The Systems as an Urban Fabric

An attempted conglomerate of our groups systems on the Greenwich Penninsula.

Our urban condition (a pedestrian city) needs to now look at a globalized system throughout our individual plots.  Spatial logics, landmarks, clear & understandable connections and routes, orientations, etc... as well as understanding the existing conditions.
 

Above: Initial exploration into system continuation between individual systems.

above:  Extending the construction lines of Jenny's pattern/system into the plot, whereby the bars start to shift (with the same local logic as before) at the point they coincide with the line extension.  The same starts to occur at the meeting of the road/blackwall tunnel also.

individually - my system needs to perform better as a field, still the 3D exploration appears as a series of objects upon the ground plane.  A ground condition should also be explored.

Model:

Model continued...

tested as a strip:

testing of part layering:

Initial group combining of our individual patterns as a singular urban conglomerate:

Patterns model:

Model continued:

further explanation of the shift rule:

Following the line of the prominent black bar, as the bar meets a grey (initially red) bar the shift occurs, leaving a buck in the black bar.  And as the height of the grey bar in 3D is half the height, this shift can also be seen in elevation.

This can be explored further in order to break the bars, allowing gaps in the vertical axis to bleed the inverted (void) spaces through the field of bars.  See below:

Model inserted onto site:

Patterns continued:

The pattern so far is too linear in one direction (the horizontal), hence i need to find a way to create a movement or visual line in the vertical axis also.

Studying some of Bridget Riley's (Op Artist) work may help to understand how this may be achieved:
Her work below demonstrates how a line in one axis, once distorted, can create the visual appearance of a series of lines following the perpendicular.

Bridget Riley, 'Blaze'

Analysis:

'Descending'

Analysis:

'Shift'

Some attempts of combining this into my pattern:
Also illiminating the need for me to rotate certain bars, instead using the system used in Bridget Riley's 'Shift', whereby a diagonal is introduced, but with more purpose.

1.  The grey/red and white bars corners and centers determine the placement of the diagonal, with the black remaining the straight edge.

2.  Below: a system of black bars, which shift rows to the following black bar, at the meeting of a grey/red bar, at which point (in 3D) the height will lower (or raise if the white bar is the catalyst for the change in row).

This appears to open up more breaks in the continuous bars due to the shift, and also relaxes the pattern from a rigid horizontal axis.

Some 3D represntation: (which will eventually be modelled as part of a larger field of pattern (once continued) rather than what appears to be currently an object)

3D exploration of the pattern:

Model 1:

Extruding the different colour bars to varying heights.  Black, the more dominant & constant bar, is extruded at x3 it's width, whilst the red is half this height.  The white remains a frame between the bars & rest at a higher level above the red.

This simple extrusion is then worked upon, applying a merging of volumes, whereby the attachment of the red is morphed to the edge of the black: (below an example of the bars being transformed)

The result being an increased relationship and connectivity between the bars.  below is how these 2 bars sit against one another, these can then be moved around to produce some other interesting relationships of passages, etc.

Model 2:

In parallel to this an exploration in shifts in heights was examined.  As one bar rotates up or down, the height difference along the bar also increases or decreases respectively.

Resulting in a more dynamic 3D height arrangement, expecially in elevation.

Model 3:

Here, the idea was to carve the pattern from a block of foam in order to create a balance between the volumes of the bars and the inverted space between (with the idea if the inverted space was to be cast a similar series of bars would be produced).  This was in order to resist the amount of void space apparent from my 'variation 2' pattern.

As these sections of bars get moved around and rotated (photos above, middle and right), it is interesting to see a quick variation between the arrangement here and the original (above left) regular solid and void pattern.  This pattern can therefore be very easly manipulated within the wider field of the pattern.

Patterns continued... (work from Thursday 29th Oct)

Continuation of pattern investigation:

Exploring variation 2 further:

Below: variation 2:

Analysing the build up of the pattern, by breaking apart the grid, by determining the horizontal & vertical bands of each colour:

Below - the horizontal grid in which each colour sits within (blank areas denote that the colour did not appear in this row):











Below - the set of vertical grids which each colour sits within, combined with the horizontal (blank areas denote that the colour did not appear in the column):

Using these grids above the layering combination was then explored in order to experiement with both creating potential volumes of colour, as well as determining the extent of variation within the pattern which emerges when various colours take the top layer (foreground).

Below: the layering experiment (bottom; just horizontal band, middle; both horizontal & vertical, top; when the void space from variation 2 is applied).

Outcomes: The black, red, white ordering (second column) offers the most balanced pattern.  It also brings to question, more strongly, which colour actually appears to sit on top of the other, a visual trait found within the original painting by Josef Albers. This idea of layering will also help initial exploration in the 3D modeling of the pattern.

Another variation applied to varitaion 2:

Here (left) each bar has been 150% on the horizontal axis at each center point in order to expand the pattern from the confines of a square.  The idea being further bars can be later added & inserted more seemlessly.
(right) the diagonal is explored - certain bars have been rotated toward the void spaces to create more heterogeneity.