draw away from using the computer as a modelling tool (as I usually would have). I made this drastic decision in the attempt to explore and express a deeper level of communication through my work, as opposed to being confined to the limits of the tools available in most architectural software. I did all drawings by hand. Medium such as:
- pencil and charcoal for sketches.
- colour-pencil, watercolour, and digital painting for colour overlay.
- enhancements, sense of depth, and depth of view all done with Photoshop.
- Wacom pen tablet was used for digital painting (the tree was digitally coloured).
- no light simulation rendering was used to generate images.
I am very pleased with the outcome of the decision made; as it has shown me the great importance of how design is completely influenced by the tools used in its concept phase. I found my creativity was so much more freed as opposed to being restricted to the limits of a modelling program. The downside was that every perspective took much more time without a software aided rendering engine.
I also spent many hours on site, taking a lot of footage. I made sure I was very attached and familiar with the site; recording tree location, height, thickness, etc. I went to the site at different times of the day to get a full experience of how the space would be felt, as well as recording a sun-path analysis.
All in all, a great learning experience!
