sketching

History Class Can Be Remote, Too!

March 16, 2020

watercolor sketch with redline comments of Sturdivant Hall — Sturdivant Hall

Studio and Cabinet Class were not the only 3rd-year courses that converted to remote learning this past week. Dick Hudgens also restructured his history class into an isolation-friendly form. Each week, the 3rd-year students will submit water-colored sketches to Dick that he will then red line and send back to the students. Take a look at some of the first week’s beautiful drawings of the Givhan House and Sturdivant Hall:

watercolor sketch with redline comments of Givhan House — Givhan House

Tags: dickhudgens, drawing, history, historyclass, redline, rsThirdYear, sketching, watercolor

The Big Idea

February 12, 2020

This past week Reggie’s Home team focused on minimizing the interior footprint of the home. In order to do this we had to take a step back and clearly identify the diagram of our home.

Jonathon moving rough footprints around the site

Since we’ve said from the beginning that the site is the house, it is very important to clarify what site connections we want to achieve. In this design, the living/kitchen area will have a direct connection to the old chimney, the bedroom will have a connection the cedar tree on the site, and the bathroom/core area will serve as a bridge between the two spaces.

The next step was to identify the roof conditions. Different areas of program could require different levels of coverage from the rain and sun.

Establishing the amount of enclosures will be important in determining the sizes of the interior spaces.

We believe that by minimizing the interior footprint we can maximize the expansion to the exterior. Next we have to decide how much we want it to expand and what the activities will be in those spaces.

Along with diagramming, we created perspectives that highlight qualities we want in the home.

Looking to the Magnolia tree while at your desk

At the end of last week, we presented to Peter Landon, founder and principal of Landon Bone Baker Architects. The conversation focused on taking the connection to the exterior a step further and make it part of our design process. Next week we will continue to move our design forward while keeping in mind that the exterior conditions need to be designed along with the home to strengthen their connection.

Until next week!

Reggie’s Home

Tags: diagrams, ReggiesHome, rs5thyears, ruralstudio, sketching

A Roof and a Bathroom

February 3, 2020

This week we have been hard at work moving forward the design of Reggie’s Home. After a week of design charrettes and model making, we presented to Peter Gluck, Leia Price, and Sam Currie. The conversation focused on the essential aspects of the home: a roof, a bathroom, and a place to spend time outside.

We are exploring the idea that the roof functions as the organizing system for the home below. It could be used to collect rain water as well as provide shade and shelter for the outdoor areas of the home. Although the roof may be slightly bigger than the home it will be the gift for Reggie that could be filled in and inhabited in the future.

We will be examining strategies that minimize the square footage of the interior rooms and maximize the occupiable exterior spaces.

It’s important that we consider the connection of the home’s exterior with the rest of the site. We have been able to learn a lot about the landscape and how the site is currently used while demolishing the old family home and through deeper site analysis.

Presenting to Peter Gluck, Leia Price, and Sam Currie

Next week we will continue our research on passive systems as well as charrettes of our design.

Until next time!

Reggie’s Home

Tags: ReggiesHome, roofandabathroom, rs5thyears, ruralstudio, sketching

Workshop #2: Drawing & Seeing with Frank Harmon and Dan Wheeler

September 13, 2019

The Drawing and Seeing workshop, by Frank Harmon and Dan Wheeler, taught the importance of drawing in the architectural process. They did not teach an ideal way of drawing, but rather to pay attention to what one looks at and how to use drawing as a way to see. The goal from the workshop was not to become more technical or precise sketchers by drawing what one thinks something ought to look like, but to become better at capturing and communicating the essence and context of the beautiful things and places that surround each of us.

Frank Harmon is a professor at NC State and, for years, has been coming to Newbern to help teach a new generation of architects how to see the world and recognize the common beauty around us through sketching. Before beginning his own firm, Frank Harmon Architect, in Raleigh, North Carolina, he worked in New York and London. Follow his beautiful blog of thoughts and drawings called Native Places here.

Dan Wheeler has been bringing his infectious enthusiasm to Rural Studio since 2001. Since then, he has been teaching students the process of drawing and to appreciate the wonderful differences in how each person draws. Dan co-founded Wheeler Kearns Architects in Chicago and also teaches at UIC School of Architecture.

Going into the workshop, many students considered themselves poor sketchers and were shy about showing their “bad” work to others. This workshop gave students confidence in their abilities to depict their surroundings and visually describe their ideas to others using a variety of mediums. It was a thoroughly enjoyable process of making drawings without focusing so much on making them “perfect.” Nobody sees the world the same, so nobody sketches the same. Throughout the workshop, each student noticed something different in the same thing, be it light, shadow, color, nature, or the context. These differences allowed students to gain valuable insight into how each person sees the world slightly differently.

The intended outcome was to learn how to use hand-drawing as a larger part of the design process, especially while working toward thesis projects at Rural Studio.