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Kahn’s Exeter Short Film from Alex Roman on Vimeo.
Check out this CG shortfilm by Alex Roman depicting Louis Kahn’s Phillips Exeter Academy Library. It’s one in a series of videos he’s put together and they are all absolutely fantastic. Seriously epic. Be sure to browse the “making of” video as well for a sneak peak behind the scenes.
I apologize for the lack of posts over the past month — portfolio work has taken much longer than originally anticipated. Fortunately, I now have several how-to posts about portfolios, binding, etc. lined up, so look out for the start of those in the next few days.
Until then, check out the many winning submissions from this year’s Krob Illustration Competition (select images above). Congratulations to all of the winners!
Just a few interesting images I’ve accrued on my desktop over the last couple of months. While I’d love to give credit where credit is deserved for these, I unfortunately tend to drag cool images from the net without even thinking about writing down where they’re from. Actually, I do know that the first one was an image submitted with one of the proposals for the National Museum of Oslo (more info on the other finalists here). If anyone can place the other images, let me know in the comments.
With just a couple days left before the International Olympic Committee names a host for the 2016 Summer Olympics, I thought it’d be interesting to check out the proposals from each of the four remaining contenders — Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro. Today: Tokyo. Previous: Chicago, Madrid, Rio.
Designed by Kenji Ekuan of GK Design Group, Tokyo’s Olympic bid logo uses a traditional Japanese knot called a masubi to tie the five Olympic colors together in unity (slogan: “Uniting our worlds”). While I’m not all that into the overall design when compared with the other three proposals, I think it does a good job of being unique to the city. If they could have figured out how to create the appearance of a knot without so much gradient, I’d probably be more on board with it.
At this point, I’ve just resigned myself to the fact that these Olympic proposals are all about quantity rather than quality when it comes to the architectural renderings. I was really hoping that this series would be an interesting look at how to put together graphics and renderings for a proposal, but alas, it seems that most of the work was put into the logos (which for the most part, all turned out pretty well). The Olympic stadium above was the closest rendering I could find in the proposal that anything near a “wow factor” (FLOATING ROOF WOW). The rest are SketchUp-style, like the other three proposals, with very little left to the imagination. It’s almost as if the same person did the renderings for each of the proposals…
I’m still convinced that if one of them had broken from the prevailing trend of depicting things exactly how it could be and gone a little more toward the ambiguous end of things, they could have had an amazing proposal. Like I said before, a rendering that leaves the specifics to the imagination can do wonders for a proposal like this. It’s not like they don’t have six years to work on the details of this thing…
With just a week left before the International Olympic Committee names a host for the 2016 Summer Olympics, I thought it’d be interesting to check out the proposals from each of the four remaining contenders — Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro. Today: Rio. Previous: Chicago, Madrid.
Not to slight Rio or Tokyo, but these last two profiles will be quite short seeing as I have neglected my posting duties and the decision is just a few days away.
The top image above is the logo that Rio has been running with throughout their 2016 summer Olympic bid. It was designed by Ana Soter and it’s suppose to illustrate Brazil’s passion for the games in the form of a heart-shaped depiction of Sugarloaf Mountain that overlooks their proposed site of the games. Slogan: “Live your passion”.
The final two images are their initial architectural/planning proposals. While clearly just a first attempt at depicting what could be to the Olympic Committee, I think these renderings really illustrate the importance of view point when setting up a rendering. Personally, I don’t think the actual architecture in either of the renderings is much to look at, but the perspective that the shots are taken from leaves a lot to the imagination with the way that the mountains and water disappear off in the distance. Of course it’s always helpful when your site is in a place like Rio…
More images here.
Up next: Tokyo.
WOOOO! That perennial Pavement reunion rumor is finally true: Pavement, the KINGS of Indie rock, are back! It’s still a year off, but at the moment they’ll be playing three shows in Central Park on September 21, 22, and 23 of next year. Apparently the first show sold out in 2 minutes, so you’d better act quick: tickets.
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine where we agreed that a Pavement reunion show was tops on our must-see-live list, so you’ll be able to catch me at the Wednesday show screaming like a five-year-old watching Blue’s Clues. WOOOO! More info here and here.
A design dollar store. Like many designers, a personal aspiration of mine has always been to someday open a design studio. However, deciding what discipline to specialize in, how to generate business, etc have always been the most difficult aspects (for me at least). Perhaps it’s best to just do it all? Design 99 is a retail space, exhibition space, print shop, and design studio all wrapped in one in Hamtramck, MI. It sounds like a great idea to me and I love their ambition of making design accessible to the general public. I think we can all agree that the world could use better design here and there. Video:
Final Countdown. The winners of the Michael Jackson Memorial Competition have been announced and the winning proposal actually isn’t half bad. Unfortunately, for such an interesting competition brief, nothing really caught my eye a few weeks ago, but this idea is at least intriguing. While the winning image isn’t much to look at, it looks like the jury was going for something at least semi-plausible (read not laser-beams and/or spaceships).
LentSpace. Ever driven by an urban construction site that never appears like it’s under construction and thought, “well that’s a waste of space”? Apparently at least one other person thinks the same thing. LentSpace is a temporary project in Lower Manhattan that works as a “free outdoor cultural space” for a vacant site awaiting development. It provides exhibition space, a tree nursery, and even performance space. Check it out if you live in NYC and let me know what you think.
Speaking of New York… Check out some images of Morphosis’ Cooper Union academic building here. I was in NYC about a month ago and walked by it but was unable to find a way in. While I tend not to mind Morphosis’ buildings new, I always wonder what they’ll look like in 20 years. You have to imagine with all of those crazy forms and irregular spaces that it’d be tough on the up-keep. More info here and here. Thoughts?
