Building Design Concepts

I started sketching some designs for the buildings of our Sci Fi cityscape. Most of the sketches that you see are infuenced by the reference that i gathered from places like Museum Trust and concept work from people like Mark Goener.

I think these buildings are not exactly great but do look rather odd and interesting so i think i may model these in maya if i decide to take them forward.

Early concept designs

These three sketches below are drawn by me and are essentially the same concept, a top and bottom view are drawn in perspective.

So here are some concept designs of what the look could be for our environments. At this moment we are still experimenting and exploring our designs but the concepts that you are looking at are pretty close to what we want visually for the environments.

Looking at some fingerprints.

These are some fingerprints that i'm looking at as reference regarding my idea of shaping the cityscape floor plan into a fingerprint symbol, as it represents identity.

Brainstorm of a theme

The Sci Fi cityscape presented us an opportunity to come up with a theme that can expand and enhance what the vision of the future can represent. So i did a little brainstorm and asked myself what things would be possible in a future not far away.

As i was brainstorming, identity was a theme that came up and was a realistic possibility in a future where you are constantly being monitored.

I thought maybe we can shape the city from a top view into a finger print symbol since fingerprint represents identity. Its an idea thats still developing and i am considering it at the moment.

Top view maps of cities

Because we are creating a city world, i thought i might look at some images of certain cities from satellite imagery. This is to get an idea of how the shape and scale of a city would look from top view so then it would give us some good reference to create some floor plans for our environments.

Most of the maps are from google earth and projected from the city of london.

Architectural Floor Plan and Design Process.

It was important that we had an idea of the stages involved in something like architecture as logistically it's a complex process.

I started looking at floor plans and came across Erika Eastridge who designs floor plans for the interiors and exteriors of homes.

I also researched the detailed stages of planning a building design and what is involved.

I came across this website and it sums up the stages of what the process is and how it evolves and changes.

http://www.theimageadjusters.com/erika/artist-renderings-erika-eastridge.html

http://www.bluentcad.com/architecture/architectural-design-process.shtml

Mark Goener Concept Artist!

When i was looking at Minority Report as one of my film refrences, some of the image concepts that i came across were really interesting and inspirational. I went on the net and started searching for one of the concept artists that worked on the Minority Report film and Mark Goerner was one that popped up.

He primarily designed the vehicles, roads and certain interior and exteriors for some of the buildings.

The reason for looking at his work was just to see how he experimented with the colour and composition of his concepts regarding the film and what we have to take into account when we start developing our concepts.

http://www.grnr.com/gallery.php?page=show_pic&cat_id=174&pic_id=256&page_num=1

Looking at Films!

Films are always great inspiration and influence. Because we chose to do a Sci Fi cityscape, there were plenty of Sci fi films out there to look at and get an idea of how a city can be created.

These are just some of the films i looked at for colour, lighting reference and overall tone of look.

Minority Report is a film directed by Steven Spielberg. This film was a really good example of how a Sci fi future could be depicted realisticallly. I just love the colour tone of the film and lighting. The whole film was deliberately saturated heavily and lighted strongly, to give it a film noir and gritty look. It served the film's mood and atmosphere very well since it reflected the characters emotion as well as the tone of the film. The blue saturation in the film is something that my team are considering for our environments project and the mood we want. I guess we want the future to be a little bleak but also cold and kinda clean so its represents a depressive atmosphere within a controlled environment. Bounded by rules and restriction and Minority Report is a good example of that.

Blade Runner is also a very good example and probably one of the most accomplished and well regarded Sci Fi Films in movie history. The mood of the film is pretty much very downbeat and at the time of its release, critics praised its realictic depiction of a futuristic city.

I think the detail and construction of the Sci fi environments in Blade Runner is something i'm going to try and establish on our environments.

The Fifth Element is also another good Sci Fi Film that depicts an interesting vision of the future.

Looking at Artist work!

I have been looking at some illustrations and paintings by certain artists to broaden my horizon a little and just to look at the colour and composition of their work. It may spark a visual concept for me so its interesting to analyse a piece of work for that reason alone.

These 3 pieces of work were done by an artist named Borisenko Pavel. I just love the shapes and colours of the work. To me i can see certain elements of the shape and composition that suggests a little futurism in there.

http://artgallery.com.ua/paintlist.php?Page=2&Genre=18&Style=4&lng=eng

This piece of work was done by Marcus Harvey of the depiction of the child killer Myra Hindly. The reason why i was looking at this piece of work is because interestingly the whole painting was produced by the prints of a child's hand. Its a really controversial piece of work but nevertheless very striking. This has sparked off an idea for me, specifically the use of hand prints that tells me identity is one of the themes that stands out when i see handprints. Going to see where this idea goes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation_(exhibition)