Draw It! Submission:

The Bangalay House drawings and renderings aimed to teach me to communicate firstly a design and secondly an idea or theme about the design. The drawings themselves I found challenging, as this was my first exposure to professional architectural drawings, however through a maintained effort I was able to create effective representations. Through the lesson learned from Task 1, I planned the layout carefully and draw the drawings straight onto the final submission sheet. This assured good quality drawings that did not rely upon good quality copying and printing. Furthermore, it allowed me to compose the drawings in a structured simple format which lined the architectural drawings on the left, and the 3D representations on the right. However, unfortunately I did not take into account the chimney on the top of the longitudinal section and therefore this section is too close to the elevations above. In my drawings I aimed also to highlight the different materials used in the building. This was achieved through the different use of pencil weight that also enabled me to communicate depth within the building. Furthermore I used hatching to highlight floorboards in the plan and thick wooden boards in elevation, however this was not an effective solution as it took weight and effectiveness away from the renderings. Also, I should not have used the same hatching for both as it communicated that floorboards were being used in the external walls, which is not the case.

Rendering is used on architectural drawings to highlight an idea or theme within the design. The idea that I chose about the Bangalay House was the connection of the house to the landscape and surroundings. Through using glazing on the majority of the external walls, Peter Stuchbury beaks down the barriers between internal and external, allowing light and the natural surroundings to enter and fill the interior space. I aimed to develop this idea firstly through shading; I used single lines inclined at an angle of 45 degrees, layered on top of each other to highlight and explore the way in which the sun hits and enters the building. Through spacing these lines differently I highlighted the strength and weight of the shadow and the impact of this on the space. There were a few issues with this rendering technique, firstly that my rendering of the plan and axonometric was not effective as I did not extend the shading lines far enough to communicate the different lighting in different sections of the house. Furthermore, the other issue was that I could not assure that the lines were all equal in weight and also inclined at the same angle as my submission sheet did not fit on my drawing board. A way to overcome this was to do each individual drawing on a A3 sheet and render them individually with greater care and time. My second technique was to highlight the vegetation of the surroundings, this began firstly with the rendering of the perspective drawing and was then translated onto the axonometric, sections, elevations and plan. The elevations and sections used a more advanced version of these technique as the trees can also be seen through the windows. This both highlighted the glazing in the building and the connection between the inside and out, as the traditional barriers are broken down. To make this more effective I needed to make the trees darker for them to stand out of the page especially from a far distance.

The conclusions I can take from this task are that I need to take care with layout, as I did in this task as well as particular care in shading line weights and lengths. Furthermore, a technique that I need to translate throughout all of my drawing tasks are that I should take a few moments at consistent intervals throughout my work to look at the project from afar, and assure that my communication is evident from all distances. Finally I need to take more care with my writing, in stead of treating it as an afterthought, in order to make sure the entire page looks professional.