General Chat / The Future Architects' Thread

Simon, come down to plymouth and do architecture!

Nate, those are nice! The contrast really pops them out and makes them great. How long did it take you do do those? I'm a slow drawer and we had to put together a set of four still life gesture drawings a while back and it took me about two and a half to three hours.

Our newest assignment is to draw a set of presentation plans (not sure if that's the right terminology--it's the floor plans, two elevations and a section) and give a short presentation on the architect's ideas etc. of a building from 10 choices. I picked the Ozenfant House by Le Corbusier. I wish the plans I found to base it off of weren't in meters.. The next assignment is to draw an addition to the building, should be fun.

Those sketches took me hours. Many, many hours. I finished them over the course of about a week. The car was definitely the most difficult. The photograph it was based on had a very cool perspective, but it was very hard to recreate that. I actually ended up cheating a bit to get the perspective correct. Those are only three of the seven we had to do. Well, actually there were ten, but the first three weren't mandatory (I did them, but didn't submit them).

Presentation plans? Hmm. I have some drawings do on Thursday that I need to colour. The colours are to correspond to the different uses (Commercial, Office, Residential, Parking, Public (Corridors/Elevators)). Is this similar to your task? And where did you get plans for this project? For my next project I have to build a model of any building I wish, but the difficulty is finding plans. I was thinking of using those small, simplified things that Architectural Record prints, just to get an idea of scale and maybe fudge what I can't find in drawings.

And for the record, the Metric system is the way to go. I read recently that there are only three countries in the whole world that use Imperial. Imperial is so messy. Canada is kind of caught in the middle of the two systems (because of the US), so we have to learn both in school. I find it really easy to convert now. The two important numbers are 25.4 and 3.281. Or you could just do everything with a metric scale. That way, when you do work in Europe or Asia you won't have any issues.

They don't sell metric architectural scales at the bookstoore. And it's supposed to be in 1/8"=1' scale anyways. I'll remember the 3.281. I've known the 2.54 number for a while now. They mention it in gradeschool here.
I don't know if it's like yours. Probably not. Your's is probably way more complicated.
I found the plans here: http://architecture....d/4209acad.html. I guess it was some guy from MIT's study or something. Baisically I have to generate them myself onto paper with pencils.

They don't sell metric architectural scales at the bookstoore. And it's supposed to be in 1/8"=1' scale anyways. I'll remember the 3.281. I've known the 2.54 number for a while now. They mention it in gradeschool here.
I don't know if it's like yours. Probably not. Your's is probably way more complicated.
I found the plans here: http://architecture....d/4209acad.html. I guess it was some guy from MIT's study or something. Baisically I have to generate them myself onto paper with pencils.

Kinkos and transfer paper...

I'm with Nate on the metric system. Having used it in France as well as with my work a couple of summers ago, it is definitely a lot easier. As with any measuring system, half the trouble is with knowing basic dimensions (i.e. standard door sizes... 800, 750, etc...). But going off of it is so much better.

Bob, that link has a .dwf file, so you should be able to just open it up in AutoCAD (I think) and plot them out to scale? Then get your architect's scale out and get to work drawing it out. Hand drafting is a very valuable skill, since it teaches you dimension, scale, and lineweights, but I'm definitely glad I don't have to do it anymore.

hmm. i'll fiddle around with it, see what i can do. i don't know if we'll get into autocad in this course, maybe the next design course; i've had to use it for a course called interdisiplinary engineering 20, though.

I think anyone who's had to work with both imperial and metric will agree that imperial sucks. Slugs? WTF?

BTW, the Imagi-Nations website is back up after a hiatus lasting over half a year, just in time for the deadline in a few weeks. They also seem to have it only for team entries now, which is new, and they have yet to respond to my email about that. However, they now accept several more varieties of majors, such as Engineering and Architecture, so that's good. But at this rate it looks like I won't be getting an entry in this year. Maybe I'll call them tomorrow.

They have a tight deadline this year. Register by March 15 or so. Submit by March 30.

The Imagineering seminar (for engineers, but I sneaked into it anyway because there was free food) that I went to a couple of weeks ago seemed to suggest that the contest would still be okay for solo team members. But those engineers were mostly to discuss what they did, not talk about the contest, so chances are they could have been / were wrong.

Bob, feel free to hit me up on AIM if you need CAD help. Assuming I'm online.

I figured out a conversion, it's all good. The thing wouldn't load on a.cad which was weird :' /> . I sort of lucked out on printing out a set of enlarged screenshots--2 meters for every 3' in 3/8" scale.

Edited by penguinBOB, 20 February 2007 - 05:49 PM.

Hey Nate, do you have any literature or third party articles (written or online) about the Vancouver Convention Center Expansion project? Particularly on the green roof. I can probably write a pretty good synopsis of it based on that site, but some additional sources to support my position would make my paper a lot stronger, obviously.

So like, if there's some Arch Record (or equivalent) article about it that you're aware of, would you mind pointing me to it?

Thanks! And if not, oh well.

Hmm. There aren't any articles that I'm aware of in magazines as such. I did find a few reports for you though, both of which are huge.

Provincial Government

City of Vancouver

Article in Vancouver Courier. Not a very big newspaper in Vancouver, but an article none-the-less.

Article about Bruce Hemstock. He's the landscape architect for the project.

Although not related to green roofs, I found this while working on an acoustical project.

You. Fucking. Rock.

