What is a site section and what is its purpose?

In architectural drawing a section is a vertical slice through the building and its surroundings.


Example by Matt Doyle

The section is a fundamental way of explaining vertical relationships between floor levels, the building and how it relates to its earthly environment, and probably most importantly........how people can interact with each other and the architectural space that we architects create.

In some of my work the ground line or section through the earth is important. It oftentimes serves as the compositional "anchor". It helps the composition to feel weighed or well grounded.

And...it is serves as an opportunity for artistic exploration. I can interpret this surface in so many ways. It can be an interesting shape with many layers of color, subtle lines and abstract shapes.

Here is an example of how I have used the site section in my work:



Okay so why is this question important to me at this point? In my next post I'll talk about the process of constructing the site section in the quilt I am currently working on.................

The Fabric Arrived!

Just got the digitally created fabric that I will use as a template for the commissioned quilt. It is HUGE, about 45" high x 110" wide. Here it is pinned to my design wall in the studio:



There are a several businesses that offer this service. You can upload the jpeg image online, etc... and voila -- about a week later it arrives on a high quality yardage of cotton. Suggested resources for this service are:

* www.pixeladies.com/
* www.spoonflower.com/

Still Waiting

Am still waiting.....so to keep busy I made 2 new pieces inspired by 2 other parks in my hometown:

While Waiting.....

Still on the lookout for my fabric order. So to keep busy I am making a small series of maps based on parks in Tallahassee. Here is one of the first. It is of Lake Ella, one of my favorite places to walk:



This is the map of Lake Ella from Google:

Anticipation

In the coming weeks I will be documenting the progress on the large scale commissioned quilt. But....right now I am getting a lesson in patience. I have ordered fabric onto which the Autocad drawing of the quilt has been produced at full size (about 5' x 8)'. It is basically a line drawing that will serve as my "blueprint". Hopefully it'll arrive this week.

So in the meantime, here are a few images of my studio space. This is the first time I've had a place to work like this outside the home. Don't know why I hadn't tried this before, it's a great way to retreat into "the zone". This is what the space looked like a few months back while I was working on another piece.

The Maquette

I just completed the small scale version of the quilt. It is about 24" x 36". I am so glad I made this first. I learned so much about how to create this piece -- mostly about how I wanted to strike a balance between realism and abstraction.

Here is an overall image and a few details:

Conceptual Design Part 2

Here is the Beaux Art like composition or layout that I decided on for the design of this quilt. It uses a variety of scales, views, details of the client's property in Watkins Glen NY.

You will see the summer cottage or pavilion, a wooden bench that remains on the main site's upper lawn, a beautiful arching set of steps leading to the upper lawn, the cottage, the river that runs across the property down to the lake, the water fall.

The goal was to create a composition that uses layering, merging, the juxtaposition of multiple scales and details -- all aspects of the Beaux Art drawing.

This is the final conceptual sketch:

This is the concept developed in Photoshop:

This is the concept developed yet again in Autocad:

Conceptual Design Part 1

In earlier work, I began to explore the use of what is sometimes called the composite drawing as a composition tool in my work. The composite drawing relates back to the Beaux Art analytique ( http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/mellin/arch671/winter2000/rmellin/analytique/p04/4.htm)where several types of drawings related to an architectural project are carefully composed on one sheet. Oftentimes they interact in a way that creates a sense of layering, depth, framing and the interpenetration of one drawing to the next. Here are some examples of Beaux Art drawings:

Design Inspiration Part 2

I love aerial maps and photographs. Google Maps, Live Maps, Microsoft Terraserver are great sites to find these kinds of images.

For the commissioned quilt I was able to find the following images of my client's property and its surrounding areas:

Design Inspiration Part 1

Thought it might be better to start from the beginning on this particular piece. It started with a visit to a beautiful part of the country -- Watkins Glen, NY. It is located in the Finger Lakes area of NY where the waterfalls are abundant and magnificant!

The website http://gowaterfalling.com/waterfalls/watkins.shtml has some great images of

their state park.

Here are some of the photos taken by my DH:

Valerie writing a blog?

Well folks I've decided to give this a try. Who knows it might well be a good experience. Come by from time to time to see some of my work.