Atlas of Colour

Front Cover: This texture gives a sense of nature

Title Page: Those patterns symbolize changing colours in autumn, from the beginning of autumn, leaves begin to turn yellow, as time goes by, it is getting darker, finally, at the end of autumn, snow comes, it is getting whole white.

Contents Page: small leaves replaced traditional numbers, acting as navigation symbols. The whole book is navigated by changing colours of autumn.


Part 1: the beginning of autumn



Colour symbolism

Colour wheel

Part 2

Window interpretation, i used 7 colours of the rainbow, the manipulation aims at creating 3D effect, by making some columns higher, these columns actually seems jumping out while others seems fading behind

Book analysis

Part 3

Elevation collage: i located the building in a natural environment, aroud by grass, trees, and river, giving you the sense of peace

Face map: i created a characteristics map, in which all the words are supposed to be the characteristics that good architects should have


Loose rendering

Loose rendering

Tonal keys

The end of Book1, which is the colour that stands for the beginning of autumn. therefore the colour here is to symbolize a new start , a new cycle

Film Tunnel: the movie i watched is speed racer, i really want to emphasize the spatial sense, therefore i put the brighter colour in front and dartker at the back, and make the cut-out decreasing, to draw your attention to deeper space, all the sharp cut-out express the sense of speed as well.

Reflection: In this workshop, i really learned a lot of skills. By doing the exercises, my ability of using colours was improved, my understanding of colour theory was enhanced, i think it will help me a lot in my designing practice, because architecture can not stay alone without colour. what's more, due to the requirement for digital manipulation, i got a chance to learn more about those softwares, such as photo which i am not so good at.

Architectural Drawing---Final Drawings

3D Drawings : the four clips on the top actually formed a process about how you move from out side to interior, just like a short movie. some modernism features are shown, for example, the ramp, the exterior platform, windows.....

This is the overall view of the house, it aims at giving you a general idea about the house and the relationship between the nature environment.

2D Drawings: i used margine lines to line them up, actually projecting the drawings from each other, for the main frames of the building, i used 8B pencil to emphasize, but for the other parts, i used lighter pencils ,because they are not the important things that i want to express.

Reflection: Architectural drawing really gave me a sense of how to show your buildings to

people effectively, express your ideas effectively by drawings. Before i enrolled this workshop, i didn't realize that drawings have a lot of aspects such layout, line weight need to be considered, although some are relatively small aspects, they do have a big impact. Moreover, what im
pressed me the most is drawings are not just about draw lines...it is about telling people a story. The successful drawings all have a main idea to tell, without any word, people can know what the story is. As an architect, drawing is obviously a significant tool to express yourself, make good use of it, it will make your life easier.

Architectural Drawing---In Class Exercises

Tea cup: i rendered them with some shadows to show their 3D effects and materiality

Trace drawing

Shadow exercise and perspectives

Mock-up of the final layout

Material Modelling---final model+collage

Collage: the main idea behind it is contrast between the initial spaces and the transformed spaces

The transform strategies that i applied include: subtracting, wrapping, selective removal
substracting: i subtracted a big area from the roof to replace it with glass. it ensures the rooms can get enough sun light.
wrpping: i wrapped my bed room with several timber columns to create the semi-open space which allows me to see the environment outside.
selective removal: i remove some walls existing in the original rooms, as a result, the spaces were re-orgnized.

Reflection: By enrolling this workshop, i think my model making skill was obviously improved, however, what is more valuable to me is i learned some strategies that can transform your spaces effectively, by testing these strategies, i got an idea about using proper strategies in different situations.

Material Modelling---process of transformation

During the transformation process, i used SketchUp to model the rooms after transforming. I found it is a effective way to reflect your thoughts, ideas, you can actually perceive how the model looks like before make it. Test it to see if it fits your requirement.

Material Modelling---images of original model

From left to right: kitchen, dinning room, bedroom

These images show the illumination conditions in different rooms and the relationships of each room.