Art and Architecture

Modern Compact Homes

Decent shelter is a major problem here in the Philippines. Due to poverty a lot of families here have little access to a decent home. I've always wondered if there was a way to provide decent shelter at a minimal cost.

Micro Compact Home - Designed by: Horden Cherry Lee Architects

To achieve the least cost, the design of the house should maximize every inch of space. I've found a lot of ideas from the works of different architects. Although designed by foreign architects, their designs are ideal for the shelter problem here in my country. Mobile homes or trailers are also a good inspiration to maximize space. These mobile homes are limited to the size of the roads.

Tutorial: Selective Noise Reduction

Shooting at high ISO can result in noise. Most of the time noise both color and luminance are found at dark areas of the photos. Applying noise reduction to the photos will also result in reduction of details. I've devised a method in selectively reducing noise on my photos shot at high ISO. Below is step by step guide to my selective noise reduction work flow on photoshop. (Click on the images to view full size)

1. Open the file

2. Create a duplicate layer of the file

3. Apply Noise reduction to the entire photo. You may use any noise reduction filter you like. I prefer the Reduce Noise Filter.

Old Structures Converted into Exceptional Homes

I've always enjoyed designing. Since I was in college, I've always preferred to create designs from scratch. I wanted to explore different possibilities without any constraints. One advantage of being a student is that there are no limitations.

We have always been given the freedom to express our creativity. Our school encouraged us to explore new designs. After becoming an architect, reality has crept in. Restrictions and budgets have always been present in almost all projects. In order to accomplish my projects, I had to adjust to reality.

Barn to House adaptive reuse Designed by: Bjarne Mastenbroek (SeARCH)

Photo By: Peregrinari

I came across this unique sculptor Ron Mueck online. He creates realistic but giant sculptures of people. At first glance, I thought his works were digital art since some of his works looked like photoshop paintings.

Photos By: Veronique Debord

After staring at his other works, I realized that these were real sculptures. Something I didn't recognize was the scale of these artworks. The enormity of these works of art can only be comprehended once you see a person stand right beside it.

8 Unique Restaurant Designs to Inspire your Creativity

I have been doing some research on some unique restaurant designs recently. I found a lot of excellent designs that are eye-catching. Their designs inspired me to be more creative. Some of these designs use common construction materials, but the designers still manage to create extraordinary results. Below are some of the beautiful restaurant designs that inspired me the most.

1. Banq Restaurant Designed by Architect Nader Tehrani

2. Nobu Dubai Designed by Rockwell Group

AVIZ Studio 3D Roof Generator and Tree Generator

I was browsing through the net looking for tutorials on vray and came across these two plug ins for 3dmax. Whenever I had a project wherein I needed to use clay roof tiles on the house I always modeled each roof tile in order to achieve a more realistic look. I never thought that there were plugins around that would make my work easier.

As for the trees and plants I usually use those ready to use models bought from 3d stores. Although I still have to try these two plugins out I think this will be a great addition to my tools in my work as a 3D Artist for Architectural renderings.

The videos below demonstrate the plugins and as far as I know these can only be used on 3d studio max.

The homepage for these plugins is http://www.avizstudio.com

Hope you will find their plugins useful.

New Althea and Fiona Bungalow Design

In the past few months, I have been trying to work out the design of the bungalow units for phase two for our subdivision project. We have tried various schemes that would match the concepts of our previous houses and have finally come up with these two designs.

Althea - (Single Detach Bungalow)

Fiona - (Duplex Bungalow)

Although we haven't started selling these units yet, I am hopeful that these units will be salable since there were a lot of inquiries on bungalow units on our phase one. For more information on this subdivision project kindly visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HaciendaSanAgustin or our website http://hsasubdivision.com/

Slim Homes

Every time I have a design problem, I always see an opportunity to explore new solutions to the problem. Since land prices are getting higher, I've been exploring the possibilities of designing a house on a thin piece of land. Building a house on a thin piece of land would also lower the cost of building a house, making it attractive to buyers looking for affordable homes.

Although construction costs are a top priority in this design challenge, I also have to make sure that the comfort of the house is not sacrificed. Design is another aspect to consider, and having the constraints of building on a slim lot will make things more difficult. So, in order to draw inspiration from this challenge, I did some research on modern slim houses on the net and found a few unique and practical slim houses.

Slim House In Tokyo by Mizuishi Architect

Slim House in Toronto by Drew Mandel

Slim House in San Francisco By Architect Craig Steely

Slim House in Seatle

Slim House in Toronto By Donald Chong

World's Most Extreme Homes (The Sphere - Sao Paulo Brazil)

Lately I have been searching the net for documentaries on architecture. I've found a few interesting documentaries which I will be sharing here in my blog. The first documentary that I am going to share comes from a program from HGTV title World's Most Extreme Homes.

This house has caught my attention since it has a very unique exterior and interior. Most houses have edges and are basically squares and rectangles. This house on the other hand is a sphere and has a lot of curved spaces inside.

Check out the video below

Recycled Art: Old Computer Parts and Transistor

Every time I open my CPU I always get amazed at the complexity of each part working in unison to make millions of complex calculations every second. Whenever I take my CPU apart I can't help but admire how the manufacturers and designers of these parts worked hard to create these sophisticated components.

While I was searching the net for computer parts I saw some photo of some sculptures which used old computer components as the sculptors choice of material. I was amused with this unique art since it never crossed my mind that these old computer parts can be converted into works of art.

Although the shapes look simple, I bet that it took a lot of effort to create these sculptures. The texture of these computer parts also helped enhance the sculptures.

For more sculptures click on the links below.

Sources:

www.designswan.com

www.atcrux.com