tadao ando

i was given the designer tadao ando to learn about and research. he has a very long lists of projects under his name. many mostly being in japan. his designs are very simple and the focus a lot on the use of natural lighting.

i noticed he used a lot of the same materials and designs with all of his projects. that was seen a lot with his usage of concrete walls with what appears to be little circle designs all over. it gave it a very cold and industrial feel to me.

this photo is from wikipedia. i was also very interested in just how light worked with a design like this. i can tell that the way the outside lights hit the wall face really creates an amazing lighting/shadowing effect in the doorway.

i saw this photo on wikipedia. i can really see his detail and usage of natural light here. this is the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe Japan. the way the sun come through it creates an illusion that there are more things there, like railing or stairs, but it is the shadows from those already existing things.

i agree with tadao ando's work. i think natural light makes for some pretty amazing things. just the way it shines through something, or bounces off a certain color can really create a phenomenon all it's own.

i have also learned that Tadao Ando was born in Oskaka, Japan in 1941. Wikipedia says that he worked as a trucker and a boxer before becoming and architect, and he never had any formal training. He opened his own firm in 1969. He likes to use exposed concrete in his designs. most of his designs are in japan, but he did design the modern art museum of fort worth and piccadilly gardens in manchester.

ando is a little different from the others on the list because he designs buildings and the others from what i have seen have been more of designing light installment pieces such as James Turrell and Leo Villareal. They all however find great inspiration through light and its affects on other objects and ourselves.

A and B Drawings and Object Drawing

Drawing is still the one part giving me the most problems still, without a doubt.

thinking about light

on sunday i started taking photos. i realized i like how the light was affected by leaves and branches. i think all this work with the two has me still in this mindset... not sure if that is a blessing or a curse at the moment.

i took some photos in a special spot personally. it was in a garden at my parents home. i liked how the light glowed off the shinny leaves of a holly bush.

 

i also liked how the sun had a more dull glow off of the wooden walk-way. there was also a very interesting shadow up in top right corner. it seemed to be almost creeping in.

in a matter of moments the light changed from a warm glow, to a bright pale white. the shine off the leaves was still interesting, but the back ground seems much more washed out and almost sickly looking.

monday morning mira and i talked about my ideas with these photos. we played around with editing and looked at a smaller spot on photo number one above. the spot was focused on a small light shinning through the bush.

the light coming through the twigs inside of the plant created an almost symmetrical shape... like a kaleidoscope image. mira had me now seeing light better on a smaller level. i then showed her some photos i had just taken that morning leaving my house heading to class. she felt they had much more interest to them, and that is when i decided to work with those.

i will have photos up very soon of where i will go with this design project. this is to be continued...

12 twigs... so many ideas.

my very first idea when presented with this design project started when i was just tracing in my sketch book. i liked this idea of perhaps combining the twigs in this shape or bundle and creating artificial nature like pine cones out of some form of paper. it was my first idea and it was very similar to a previous idea i held from the first design project with the leaf and paper.

after presenting my drawings in class, i went back down to the studio... and began to think. i looked out the massive windows and noticed something that really caught my eye. i loved how the skyline of greensboro seemed to just be growing up and out of this huge vast plain of trees. i went home and started to work.

my first idea was to create this mass of twigs with something that appeared to be buildings growing up through the sticks. i played around with some visual ideas, but nothing was coming together. this is my original sketch book idea.

shortly after i began working on this idea... i in-countered a various amount of changes. i started enjoying this idea of the man-made and the twigs being interwoven with one another, in this chaos. that is what brought me to my final. this idea was very similar to a left over idea from the leaf and paper project, i just didn't have the means to carry it out then. i believe the medium made this one much more possible.