Film project

Finally the design process begins! Although I've really enjoyed the technical side to ISD, it's time to get creative. After a tedious process of surveying our spaces and gathering information to fully understand our site, we've been divided into groups, and further into sub groups to start to create our film set.

We were posed with a one week competition and through the creation of storyboards, we're now implementing our design ideas to create our chosen setting. My group and I wanted to bring back Chelsea's history, through the use of a religious symbol engraved on the floor.

A major inspiration was Mike Nelson's exhibition at the Tate Britain*. A combination of dim lighting, noises, and narrow corridors was the exact same feeling we wanted to project. Chelsea College is hauntingly beautiful - the immense amount of corridors and rooms makes me feel as if I can never know the building well enough. Although we had mapping projects to familiarise ourselves with the university, human nature is such that we end back at the same areas. However, with this film project, there's a certain urge to further explore the building. The history is such, that we wanted to bring back the chilly atmosphere of the military hospital that once existed. Looking at old documents and descriptions of what Chelsea used to be like, we're reconstructing the past through our understanding of the information that we have collected.

Our group was given the task of working with the walls and boundaries that create a space. And with our design ideas, we are working on the basis of changing these walls in terms of it's flexibility and structure. We started to look closely at the cracks in the walls and perhaps how they can open up to a hidden space or to a different world. Thus, the walls don't just serve their purpose of acting as a support and foundation to the building, but they possess a story. One of our main interests are the use of lighting, or projections to deter from the solid nature of walls, to make it seem liquid and flexible. Or even different materials, shapes and textures, which change the look of the wall. So as we continue to develop our ideas and define our story, hopefully it'll turn into something exciting in the next couple of weeks!

*http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/207494480001 - watch Mike Nelson's interview about his Coral Reef exhibition!

Interior and Spatial Design

It's funny after reading endless course descriptions and listening to lectures, I can't come to a fixed answer of what this course means to me. Defining Interior and Spatial Design brings up various perspectives - looking at spaces, understanding your environment, just becoming more aware of what's around you. The key word is observing and communicating that visual picture of your surroundings through drawings.

It's been a while since I blogged about my Foundation year in Art and Design. Definitely overjoyed to be back at Chelsea and even more happy to be sharing my new experience of the design world. It's been a crazy ride these past two weeks, but the amount I've learned in such a few days is incredible - I'm sitting here just trying to recollect all of it, excited as ever for this new journey.

I've seen two sides of the course - both technical and imaginative. I think after a 6 month holiday of disconnecting from work, it has become a real challenge in bringing out that creativity, but the atmosphere of working around such skilled students is inspiring. So far we've been working on mapping, and I think it's been a great exercise of learning how to explore spaces and record that through our drawings.

The technical side of interior design is something I've always wanted to learn. I didn't trust my tutor when he told us a million times that surveying is truly boring! But after hours of looking at the space we were given, measuring, and producing countless drawings, I look at them and feel proud :)

So the course so far has been good to me. Definitely a lot of hard work, extremely time consuming, but the journey of learning has only just begun for me. To picture myself as a designer in the end is truly motivating. . .

Film review

After attending the film programme, these are the two films I chose to critique, well in my opinion, it was the only two worth talking about.

The Long Goodbye; if theres one word to describe this film, it would have to be hilarious! A tall, fairly handsome man with rugged looks posed as the main character, what's there not to like? Jokes aside, what I loved most is his sarcasm, as it greatly complimented his style. Don't be fooled by his macho and wise looks, as we find out that he is as clueless as ever. Despite being laid back and ignorant, Marlowe still manages to get himself dragged into all sorts of situations, which neither made him wiser nor mature, remaining a 'born loser'. After helping a friend to cross the border of Mexico, an alcoholic to be reunited with his wife, and dealing with a mob, he ends up as sloppy as ever; just him and his harmonium gifted by a patient at the hospital when he got run over. His unresponsive and oblivious manner is what I absolutely adored because at the end of the film, his greatest concern was dealing with his fussy cat which was in my opinion, is the most memorable and rib tickling scene! Even though that scene was right at the start of the movie, to be honest, it was the one that grabbed my attention the most, in spite of being presented with such a complex and interesting plot.

In contrast, I quite enjoyed Jan Svankmajer's short films. I thought it was interesting to watch short animated films, and a get a feel of influential animation back then. It allowed me to see a change in cinema, although I have to admit they were quite different and scarring, for reasons I will explain later. 'The Flat' depicts the battle between a man trapped in a room, and the overpowering objects around him, teasing his inability to escape. I thought it was quite odd and made me wonder what was the point in showing all of that. However, the play between those objects and this person was quite enjoyable to watch. 'Dimensions of a dialogue' had surprising elements. In the beginning we were faced with forms of food stuff and tools morphing into one another, and we see the changes between each form that is being created. Following this, we are presented with two clay figures, who are lovers. From flirting to eventually having intercourse, a piece of clay pops out bouncing on the table. After flinging it at one another, it ends up into the figures fighting and ripping each others faces out. The change of emotions was quite amusing. It could depict the nature of relationships; being romantic at first, and after a break up, possessing utmost hatred for one another. The last part was quite humorous; two men exchanging objects from mouth to mouth. Eventually, we see how the transfer of two objects gets muddled around. The whole concept was quite absurd, yet it was entertaining. Lastly, we were presented with the film, 'Food' and the thought of it is already making me lose my appetite. From people turning into, you could say, a fast food vending machine, men eating every single object in their way, and eventually turning into cannibals, to the last course of the meal, which presents all sorts of body parts on dishes, I was about to puke! Being a "foodie", I was quite disappointed…

