Design Conceptualisation: The Rise of CAD

[garethace]

Hmmmm.

[sarcastic]

I must admit, I do not know yet what it is like in Ireland (but I shall soon find that out), but here in Lithuania an architect usualy must know and do ALL the work, from A to Z. Visualisation expert is not capable and should not influence the flow of design. Visualisation is ment to show the vision of the designer, the creator, in the most realistic way. Sometimes it has to be a candy, whaen a competition must be won or an investor should be seduced. I must admit, taht I would be greately dissappointed and angered if a visualisationist made his work by the way he/she feels it is best.
So, all in all. Computer graphics is a vonderfull thigie, when expressing the idea. It sometimes is useful even to me, when i want to get a better understanding of what shall the whole look like.

[garethace]

Good reply,

Brian O' Hanlon.

[Craig_Purcell]

Outsourced inexpensive labor from China provides great service at a low cost in regard 3 dimensional computer modeling.

[Ger Reynolds]

I have sourced Chinese architectural modelling (we used a company based in Chengdu). However, we have been happily using an Irish company since. Communication barriers, unreliability and poor quality, coupled with the fact that they couldnt do onsite photomontages properly made it not worth the cost savings.

Irish visualisation companies are more expensive, but when you need effective co-ordination between the architect, planning consultancies etc. and the visualisation company, and where you need onsite photography, the expense is unavoidable..


Just my two cents....

[garethace]

It is not easy being a planner. The country is full of bright, attractive young architects from around the world. Each one has an ego larger than the size of Belturbet. Their ideas and ways to 'improve' the environment are revolutionary. Be it sustainability, higher density, public transport or cool once-off housing. Some ideas come out of magazines, and are recycled back into planning submissions. The architects wish to make Ireland into a laboratory for building cool stuff out of magazines! Look! They have realistic visualisations too!

What is happening to this country? Planners feel they are on the wrong side of the fence. They are selling innovation at a point when the market buys creativity. Planners who would have sat quietly in their cubicles doing traffic studies, are suddenly emboldened. Planners wish to 'approve' 3D Visuals and call themselves 'urban placemakers'. 3D visualisation allows a planner this augmented view into the designer's mind. The designer's imagination is transcribed into digital information and printed onto glossy paper. I think it is a cheap and nasty approximation.

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4237&highlight=innovation


Brian O' Hanlon.

[ctesiphon]

Your blurring of the difference between planning and urban design and your confusion of Irish planners with their US counterparts in support of your arguments has become very tiresome, not to mention your persistent mischaracterisation of planners in general. I know I've said it before, but it seems it hasn't sunk in, so I'm saying it again. Sigh.

[garethace]

Crap.

You should realise that we are experiencing a unique time in Ireland, from the points of view of ALL people involved in planning, construction and design. I am not going to even try to justify what I write - that is not the point. The only point is to capture something in real time, and allow the folks in time in the future, to figure out, what is important about this time we are living in right now. There is just no substitute for a real time, individual account, on the ground, as it were.

Like you can read the diary of some fellow who died in the Somme years ago, and from those brief few scribbles, much later on, an historian can extract some key points from that. It is important to capture something of these unique times here in Ireland - they will not last - but vanish as quickly as they came about. I write from the point of view of the foot soldier, the guy standing in the trench as things all played out. There are other methods of capture, of history and time, like 25 years of architectural awards for instance. But I am trying to capture things in a different kind of way. Our dumb conversation and ping-pong argument, may prove an important anecdote in years to come, you never know.


Brian O' Hanlon.

[ctesiphon]

Crap.

You should realise that we are experiencing a unique time in Ireland, from the points of view of ALL people involved in planning, construction and design. I am not going to even try to justify what I write - that is not the point. The only point is to capture something in real time, and allow the folks in time in the future, to figure out, what is important about this time we are living in right now. There is just no substitute for a real time, individual account, on the ground, as it were.

Like you can read the diary of some fellow who died in the Somme years ago, and from those brief few scribbles, much later on, an historian can extract some key points from that. It is important to capture something of these unique times here in Ireland - they will not last - but vanish as quickly as they came about. I write from the point of view of the foot soldier, the guy standing in the trench as things all played out. There are other methods of capture, of history and time, like 25 years of architectural awards for instance. But I am trying to capture things in a different kind of way. Our dumb conversation and ping-pong argument, may prove an important anecdote in years to come, you never know.


Brian O' Hanlon.

Oh Brian. Your post made me laugh out loud, but I suspect for all the wrong reasons.

A few quick points:
This is a discussion forum, not a diary. I'm not sure what Paul sees as the point of it, but for me it's a useful place to keep up with developments, learn from more experienced players, express opinions on subjects about which I'm knowledgeable and maybe even have an impact on current thought and debate.
Also, it's not a holding pen for your stream of consciousness thoughts. A little self-editing might go a long way, i.e. why wait for the future folks to work out what you're trying to say? Why not work it out first, before you post?
If you want to write a diary, then write a diary. Or a blog if you prefer (this was said to you on earlier threads, before I was a poster here [kindly linked by you]- it makes sense to me and would probably suit your style better). But impromptu monologues with an eye on the future and ignorance of the present, particularly when they hijack a debate? Take it outside.

I'm not doubting that something like this may be of value to future generations (indeed, maybe the only reason I keep posting replies to your posts is for fear that silence would indicate to future generations that we all think like you do and believe the same things), but I think they'd prefer a measure of reflection and dialogue rather than scattergun soliloquies. I know I would. But sure what value my opinion when the future is watching?

In conclusion, just let me quote this bit again as it cracks me up:

I am not going to even try to justify what I write - that is not the point

[garethace]

it's a useful place to keep up with developments, learn from more experienced players, express opinions on subjects about which I'm knowledgeable and maybe even have an impact on current thought and debate.

What goes on at this discussion forum, or any other, is not particularly interesting. The discussion threads here do not cover a fraction of the whole landscape of thought. In fact, they are quiet poor places to expose yourself to the different theories. A discussion forum is an artificial and opinionated information environment. That is without getting into the shortcomings, of not meeting people face to face and having to interact socially. What a discussion forum does serve to do, is allow people who wish to understand the dynamics of discussion, a chance to explore that. Throughout the twentieth century, we had commercially produced information beamed into our livingrooms. People short on discursive abilities, were air-brushed out of the picture.

With the foot soldier's diary approach, the passive recipient begins to read, and listen to someone else's voice. In so doing, begins to realise their own voice and contributions may have some value. Other than being mis-used to get into dead-end argumentative situations with their peers. The whole twentieth century information environment, taught people to undervalue their own voice. To want to pay others to produce an acceptable finished product - you could listen to or view. The biggest challenge facing the family unit, is for a few people of different ages to sit together for half an hour. That is currently too much to ask for some families. The content of the discussion is not important - the mere idea of discussion as a medium, itself, is very important to counteract the mis-learning of the twentieth century. What you encounter in architectural schools, is tutors with poor or even disfunctional communication skills themselves, trying to teach kids, through the medium of verbal abuse! It only serves to make the efforts by those kids to mature into something harder rather than easier.


Brian O' Hanlon.