Brodie Geers (YNOT)

[brodie_geers]

Here are the finals!

-Brodie

[brodie_geers]

Initial Thoughts

In my opinion the most dramatic aspects of the GH house is the dichotomy between open and closed. One side is almost completely walled off from the world through large concrete walls with only a few small slits punched out in very intentionally chosen locations. The other side, however, is almost completely open. Not only are there huge floor to ceiling windows in the living room and main bedroom above, but each of the smaller rooms have windows as well (even the closets and storage spaces!).

The next logical question for me then, because architecture should respond to its environment, was 'what in the immediate context of the house prompted to architect to design it this way?'

The setting I chose to resolve this is a coastal region in the state of Washington, USA (for those overseas Washington state is as far NorthWest you can go within the continental United States). Washington has a very damp climate, extremely prone to rain showers. The coast varies but tends to be rocky with large sloping forested hills. Vegitation tends to be quite dense on account of the rain.

To that end, I chose all of my reference photos from architect James Cutler who has done much work in the Washington area. Below are the tree reference photos which should most closely tie into my project.

Reference Photos

Guest - Medina, WA -3.jpg
This patio area I find very compelling and inviting how it opens up to the outside while also pulling the outside in via the patio blocks which continue inside the house.

Paulk - Seabeck, WA -1.jpg
In such a hilly dense environment where contact with the ground can be limited a bridge may well work it's way into my project. I really like the 'just rained' feel of this photo.

Wright Guest - Highlands, WA -1.jpg
Another sort of bridge, this was being just barely off the ground. I think this gives the feel of not disturbing the ground and allows for the possibility of more wild plants ground up around the walkway. What I really like here, though, is the concrete retaining wall which runs along the side of the house. This is how I plan to use the concrete walls of the GH house, but more on that later.

-Brodie

[brodie_geers]

Concept Sketches - Hand Drawn

After finding my reference photos I started thinking through the project as a whole. Given the relatively long time we're given to complete the project, I've decided to take things fairly slow. Rather than my usual task of rushing into the fun part of getting the building to look really cool through test renderings, material test, modeling tweaks, etc. I've decided to work the other way around. Having already decided that the architecture of this house must be responding to it's environment, I decided to exclusively focus my up-front time on the site rather than the building itself. Only when the site is done will I be able to design the aesthetics of the building and how it fits into that site.

I already knew a few things about the site based on the location I picked (coastal Washington state as discussed above). It's often rainy and sometimes quite chilly which meant the pool was out of the picture right away. In fact given that I knew the site would be hilly and dense with vegetation I decided to do away with the entire site we were given. I then went about sketching out some early concept drawings focusing on what I want the site to look like and how it should interact with the building. Below are 5 of those sketches which I threw some color on in Photoshop to make it more clear for others to read what's going on.

001.jpg
This is the view from within the living room. The coast runs along to your left some distance away from the house and further down in elevation.

002.jpg
While my primary rendering will be of the front of the house, I've spent literally hours trying to figure out the backside of the house. If the concrete walls are to serve as retaining walls, then how is the garage to be the lowest point of the house? Here I'm toying with a bridge which goes over a driveway and along the right side a long curved extension to the concrete wall. Currently my thoughts are moving more towards an underground garage which could be intriguing.

003.jpg
Another view of the bridge which further shows the interaction between the house and the coast.

004.jpg
A distant view, again exploring the context.

005.jpg
This time a sort of section showing generally how I believe the site elevations will work out. To resolve the issue of why the architect designed one side of the building closed off from most views and thick concrete the left side (in the image) is abutting a large highly vegetated hill (hence there are no real views to see). The other side is designed as open because the site drops off and provides excellent views of the ocean and coastal area.


-Brodie

[brodie_geers]

Concept Models

Here I've begun transitioning from my hand drawn sketches to modeling sketches which I've found extremely helpful when dealing with these complicated grading issues I'm dealing with.

0001.jpg
The modeled version of an earlier sketch which shows the view from the living room out to the coast.

0002.jpg
This one shows some of the general grading I'm looking to acheive.

