David Paul Ramos Benv1010

100 word statement

PEOPLE AND PROCESS

Communication in the built environment comes with this sense of style that is important in bridging design and people. In architecture, it is crucial that communication has an eccentric focus on people and process. Often communication and its tools sketching, model making, and renders are seen as an opportunity for designers to showcase their creative genius when it should have an emphasis on how their designs help people and better society. As an aspiring architect, I wanted to explore my own interests by studying own room to develop my style through the use of different materials, experiments with light and the types of communication through models and rendering to deconstruct how I might communicate architecture that benefits humanity.

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Transcript

My name is David Ramos and I am a first year architecture student at UNSW.

Communication in the built environment comes with this sense of style that is important in bridging design and people.

When it comes to Architecture, I have come to understand while pursuing my childhood dream that it is a craft that has a lot of heart and soul to it.

I wanted to explore the communication by process redesigning my own room as I am my own client and this was a great opportunity to really think critically as to how I could make my own room better for me. And what are the things I like.

I started out with rough sketches only because I wanted to really wanted to be spontaneous in model making with spaces that were tangible and dynamic and reacted to the real world through light and scale.

At first, I really struggle with knowing what direction to take so I decided to just embrace the paper folding techniques with some of the most flexible ones being the X-form spans.

Using that, a V pleat and a masu box for the entrance I came up with an interesting structure that was almost Gehry-esque.

By really limiting myself to just tangible design I was able to make massing models with the flexibility of paper and really explore the intricacies of structure

Light was definitely an important aspect I tried to consider in these models – because in architecture, we build for people and these models should be communicating how our designs serve people.

Openings for natural light were something that I had to think about in most of the more developed models and this sense of people centre designed was something I tried to explore in interior spaces by using a section model to really communicate the circulation of people. The cardboard was a much firmer material for firmer ideas.

Even taking some reference from my current studies in Architecture such as Jorn Utzon’s Can Lis is Majorca.

For my Final model I developed a sketch which proved to have such a large contrast with the actual final model – highlighting the varying degrees of effectiveness between sketches and models in communication.

The different materials really ground the model in reality which I tried to further accentuate in the final renders – really experimenting with my interests but more importantly the atmosphere of each snapshot.

In any particular render if you remove the people, a completely different emotion arises when you look at it.

I wasn’t focused on making my renders absolutely amazing because I still have a lot to learn about architecture – but when we think of what makes something beautiful –the superficial idea about the aesthetics and form is so oversaturated

True architecture is beautiful when it serves people, it is timeless – and that’s why I took the extra effort to always showcase people in my projects.

I remember in the first lecture in communications, Kate and Russell told us “you are the future leaders who will collaboratively design and build our cities and homes”

I think the one think I want to be remembered for in my work is not my name but the idea and attached to my projects

I call it ‘futurebound’ and through this sense of people centric design, society can really bloom and move forward in both unity and social progression

REFERENCES

Truth (Helios Remix) - All Is Wild, All Is Silent Remixes. 2009. Album. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKmPrSE4VCA.

Render 1

The materials I chose were a bronze and dark timber planks. I wanted to really explore architecture, the environment and its relationship with people to see how it creates mood. These materials were an interesting choice, as they were solely meant to communicate contrast with the winter environment. With people added to the render, it appears the structure is very much like a tourist attraction.

Render 2

Furthermore it developing my style, I chose a bold choice to make my next Photoshop render a lot more cartoon-ish. The materials chosen were much more in line with the original 'Can Lis', the building my model takes a lot of reference from, that being sandstone with liberties of a different timber and stained glass. In the graphic of the person I have chosen to composite, the mood is a lot more ominous with the architecture immediately have a sense of danger associated with it due to the action of the person with a gun. Almost as it the architecture is strange and peculiar due to its relationship with the person.

Render 3

For my final render and my own interests, I wanted the building to feel 'alive'. I added an abundance of people to show the space being use with illustrations being composited doing a variety of actions such as standing on the balcony, taking photos, playing sport and dancing. The materials I have chosen were concrete, plywood and cladding to further reinforce to idea of architecture revolving around people, with the colours and texture being lively and contributing to the greenery of the scene.

It's interesting to think how different the spaces may be if the people were removed from each of the illustrations?