Perry Kulper

My last architectural uber-crush was Geoff Manaugh. Don't get me wrong... I'd still love to meet the guy and his writing continues to fascinate me, but Perry Kulper is the new man du jour.

His drawings do best what every architect wishes to achieve; it seamlessly adds layers upon layers of information and complexity and so beautifully at that. They have a hypnotic quality to them, and I can really appreciate them as both architectural drawings and works of art. This article sums it up best.





collection


Fun fact we worked for my bosses VSBA :)

Seasteads

Proponents of seasteading want to create free standing "nations" at sea free from ruling from any other country. Each seastead can then rapidly develop their own sort of living system allowing for the trial of all sorts of proposed ideal methods. I think of these as futuristic communes and find the idea of them endlessly fascinating!

BLDGBLOG has this to say:

For a little more background, Wired's Chris Baker covered the Seasteading Institute last month. Baker wrote that the Institute "doesn't just want to create huge floating platforms that people can live on," they are "also hoping to create a platform in the sense that Linux is a platform: a base upon which people can build their own innovative forms of governance. The ultimate goal is to create standards and blueprints that can be easily adapted, allowing small communities to rapidly incubate and test new models of self-rule with the same ease that a programmer in his garage can whip up a Facebook app."
Here, architectural design would actually help to catalyze new forms of political sovereignty.

seasteading

BLDGBLOG link

Blogging to keep my sanity.

I started this as a religious documentation of things that interested me, but wasn't very good about the followup as is unfortunately characteristic of me... but dreams have to start somewhere right? I'm working this summer with no outlet to share the fabulous things I'm learning so I'm bacccckkk.

So a followup on something I was obsessed with so long ago: BLDGBLOG

I had an epiphany of what exactly it was that I wanted to do with my architecture degree and it is to be Geoff Manaugh, the creator of BLDGBLOG. I go on and on about my love for archigram and only now realized how analogous bldgblog is. They use insane scenarios of the future and build up dream worlds and systems for them. This is literally what we did as children with lego blocks and to be able to continue doing so as a "grown-up" would be a dream come true. I know this dream of mine comes the necessity to read insane amounts of information all the time and that's a challenge I'm up for.

Ok... so I might have gone a little overboard when I wrote him an e-mail confessing my undying love for him ... but my past endeavors of stalking my idols has only lead to good places! I'm looking at you John Bowe! <3

Ok I got the wordiness out of my now on to the blogging!

Garlic and Sapphires

The clearest observation I've made about myself and my reading habits is that I never have a lukewarm relationship with a book and if I ever say I do, the book wasn't worth picking up in the first place. Before I begin raving about this one I'd like to say reading for leisure for anyone with a normal workload is quite a difficult thing to do. This just means that the books I choose to devour while at school are much more playful and lighthearted none of that dense nobel prize winning Gabriel Marquez for me. Garlic and Sapphires was just right (I know so because it stopped me from making any progress at work for the two days it was glued to my hand). I didn't make any great observations about life, or shed a tear but i was drooling the entire time.

Ruth Reichl is just one of those writers I like. I've tried to find out what that means exactly but haven't yet. Perhaps it's the fact that she's so agreeable or that she made me feel like I was a guest at the table of every painfully delicious meal she enjoyed... whatever it was I loved Garlic and Sapphires! As a self-proclaimed foodie this might as well been Pirates with absolutely pornographic descriptions of wheat soba noodles and korean bbq. Her enthusiasm is infectious! I've never had a hungrier two days in my whole life.

Creating a Walk-through in Maya

After hours googling and googling I couldn't for the life of me find a way to make a Maya walk-through! So here! I hope someone in the world wide web finds this one day and can use it.

In Maya, the easiest way I found to make a walk-through is to create two motion
paths (from EP curves). The first path is to put an object (which will later become invisible) that the camera will be aimed at throughout the animation. The second is a path for the camera itself to follow.

1. Make the First Curve
In the top view, create the path for the camera to follow so keep in mind what views and specific things you want to been seen in this walk-through and make sure they are part of this curve.
Create>EP Curve Tool
Select the curve,then hold right-click>Edit point.
The points used to create this curve will be show and in different views you can toggle them to correct the path that you want your aim to be set more accurately (whether you want height changes along your walk through or a more specific view). You will most likely need to return to editing these points again.

2. Make a Polygon and Attach it to Motion Path
Make some polygon. Spheres are my preference. (smaller is probably better and less distracting)....
Create>Polygon Primitives>_____
Select the Polygon and then the path you just created (shift-click)
Animate>Motion Paths>Attach to Motion Paths
This attaches the polygon to the motion path. You can play with it by toggling the animation frames at the bottom of your screen.

4. Make a Camera and Parent the Aim with the Polygon
Create>Cameras>Camera and Aim
You will see that there are two parts of the camera you can select. The physical camera and its target.
Select the target and the polygon you created (shift-right click). Then Edit>Parent.

5.Create a Path for the Camera.
Now that there is a camera, for a walk-through the camera needs to have a motion path as well so follow the same steps to create a curve and attach the physical camera to the curve as its motion path.
Create>EP Curve Tool
Select curve and physical camera Then Animate>Motion Paths>Attach to Motion Paths
Remember to make this curve a bit longer than the one for the polygon and keep in mind that in each frame the camera will be focused on the polygon wherever it may be positioned at that moment. Also keep in mind that like a analog camera, this camera's path needs to have some distance between itself and the polygon it is following to make a successful picture.

6. Edit Points on Curve
Again turn on the edit points for this curve and move them around to your liking.
Hold right-click>Edit point
You may find it easy to work with the points in a top and side view while having another view set to your camera. That way, while you toggle with the animation frames at the bottom of the of the screen you can see the camera's view and alter the placement of either motion paths to your liking.

7. Hide Polygon
After you are done with working out the kinks, you will probably want to hide the polygon. To do so, select the polygon then in the right-hand side Channel Box/Layer Editor, you will see an option for visibility where it will say on. Click and type off and you should be set.

Gluck!