Prizes for Memory Theatre Competition

Although the average grade was down from last year (predominantly because of the AUTOCAD stuff), the very best work was phenomenal this year. The range of interpretations and the ingenuity of both design and presentation were, at times, breathtaking and made this the most enjoyable marking experiences I have had. There are no official prizes of course but the selection of the best work is shown, with the winners, below. The judging has been so tough this year that I have changed my mind 10 or 11 times since making the shortlist. In the end I have decided that the only fair thing I can do is to choose two winners and publish them both in different chapters of my book “The Architecture of Information” which will be published by Routledge in Spring 2011.

OVERALL WINNERS FOR BOOK ILLUSTRATION

Ruth Dickie

This was a really tough choice! There were at least 5 serious contenders but in the end I kept coming back to Ruth’s Photoshop images. They are deceptively simple – based on the known drawings of the theatre and constructed from simple geometry. However it’s the overall attention to detail which really clinches it. You can feel the weight of the columns because of the shadow who has been added in the detail image and the whole effect is understated. The wood texture is also really well though through and because of this the image works well in Greyscale as well. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to create an image of this quality myself with Photoshop and SketchUp alone. This is the definition of publishable work. Because of the accuracy of the depiction it will be used in Chapter 1 alongside the full analysis of the memory theatre and I’m hoping to persuade the publishers to give a full page for both the detail and overview images.

Neringa Stonyte

It would be heart breaking not to publish this image. This is one of the most impressive pieces of illustration I’ve seen in any student work. The building idea is highly sophisticated and very successful and the steam-punk theme resonates with me. The more you look at the image the more detail you see. My colleagues loved it and suggested that, if I couldn’t find a place for it in my book then I was writing the wrong book! This image works very well with the introductory text of my book and on this basis I have decided to make if figure 1 and place it as a plate on its own at the beginning of the Introduction with James winning work from last year.

PRIZE FOR INTERPRETATION AND RICHNESS OF IMAGE: Emma Chong

Emma’s Photoshop work was another contender and was one of the few graphics which tried to interpret the richness of the memory theatre by adding images and bold colours. The only thing that prevented this from being a winner is the use of found images- I concluded that it would be difficult to get permissions for all the graphics included.

PRIZE FOR CLEAN GRAPHICS AND COOL CONCEPT: Jonathan Jones

This was a really interesting idea. Using the basic CAD and Sketchup models and linking them together so that they read in conjunction with one another. There is an almost Escher like messing with perspectives here. The image as reproduced in the blog doesn’t really do the original justice. The only problem was that the level of detail was likely to be to high for the book illustration where the print size is closer to A5. But I really like this graphic and would even consider it for the cover.

PRIZE FOR MOST BROODING: Alicea Rose Berkin

While probably too dark convert into black and white for the book illustration this caught my attention as a really stand out piece of graphic design which would have gone well with last year’s winner. The SketchUp model is solid here and I really like the inclusion of the plan at the bottom. There are 6th years who can’t do this sort of graphic.

PRIZE FOR BEST OVEARALL PRESENTATION: Emma Kirk

Photographic images often look good on black backgrounds and Emma used this principle to very good effect in her presentation. The reproductions don’t really do it justice at this scale but I have also I have included a shot of her Sketchup model. Notice the use of a mist effect to give more depth to the image. This was a really sophisticated piece of work.

PRIZE FOR MOST ARCHITECTURAL: Jaewon Kang

Jaewon envisaged his memory theatre as a real building integrated into a park like environment buzzing with people. The real triumph of this work is that he has developed collage techniques of integrating people, activities and contexts into his images which will be highly applicable in future design work.

PRIZE FOR MOST DIGITAL: Richard Breen
OK – so I’m really stretching the prize categories now but I had to include some examples of Richards work. Richard has envisaged the Memory Theatre as a digital archive and the themes resonate with my book. Most of the images are subtly executed and there is a lot of experimentation evident in the Photoshop layers and he’s managed a painterly feel by subtle use of transparency and wire frames from the model.

PRIZE FOR STUDENT WHO HAS CLEARLY LOST HIS MIND BUT IS USING HIS PREDICAMENT TO GOOD CREATIVE EFFECT: Nick Barstow

What do I say about this work other than I’m sure there is method in the madness – although I can’t find it. This was an extraordinary piece of design and graphics. I don’t know where this building comes from but I was bowled over by an hugely original graphic style. There is a science fiction genera waiting to be invented just so this building can be used as an illustration.

PRIZE FOR STUDENT WHO HAS CLEARLY LOST HIS MIND AND FOR WHOME THERE MAY BE NO RETURN: Frederick Jackson

To be fair to Fredrick this was one image among many other more composed images of the memory theatre it stuck out to me. I think perhaps it sums up my feeling when the making was done…

Best Work from the Reading Places Project

The following text gives an a few examples of the best work we encountered across the different categories of assessment for the Reading Places project. There are inevitably too much good work to include everything here but these should give you an example of what we were looking for and hopefully some useful advice for the future. Apologies for the relatively low quality of the images used here – they were taken from my phone and have inevitably lost some resolution being presented in this format.

