Milling the urbanism model

So as I promised, 2 short videos of the model being made. Enjoy!

Urbanism_master plan nearby Bucharest

For the latest urbanism studio project, we (myself and dimitrie) had to propose in quite a short amount of time a masterplan for an area near an important intersection (that really doesn't exist yet, but it is planned to sit on top of several gated comunities recently built) at the outskirts of Bucharest.


Our take on the project was to create several "islands" that we will connect on multiple layers (peripheral roads, axial roads and pedestrian walkways). After the "islands" were established we proposed central public spaces for each one, spaces that thanks to Dimitrie's excellent programing skills (Grasshoper and Rhino) are distorting the initial urban grid of 130 m by 130 m making it more permeable and responsive to the given input, creating an organic urban tissue.

We concentrated on making the plan both functional (easy to walk and easy to drive from one part to another) and flexible (the proposed grid can have an almost infinit number of combinations, quite the ilot ouvert kind of concept).



Programs used: Rhino, Grasshoper, Depthmap; renderings: Vray, Photoshop; layout: Illustrator.

Another interesting aspect of the project was the model. It had to describe urban textures. While other stole grandmas beads or grandpas heart medication (you know who you are!!!), we thought we will illustrate the organic nature of our gesture, the wave like urban skyline we were proposing. A short clip of it being made will be published soon.

I've always found the urbanism studio very interesting and challenging. Last year, with Drr we created a horse that stood between a lake and a forest. This year, we made a crocodile purse. What will come next? What strange new beast we will next illustrate?

Project teachers: Tiberiu Florescu, Sebastian Guta who we would like to thank for the suport and assistance.

That's not really that bad + holiday cheers

Instead of working on a comic project which i will post later on, i surf the web and do minimalistic postcards. But in my weekly reading of design blogs that happened this morning, I discovered this, a top 10 of the greatest movie posters of the decade. The selection is really good, but my surprise was the number 10 poster, none other than "Moartea domnului Lazarescu". Scrubs meets House meets Romania, sarcastic and gritty and unfortunately so true.

But off to holiday cheering. 5 minutes of photoshop and 2 of photoshop lightroom equals this:

Instant House [competition entry]

Ok, so it has finally happened, the winners of Instant House have been announced and .... [drum roll] of course I wasn't one of them. But that was just my and 190 or so other teams story. The theme was to create a temporary housing unit near infrastructure nodes, preferably in the Milan area. I kinda like the winning project, it's simple and on the spot, but what escapes me is that I understood from the project theme that you had to insert the instantness of the housiness into a context, you had to design in relation to an actual site. You needed to present some renderings and perspectives that are related to a site. But I don't see any of that in the winning projects. Not that I really integrated that story into my project... But hey, let's talk some more about me :D

So... My idea was to offer maximum flexibility and mobility to a module i found deemed to be a part of a functional living space in an super fast urban context. I made three modules, one for a living area, one for a dining/kitchen/bathroom contraption and one for a sleeping area. Then, I mixed them all up to become parasites of the urban context, signals for different events in the Milan area. Maximum flexibility with minimum costs. Each module could have a different look, you could use a variety of wooden panels as walls and you could use the modules as advertising area. Here is a look at what i proposed.

Public spaces [school project]

It's red, it's flashy, it's conceptual. What else would you possibly want in a historic area in downtown Bucharest?
We have to design a public space, not really knowing where, not really knowing what, total and utter freedom. Not really pleased with the way it's going, but i like the spaces that resulted from the initial concept ( by creating urban tissue, I mimic the already existing but quite private courtyards and passageways from the surrounding area).

Enjoy.

Trial and mostly error

But still, these 5 minutes of doodling, blending and transparency make my day.


[Corel Draw X4, draftish poster for an area in the LetARHgia ball]

Update: the alternative @drr

Anatomy class 101 - letARHgia

Sometimes, as a designer, you may have your own conventions of representing things, conventions that may not be as easy to interpret as you think. And you reach a situation where you become gobsmacked at the reactions or interpretations you get from the people who see your work.

For instance, the latest freelance project for the student festival of architecture, called LetARHgia brought me to a point where I see myself obligated to teach my "audience" a little in visualbasher anatomy:

And the poster:

Boarding house, Breaza

The latest project at school consisted of a boarding house at Breaza, with 8 to 10 units and a small restaurant. My "brilliant" take on this project (which at one point during the last two months, almost half of my colleagues ripped off), was to have the units separated from the reception and between themselves. This created a series of courtyards and then it all flowed from there. Good experience, not so coherent in the final layout, but still I like the outcome. Enjoy

Design... Stop taking it so seriously

Probably the motto of our generation. We are living in a time when experiments of any visual or creative nature are possible, when you can go out there and express your twisted mind in a contorted piece of design, be it graphic, industrial or architectural. This of course creates also a lot of bad design, hence the incredibile amount of bashers (me not included) and maaaaany just plain haters.

Which brings me to this. I absolutely love it (probably the communist era opens up the appetite for kitsch-revival). I surely am not the only one, but, again, the number of haters and flamers and their determination to bash it and not only this one (almost every post on dezeen is met with great hatred by the readers) is almost disturbing.
Design and the act of designing has reached a level where it's really all subjective, you stop having a rulebook or recipes and as a bald, wise man once said it's all a mather of choice.

Green Urbanism [from this point forward]

In primul rand, de azi inainte, ma internationalizez si ma fac mai kewl, so from now on, I will only post in english, sorry for those of you who don't quite cope with it, but it was about time.

Second, i'm posting a small compilation on the latest project at the urbanism studio. Me, myself and rares (actually rares, mostly) had to propose a residential park in the north of Bucharest, next to a lake and a forest. We took the word "park" quite literally and came up with a green horse/big thing which is supported by the forest and the lake and regulates the life inside the ensemble.

Renderings in 3dsmax with vray, modelling in auto and arhicad.