Forming an Idea - Creating Environments with narrative.

When creating a 3D scene, planning is as important as implementation. In this blog, I will go through the process from the initial idea to pre-modelling stage.

Starting with the requirement of creating a 3D environment, I found a direction of where I wanted to go. I started with urban decay of post-war housing estates in the UK, specifically London.

Real-life Inspiration

 

Fig.1 Photography of Milford Towers, Catford & The Ferrier Estate in Kidbrooke.

Streets in the sky vision of utopia, also architecture non apologetic use to deep red, and other saturated colours.

Fig.2 The layout of robin hood gardens in blackwall, east london .windy corridor layout.

 

Fig.3 Overall layout of the buildings, and ground level view.

Overgrown wildlife in-between concrete structures, with bushes and trees on the sides occluding the view of residents.

 

Fig.4. The Facade from inside, left and outside the brixton barrier block.

Brixton Barrier block. Tiny, unconventional windows and angular designs, with visually intense grid designs

Development of the Idea & Creating a Narrative

From the real life inspiration gathered, I identified a theme of contrast between ornamental beauty & urban decay. Additionally, I had researched particular architectural era of post-war brutalism, identifying architectural visionaries such as Le Corbusier & Owen Luder.

Fig.5 Le Corbusiers "Streets in the Sky" illustrated(Architectural Review, n.d)

I found that the floating walk ways and narrow staircases were part of a vision of a "streets in the sky" utopia, where the previously crowded streets of european cities could be escaped from above. This social experiment and the resulting failure of the vision created the reality we see today.

From that concept, I changed the figurative concept of "streets in the sky" into a fantastical concept where the building are literally floating in the sky, supported by impossibly long plinths or floating on clouds.

MoodBoard

Fig.6 screenshot from photoshop while editing moodboard

I created a moodboard to illustrate how I would create my concept art, focusing on floating walkways, vertical and horizontal sight lines and natural & ornamental points within urban decay. From here I had a clear visual base to create my concept art.