Jade Pillay
Acerca de
03 Surface Design
This week, we used recycled materials to create 3 surface designs. We had to consider materiality, assembly (no glue permitted) and detail. Then we had to photograph them under different light conditions.
Surface Design 1
I decided to cut out Auckland's old shoreline on tracing paper & A4 paper and layered it on top of each other to create a layered effect.
Surface Design 2
I punctured holes in a white paper to connect the wire to the paper. I then added green wool string to portray the idea of synapses.
Surface Design 3
For this one, I took the simplicity route and didn't think much about it and created rough lines on the tracing paper by pinching the paper.
Case Studies
During the mid-semester break, I had the opportunity to visit the Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth designed by Patterson Associates LTD. It is New Zealand’s only dedicated single Artist Gallery. The Len Lye Centre is designed to fulfil multiple requirements. It needed to integrate with a proposed new art and cultural precinct which links through to the commercial heart of the city and it also needed to seamlessly merge with an existing Art Gallery facility. The finished building introduces new gallery spaces, education studios, a cinema, the Len Lye Archive and a dedicated motor room for his kinetic works.
The building of curved stainless steel and concrete incorporates a new urban sculpture square linking to a waterfront walkway. The 3000m building engages with the urban square via a light reflecting and transmitting facade. This transfers light in a holographic effect from one place to another to successfully enliven and activate both.
Len Lye is known for his kinetic work, sculptural art powered by electricity. The building uses a sustainable energy source to practically include ESD principles in a high-performance environment which is required by International touring exhibition standards. This energy system has been negotiated with the project's sponsors, a major international sustainable energy corporation.
British light artist Liz West creates a ‘Hymn to the Big Wheel’ for The Natural Light exhibition ‘Summer Lights’ at London's Canary wharf. The luminous installation stands as an immersive architectural pavilion which explores the illusion and physicality of colour and natural light within the urban space. The occupiable artwork takes shape as one multi-coloured octagon nested within a larger octagonal structure and encourages the viewer to reorient and align themselves with the changing colour ways. As the viewer moves within the ‘big wheel,’ they are immersed within a continually transforming scope of colours.
West constructs her playful installation ‘Hymn to the Big Wheel’ from transparent coloured sheets. The show presents a celebration of natural light, a theme that the artist has continually demonstrated across her body of work. The radial colour spectrum helps to transform the area into an optical playground which explodes into life each day at sunrise.
The Arab World Institute was designed by Jean Nouvel between 1981 - 1987. The Arab World Institute is a showcase for the Arab World in Paris. It is therefore not an Arab building but an occidental one. The representatives of the 19 Arab states that commissioned it were surprised by it. Some had wished for something more pastiche-like, like the Paris Mosque. But certain symbolic elements pleased them, like the “Mashrabiya” whose polygons of varying shapes and sizes create a geometric effect recalling the Alhambra. A cultural position in architecture is a necessity. This involves refusing ready-made or facile solutions in favour of an approach that is both global and specific.
From an urban point of view, the Institute is a hinge between two cultures and two histories. If the south side of the building, with its motorized diaphragms, is a contemporary expression of eastern culture, the north side is a literal mirror of western culture: images of the Parisian cityscape across the Seine are enamelled on the exterior glass like chemicals over a photographic plate. These patterns of lines and markings on the same façade are an echo of contemporary art. The frontiers between architecture, interior design, and furniture design are to Jean Nouvel's mind total fiction.
For that reason, Nouvel designed the whole of the museum, including the showcases, seating, and display furniture. At the Arab World Institute, he also began to consider the question of light. The theme of light is reflected in the southern wall, which consists entirely of camera-like diaphragms, and reappears in the stacking of the stairs, the blurring of contours, the superimpositions, in reverberations and reflections and shadows.
“Ring” is an installation which takes into consideration the urban space networking: the rhythm, flow, organization and spatial hierarchy. The installation embodies a visual effect that is to connect all of these interactions through the implementation of an optical effect: the repetition of a cubic mirror to break the perception of the place. This dynamic installation changes the relationships between individuals and the space they are going through.
“Ring” invites the visitor to play with the installation and space on two levels:
The very first approach would be more related to experiencing a change in the urban areas: as temporal kinetics. The facets of each cube reflect the place and reconstruct a paradigm that breaks the reading of the course. Ring works at this stage as a visual intrusion, an acceleration that changes the perception of the visited place. This is a spatial discovery.
In a second step, the installation proposes to get inside, to see his own image multiplied to infinity, which collides with urban detail, it is now a place outside time and outside spatiality, in total rupture with the outside principle. The vision is more intimate.
Eden View is a reworked townhouse that was designed by Pac Studio to offer more generous living and delivers delight in colour and texture. I specifically liked the backsplash in the kitchen and how it tied in with the glass shelving above it and the shower door. The ‘pleated’ kitchen tile was selected for warmth and the way that it captures the light when it falls across its surface.
The M.H. de Young Memorial Museum by Herzog & de Meuron is a remarkable revival of a building that no longer exists. They created a new design consisting of a bold striking structure that is as much part of the exhibit as the art it contains. The most interesting part to me was the choice for the exterior of the museum. Herzog & de Meuron intentionally chose a copper facade which would slowly become green due to oxidation and therefore fade into its natural surroundings. The facade is also textured to represent light filtering through a tree.
Surface Designs Test 2
I was feeling quite stuck on what to create for my final surface design and Sue suggested that I do 20 rapid surface designs. Then select 10 out of the 20 and move them around to see if I see any pattern that I might like or something that sticks.
20 Surface Designs
10 Surface Designs
After selecting the 10 designs, I noticed that the swirly lines connect and went well with each other. the continuity in the line kind of aligns with my flip book, constant movement.
So I decided to make 20 more designs with the same kind of lines. I moved them around like a puzzle so they are not aligned and look like an uncompleted/messy puzzle, just like our minds are with the memories that we keep.
I did a few rearrangements of designs to see which I like best.
I went up to the laser lab to test and find out what type of laser cutting I could do in the labs.
I wanted to have a 3D surface but I had to fix and adjust some things with the design to do so. Instead, I just engraved the pattern onto a scrap piece of wood. While looking at the design from afar, it kind of looked like a floor plan, maybe I could create the design based on how I decided to lay down the floor plan.
3D Surface Design on Rhino
I decided to take some of those 2D lines and try to make them look 3D in rhino. I took some screenshots and then added them to the entrance of Imperial Lane for my elevation and added a wood texture to them. I did not really like them as they looked like mould attached to the building. Adding to that, I did not necessarily have a reason for the placing of the "blob". It also reminded me of islands with their contour lines.
