Recent exterior work

The Red House in Croydon

Recent interior work

Latest interior work.

Light tubes!

Using luminence elements with Gi to recreate interior light without the use of actual light sources.

Day – night interior comparisons

Daytime Bedroom Shot

Night-time Bedroom Shot

Just been playing around with some of my previous projects, the day and night comparisons on this project is quite nice I thought!

Compositing 3D models into photographs

Background plate photograph

Model and Photograph composite

Final Image

Apart from the composition of architectural models into photographs for Photo-montages or Verified Views, I haven’t done a massive amount of image compositing. Here is my first attempt at dropping a model into a photograph and simulating reality through complex post production effects.

NCCA

amazing work from last years graduates from NCCA.

Bruce Branit – World Builder

Incredibly moving VFX movie, beautifully done too!

Valid points from Worldchanging.com

We need new leadership from architects, planners and designers.

Yes, we need them to design better buildings, streets and public spaces. But what we may need most from them has little to do with the act of design itself. That’s because we need a massive change in the very way buildings and places are planned, regulated and seen by the public. We urgently need people to re-imagine their cities in very directly political ways, and no one else is as prepared for that job as the talented few who’ve been trained to understand form and space and place.

When Ed Mazria first started getting vocal about buildings and climate change in 2003, his message became a rallying cry that professional groups, politicians, designers and journalists could stand behind: If we want to fight emissions, we must fundamentally change the building sector, the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Mazria and his non-profit research organization, Architecture 2030, posed the famous 2030 Challenge: make all new buildings carbon neutral by the year 2030.

The tools and knowledge we needed to build carbon-neutral buildings already existed in 2003. Mazria called on architects and developers to use those innovative design strategies, building practices and on-site renewable power (as well as a small amount of purchased renewable energy and/or certified offsets, if needed), in order to achieve a net fossil fuel-based/GHG-emitting energy usage of zero.

People everywhere jumped on board. The American Institute of Architects, the leading professional association in its industry, adopted the Challenge on behalf of its now 85,000 members. In November 2006, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously passed a resolution adopting the 2030 Challenge. And so on.

But such adoptions have been largely aspirational, with little enforcement. Now we’re nine months from Architecture 2030’s first incremental goal: by 2010, the Challenge expected all new buildings and major renovations to meet a 60 percent fossil fuel reduction standard, with an equal number of buildings retrofitted to the same standard as those built new.

Look around. We’re not going to be celebrating in 2010. Green buildings are breaking into mainstream culture – in fact, a film about Boston’s first LEED project is now touring indie and environmental film festivals. But green buildings are still a novelty to nearly everyone, still the stuff of awards ceremonies.

Awards are good motivation, but a handful of award-winners at the head of the movement won’t be enough to reinvent the industry in a generation. As Worldchanging ally Dan Bertolet of design firm GGLO wrote Monday on his urban planning blog, HugeAssCity:

Like most in the endless parade of green lectures and meetings in Seattle, the AIA event this Tuesday will be overflowing with big-brained folks who possess piles of knowledge, skills, and desire to make green development happen. But the vast a majority never get the opportunity to implement all their great ideas in real projects. And that is our integral predicament: we know what to do, but we’re not doing it. Green building is not a design problem or an engineering problem, it is a people problem — institutional, political, economic, cultural.

Part of the solution will be to get regulators — and voters — on board. Outdated zoning codes can stop designers from incorporating new technologies. One story making the rounds has a team of city employees in a Washington town designing a theoretical dream green development, and then seeing how well it met local code — they found, so the story goes, more than 50 rules that would prevent the project from moving forward before they stopped counting.

“Our land use code, and the building codes to some extent, are an accretion of 75 years of reactions against things, as opposed to a vision for how we want to live,” says architect and former Seattle City Council President Peter Steinbrueck. “Those sets of problems don’t apply anymore. So now what we need to do is rethink all that, and that’s a really hard thing. We need to go to performance-based codes, and form-based codes, that recognize the place and its uniqueness and character and authenticity, and quality of life, and the values of compact, walkable communities. Our codes work against that right now. And people are still very fearful. If they remove parking requirements or allow retail with the housing project, or allow a slightly taller housing project, people freak out.”

