Joining buildings together

I am at the sketch up again with an IDX renditioner plug in – a curved colored glazed wall with a DNA inspired  vertical mullion grid – sketch-up time 1.5hrs – render time 1min 35 seconds.

Location – confidential.

Vodafone Stoke in New vibrant colours

Vodafone recently added some great new wall panels and graphics into the new call ventre at Stoke which really complement the design and and add yet more vibrancy to the spaces – As an architect the intention was always to give them some way ot making the space their own and that is exactly what they are doing – good stuff!

The building was also recently visited by judges for this years British Council for Offices Awards (best corporate office Midlands)- we wont know till May if they were impressed!

Bog Standard Bar -Salisbury Racecourse 2009

This was a small pavilion that I designed for salisbury racecourse – who required a purpose built bar and new toilets with betting totes to service the corporate weekend racing that they do.
This one went on hold when the hospitality market started to slow down negating the need for it in the immediate future.
This was using sketch up and rendered using Irender and photoshop.
Simple and affordable scheme.

Hagley Road West – RETAIL UNITS FOR SALE 2010

I designed these roadside retail units back in 2008 – proposed for a site on Hagley Road West Birmingham UK after considerable debate with the planners – Unfortunately another site that has difficulty finding tenants or buyers in this deep recession – Was great fun deisgning it though its not one of my best – A good exercise this time using Irender as an experiment in night lighting – could be a nice little scheme if its detailed properly in future.

Offices Eastern Europe -Tirana -2010

I carried out some design options for a headquarters in Eastern Europe that are likely to go ahead now . A full workspace analysis and site appraisal resulted in these sketches – using sketchup and IDX as a renderer.
The sketch and render time was less than a day and was extremely useful in deciding what design approach the client prefererred . I will leave you to guess which concept is to be built. Oh  – and incidentally the big glass wall faces North – first sustainable design rule ! It also slopes in the way at the bottom to remove glass cloud effect.
The site is on outskirts of  Tirana- Albania and the design is intended to have strong colours to reflect recent policy by the local mayor to have colourful buildings in the city.

Its not about pretty pictures all the time !!

Getting a building design project off the ground is not just all about pretty pictures (although the pictures really help!) . Its also important to traditionally understand and present the detail construction proposals along with specifications and a myriad of supplementary documentation and communications. See here two details sheets explaining the  Vodafone roofing and one of the rear entrance doorways.

Leisure in WIDNES Cheshire – but when ?

I designed this leisure scheme back in 2007 and got full planning permission for it – however the scheme never got off the ground as the credit crunch took hold and signed up tenants unsigned up and the scheme was left high and dry. Would have been and interesting scheme with cinema , ice rink , bowling alley restaurants and retail.
The design was worked up in sketch-up and e-mailed to my contact in Shanghai – Li Qichang – he arranged for the full rendered visulisations using 3D studio max – this was before I started strapping render tools onto sketch-up.  Whilst the design itself is not that innovative and developer driven -the original design incorporated waste heat recycling from the ice rink to service the bowling alley and rainwater recycling for the roofs – unfortunately a rather unsustainable 600 cars were required in the front car parks.

Will it ever get of the ground in future – who knows??