Samsung phone market stall

I was dissapointed the first time I put my 3D animation to render took approx 10hours to render on a decent resolution of 1024 x 768 but little did i know that the avi file was being compressed hence my result, pixellated! Now I know for next time to render it uncompressed!

Despite this little mishap, my 3D still renders were satisfactory, see below

New airport in Singapore, must have a look!

Speaking of the new airport in Durban in a previous blog I read with great interest, I would like to draw peoples attention to the new airport built in Singapore, called Changi Airport.  This project I thought was brilliant incorporating nature and technology and at the same time addressing issues of sustainability!

Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3 won a Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) Design Award (Honourable Mention) under the industrial, transport and infrastructure projects category.


The award recognises efforts in the pursuit of architectural excellence and innovative architectural solutions, also heightening the appreciation and patronage of good architectural design. This year’s winning projects were selected by a panel of five judges, who evaluated the submissions based on points such as sustainability, elegance of construction and attention to details. Out of 157 entries, SIA handed out awards to 21 deserving projects

There’s nothing cold and sterile about the Changi Airport of Singapore, which is home to a beautiful five-story wall of vines. Located in the baggage pick-up area, this self-watering 300-meter-wide vertical wall of vegetation brings some much-needed fresh air into a large, densely populated building.

Below is a panorama from the third level, overlooking the ticketing counters on the second level. It is very spacious inside, and very bright as well because the entire building taps a lot on natural light. They have this amazing aluminium louvres on the top so they can reflect an optimum amount of sunlight into the building to save energy

And here is a photo showing the magnificient computer-controlled skylighting system! There are little peforated panels hanging under the skylights to ensure that natural light is diffused efficiently throughout the terminal

On of the most ground-breaking feat of the construction of this terminal is that they’ve fused nature and technology together, although both of them seems to be antagonistic of each other in our eyes. They’ve got this 300m long Green Wall with 25 species of creepers on it, to provide temperature moderation and a breath of fresh air for arriving tourists

And back to the entrance of the airport, you’re greeting with greeny palms and crystal clear glass panels! The designers took into account clarity as part of the terminal’s design – to make as little visual obstruction as possible by using high tensile strength, tamper-resistance glass panels. The total gross floor area of the terminal can over 63 football fields, even though the entire structure only sit on a site of 10 football fields.

Samsung Phone stall

My final design had a LCD screen added to the front display, which wasn't evident in my previous conceptual design.
Here are my 3D's below:

Behold thy renderings of interior space

Here are my lighting renders, i found myself spending quite a bit of time with the downlighters and daylight scene, found them to be quite tricky!  But i think i came up with a decent result, what do you think?

Sustainable design project

This project is for our Studio work module, one of the biggest and major projects for our first semester of our course.  It is quite a challenge indeed juggling time spent working on it to other projects which are not so major but still takes up time. 
The project consists of designing a sustainable research centre situated on a site to the west of the NMMU plot, to the left of the Architecture/Library building.  The whole centre would comprise of 2 lecture venues of different sizes, research centres specific to wind, solar and water energy. 

Carefull placement of the centre of the building is critical, issues such as axes, paths leading from the university, existing parking areas and courtyard spaces.  Weather and climate factors all need to be addressed when deciding on the placement of the centre.

My strategy was to place my lecturing and academic facilities to the east of the site bordering the folliage of trees to the existing courtyard for passive cooling purposes.  I wanted to venture into container buildings as my precedent study for my project as they have proven to be very sustainable and cheap.  Some very inovative configurations exist out there, i wanted something not standard, like just brick walls or concrete, but a mix-play of masonry, steel and metals.  With container buildings they can be considered much lighter than sheer mass concrete and is more cost effective and can be delivered to the site as a pod ready made, hence construction time is also limited.
I wanted to place all my research centres off the ground, on the first floor level for maximum exposure to the elements of the surrounding climate, being situated in a coastal region, making full use of the strong prevailing South Westerly and South Easterly winds.  In addition the solar research centre will not be sheltered from any sun striking the site, therefore maximum sun exposure and absorption leading to 'free' energy.

