And thus it begins. The annual blast through last year's happenings. I regret not keeping up with this blog in real-time, as many of the observations and day-to-day minutia get lost in this format.

However! Next quarter I will have be taking only studio and professional practice... I will have a bit of a breather with respect to all of my ancillary commitments, and I will be using this blog for rumination, not just as a data repository. In the meantime, let's get caught up.

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The last substantial update to this blog was over a year ago, in the middle of fall quarter 2006. We were in the midst of a studio that was integrated with our computer graphics class, in which we were learning Rhino, 3D Studio, etc. I was developing a sunshade system for a FLW house using space warps in 3D studio. To follow-up on the preliminary design that I provided over a year ago, I attach my final boards and a few renderings from that project:



As per a new philosophy on process-based architecture, I will not be telling you how the geometry was created. For the process geeks out there, it is probably pretty simple to discern. Rather, I would like to discuss the formal and material effects that are generated.

The slats are more or less the board and batten of the original FLW, rotated out and manipulated. The continuity of the boards creates the effect of uninterrupted skin, a fabric that is pulled apart or moved aside, rather than punctured or cut, to allow for openings (visual or perfunctory).



The depth of the sunscreen is determined by the functional necessity of optimal sunshading depths, and therfore there is a correlation between the depth of the screen and the location of the deformations. This creates a kind of "eyelid" effect that mimics the traditional "eaves" of a FLW house but is substantiated only through the singularity of the sunscreen system.



As I go through my old work for portfolio purposes, I will probably be sprucing up these renderings with some contextual information, background renderings and/or illustrations.