PRESENTATION AND COMMUNICATION

One of the real significant changes from the work I marked in Project 1 has been a general increase in the standard and professionalism of your presentations. For many groups the oral presentation was well organised and clear and targeted for an audience. The key to this is both preparation and having a structured narrative which follows the design process from context and concept to general strategy. In most cases this was also backed up by an almost professional level of graphical presentation. Where there were problems with the overall level of presentation, this tended to be because of relatively simple mistakes like missing labels and titles. Most groups experimented with computer graphics for the first time with many people opting for multimedia presentations using a combination of Photoshop, SketchUp and AutoCAD work. This experimentation often had mixed results as it was acknowledge that what people saw on the screen wasn’t what appeared in print. This is a really important lesson and only comes from practice.

My prize for best presented work is shown in the images below. Although there is, perhaps, a little too much information on the page it is clearly presented and the quality of the graphic design is such that all the labels can be read and the diagrams can be read as a sequence and used to reference the main master plan.

One distinction we made in the review is between communication and presentation. Whilst we saw a number of 1^st Class presentations not all of them were good pieces of communication. By presentation I mean good page layout, appropriate selection of media and graphic design techniques, neatness etc. A great presentation however does not necessarily mean that it is an effective piece of communication. The key to getting the communication right is to make sure that you select the appropriate images and that all the drawings read in unison – i.e. they reference one another. Common problems where that graphics had been selected because they looked good rather than that they helped tell us anything about the design Conversely many of the less successful work in terms of presentation where better in terms of communication. Ultimately our focus is on the design outcome and you need to give us all the help that you can in terms of both presentation and communication. Here I will concentrate on the main Master Plan Graphic.

This image shows a reasonably successful central master plan graphic. The key things to note here are the clear distinction between the proposed and existing buildings and this is further helped by clear labelling.

This was the only hand drawn master plan we saw and demonstrates the extra level of control you have with hand drawn graphics in terms of the quality of line and the subtlety of fill. Again the built intervention is clearly differentiated from the existing context:

Control over the graphical presentation is very important when you are using other people’s drawings – particularly things like OS maps. Many people used Digimap output as the basis of their presentations but these maps were often reproduced at a level of detail that was wrong with unnecessary labels and supplementary information that cluttered the final drawing. I’ve chosen this plan because of its clarity and that it is stripped back to show the right level of detail:

ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS

Like communication and presentation it is important to separate out analysis and synthesis. With only one or two exceptions the analysis work we saw was of a high standard (helped in part by your use of the Space Syntax document). Synthesis, however, was less successful in many cases either because it had been done but not presented properly or because there was gap between the analysis and design phases of the project. I use the work synthesis to describe the translation of analysis data on the site into the framework for design. A significant example of this is shown in the image below where the column of diagrams on the right represents site analysis before the proposed intervention and the images on the left represent the effect of the proposal:

In many, if not the majority of cases the critical pieces of site analysis and synthesis were hidden in the supplementary material. When doing the assessment work we found a treasure trove of hidden design work much of which we felt could be selected for the A1 sheets. The problem with sorting through the supplementary material when attempting to make an assessment of this work is both the time it takes to find the relevant information in piles of other exploratory work and then to try to tie it in to what we see on the wall. I felt on a number of occasions that we might have awarded a higher degree class if the appropriate analysis material had been shown with the final design. That said I include a few of the many examples that we found of excellent supplementary work and a couple of examples of the work we found hidden in the extra material:

Another aspect to consider in analysis and synthesis is your understanding of the brief and the clients needs. One particularly effective method used by 2 or 3 of the groups was to start their presentations with a discussion of the aims of the university and, in a number of cases to track down and read the universities strategic report. There is inevitably ‘hidden’ information in these documents and understanding the clients culture and aspirations is an important aspect of being able to design effectively. Group 7 for example wanted to highlight their translation of the universities aims an objectives along side their site analysis:

DESIGN OUTCOME

If you get everything else right then the design should emerge naturally. Easier said than done of course but I don’t think that we saw a single ‘wrong’ answer to the design brief. Where marks did get lost tended to be in cases where either the design solution was not properly rationalised in terms of analysis and synthesis or where there simply wasn’t enough declared – i.e. we couldn’t see what the final design strategy actually was. I think one of the key challenges was selecting the appropriate level of detail. Whilst this isn’t much comfort to you now I have examples of good work from this year it will be easier to brief next years students! There was one design outcome that stood out to me for its clarity and ingenuity. The best mark went, without any doubt, to group 26. It was a difficult strategy to choose the site to the north of the campus but this group managed to produce, not only the most effective graphical presentation of anyone but also the most persuasive argument for the development of this patch of land.

It’s a winner on both marks and for the competition. No prizes I’m afraid but a great start for next year!