The Datum and Section

Some animation work from Patrick Boivin. Seemed relevant for the datum idea of experiment one. It also has some interesting interactive components, sort of like a choose your own adventure. If you're interested he has also done some pretty impressive stop motion videos using action figurines, the transformers are particularly good

M.C. Escher

I mentioned M.C. Escher to a few of you last week and here is an example of his work, titled 'relativity,' it seemed relevant for the stair task.
His works are mainly woodcuts and lithographs and are worth a look for some ideas on textures and rendering techniques

Favourite Architectural Image

These are images of Omotesando Hills shopping centre in Tokyo designed by Tadao Ando, a great Japanese Architect. The shopping centre occupies a triangular site and consist of a continuous ramp that spirals around a central triangular courtyard. Two security guards are needed to make sure that nobody trips over the awkward level change that the continuous ramp creates. It's a useful lesson when we come to ramps in experiment 2 and just goes to show that even great architects can make mistakes. You, however, can't make any :)

Favourite Creative Work

This is an English Box bonzai i made about 14 years ago. It was the first one i made and is not the best of my creative work, even among the other bonzai, but it's probably the oldest thing i still own (except my lego) and is my favourite creative work. It's sitting on an outdoor bench seat, with three slats for a backrest, if you want an idea of scale.
Provided you don't kill the tree, creating a bonzai is quite a forgiving creative process, if you make a mistake you just need to wait a year or two to fix it :)

Favourite Original Image

This image was taken at the top of Mt Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Malaysia. It shows the shadow of the mountain cast out into the South China Sea at sunrise. Bit of a hobby of mine climbing/walking mountains, currently ticking off the tallest mountains in Victoria which after the top 3 or so becomes a bit easy...
If any of you have climbed Mt Kinabalu you should have a good understanding of a wide range of steps, with varying treads and risers and materials (mainly mud though). There are about 5 hours of walking up steps so plenty of time to appreciate the finer points of stair 'design'

Welcome

Hey guys
Welcome to my blog.
This is the place to find all the others in your class and drop me any specific questions you have, general questions are probably better off on the google forum. There are also links to the other tute groups blogs. I encourage you to check them out.
I'll be at Thursdays lecture if you've got anything specific to show me, i know a few of you were keen for me to help you choose a section to model in sketchup, otherwise i can help you through your blog.
Cheers
Jules