aye!! i got the email of the tag and i was reading this in college lol I liked the model build its nice 
Always wondered how stuffs were made from nice strong wood. great work! 
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Map Project
First Year
Yep, this topic still exists and I still plan on completing it 
. Shoutout to @anna834 for continually bugging me to post in here again.
This project was given to us at the same time as another project, the next one I’ll post, so I was unable to devote as much time to it as I wanted. However, I really did not enjoy the other project we had going on (you’ll hear about that later, I’ll give you a preview though - group project), so this one became a little escape for me and actually ended up being one of my favorites from first year.
The prompt was to map out two blocks of town. The idea was that each person from my studio would map out a separate element of the town (such as lights, sidewalks, railings, art, etc.) and at the end we would overlay them all into a single image. We had hoped that we would be able to find relationships between the maps and patterns within the town. I really liked the idea and was excited to see the final image. However, due to the second project, most of the people in my studio ignored this project and eventually my professor chose to abandon it. I was really upset about this because I had been able to keep up with both projects, and was actually nearly finished with my map. So, luckily for you all, I chose to complete my map in my own time. Enjoy!
When we were selecting our “element” to map, I ended up choosing private vs. public doors. I had initially just intended on mapping out the entrances to the different places and distinguishing whether each was open to the public or not. After talking with my professor however, I decided to map out the interior doors of each place as well, to show the connections between the front and back entrances as well. This was a pretty intimidating project for me because it entailed going into every shop/restaurant within these two blocks and mapping out their interiors and I was a little shy boi. I was able to get over it though and actually had a lot of really memorable and interesting experiences with these shops. I got shown the back entrances into the theater (located in an office 3 shops down from the theater), got to get onto the roof of one of the restaurants, chilled in the bong shop and tattoo parlor, snuck into the hair saloon through the back employee break room, got to walk through a wild, student-run gallery (I think they were actually shooting a music video in there while I was there), got into a few bars, a found a few hidden places I hadn’t previously realized were there. I only got kicked out of one place. That was pretty shady.
It took a few visits to main street but eventually I was able to create a hand-drawn map of all the interiors. I scanned it into the computer and drew over it in Illustrator to create this map. The colors correlate to the level of each area (brown-underground, green-first floor, blue-second floor) and the shapes relate to whether the door in public/private (solid-private, open-public). Where there are doors directing above/below one another I showed each with a slash. I connected all the doors in each area with a line the same color as the level.
I was really happy with the final product. The spiderwebbing of all the lines creates a pretty dope effect in my opinion. And I also like how you can read each space without needing to see the walls. Graphic-wise I chose to make it pretty clean with the solid white background, and thin lines, similar to the graphic for my Tower Project. Aesthetically this is my preferred style and you will see it more in the future. I was very glad I chose to finish it. Not only because of the final map I created, but the fun experiences that came with it.
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Why do you get all the interesting projects? Also, that last image looks like a weird PCB layout to me.
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Yea, first year projects are always fun This one was actually based on some artist who created similar maps of New York.
Lol, hadn’t occurred to me before, but I can definitely see it.
Hey! 
About time! 
Thank you for sharing! Totally interesting! 
Loved to imagining and following your work process.
Interesting to few your map in perspective to escape routes.
Again, thanks!
And go on! 
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Fairy Tale Project
First Year
This is the project that we had going on at the same time as the Map Project and, as a little disclaimer before we get into it, I hate this project. It is probably my least favorite project that I’ve done in architecture so far. I was actually ashamed to have my name attached to it. It is a tale of unfulfilled potential because of lack of direction.
The project was actually part of an international competition. Professional architecture and graphic design firms were entering it, so we knew we had no chance off the bat. The prompt was to come up with a fairy tale and portray it using 5 boards. We decided as a studio to split into 4 different teams, each of which would have a separate entry. We began by brainstorming and then forming our groups based on which ideas interested us.
I hopped on a team that had an initial idea revolving around a planet in which the core is carved out. A rich society lived on the outside, while a society which lived in poverty was in the core. The catch was that the gravity within the planet pulled outwards rather than inwards. The idea was that each board for the fairy tale would be cut in half by the planet’s “skin,” with the rich people upright on top and the poor people upside down on the bottom. I thought this idea was dope and came up with a cool idea for the boards which showed the timeline of the planet and the differences between the two societies in the background while the foreground focused on a character from each world. These characters would start as black silhouettes in the first board and slowly be filled with color from each’s respective area (whites, blues, and greens for the rich and browns, blacks, and grays for the poor) as the boards progress. In the last panel the colors of each of their societies are removed from the characters showing that the remaining colors are the same. Sorry if this was difficult to follow, its hard to describe without pictures. Basically, the idea was that people are shaped by their environments (the silhouettes being filled with color from the areas) but deep down we are all the same.
