Matt O'Brien

2010-06-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

Exp 3 Final Video

True Power is...

2010-06-15T00:55:00.001-07:00

Exp 3 Final Image Captures

The Two Clients
The two offices reach across the valley in an attempt to unite two powerful women. The concept of power for Angela Merkel was interpreted as that of cerebral and organisational prowess. Her office, on the right, emerges proudly from the cliff in characteristically German directness and precise simplicity. The structure on the left is Helen Keller's office that was conceived to embody a more physical concept of power. Limited to the sensation of touch Keller's environment was conceived around interaction and physical feedback. Her office and bridge grew from the structure and symbolism of a crane, representing the common worker and her strong socialist beliefs.

Angela Merkel
Both observation deck and landing pad, the office takes a commanding position over the valley. The location was chosen at the bend in the valley on an outcrop of cliff that would provide greatest possible views whilst becoming an extension of the cliff itself. The structure's solid design also captures Merkel's strengths and personal traits.

Helen Keller
Helen's power is epitomised by her ability to overcome limitations and through her lack of fear when it comes to exploring her world. Her elevator captures this by allowing her to sense, through motion, her environment and the journey through it. By being suspended from a cable her elevator swings freely in response to inertia and aids in a heightened awareness of her environment.

Helen Keller
Reinforcing the concept of physical power Helen's bridge was designed to clearly express the forces involved. Cables show the flow of force whilst also representing a more flexible and dynamic approach to power. There is more movement in a suspension bridge which again give more opportunity for Keller to sense the structure she inhabits.

The Table
In Merkel's words, "true leadership involves the surrender of power". The meeting point brings together the two clients on neutral ground in order to share and exchange their ideas. The table combines both physical and mental concepts of power through its execution of a predefined procedure.

2010-06-15T00:47:00.000-07:00

Exp 3 Crysis Files

Readme
http://www.filefront.com/16765073/Readme.txt

Objects Folder
http://www.filefront.com/16758369/z2212226_Exp3_Objects.rar

Level File
http://www.filefront.com/16758387/z2212226_Exp3_Level.rar

Nature Pak File (to put in game folder)
http://www.filefront.com/16758453/z_NaturePark_Europe08.rar

2010-06-15T00:46:00.000-07:00

Google Sketchup Model

2010-06-15T00:45:00.000-07:00

Draft Crysis Environments
Concept Development

2010-06-15T00:35:00.000-07:00

Thumbnails and Sketches

2010-06-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

Rope Pulley Elevator Demonstration

2010-06-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

CounterWeight Rope Lift

2010-06-01T03:51:00.000-07:00

Rotating Components

2010-05-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

36 Textures
Movement

2010-05-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

Multiple Component Test

Elevator Reference

2010-05-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

18 Two Point Perspectives

2010-05-16T01:07:00.000-07:00

Elevator Perspective Change

2010-05-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

MashUp

Angela Merkel outsmarted phalanxes of grey-haired, grey-suited machine politicians to become a symbol of the indomitable human spirit, already reinvented herself several times over, crushing adversity and shattering affliction.

Now the emboldened leader of Europe's most populous nation and most powerful economy is talking about creating her own fashion line with business partner Helen Keller.
"She has a international profile and it would be negligent to not leverage off that," Keller said of their plans to break into the US market, "There's nothing wrong with being ambitious. There were barriers, it is true, but barriers that could be swept away."

Keller discovered early on that there were limits to what she would be permitted to do. Growing up blind and deaf in Alabama she says, "I always ran into boundaries, I believe that all through these dark and silent years God has been using my life for a purpose, something tells me that I am going to succeed beyond all my dreams."

It might seem odd that a woman whose climb to power was so arduous should contemplate giving away even a smidgen of it. But where she differs from most other leaders is her perception that true leadership involves the surrender of power and that happiness comes from working with others.

"Those two have the experience to create products that they know will work for women, and they know women." says Supermodel Miranda Kerr "Keller and Merkel are in the right place to monopolise on their appeal. I think it's just another dimension to them"

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1950682,00.html
http://www.smh.com.au/action/printArticle?id=1124781
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0601.html#article

Sandbox Capture

Yosemite, USA

2010-05-07T03:29:00.000-07:00

18 Sketch Perspectives

2010-05-02T05:29:00.000-07:00

Experiment 2

5 Environment Captures

Merging Land and Form
The landform itself has been sculpted through and around the structure in order to articulate a ramp like surface that connects the various elements of the architecture, in particular the two labs to the meeting point.

View from Darwin's upper lab overlooking the meeting point.

Inside the Meeting Space
The meeting space is within a curtain of light where the clients Hawking and Darwin meet in order to share, challenge and combine ideas. In relation to the 'ElectoLiquid Aggregation' quote, this space represents the black hole into which the clients enter in order for a natural selection of ideas to occur.

View of Hawking's lower lab, in foreground, with applied light texture. The upper lab can be seen in the background covered in a medium texture. The labs represent the universe away from the meeting space in which the scientists conceive their initial ideas and evolve further those selected and aggregated in the meeting space.

An Island of Ideas
The architecture and landform have come together to create an environment that facilitates the generation of ideas by means of a continuous feed back loop. In the same way that nature evolves through a series of tested variations so might the ideas of these scientists.

Crysis Wars - Levels and Objects
Link to Files

Sketchup Model - 9 Regular Prisms
Link to Google Warehouse

2010-05-01T06:33:00.001-07:00

36 Textures

2010-04-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

Reflections on the Black Box

The slide of the Black Box itself shows a wooden cube that has been carved to custom fit the various shapes of the six volumes of the thesis. It serves as container for the work that binds the separate chapters and at the same time allows each to be accessed individually whilst maintaining their chronological order. The negative space created by the absence of a book serves as a reminder of that object and its position within the context of the thesis.

