sloArch

Month: June 2009

  • LEED Study Aids

    usgbc-logo-smallA number of my colleges are cramming for the LEED exam.  Now that LEED v3.0 is here I’m sure there are a number of people trying to sneak in under the old LEED v2.0 test.  I thought I’d post a few of my favorite LEED study resources on the net.  Even if you aren’t studying for the LEED test these sites are a good explanation and summary of the rating system.

    There are a lot of paid resources on the net as well:

    Good luck!

  • In Defence of Green Roofs

    Lloyd Alter, of TreeHugger, posted a great slide show today titled Green Roofs are Changing Architecture and Planning.  In 15 slides he gives a great overview of green roofs yesterday and today.

    His thesis is summarized on the last slide with the words:

    Perhaps to everyone’s surprise, [green roofs] have turned into planning tools to help put buildings where no building has gone before, are radically changing the architectural form of buildings, the way architects present buildings and the respective roles of architects and landscape architects.

    He then gives this dire warning:

    Let’s just be vigilant to ensure that [green roofs] are not misused and brought into disrepute by using them as excuses to put buildings in places they shouldn’t be, just because they are green.

    I don’t see the problem.  When can a green roof be misused?  Maybe if you populate it with killer bees, but in the words of Mr. Molina, “Green is good.”

    (more…)

  • Modern Spanish Construction: Part III

    To finish out this series on Spanish construction methods I wanted to post a few more images.

    Multi Story Building
    Multi Story Building with Curves! Ciudad Real, Spain

    There are a number of typical things being done in this building.   As is the case with most Spanish multi-story buildings, a series of concrete columns and beams are spanned with concrete joists and brick units to create the structure for concrete floor decks.

    Also typical are the crane on site during the entire construction process as well as the safety netting around the building.

    I like this picture because it shows how flexible this system can be.  Unlike the building I showed earlier the upper floors introduce some curves.

    (more…)

  • Extreme Artlantis Animation

    Never content until I’ve reached the limits of possibility, I created this rendering as a way of testing more of Artlantis Studio’s capabilities.  This is a simple animation of the SloArch logo but there is a lot going on in 34 seconds.

    The modeling was all done with SketchUp.  As I did with my previous animation each piece was modeled and then converted to an Artlantis Object.  This allows each piece to be animated.

    I tried animation just about everything in this clip.  Besides some very complex paths, objects are rotaing and pausing in their motion.  The clouds, sun paths, and water all all being animated.

    In order to create the wave effect I animated the water material to change wave size over time.  This allowed the movement at the beginning of the sequence.

    There is definetly room for improvment.  Not being able to animate the infinite ground plane was a problem, and the cloud animations are not as smooth as I would like.

    [pro-player type=”f4v”]http://www.sloarch.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/09-0601_sm.f4v[/pro-player]

    This animation was reduced for putting on the web, the full resolution animation was rendered with the following parameters:

    • Frame count: 625 frames
    • Resolution: 1920 x 1080
    • Anti-aliasing: Low
    • Radiosity: Low
    • Render Time: 29:36:16

    The background audio created with samples from www.freesound.org.
    Additional software used: Adobe Photoshop and Premiere