QINGHAO
YANG
PORTFOLIO
Frame vs Filed
fod:r module 4
At the beginning of module 4, my tutor assigned me a story from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. I was required to employ Perspective, a technique of representation first theorised in Renaissance Italy, to create a scene based on my assigned story, and to construct an isometric drawing with notations to reveal the narratives behind the scene.
In general, my invisible city, Olinda, is a kind of mysterious place where is constantly growing in its size from the centre. The city has adequate functions even when it is at the size of half a lemon, it reveals the roofs, antennas, the skylight, the gardens, the pools, the kiosk in the squares, and so on. As the first Olinda grows, the second Olinda is also enlarging within the first Olinda, while the city preserves the old architecture such as old walls maintaining their original proportions. Therefore, the buildings in outer cities would become incredibly giant after a period of time, and they become old and shabby as the living space of the older cities had been squeezed. While the new cities have beautiful living environment and their inhabitants enjoy their lives.
The Old Quad
To commence the module, a 3D model of Old Quad (located in the University of Melbourne) is needed to be constructed as the main architecture within the scene. I used Rhino 6 to develop the Old Quad model with some adjustments.
Rendered view of original Old Quad
Being adjusted
Adjusted Old Quad with 'paper' figures
Blank Isometric Drawing
The isometric drawing is edited in Adobe Illustrator using the developed model from Rhino 6. As my assigned invisible city, Olinda, is constantly growing after the previous Olinda city, the inhabitants in Olinda will be able to see the city’s enlarging and the previous cities at the skyline. I have adjusted the height of the roofs to ensure the audience could view the enlarging process and feel the atmosphere of growing. Some of the floor tiles and the column brick within the second perspective have been altered in order to appear a status of destruction.
The Perspectives
The perspectives are carefully chosen and captured to fit the perspective angle of the background I have sourced, in order to ensure the consistency in atmospheres.
First perspective with half background
The cropped figures
First perspective with full background and figures
Second perspective without texture on the Old Quad
Perspective One
My first perspective shows an environment of happiness and harmony. In the old quad, there are dancing couples, young men playing music and a women holding her child watching the dance and music show. They are celebrating the growth and development of this brand new city, and enjoying their life in Olinda as it has adequate infrastructures and beautiful cityscape and environment. From this perspective, the audience can see the tall buildings on the background which suggest that the architectures in this city is constantly growing from the centre, depicting the urbanization and development of Olinda.
Perspective Two
My second perspective portrays a general atmosphere of depression and hopelessness. As the new Olinda cities enlarging from the centre, the living space of this older city had to be squeezed and the buildings here become shabby and started to be broken down. The column bricks and the floor tiles have been adjusted to strengthen the depiction of city’s destruction. Therefore, from this perspective, the audience can see the inhabitants here are suffering a great panic of being perished due to the urban expansion of the new Olinda cities. This forms a significant contrast to my first perspective.
Notations
The notations in the model describes the interactions between the characters within the scene.
The inhabitants in the first scene are meeting at the centre of the old quad to celebrating their city’s growth and development, and this attracts more people to come in. However, after a long period of time, the city started to be destructed. Thus in my second scene, the atmosphere is much more tense, and the people are hoping to go outside.
Final Isometric with Notations
