Week 2 Opus

Material: 

Material is what is used to compose or make something.  Egyptians were restricted on materials and had to use sand a lot of times.  The sand was used to help them make tall structures such as the hypostyle hall.  Plant materials inspired some Egyptian columns.  Stone is a durable material that Stonehenge is made of. 

“An architecture of mud bricks reinforced with straw emerged.  Coated with a hard plaster, this material was sufficiently durable in a climate with little rain…” (Roth, 193) 

This week I had to make an artifact that told the essence of my fairytale, The Singing Bone.  I had to use materials to make it.  I chose white streamer, a red ribbon, and a green button.  Each of the colors related to something symbolic in the fairytale.

[Commodity, Firmness, and Delight]: 

These are all different words, yet you cannot have one without the others.  Commodity is something of use and value, firmness is something that will stay in place and is sturdy or stiff, and delight is something that gives pleasure to.  Sir Henry Wotten said that delight is the most important in architecture because it “is the most complex and diverse… for it involves how architecture engages all our senses, how it shapes our perception and enjoyment of (or discomfort with) our built environment.”  In architecture, you have to think about all three of commodity, firmness, and delight when you are designing something.  In a building you have to make sure that the structure is going to be useful, sturdy so it will not fall, and appealing to the eye.  If you do not have all three then your building will not be successful.  For the past few weeks I have been working on making my chair/server/workstation for Pat made out of chipboard.  It is stiff and will not fall down, it has many uses such as a chair, workstation, server, and bookshelf, and it is pleasing to the eye because it is simple and unusual looking 

 

 Illuminate: 

Illuminate means to brighten with light or to light up.  This week we spent a lot of time drawing vignette’s for Suzanne and have had to use watercolor to light up our drawings.  By adding watercolor, it brings more attention to your drawings.  You can use dark and light shades into your drawing to add light and dimension.  Without light and dimension, your drawings will get washed out.  The pyramids are important because Helios comes from the sun and hits the point and runs down the diagonals to the Earths surface.  Each direction (north, south, east, and west) are illuminated by the four diagonals.  The pyramids are illuminated because “… a pointed stone called the ben-ben, said to symbolize the primordial mound that first emerged from the water at creation, catching the first light of the sun.” (Roth, 200) The light is illuminating the pyramid.

 

Idiom:  

An idiom is an expression that means something other than what it literally tells.  It can also be a particular style or character in music or art.  I have drawn a girl in a bed under an umbrella while it is raining.  The girl is not actually “under the weather,” she is sick and not feeling well.  If someone from another language or culture were to hear someone say that phrase, they would probably not know what they were trying to say.  In Patrick’s class we learned that the hieroglyphics on rocks and structures tell stories, but some people might not understand them if they don’t understand different symbols.  Illuminate rocks and structures, such as Stonehenge, mean things other than the design.  Roth says about Stonehenge that, “…this complex served as an astronomical observatory, for the alignment of the heelstone with the stones in the center of the circle is such that at the summer solstice.”  (Roth, 173)  There are other purposes that Stonehenge could have been used for such as a burial ceremony.

Summary:  

This past week I have learned that no matter what you make you must think about [commodity, firmness, and delight].   From now on I guarantee that I will think about these words when I am designing something.  When you make something, you create it through materials that make an idiom that illuminates an idea or concept.  Most importantly it has to satisfy [commodity, firmness, and delight].