Final model - science project

So after hours of cutting out acetate and glueing the structure together, voila! I managed to create an open lounge. Because of the intricacy of the shape, as well as the rigidity of acetate, it was quite hard to replicate the shape by cutting. However, it managed to stand up well in the end. The overall structure was inspired by the dandelion. My aim was to create that circular shape, and after a lot of difficulty, the results paid off. Well, at least in my opinion.

In terms of context, I thought it would be interesting to place it in front of the Tower bridge, as there is a lot of open space, along with a great view. For now, I'm quite happy with the context, however I might continue to play with it.

Science!

DNA, molecules, seed dispersion, you name it! This project is all about us thinking independently, and well you can say, coming up with our own brief, despite being given the theme. To be honest, after watching a couple of videos based on this topic, I felt like I was back to school sitting in my biology class. But what is actually amazing is that we tend to ignore what's around us. Nature is prominent and so easy to gain inspiration from, and yet we never really take that into account.

We had several opportunities of going out to build up our research work. I visited the Natural History museum during the first weekend, and I was quite fascinated with their displays of natural minerals and crystal formations. And after several drawings of these beautiful designs, we were taken to the school of molecular science. I quite enjoyed visiting that space, especially the research labs with large

pods as working spaces. Even simple things like the lights and chairs inspired us to sit there and capture every corner. In addition, the Wellcome trust was very enjoyable. As you can see from my previous post, Heatherwick's piece took my breath away. Apart from that, I quite liked the Genome project. The way they presented the chromosomal combinations as socks or interactive ways to understand the human body. Again, I began to reflect on my knowledge of taking higher level biology for IB, and that actually made it even more fun being able to understand what was around me. I absolutely adored the section of biometrics, where the machine used our pulse rate, height, fingerprint and a retina scan to create a graphic icon.

So as you can tell, this week was fun filled and we gained a lot of research, therefore inspiration was all around. I created sketch models, and I quite liked the circular shape of molecules and how they interconnect. My idea is to create a large pod as a lounge area, but I would like it to open and close, depending upon the atmosphere people would like. The greatest limitation is obtaining that circular shape. For now, the experimentation continues...

--- http://vimeo.com/13849070 ----

Thomas Heatherwick

Diverse, talented, skilled, and all the other synonyms for these words are what I think of when Thomas Heatherwick comes into view. He was one of the suggested artist/designer that we had to look up for, for our science project. Just googling his works made me envy every single piece he has created and when I say every single one of them, I really mean it!

We had the opportunity of visiting a structure he designed at the Wellcome trust. It is, if I'm not mistaken, the biggest crystal structure in the world, with 2 tonnes of glass. And as you can imagine, my jaw literally dropped in awe of such beauty! For a good 3 minutes, I was just staring, and then I realized I needed to capture this as much as I can. Such a simple concept of dropping metal into water, and getting that beautiful curved shape is what gave him the inspiration.

Taking a glass elevator allowed us to get the full view of it, and as you can imagine, everyone was fighting for a good place in the lift to get as many pictures.

So this is what you call inspiration. When an artist or designer has the ability to leave you stunned, you know inspiration as hit you. Well I won't lie to you, it made me realize the level of competition in this area, and he got me wishing for a career as successful as his, but I guess we need such people to inspire us and get to the top!

Urban Platform

Urban Platform has by far been the most important and extensive project given to us during the course, and after missing a week of university, I knew there was no time to waste.

The project was site specific; we had to design a space opposite the Jerwood space at Union street to accommodate a viewing platform, performance space, cinema, cafe and toilets. But before this was possible, the site had to be investigated for us to gain inspiration. So the experimentation begun with negative space, tracing out buildings, looking at colour and so forth, and from that, an A2 sketchbook was filled. After looking back, I was inspired by that sense of rigidity and there was a just this blur of lines all around. But what these lines did when coming together, created a shape, and thus I was inspired to create a space consisting of repeated triangles. Yes, my fetish for triangles never ends! But many of them put together is quite eye catching in my opinion.

I created a sketch model initially, and went straight to the final, as I feel from making, my ideas come into my place rather than drawing. The end results were quite pleasing. I left it white, as I felt that when natural light comes in, the atmosphere is quite comforting. And because the space is also for art exhibitions and performances, it makes it all the more lively.