The summit
Euroia is a European architectural conference that is dealing with "information architecture". Information architecture is the design of a "shared information environment," web based design and organization, and incorporating design skills in the digital environment. This conference is relatively new, this year will be only the it's third conference. According to some attendees last years summit had a lot of innovative and interesting ideas on IA, however several of the key note speakers were lack luster. One attendee commented that he felt "they were very unprepared given the amount of time they had to create a presentation." Some of the topics that were covered ranged from the impact of strategy and IA to Virreal architecture.
Virreal architecture is the idea that one uses real life architecture as an analogy for design done online. The ultimate goal for Virreal architecture is for the web design to have the same level of impact as an architectural space to have on an individual!
Euroia seems to be off to a great start, and this years Euroia will be held on September 21-22 in Barcelona, Spain. So if you are interested, book your tickets now and meet me in Barcelona for the third annual summit!
Labels: euroia
YSOA
As of now, i am planning on going to grad school to continue my studies of architecture. I have several options in mind, but where i really want to go is YSOA,
Yale School of Architecture. The YSOA is my top choice because of the projects that the students get to work on. Each year the first year graduate students design a concept house. The best houses are boiled down to a select few, modified by the students, and then the best house is chosen. After the best house is chosen the students go out into an impoverished neighborhood to build the house,
themselves! Now you may be thinking, "don't other institutions do that as well?" Well, yes they do. However thats not all that i like about the program. They're program assumes you have not designed before. It is a "from the ground up" system that is based on the methods behind problem solving. I like that.
Further more, they offer a unique degree called M.Arch/MBA which is pretty self explanatory. If any of you did not know already, i am minoring in business. That isn't the only dual major they offer with M.Arch. The YSOA has a very dynamic and flexible degree plan that is meant for you to get the most out of your education. Not to mention, their web site is fantastic!
Labels: ysoa
Join the Club!
Recently i have joined a really great club on campus. It is called AMCT,
A&M Cycling Team. I bought a road bike over the summer and this semester i have started riding a lot. In fact this past weekend i went to my very first race with AMCT. It's hard to describe the thrill of riding at 20-30 mph mere inches away from the tire in front of you. Cycling is definitely a rush, but it can also be very dangerous. Last weekend there were five crashes in my race alone! However, you get more than thrills being apart of AMCT.
The guys and girls on AMCT are a great group of people. Since AMCT is classified as a club, its very laid back and everyone is easy going and helpful. I felt welcome from the very first meeting i went to. During my last race the rider in front of me went down and i ran over him and went down as well. My team mates ran over, helped me get back in the saddle, and cheered me on the rest of the way! That was great. Another benefit to being a member is that you naturally start to eat a healthier diet. You are forced to eat a proper diet or your performance is noticeably effected. Last weekend, i forgot to eat my bananas before my first race and i got a major cramp half way through the race! That will be the last time that happens.
All in all, AMCT is a great organization to be apart of. If you have a bike or are thinking of getting one, AMCT is definitely something to check out.
Labels: cycling
Degree plan
My future at Aggie land looks exciting. I have already had experience toiling over my degree plan, and the reason is i am actually a transfer student. I came into Texas A&M as an engineer, but transfered after my freshmen year. You can see how busy my last summer was! I don't really have a problem with taking summer classes, but the "summer module" that they have transfer students take is ruthless. I am also looking at minoring in Business. I did learn about excel from this exercise though, a very powerful program indeed.
Art Fest!
There is a local
art fest competition going down in my neck of the woods, and i was thinking to myself "hey todd, wouldn't that be
totally sweet to win an art fest comp.. yea that would be totally sweet." After that it was pretty much set, i was going to submit a masterpiece to the art fest at any cost, even five dollars.
The big question on my mind was "what for the sake of pete, was i going to submit to this Art fest.." What are they looking for in an art fest anyways? Well i was thinking of things to submit when all of a suden, like a flash of lighting, a memory came into my head.