I thought this was a dope fairy tale and was really proud of it. Unfortunately, my group wasn’t feeling it. Instead they wanted to simplify it down. They continued to dumb it down until it basically became a day in the life of rich vs. poor. It was so bad. To top it off, we chose as a group to model each scene and photograph it for the boards (I initially agreed to this, however looking back it was a terrible decision). I am a perfectionist, so I will work until all my models are perfect. However, not everyone in my group was like this. Why we agreed to model the scenes when barely anyone in our group had any modeling skills is still beyond me. In addition, they decided that the upside-down world would be too difficult to model, so the poor people were shown upright. So I guess they were just living in caves or something.
As I mentioned before, our fairy tale became a day in the life of rich vs. poor. The 5 boards would portray, in order, their rooms, their outside environments, where they shop, where they work, and the last panel would show the rich guy firing the poor guy for some reason. I think our story became rich is better than poor towards the end. It was so bad. I realized about a week in that it was a lost cause and gave up hope for the final product. Instead I focused solely on my contributions, and using this opportunity to experiment with new modeling materials and tools. So in this post I will only show my models and not the final products.
I ended up in the “poor group” so all my models were for him. Here are a few of the smaller items I made. They were found in the first and third panels (where he lived and where he shopped). These gave me the opportunity to experiment with painting, sewing, and laser cutting for the first time which was pretty cool. Haven’t painted or sewed since this project, but I have used the laser cutter a few times since then.
Here’s the apartment building where he lived which I made for the second panel (their environment). This was laser cut and painted. I was actually very happy with how it turned out. Unfortunately in the panel it was covered up by two other buildings so it’s very difficult to see.
This was the check out counter and cigarette display for the convenience store where he shopped at (third panel). This took ridiculously long to make, but I was pretty happy with how it turned out. This was probably the worst scene we modeled, mostly because there was nothing in the convenience store in addition to my counter except for a light ball shelf. The light balls were supposed to be the light source for the underground people. Each person would buy them and they would float in their hands throughout the day (interesting idea in theory but terribly executed).
This was the machine for the factory in the fourth panel (where they worked). This had a lot of fun little details for me to model, such as the lights, gears, and conveyor belt. It was intended to be the machine that produced the light balls previously mentioned.
I did not model anything for the final panel because it was literally just the fourth panel zoomed in a bit. Our whole project was horrific. I could go much further into detail about why each panel sucked but this thread is supposed to be about my projects, not me ripping on everyone else. Not to mentioned I’m already heated as it is just from writing this.
The other groups boards ended up pretty good. One was a story of two towns, one organically shaped and the other orthogonally, and they build a bridge to come together. Another told the story of a species of aliens discovering an Earth in ruins thousands of years into the future. The third was about a man living in a future society completely depended on technology who rediscovers the “old ways of living.” They all turned out surprisingly well. My favorite was probably the technology one. Really good illustrations for each panel and an intriguing story.
This wraps up all the projects for my first semester of my first year of architecture. Hopefully I’ll be able to start posting my second semester soon.
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Been there done that, I don’t even want to talk about the disaster that mine was . Though mine was a society project and not for my course, but we were doing it for an engineering company.
Give 3D printing a bash if you get the chance. Helps you brush up on CAD skills too.
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Yea I’ve thought about it. I’ve just started experimenting with 3D modeling in Rhino. We have a few 3D printers in studio. You just need to supply your own filament.
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Remember the class play of my son? Where he played this ex soldier in an apocalyptic world who gunned down everything in his path?
A school class had to imagine their future in 30 years. And one was very bright, shiny and happy, the other in this destroyed, pur world. Just a few rich citys were carved out of the earth and hooverd over the smog line, hold there by big power fields.
In the end, my son and his people crushed that field and the city came down.
The audience realised, that the happy futur was built on top of the apocalyptic world.
Ok… ok, totally off topic.
But your planed construction remindet me of that.
So cool!
Would have loved to see it build!
Your miniatures are awesome!
Love the ideas, the colouring. Remembers me a little at district 12 in tribute of panem.
Also your writing is really good!
Nice to read, easy to understand and to picture what you mean.
Feel free to be more sarcastic about your fellow students, let the anger out, fun to read. 
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Well Designed Project
First Year
Big oof. Well now that I’m back home for break and Christmas celebrations are over I guess I can finally add on to this.
The previous project wrapped up my fall (first) semester of my first year so now we’re beginning the spring (second) semester. My professor wanted to start us off slow coming back from break, so we did a short graphic design project to kick off the semester. Our prompt was to create a 24x19 board highlighting something we believed was well-designed. It could be anything as long as we could back up why we believed it was well-designed. People in my studio chose a variety of things, but I, being an architect, wanted to choose a building. I had a large list of different buildings on campus that I admired but eventually narrowed it down to Burchard Hall.
I had mentioned in the OP of this thread that while walking through the hall for the first time during my tour I realized that I wanted to pursue architecture. The grandness of the hall, being entirely open while supporting the plaza above with massive concrete columns, was breathtaking to me. Although it is entirely underground, the pyramid skylights above reveal its presence to the rest of the university, lighting up the inside while also allowing the outside a peek at our work. For many years I had looked towards the hall with awe, anxiously awaiting my turn to call it home (only ID students and older architecture students work there).
