Shangri-la Lantern

Reception Desk for a Yoga Studio--UPDATE

I reworked this by putting in a Podium rendering as a transparent layer. I think it adds more definition to the desk structure.

What do we think? Better? A little less free and sketchy, but I think appropriate for reading the complexity of the desk.
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This is maybe the second time I've started with a hand rendering and *then* brought it into Photoshop. I think it is overall reasonably effective, but due to the complicated geometry of the desk itself, I wish I had left the lines from the original Sketchup export in there for increased definition. I tried putting them back in after the fact, but I'd already departed too much with my colored pencil work. Lesson learned. I may hit this again with a ruler and my Sepia Prisma pencil.

Well this seems sad...

Architizer Blog � Oh No! New York City Is Officially Out Of Brownstone!

Portfolio Site @ Carbonmade

I have established a clean portfolio site (sans my free-form verbiage) over at Carbonmade. Take a look!

In Which I Attempt to Conquer PODIUM...

I took a timeout last Friday with a friend from school to sit down and try to master Podium, the rendering engine for SketchUp (well, one of several).

I have a masters in Engineering Physics and worked for 12 years as an optical engineer. And...I'm finding that only marginally helpful. I guess what makes these software programs tricky is the 7 to 15 minute rendering time each time you tweak a light or a setting means that overall progress towards optimizing your rendering is rather slow. But the results are starting to be pretty amazing. For comparison, see the SketchUp/Photoshop versions from this post.

I'm still working on a couple of these. I blatantly cheated at getting more light into the second perspective by making the ceiling transparent, which makes the shadows not rigorously correct, for example. And I'd like to increase the brightness and contrast in the entrance perspective (which may just be a Photoshop job).

Anyway, for this former Optical Engineer, one thing is certain: Messing with light rendering engines is pretty addictive and it was hard to pull myself away to work on other things! I could easily do this all day. It's a really fun fusion of my former and future careers.

Furniture and Detailing Studio

This semester I am taking Furniture and Detailing Studio with the excellent Debra Folz.

Here's some drawings!

Retail Project

Some perspectives from my couture space for (hypothetically) designer Roland Mouret:

Amazing Folded Paper Art by Polly Verity

Here.

Design for Department of Workforce Development "Rework" Office

Phillips DayWave Suspended LED

So beautiful. Here.

Entryway with Office Built-In

Paper Countertops On Apt Therapy

Cool! My comment on our Richlite countertops is in a little comment summary in Apt Therapy's countertop guide.

I do continue to love the stuff. I hate setting glassware down on stone and prefer the warmer, softer feel of the paper. But it is definitely not for fussy people. You have to be someone who can live with a surface that picks up a patina over time. I find it very visually calming, also. No glare, no crazy granite speckle.