In a similar way I have attempted to custom fit my rectilinear forms into a landform that binds the parts together whilst at the same time allowing each to remain a distinct and separate entity. Like the black box the landmass creates the structural support through which the forms interact, both through and around, implying a matching negative space at their intersections, as in a Venn diagram. One could imagine the negative space that would remain behind like a mold in the landform after removing the rectilinear forms.

2010-04-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

Electroliquid Aggregation

"Natural selection operates much like a black hole through which an individual of a species enters in order to return to the universe in a varied state that if profitable will allow the information contained in that species to survive and evolve."

Darwin + Hawking

2010-04-23T05:58:00.000-07:00

Axonometric Interconnection

Crysis Capture

3 parallel projections
Front + Reverse

The configuration above was made up in Crysis

2010-04-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

Nicole Kuepper

Image 1
 "The iJET Cell design capitalises on an innovative way of forming metal-insulator-silicon (MIS) contacts simultaneously to both polarities of semiconductor material. This is done by exploiting pinholes present in a thin tunnel oxide to create good ohmic contacts to both lightly doped n-type and p-type silicon using aluminium in the MIS structure."1

Charles Darwin

Image 2
"As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected."2

Stephen Hawking

Image 3

"If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe but in a mangled form which contains the information about what you were like but in a state where it can not be easily recognized."3

1. Nicole Kuepper, “Photovoltaic technology for developing countries,” paper presented at the 22nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, Milan, 2007)
2. Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species," 1859, 7.
 3. S.W Hawking, "Information Loss in Black Holes," arXiv:hep-th/0507171v2
Image 1. Source: School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, http://www.pv.unsw.edu.au/Staff/nicolekuepper.asp.
Image 2. Source: Wikimedia, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Charles_Darwin_by_Julia_Margaret_Cameron_2.jpg
Image 3. Source: The Biography of Professor Stephen W. Hawking, http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php/about-stephen/briefhistory

2010-04-13T01:37:00.000-07:00

Crysis Environment Capture

 Axonometric 1

9 Axonometrics 
Front + Reverse

2010-04-11T03:12:00.000-07:00

Experiment 1 : Final Model Animations

Animation 1

Animation 2

Animation 3

2010-04-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

Experiment 1: Final Model
Google 3D Warehouse Link to Model
key words: ARCH1101 EXP1 2010 Matt O'Brien

Wide Shot

Section through the above studio
Showing the artists, Richard Goodwin's, working space and how the design of the inside space allows him to move and work around his sculptures from both above and below.
The staggered block construction has been designed as integrated steps that continue from the initial inside space through to the exterior landings and continue upward around the exterior of the building to a separate interior space .

Section through the below studio

Section showing the triple helix stair design of Patricia Piccinini's below ground studio. The texture used on the floor is that of a "woven" materiality, emphasising further the intertwining motif of the stairs and of Piccinini's work and concepts.

Evolving the Idea
sketches and thumbnails

2010-03-29T01:17:00.000-07:00

"beyond sketchup"
In my latest Sketchup model I've used a pyramid as both a staircase and a design motif. I had somewhat likened the descent of the artist from his studio to the grandeur of a Mayan priest descending a temple.
copyright 3DTree animation and visual effects
www.3dtree.co.za

2010-03-28T18:35:00.000-07:00

Exp 1: Draft Model 2
Google 3D Warehouse Link to Model
key words: ARCH1101 EXP1 2010

"artist and their work"

"36 textures"

2010-03-22T05:55:00.000-07:00

"construction & organism"

stair sections

2010-03-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

Exp1: Draft Model 1
Google 3D Warehouse Link to Model
key words: arch1101 exp1 2010

"discrete" & "organism"

2010-03-14T05:15:00.000-07:00

18 sections

2010-03-03T02:48:00.000-08:00

"Come Together"
Ricky Swallow
photograph Fredrik Nilsen. http://www.rickyswallow.com

Noun - Illusion
Verb - Sinking
Adjective - Homogeneous

2010-03-03T02:35:00.000-08:00

"Poroplastic"
Richard Goodwin
photograph http://www.richard-goodwin.com

Noun - Construction
Verb - Exploding
Adjective - Discrete

2010-03-03T01:36:00.000-08:00

"The Bottom Feeder"

Patricia Piccinini

photograph http://www.tolarnogalleries.com/

Noun - Organism
Verb - Perplexing
Adjective - Abnormal

2010-03-02T03:34:00.000-08:00

Cactus Garden

This oasis of life in the Joshua Tree National Park, is an exciting discovery as you journey through the Californian desert. Testimony to life's determination and propensity for adapting to it's environment. Indeed, the resemblance to a coral reef is striking.
The Cholla Cactus is also referred to as the Teddy Bear Cholla, although cuddling is not advised. It took hours to remove the barbs from my clothes after just a momentary brush against one.

2010-03-02T03:18:00.000-08:00

"Fallingwater"

A great example of architecture built in response to and in keeping with its environment. In Frank Lloyd Wright's own words a building should be "Of the land, not on the land"1. In fact Wright named his own house "Taliesin", a welsh word meaning "shinning brow". This image of the brow of the head in comparison to the slope of a hill nicely exemplifies Wright's belief that a building should never be built on top of a hill but rather on its slope1, so not to ruin a perfectly good hill.

1. NBC Interview, 1950. http://www.fallingwater.org
Fallingwater photo copyright © 2001 Robert P. Ruschak and
the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

2010-03-02T02:39:00.000-08:00

"Organism"

After years of life drawing I'd become obsessed with organic forms, the relationship of the parts to the whole, their proportions and the invisible construction lines underlying them. This work is an abstraction of those forms and ideas in an attempt to create a more general language that could be used to describe organic-like forms.