Bike Ride Sketching !

       The first photo shows an apartment building with a highly dynamic facade. In my sketch I tried to capture this shifting facade with 3, 5 and 8 lines. The operable louvres on the facade help create this dynamic and always changing shift. This outer skin of the building gives a texture that is very hard to capture in such an abstract drawing. The screen like quality of the facade makes it hard to choose between showing the verticality or the horizontality of the building since both are present at different times during different lighting situations. Therefore I believe my first set of sketches was very unsuccessful. To improve, next time I will need to build my drawings in a more consistent fashion. 

        The Second photo shows the Torre Telefonica building. This building also has an amazingly dynamic facade. However, this building is easier to draw since its facade in easier to translate to paper,because it stays the same. I feel these drawings are more successfully developed then my first set for the apartment building. The idea was just to show the zigzagging facade and also the context of the Museu bleu in the foreground. 

Overall, these simple sketches really help you visually filter the facades down to the simple yet memorable image that captures the main concepts and ideas of each facade. Not only are they fast drawings, but the really help lock the building into your memory and supplement your mental images of the building as well. I will probably use similar sketches like these in the future if I ever see an interesting building, or for precedent studies. I really enjoyed the bike ride as well, and look forward to exploring more on my bicycle back in Washington D.C.. The combination of these quick sketches and riding the bike is a good way to see and comprehend multiple buildings in a short period of time. 

Sketching Review and Reflection: San Antoni Library

        While reflecting back on my drawing of the San Antoni Library, I feel a sense of accomplishment. This drawing is the first 2 point perspective I have ever done. With that being said it does need a lot of work. The first aspect missing from the drawing is the surrounding context of the neighboring buildings. These buildings would offer more insight to the exact scale of the library within its urban context. This additional context from adding a roofline would also provide a more experiential feel to the sketch. This would allow the viewer to understand the feeling of enclosure from the interior courtyard, and make the sketch more successful.

        

         The second component missing form the drawing is the lack of toning accuracy. The exterior of the San Antoni Library is a dark and reflective black material. This material is used beautifully to cast reflections of the courtyard and surrounding buildings upon the surface of the library. The reflection angles have been thought out very cleverly by the building’s designers, and in fact the reflections invite you deeper into the building’s courtyard space. Displaying this is crucial to portraying the library’s materiality accurately. When drawing, I found that capturing the appearance of this material in a sketch was quite hard.

         In conclusion, I find my drawing does accomplish an accurate display of form and proportions. I am very pleased with my representation of the overall form of the building, especially with the volume of the bridge connecting the two towers of the library. This bridge is the major focal point when looking from the courtyard at the library. Capturing this was crucial to accurately showing the overall building form. I have learned a lot about what I need to improve from this assignment. I also really enjoyed seeing this out of the way building! It is nice to sketch hidden gems like this within the city, and it gives a great insight into the many well-designed buildings within Barcelona’s urban context.