Kooz's IDLT (Instructional Design and Learning Technology) blog describes the journey of my thoughts as I get my MA in IDLT.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Symetry of Rendleman

One thing that's going to make Rendleman easier to render in 3D is its symmetrical design. The windows are going to be my unit of measurement because they're uniform. For example, the front of the building has three sections: the east wing has 18 windows, the west has 12, and the middle has 22. The facade has 12 large windows, but they're actually, twice the width of the normal windows, and the windows on the far left and right are actually 1 Rendleman window unit wide. This seemingly even number of windows is actually an odd number (11 large windows), but in order to place the doors in the middle in a symmetrical fashion, they split the 11th large window into two.
Additionally, we can deduce that the doors' width are two-thirds an RWU, and from the pictures, they're uniform around the building. The door height is equal to the height of the window above them, but the top row of the large windows have a different height: the same height as an RWU. Also observe that these large windows are squares, so 2 times the RWU width equals its height. I could be wrong about this seeing how if each RWU employs the Golden Rectangle (the ratio of height and width would equal 1.618:1), then each "square" would have a width of 2 RWU and a height of 1.68 RWU. But I just don't see that the height is .32 units shorter than the width: You would need three window widths to nearly equal the height if the Golden Rectangle was used (3:3.236). It makes sense architecturally/aesthetically to employ the Golden Rectangle (and the largest windows in the front may just be Golden Rectangles). But it doesn't work...the scheme of this building seem to be of 1:2 and not 1:1.68.
Style: I need my brain to cool down after that last bit. So, I'll make a note on style. Luckily, I'm familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright, and I can't help but see his Praire Style utilized in this building. Horizontal lines are emphasized over the vertical lines giving it a closer to the ground look: it basically matches the flat field in front of it. Although the materials are much more utilitarian and minimalistic than an earthier Wright building. Neo-Praire style?

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