Sketch-Up : The Coolest Thing Ever

Today I learned a new program called "SketchUp." It's SO cool. It's an awesome way to represent buildings. I didn't learn how to use it, I simply was informed that I should use it, so I spent all night (until right now: 1:54am) teaching myself how to use it.

To practice, I began working on models/sketches of my movie theater, due next week for my final project.

I'll just attach the photos of the design I came up with. It's a pretty massive theater, but that was what I was going for, so I hope you like it!!


The overhang seen in the far left of this picture is a bus-stop waiting area. There is a bus stop and a T (subway) stop at the site, so I had to create space for those passengers to remain while waiting still.

This glass section seen below is an elevator shaft, for 3 elevators with a glass wall to exist.

A good shot of the elevator shaft and overhang/bus-stop again!

Here's a roof shot (you can see the sky-lights in the upstairs lobby, allowing maximum light in.)

The big block-like figure with no windows or doors seen on the upper right of this building is the movie theater.

Final Project - Week 1

Our final project is a 3-week project in which we design a movie theater with a city archive located on a triangular site in Kenmore Square in Boston. This is an oddly shaped, triangular strip of land, which will cause a challenge to us as we decide on how to arrange this theater. It can be either an indoor or an outdoor theater, but as you see below in the Google Earth image of the site, it is a very busy site, with lots of traffic and noise surrounding it. We have to take everything about the site into consideration in the process of designing our theater.
    We took a field trip to the site, and spent an hour diagramming and sketching things we felt would be important in the construction of our theater. I took specific note of the shops/programs that surrounded the strip of land. I wanted to see what kinds of people would be coming to the site and for what reasons. I learned that the site was almost similar to a mall's food court. There was also loud honking and traffic at all 6 of the crosswalk/intersections leading pedestrians to this strip of land, which currently acts as a bus stop and a subway (the 'T') stop.
    I decided that the theater could be built in one of two ways. First, it could either be woven into the scene, disguised to fit in to this larger area of food and entertainment. This would be dodging the need to compete with all the other stuff nearby. A second idea, is that it could be constructed as a new reason to go to the square. Rather than having people already in the area decide to attend a movie, it could be the initial reason that people were in the square to begin with! These are all kinds of things we really needed to consider. I still haven't decided how I am going to construct my theater, but to begin thinking about these aspects is important.

Here is the site:

Here is my interpretation of the site, with regards to those shops/programs surrounding it. In the center, is the site, where my theater will be built.

Our next step in the project involved familiarizing our selves with film in general. We began by watching a movie called Urbanized, on different ways people and cultures handle busy spaces in certain countries. Then the following day, we watched Pan's Labrynth, one of the most insane movies I've ever seen. We had to make a model that we felt represent the themes in the movie. This was a very vague assignment, but we all managed to produce pretty good models! (photo to come) Finally, we went to a movie theater and watched a movie and took note of how people act and the shapes and sizes of things in an actual theater. So overall, this past week was a very relaxed week, preparing us for the hard work this upcoming week!!