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.
. Though mine was a society project and not for my course, but we were doing it for an engineering company.
I’ll read soon!