This is the Maplefourth. It's a four story mixed use building in Vancouver. We worked in teams of two, and the outcome is definetly more of my partner than it is me. Working in the team worked out really well, as his work ethic is comarable to mine. We had the project finished two days ahead of the due date. Functionally, I think it works quite well and it's not that bad in terms of aesthetics. The model is 1:200.

looks awesome nate.

here is a project for my physics class. my original design called for a third floor(bedroom,closet,bathroom) but unfortunately it was scraped for now due to budget and time and only the stairs remain.

Model's rough, but it doesn't look like your school emphasizes model aesthetics, at least not until final stuff, perhaps.

Love the roof terrace and the green decks to help with the ecological benefits. What direction is north in the model? With your curving sloping roof, you could have even added photovoltaics oriented toward the south to further the sustainability aspect. The green roofs look like great heat retainers, though, and should offset energy costs a lot due to the natural insulation of the soil.

Oh wait, I just noticed the angled blue PETG glass that's probably the photovolatic panels, since they're too far out to be skylights.

Nice job.


Chris, might I suggest a brighter light (or two sources of light) with bulbs that emit more of the overall spectrum of color? Even for a wood model, those photos are much too red. Just a little nit picking on the model photographing, and it applies more to the second photo. The first one, with the internal light source, looks really cool, actually.

The model does not look that bad. Firstly, it is a very tiny model and the photography makes it look much larger than it is (and also brings out imperfections). The images make the model look approximately three times larger than it actually is. Secondly, my partner was instant upon building it by the walls-floor-walls method. I prefer full height walls, as it is cleaner and gives a better indication of what the final product would look like (the scale would not be broken down by the horizontal lines of the floors). Because we did it this way, he wanted to cover up the joints which takes away from it a bit more. As for the top three floors, the mullions were made almost as columns and sit infront of the glazing. On the first floor we started cutting the glazing correctly, but it was taking way too long. The mullions are out of scale and that is because the colour of the glazing is achieved through a protective plastic film on the glass (so we couldn't score mullions on, as I did on the glass canopy on West Fourth Ave). To achieve that colour next time, I would remove the plastic film and place a coloured paper behind the glazing. This would permit scoring.

The West Fourth elevation is the south elevation. The sloping/curving roof (which looks kind of Frank Gehryish) slopes to pass under an extremely restrictive building envelope. The site slopes steeply, and the city wants light to reach the lane and homes further down. Here is a section showing the building envelope. The building envelope follows the terrain of the land (this is permitted in the CoV). The first slope of the line (on the right) is 30 degrees while the upper slope is defined by the grade of the site.




An additional picture to show the slope of the site and give a better indication of the actual size of the model. The middle two floors are only 12mm tall (each), and the sign indicating project information (in white, at left) is only 3/4" tall.

Those skylights are infact, skylights. They are sloped that way to prevent residents of upper floors from looking into the floors below (there is no green roof access). They are probably larger in the model than they would be in real life, but building them was almost impossible. The triangles that close the sides of the skylights in are roughly 1/6 the size of your index finger's finger nail. Any smaller and they couldn't be closed in. Concerning the green roof, I had an interesting thought post completion. It is recommended that the weight on the roof of a building be kept to a minimum (especially wood frame structures, which the majority of this building is). Added weight on a roof (from concrete roof tiles, or green roofs) can amplify the effects of seismic activity. This was evident in the Kobe earthquake in which many wood frame buildings failed because of the heavy roof tiles so common in Japan. Seismic activity is a concern in Vancouver, and all the more so in Southern California. Something to consider, especially for that project/thesis you are doing on green roofs.

Don't forget about one of the largest advantages of green roofs, which is storm water retention. As our cities density, we are reducing the amount of open soil which naturally looks after rain water. Fill that in with development (concrete, steel, paving, impervious roofing) and all that water then has to be drained to the city mains. As the city keeps growing, the city mains become overstressed and our urban areas become susceptible to flooding.

Chapelz, what was the model for in Physics?

I had to wire it with a buzzer(doorbell), motor(ceiling fan), a series circuit of two lights, a parallel circuit of two lights, and a combination circuit of three lights. Nothing too extraordinary.

^^ Yeah. Green roofs are pretty damn awesome.

And my building's a Type I, so it will be more than equipped to handle the extra loads of the soil and planting.



Anyway, I finally got around to fully updating my Design Portfolio section of my web site. It shows projects I'm proud of, through the past semester, when I was studying abroad. With USC School of Architecture holding a firm fair this Friday, I figured I'd have to make my site absolutely complete, since it is listed on my resume.

Anyway, for those curious about what projects USC Architecture students do, check out the link.

I will be entering the Disney ImagiNations competition this year. My entry form and idea proposal are in, they acknowledged it, and now I just need to make a scale model, concept art, and some general awesomeness within the next week of my spring break (which doesn't start until tomorrow). Luckily the March 31st deadline is a postmark deadline. Cause otherwise I'd be driving up to Glendale.

So... any general tips on scale model making? The good thing about making a model is that I only have to turn in pictures of it for the semi-finals. So if I don't make it to the finals (which is possible with the tight deadline, and the hardcoreness of what I'm expecting from other teams), I get to keep my model.

And yeah, only teams were allowed. I found out a few days before the entry form deadline that trans-university teams were acceptable, so an invincible NE team might've been possible, but it was too late. Plus I already made a commitment with a friend from UCI.