0003.jpg
More grading study and a look at a potential bridge location. The issue I run into is that the garage wants the elevation to be low but that leaves my concrete retaining walls with little to do.

0006.jpg
A look at a possible solution to the above problem. Extending that curved wall out to provide a retaining wall to hold back the earth and carve out a space for the garage and some vegetation.


0008.jpg
One possible concept I'm playing with of raising one end up on stilts a bit.

-Brodie

[artmak]

I like your approach, very logical indeed!
Looking forward to following your entry, and good luck!

[brodie_geers]

Originally Posted by artmak

I like your approach, very logical indeed!
Looking forward to following your entry, and good luck!

Thanks, I really like the idea of this WIP style of competition along with the lengthy time limit. I've never really thought much about my process so this will be a real experiment for me.

I already know that the vegetation is going to take up a huge chunk of time. Vue would be perfect for what I have in mind but I don't own it. So I suspect I'll be doing a ton of laborious work on preparing and then placing and then randomizing individual plants and trees and grass. But since there's both a lot of vegetation and it's crucial to my project it must look right. If anyone has any advice for this sort of thing I'm all ears! Software-wise I plan to start in Sketchup, move to 3ds Max, and then render in Maxwell.

-Brodie

[BBB3]

Nice start. This looks very well thought through and ambitious. Happy to share ideas with you about the vegetation as I have the same issue and haven't really solved it yet.

[brodie_geers]

Originally Posted by BBB3

Nice start. This looks very well thought through and ambitious. Happy to share ideas with you about the vegetation as I have the same issue and haven't really solved it yet.

Thanks. I see your using 3ds Max and Vray, yes? I don't think I'll be able to do what I'm wanting within SketchUp regarding the plants/trees. My plan is to start looking into options for 3ds Max which I'm not as comfortable with. I'm thinking something along the lines of a sort of scattering technique to distribute my plants/trees across the landscape at the appropriate elevations which I can then go back through and hand adjust as necessary. It will also need to randomize them of course in terms of scale and rotation at least. If you (or anyone else) know of a good resource on doing this in 3ds Max I'd be happy to hear it.

-Brodie

[robert]

Originally Posted by brodie_geers

I'm thinking something along the lines of a sort of scattering technique to distribute my plants/trees across the landscape at the appropriate elevations which I can then go back through and hand adjust as necessary. It will also need to randomize them of course in terms of scale and rotation at least. If you (or anyone else) know of a good resource on doing this in 3ds Max I'd be happy to hear it.

There are 2 plugins that I know of:
VrayScatter
and one of the sponsors of this event:
Forest Pack Pro

[brodie_geers]

Originally Posted by robert

There are 2 plugins that I know of:
VrayScatter
and one of the sponsors of this event:
Forest Pack Pro

I'll be rendering with Maxwell so I don't think Vray Scatter will work for me (although I'll look into it). I have played a bit with Forest Pack but it's been a long time. Can you use your own tree library to scatter or are you limited to their trees?

-Brodie

[bakbek]

Originally Posted by robert

There are 2 plugins that I know of:
VrayScatter
and one of the sponsors of this event:
Forest Pack Pro

You can add GroundWiz to the list

and both previous ones are great too, though I'm not sure how Maxwell will play along... VRayScatter is for, well... VRay. and Forest Pack Pro also uses VRay Proxies in a great way... but not just.

I never tested it with Maxwell and they do have a very capable and free lite version they will probaly love if you use for your entry :-)

I'll be also very interested to know how you do with it.

[BBB3]

Forest lets you use anything to scatter, including but not only proxies. It also allows you to individually adjust placement, etc, once distributed.
VrayScatter lets you scatter VrayProxies only, and it doesn't allow you to do any hand adjustment. Its big advantage is that it can scatter millions of proxies by calculating their position and number at render time. They never all appear in the viewport, which would not work. Forest by contrast is strictly WYSIWYG. The free version of Forest only allows you to distribute trees on a plane, not on a curved surface.

Do consider AdvancedPainter, which lets you paint anything (incl. proxies) with a mouse (or even a pressure-sensitive tablet, allowing for great control on density and scale) on any geometry of your choice. I use it all the time and it has a big advantage: It is free!