Below are some of my concepts that i wish to implement in my building that i have investigated:

Then ended up with more or less a concept design which i'm in the process of refinement:

Phone stall

For our latest construction and detailing projects, we were required to design and detail a phone stall.  It would be solely used for marketing purposes either a telecommunication network or a particular brand of phone.  The challenges we were presented were that we had to use up to 80% aluminium, other parts could be made of steel for example, but the use of different materials had to be carefully chosen with particular attention to the detailed connections.

For my stall, i chose Samsung as my target brand of choice.  Very slick and slender designs most of the time, linear in forms.  Often mechanisms used for the phones included sliding and folding as compared to the conventional block form.  Hence in the form of my stall i opted to incorporate all three forms into my stall. 

Firstly the vertical members would simulate the sliding, and within that frame, another scissor-like effect members.  To secure the whole structure, the final form, just use of two planes to stabilize the structure.  I used a combination of aluminium frames which are filleted at the ends and hollow on the inside with aluminium mesh composition with appropriate branding done in stainless steel for a more refined and elegant look.

See below for my concept sketches and my thought process through my project, including my 3D visualizations of the product.  At this stage in my design i'm experimenting with different colour schemes and adding technology into the stall e.g. an LCD screen or speakers to name a few.

Here are my 3D's below:

stay tuned for my details! =D

Gate house

On Friday 12th Marc, we had a hand in for our construction and detailing project, which was to design and detail a gatehouse.  The site i chose is situated in urban park, Uitenhage.

My design consisted of a regular box-like structure for the actual gatehouse with rivenstone cladding in certain areas accentuating areas of openings such as doors and windows or where a window wasn't there, was the secuity boom box.  The front main window of the gatehouse is unsupported therfore not limiting any views of incoming traffic approaching the gatehouse.  Successful angle of slope of screed allow the water collected from the roof to flow down into the duct and into a water storage tank which can be used as 'grey water' to flush toilets.  The duct is closed up with a timber lath screen.

In addition, the roof was to be consisting of gum poles constructed and put together in a butterfly roof profile.  The actual gatehouse would then seem to slip beneath this roof structure with timber laths covering the gum pole frame.  The gum pole rafters are held up by stainless steel cables fixed to purpose made brackets connected to the gum pole horizontal members.

The entrance and exit gates which are motorised by 'Centurion' motor, is a galvanized mild steel frame with timber laths tied with rope to the gate.  See some 3D renderings of my proposed gate house.

South East view

North West view

Front view of gatehouse

View of approach

My final rendering for Computer Interior

I finally finished rendering my interior scene with much time and patience.  I must say mixing exterior light with interior lights is quite difficult to get the right results.  That was my major challenge and feel that I haven't fully managed to recreate the same type of effect.  Any one know how to get the reflection on the floor to be faded and hazy as compared to my rendering where it was sharp?  Please advise.  As a result all my lovley stainless steel textures just reflected all the beige and yellow walls and the metal just didn't look like metal anymore =( quite dissapointing.
As a matter of interest, my rendering took about 10hours to do in AutoCAD, quite slow at resolution 1280 x 1024 on presentation with global illumination on. 

Well here is my final presentation, see below:

Progress on computer rendering

For our first computer project we had to do a replica of an interior scene.  Below is the one i chose:

My rendering took quite a while to get done and the proportions and ratio is quite challenging, no I rephrase that, it's difficult!  Well after much frustrations and cursing my pc, I managed to get it done finally and apply materials.  Here are a few test renders of just the materials with default lighting in the first scene and a sky lighting and sun in the next one on the right, see below.

The next critical thing was playing with lighting, here is what I have so far, still needs a lot of work

Inspiring retractable awnings/canopies, check this out!

Oh guys who were doing the DKD detailing project about the garage doors. I've found a really cool site which really has stunning images of different systems, check the out on www.tunerexhibits.com apparently these kind of systems is generally grouped under a more broad term known as 'kinetic architecture'!