Policy change, particularly energy policy, also has potential to open new doors with lenders. As Richard Conniff wrote for Yale360, the final stretch can be the most discouraging for designers who would reach the farthest. “There’s actually a sweet spot, said Bill Browning, a partner in the sustainable design firm Terrapin Bright Green, where going aggressively green gets to be cheaper than a more modest approach…But that sweet spot fades away, Browning added, as you get beyond an 80 percent improvement in energy efficiency.” The costs of equipping a building with all of the technology to generate its own renewable power is still the deal-breaker for most developers behind these would-be neutral projects.

“The technologies that allow you to produce energy onsite are still not competitive with fossil fuel,” says Robert Peña, associate professor of architecture at the University of Washington. “That would change overnight if we had some kind of carbon tax and some predictable sense that energy isn’t going to be as cheap as it is now. The world is the way it is because we’ve had breathtakingly cheap energy for so long. And we know that’s not going to be the case in the future, but markets need clear signals. It’s an incredibly risk-averse profession, from the design profession to the construction profession, because the margins are relatively small and the risks are relatively large.”

The solution begins with education. Later this month, AIA Seattle will launch its AIA + 2030 Professional Series, a 40-hour continuing education program that will address strategies like integrated design, passive lighting/heating/cooling, and even staff training and post-occupancy performance monitoring, to help designers reach a 50 percent reduction in fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions. It’s the first course in the nation specifically addressing the 2030 Challenge goals. If it is successful in Seattle, the program may roll out in other states or nationwide.

But architects must educate others as well as themselves. Steinbrueck believes strongly that architects must lead at the policymaking level, and with good reason. In his years on the Seattle City Council, he helped raise standards for green building with legislation including Seattle’s Sustainable Building Policy, passed in 2000, which requires all new City-funded projects and renovations involving more than 5,000 square feet of occupied space to achieve LEED Silver accreditation or higher. LEED standards were still largely untested at the time, but in retrospect, Steinbrueck says that the policy has had a significant positive impact on Seattle’s building program.

(Many expected Steinbrueck would challenge Seattle’s incumbent Mayor Greg Nickels in 2009, but he has chosen to sit back from politics this year and instead will join Harvard University as a Loeb Fellow to conduct independent research on U.S. best practices for sustainability. When we talked, however, he hinted that he is considering a run for national office in the future.)

Policy could also encourage architects to veer into new territory when appropriate, rather than adhere to checklists for certifications such as LEED or Built Green. The standards have unquestionably raised the bar for green building since their introduction, and the USGBC works diligently to keep pushing the envelope further (you can help them by commenting on the new LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system in this forum, which opened today). But because LEED standards are based on a set of known strategies, they can become an anchor that encourages a baseline, instead of a propeller driving new innovation toward the goal of carbon neutrality. And because many LEED points address issues separate from energy efficiency, simply building to accreditation standards won’t ensure we do the job. New dynamic policies can help spur innovation where certifications and building codes fall short. In a recent Worldchanging Interview, Amory Lovins described green building codes as “obsolete before the ink is dry,” and suggested feebates as a means of rewarding energy efficiency and encouraging designers and developers to continue pushing the standards higher.

Many practicing architects are already taking paths of civic engagement. In 2008, the AIA Board of Directors issued a resolution in support of “Citizen Architects” who participate by joining boards and commissions, writing and publishing, and holding elected office. The organization’s national office surveyed its chapters around the country earlier this year, and reported that at least 850 AIA members hold elected and appointed office at the local level, from mayors and city council members, to county supervisors and planning commissioners.

The importance of what those engaged professionals will do with their public platforms cannot be overstated. As Worldchanging contributor Patrick Rollens wrote in 2007, the United States has the opportunity to remake the built environment by 2030, when about half the nation’s buildings will have been built or substantially renovated in 2000 or later. On a global scale, the opportunity is even larger. And so however it happens, it is important that effective leadership from architects and designers change green building from a novelty to a standard.

