Communication in the Built Environment 2020

Link to Youtube Video: https://youtu.be/KOmQnn5C6A0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOmQnn5C6A0

Design Statement In this project, Nature’s Lightbulb’, I chose to focus on how natural light can transform and elevate a space. Natural light is a major defining feature of a room’s atmosphere, warmth, and Eco-friendly capabilities. I show this focus through my photography of models during different times of the day and with natural and artificial light sources. To achieve this objective, as seen in my 1:50 altered model, I added a balcony that looks out onto the courtyard, a large glass door, and a skylight on the ceiling edge. These simple additions altered the space dramatically and made it more inviting and warmer, and showed how infusing natural light in any environment can truly change and define a space.

Photoshop Materiality  Here I inserted my altered 1:50 room model on the second floor of one of these colourful suburban houses to show it can easily mold into the homely setting. i chose the top right yellow house to add on my room as it showed both the shadows and the sunlight hitting the building and suggested how the natural light could still illuminate some of the balcony without directly facing it. I then inserted my room into a campsite setting as a one-person wooden cabin to see how it would look with other forms of natural light i.e. fire, and moonlight. I found adding material and texture a bit of a complicated process and generally, the whole process was quite time consuming but I found it satisfying getting to the somewhat realistic end product. I know I certainly have a lot of room for improvement with using Photoshop but I'm proud of what I've learnt so far, considering I'd never used it at all before this course. Original Photo ...

1. The Crumple Crumple 1 3rd  2nd 4th Artificial Light on Final Model Natural Light on final model 2. X-forms - with diagonal and vertical folds  

When creating the merged initials I did run into some problems. The main one being when I followed the steps to hollow out the shape, including the fix up of mistakes n the tutorial, my letters were too angular or too steep etc. I fixed this by giving all of the edges a radius to round them off, bringing the middle initials down to create a less steep path, and lowered the thickness to 0.09mm as that was the only compatible thickness. Final Finished Shape  Shape before hollowing Error with the thickness I then rendered my initials and added material to the faces. I decided to choose the "Field" environment as it was the most 'natural' of the choices and I went with a mirror finish to see how the object might look in a natural environment. This allowed me to see how the natural sunlight would reflect off the object and how it would enter it, illuminating the hollowed centre. 

I actually quite enjoyed this activity and building the object as I didn't find the software too confusing and I liked the challenge of figuring out what slotted into where and how the pieces could join together.  Layout in Fusion 360 When it came to producing the model as flat pieces on an illustrator file, I had too many small pieces to fit without touching each other in the 120 x 400 rectangle. i solved this by simple expanding the width by 100mm making it 500 x 120mm. Extra pieces that did not fit Larger rectangle that fit everything I then built the model out of thin cardboard. I decided to paint the front-facing sides black to show a more obvious contrast and play with the concept of light and dark. I added a skylight, a rectangular window, and a series of slitted opening to see how it would change the interior of the space when the light passed through these opening at different angles. Where I added more openings.