Next project, bigger scale, more thinking, less sleep, more drawing!

We have a new design project, designing a research centre and we have been given  site on our NMMU campus to work with.  Sounds very interesting as emphasis is on sustainable architecture which is the new trend or way to go with integrating great designs and ways to conserve energy and utilize resources to the maximum! 
Haven't got anything down on paper yet as still recovering from the bashing of the last few handins we've had.  Mmmmnnn might have to think of better time management!

Busy week indeed!

Wow, felt quite a bit of pressure with all the handing in projects from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Quite challenging.  I know this is a little late puting my designs up now as we have pinned up already but I welcome anyone to feel free to post or comment on my designs when you get a chance.

My market stall design was a bit of a chaos for me, not really having a direction.  I think the stereotype of an actual simple market stall always popped up in my mind, almost like I was wearing blinkers.  After long and late nights I finally came up with a concept which I quite like.  Reminds me of back home (i.e Seychelles) really where I had this deck chair, lekka comfortable with hanging cloth fabric supported by poles just slotting into the sleeves of the fabric with simple cut outs in the profile of the main members, which could be used to change the incline of the chair.  What I enjoyed about the chair was it was relatively easy to assemble and could be easily folded up and carried away. 

Here are some of my previous designs below which eventually led to my final design, including some of the feedback I received during the crits.

And voila!  here's my renderings of the final design. 

I've designed it in such a way that the frame work is light and easily foldable and dynamic in a way that you can change the degree of incline. 

The success of the stall relies on the stall owner stacking his displays which has weight, into the fabric and the displays should help stabilize the whole structure (with forces acting at various angles and countering one another) thus making it difficult for the wind to topple it over. 

In addition, rods can be placed anywhere where there are perforations in the members, where he/she sees fit.  This further adds bracing and the pockets of display may vary  in size.  It is a very open design as in it hasn't got any solid planes which will 'catch' the wind.  The wind seems to flow right through the displays in all directions as opposed to having a stretched material over which would act similarly to a kite!

Btech - it's just another year

At times, one must take a step back and analyse one's situation and definately time management is so crucial especially if other activities are running concurrently with your studies in Architecture.  One should find the balance between work and play and know your purpose.
I have found myself already falling short of sleep!  It's tough but perseverance and indomitable spirit gets you far and very often discipline and hard work!  It will pay off in the end, gradually getting back into the swing of things, I mean we survived 3 years of this kind of 'torture' so another year, can't be that bad can it?

Pulley system applied to a door in PE

As I walk around the Summerstrand area, especially when going surfing, the routes I take I'm always observing my surroundings.  I happenned to see an example of this pulley system that we discussed in class, quite fascinating!  If anyone wants to have a closer look at it, go to Aquasands guesthouse in Summerstrand, it's in the same street with the house which has a butterfly roof!

NB: Professor Donald Flint (Architecture lecturer) apparently worked out on this pulley system!

Something helpful for market stall project

Hi to all who are doing the market stall project for DSW4011, I'm sure you are all haven't fully resolved your designs and could be struggling to find one that could work, as well all know it's a work in progress. 
Just as a reminder to check out the link that Mr Hansie Vosloo put up, if you haven't received it here it is:
http://basmozambique.wordpress.com/ it's worth checking it out!  Open the mind a bit ;-)

It's all overwhelming

Wow, the amount of work initially given can get quite overwhelming, but not to panic as most say and just work consistently and hard. Much research and thinking about current projects occupy one's mind almost constently to the point where you start to ponder...."does sleep matter that much? or can one push through a couple more hours and maybe see the dawn of a new day? Know your limit i always say!" Although through all the tough times, you know what your purpose is and you must work hard at all times and be and give your best! Strive to be better everyday and in any way that you think you can, without self reflection there can be no vision!

First time blogger!

Hmmnnn this blogger, quite an experience, never done it before so bare with me. I trust in time I shall get better at this and what can be achieved through this experience as well as learning many things through my fellow collegues and friends relating to this vast evolution of architectural ideas