I wanted to capture its grandness along with the plaza above in my board, but I, being a graphic design noob, was greatly limited in what I could create. So the project turned into more of a chance for me to experiment with different drawing techniques. I had a few discussions with my studio professor on different ways I could represent my ideas, but eventually decided on a perspective view of the plaza above and a section cut through the hall itself, showing its connection with Cowgill Hall and its underground nature. Looking back at it I realize that there quite a few ways I could improve upon it. Its pretty basic right now, but it was a good first attempt. I was pretty proud of it back then.
The top perspective view was basically just a picture I had taken and traced over.
The below drawing was the product of many late nights spent waiting for the hall to (mostly) empty out so I could measure it. Nobody wants to be the weird first year measuring the hall . For anyone who cannot read section drawings, its just a drawing of the cross-section of the building as if had cut though it. I’ll admit that this one isn’t very good, but the black parts are the solid parts I cut through and the white line drawings are the objects beyond the cut. I definitely could have used different line weights and colors to make it easier to read.
Fun Fact: All the people in the picture are silhouettes of me . I got my roommate to take pictures of me in my dorm room doing different actions and then I turned them into silhouettes. So if any of you guys were wondering what I looked like, there you go
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yeahhhhh! Christmas break! 
Has to be good for something! 
Thank you!
I really enjoyed reading 
You are skilled, bringing your project onto paper. And not only what you’ve done exactly, but also the excitement in it. 
Sure, you would do it better today, this shows your progress in studying. 
Hey, and thanks, finally a picture of you!
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Reminds me, I need to make something of a mega post in my thread too. lol
Why? The amount of weird stuff I’ve done with crowds around is hilarious.
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Thanks for thr tag buddy!! 
I’ll read soon!
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Ik that feeling… Many times we want things to be more systematic and perfect but group members deny or don’t pay much attention 
But i agree it’d have been really dope !
What are they made of ??? Ply? it looks so cool! Cute and small 
That seems very tough to make. You had any special tools for cutting? Or its my laser cutting?
Burchard halls truly seems grand 
Ah where??
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Those models are made of a variety of bass wood, chipboard, paper, and some fabric.
Some of the more intricate pieces, like the meters on the panel and gears, were laser cut. The rest were just hand cut with my exacto knife.
On the board
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Corner Project
First Year
This project was another big oof. I still cannot decide which project was worse, this or the fairy tale one. The prompt for this was literally: “what is a corner?” wtf. That’s the type of architectural garbage that makes me angry. A corner is where 3 or more planes meet at a point. Yes, it can be represented in an infinite amount of ways, but it has a definite definition.
Dumbed down, my professor just wanted us to study different ways to make a corner. But it couldn’t be too straight forward or architectural. It had to be some ridiculous, round-about idea concerning a corner. People in my studio actually had such a difficult time coming up with “correct ideas” that my professor had to personally approve each project before we could progress .
Not gonna lie, I had a difficult time coming up with a good idea as well. My ideas were all too literal or architectural. Eventually my professor steered me in a direction that worked: studying perceived corners. Basically my idea was creating 3 planes coming together into a point (like the corner of a simple cube), except the point where they meet was removed. However your mind perceived the planes continuing into a non-existent point.
idk. I hated this all. To me, the empty space actually looked like different 3 dimensional shapes, depending on the shape of the cut-out, resting in the corner. Its easier to see when they are resting on a solid background. I had no idea how to continue on with this project at this point. I think my professor saw I was struggling with this prompt, so he just suggested for me to construct the larger, square corner out of concrete. I took that advice without question and set out on designing a mold with which to cast it in. I hoped to design it so that it could be reused, allowing me to create an army of these little corner pieces (I don’t know why I thought this was remotely a good idea).
My final design was a wooded box with a cube inside to create the opening at the corner. I created these ridiculous joints to join the mold together which ended up being my downfall. Also the wood warped really badly when I started cutting it all up. It was all a big oof. A few days before it was due I remember one of the woodshop guys walking up to me telling me I was doing everything wrong and that I had to leave because they were closing. I was dummy angry. He was lucky there weren’t any babies in the local vicinity. As I walked out I dropped everything in the trash. I just forgot about it at that point and moved on. I think my professor knew what was up because he never brought it up again either.
This was as far as I got. The gray dude on the left was the intended concrete product and the guy on the right was the part of the mold I had finished before I stopped. All I had left was the final two walls to close it off. It would not have worked though; the warping had prevented the pieces from fitting flush against one another. Oh well, if nothing else it gave me some good wood shop practice.
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Where 3 planes join in 3D space. Job done.
More than 3 planes? What are the others besides XY, XZ and YZ?
This makes zero sense. What does that even mean?
It’s some next level BS. lol
That’s because they are, they are no longer corners as the 3 planes don’t intersect at any point.
Did you actually submit anything?
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And a good story for us!
Thank you!
Great telling! I really enjoyed myself!
And I also did get your troubles with it, at least I think so. 
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I was thinking of ridiculous shapes like this guy
It was dumb. It be honest I don’t even remember other people’s projects.
We don’t actually submit anything in architecture. We just get a final grade at the end of the semester on what we’ve done overall.
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