There are many ways to begin making a difference beyond the drafting table. Here are a few of them:

1. Join your colleagues, and push them further. Ask your local chapter of the AIA, APA, ASLA or other professional organizations what they’re doing to further sustainability in your region and beyond. You can also network with local visionaries through professional outreach organizations like Architecture for Humanity, or Architects Without Borders.

2. Join a cross-disciplinary conversation. Alicia Daniels Uhlig, an associate and co-chair of the Sustainable Design Group at GGLO in Seattle, is active with the Cascadia Region Green Building Council (a local branch of the USGBC), which spans building-related professions from construction and engineering to architecture and development and beyond. “That’s really where it’s strength is, because you’re broadening your horizons, you’re talking to people with different opinions,” says Uhlig. “You have the ability to ask, for example, what are the hot-button issues from the commercial developers? How can we address that? And you learn how to improve your storytelling [to a client or colleague].” (The CRGBC in particular has been aggressive about finding out where barriers to living buildings still remain, and making that information available to its network.) At the very local level, Portland’s Coalition for a Livable Future and the Seattle Great City Initiative come to mind.

3. Support good candidates, or run for office. Taking up the mantle of politics can seem like an intimidating proposition to someone outside City Hall. But, as Steinbrueck says, if architects and designers don’t lend their expertise to legislative bodies, it’s hard to expect much to change. Steinbrueck and colleagues are working with AIA to build resources for its Citizen Architects, including a forthcoming directory that will allow members to network and support one another in the political arena.

4. Become a politically engaged citizen. If you want to remain firmly in the design profession, take a seat on a planning commission or design review board. These institutions have been in place a long time, and can get mired in conventional or even outdated ways of thinking and doing things. Bring your knowledge of sustainable building practices to the table and refresh the process for your neighborhood, city or region. Even if you can’t commit to serving, you can still make a valuable contribution by attending meetings and speaking from a citizen’s perspective.

5. Write about it. Writing and publishing in industry journals is important, but getting the designer’s perspective into the mainstream can open up a whole different conversation. Though we’re biased, we believe in the power of blogging, which has the advantage of real-time flexibility and audience interactivity. Dan Bertolet has successfully built HugeAssCity into a widely read public debate on the best and worst in planning and architecture in Seattle. Another Seattle-based site, the Columbia Citizens neighborhood wiki, attracts regular input from planners and designers that helps raise public awareness of neighborhood projects.

6. Talk about it … unconventionally. Unconferences, unconventions, webinars and similarly informal forums are increasingly the go-to events for those seeking cutting-edge innovations and ideas. Some of the leaders in this arena include Pop!Tech, Design Indaba, PICNIC, Foo Camp and BarCamp. (The CRGBC’s Living Future forum in Portland, Ore. is coming up next week, and Worldchanging’s Sarah Kuck will be there reporting.)

7. Get behind an issue. In 2004, a multidisciplinary team of designers led by landscape architect Cary Moon won second prize in Metropolis magazine’s national Next Generation: Big Idea competition with their highway-less vision for Seattle’s downtown waterfront, which is currently blocked off by the elevated strip of I-99. Moon went on to found the People’s Waterfront Coalition to mobilize local groups around the issue of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and used national data on highway deconstruction and to back up her compelling argument for not rebuilding the highway. Her efforts gained attention in local politics and national debate. Though Washington state ultimately did not choose the surface/transit alternative that the PWC supported (they are instead planning an underground tunnel, though costs are drawing controversy), many are happy that the Viaduct will not be replaced by another elevated highway. The lesson: if you’re passionate about it, go after it.

8. Get engaged in open-source government. Citizens often understand the needs of their communities more deeply than policy makers. Working collaboratively, it’s likely they could develop policies that enable holistic solutions at the local level. On Tuesday, Open Government NYC, hosted a Collaborative Policy Building Workshop to figure out how just such a process might work. The NYC group’s slogan is “people helping government help people,” and it’s possibly the most proactive form of protest we’ve ever heard of.

Original article here – http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009807.html

atypyk

Really nice and innovative products on a great little website. http://www.atypyk.com/