DON'T BE STUPID

Follow Conventions 

• Ensure that all elements of your presentation (notably the drawings) follow the conventions outlined in the course. Everything from North Arrows pointing up, hidden lines for roof lines, and section cut indicators should all be clearly read in the drawings no matter what level of rendering or additional work is done to the base line work.

Layout Matters

• Do not think of the poster layout as simply a dump of all your imagery. Layout is just as much a design as the actual architectural proposal. Take the time to set up a layout with the imagery at the appropriate scale/size so that you know how large (resolution and size) to produce the imagery. If a prof takes a 1:25 scale to your 1:25 drawing and a door measures to be 4m high, you failed to show you understand scale drawings.

• Do not waste space with huge titles, names, or blocks of text. Subtlety is important. If the reviewing audience is not aware of the nature of the project, they clearly are not worth listening to so there is no need to reiterate the nature of the project.

• Fonts matter so be careful with what you use. Times New Roman or Calibri means you don’t care, Bank Gothic means you are stuck in the 90’s, Comic Sans means you should consider another profession…

Contrast Kills

• In your renderings that you montage together, use the photo-editing tools to ensure your renderings blend in with the context.

• Also be aware that when putting in trees or people into drawings or renderings, ensure that they are desaturated or at the very least muted to work with the rendering/drawing lighting conditions.

• In physical models for this project, do not use fake or real plants, action figures, or even paints as they will look comical and detract from the design. You will also be made fun of by faculty and students alike.

• In the digital model, do not overpopulate your spaces with downloaded furniture, plants, people, etc. This will prove to be distracting and even increase your rendering time. You are studying Architectural Science and NOT interior decoration.  Use pre-made elements with discretion… and just be aware that the rest of the class apparently has writers all shopping at the same high end furniture store.

Invest Time Appropriately

• In making the physical model, remember that it is only worth doing if it is demonstrating something that is not evidenced clearly in the renderings and drawings. Do not waste time making a model for the sake of doing work.

• In creating imagery/perspectives for your design, ask if there is any potential redundancy. If so, consider only doing one. Remember to kill two birds with one stone and see if you can use perspectives to showcase multiple dimensions of your design including diurnal use, seasonality, approach, etc.

• Students are highly discouraged from creating full sheet renderings (i.e. an image that goes on a whole poster which would in this case be 200x36= 7200 pixels across!) as the rendering time becomes quite significant especially if you are using multiple lights, heavy geometries, highly reflective/transparent materials, etc.