When i was in china, in tienamen square, there were these really cool watches! They were mao zhe dong watches, where the second hand was mao's arm and he was waving at you! I bargined with the lady in chinese, and she was asking for a rediculous price. She was asking for 200 RMB wich is 25 USD! The watch was probably only worth 2 dollars, so i haggled with her for a while, but she wouldn't budge. She knew that i was a forgeiner.. so that automatically means i have money. So, i started to walk away. She would not stand for that, she followed me and lowered the price. I refused, and walked out of tiemen square. Now the thing about tienamen square is that its huge! Its like four square football fields. She followed me all the way out of tienamen square! By that time, she had all of her entourage following her. She was getting really pissed off now because i kept on refusing. However she wouldn't take no for an answer. Finally i told her that i would take it for 50 RMB, thats about 6 USD. She was almost in tears at this point, but she agreed. After that experiance i felt like i understood the statue in tienamen square much better.
The statue that i shoot is right outside Mao's grave and is called "The peoples struggle." I think that its a decent shot and it has a lot of emotions. So we will see what those judges think of it. What i have posted is the
original photo that i took.
PROOF
Vulcan mind meld
I thought it would be fun to map my mind and show everyone what it looks like when i get hungrey. Mind mapping is a tool that lets you see every step of a process more clearly. You start out with an idea bubble and input something into it and then write out the things that you think about as a result of what you input into your idea box. It will start to branch out and get really extensive, so its cool to see how your mind works on paper.
Labels: mind mapping
MODO
I just got off of spring break, and even though i didn't go anywhere i had a ton of fun. I got out on my road bike and put about 300 miles on the wheels this week, oh yea it was intense. The old guys around Bryan are crazy, they can still ride circles around me. So i spent most of my week on the road with the Brazos valley cycling club and go a really bad tan.
However, when i wasn't on the road i was fiddling with this 3D modeling program called MODO. Modo is really really powerful. The best way to describe working in MODO is like working with clay that never dries and does exactly what you tell it to. The UI is not incredibly complicated, but still has tons of tools. The strongest part of MODO is the actual model creating. As far as rendering, i found it to be confusing and i couldn't really get any good interesting renders. I am sure that it was my own unfamiliarity with the program, but based on what i saw i would say it is a more powerful modeler than rendering tool.
What i was doing with MODO was just messing around with the tools seeing what it could do. Eventually after molding this cylinder enough i thought it might look like a cool entrance to a building. So i stuck it in front of a "building" and that's what you see now.
Labels: 3d modeling, modo
VIZ: take two
After many hours of meditation and deliberation i decided that my first model was retarded. I came up with a new design, inspired from a project that i am working on currently in a different studio. It is my light tower for a cyclist project. So, i watched this video tutorial:
HERE on how to use VIZ, a 3D rendering/modeling program.
If you've watched the video, than you know what I've done, but if you haven't i will lay it out real quick. What i have done is created some basic shapes in VIZ and then set up a camera to get a two point perspective. I then used an ambient occlusion rendering filter to get the white matte image that i have. After that i rendered it again using a solid color overlay... sounds complicated but really its a sinch. I opened both of the files in photoshop and then multiplied them to get a combination of the color with the ambient occlusion. For my finishing touches i added a few scale figures and placed my structure in a real world setting. I am not completely satisfied with my model on real world background because on some of the edges there is an awkward white color that takes away from the realism of it. If i was doing a serious render i would make sure that i got all of the white out before placing my image.
VIZ is just one 3d modeling program, and if you are really interested there are tons of free programs out there that you can get your hands on and play around with. Here are a few:
--KERKYTHEA --TOPMOD
an experiment with VIZ
Today, i was messing around in Viz and this is what i made so far. I will have a final model by Thursday. What i have done so far is created my structure, and rendered it using ambient occlusion. I am not very satisfied with my ambient occlusion results, but i couldn't fix it and this was the best of my attempts. I want to do some more stuff to it, but i didn't have speakers at the computer i was at, and it made the tutorial i was using more difficult to follow. If you too want to learn how to do what i am doing click this link:
Viz tutorial
Star Fighter
Today, i was experimenting with a a several programs: Topmod, and Pepakura. I created my star fighter in Topmod then used a program called Peparkura to unfold it onto a flat plane.. I then refolded it to get what you see at the bottom of this post.
Topmod
Pepakura
Flat paper model
Star Fighter
It's fun making something in a 3d program and then watching as it comes to fruition. You can paint the skin of your model before OR after you print it. I colored my skin post print, but if you want to you can make some crazy designs in photoshop and have a lot of fun. Check out the cool skins people designed already at the Pepakrua website:
www.pepakura.com A word of caution, make sure you have an xacto knife and quick dry glue or you will not have fun.
