MODERN CHURCHES

 

These drawings are more than a hundred years old. One of Sir John Soane's lesser known works. He designed three churches in London, half as many as Hawksmoor. This one is in Bethnal Green. I've been to see it a couple of times, got down inside the crypt, but never into the nave interior.

The tower is a bit stunted, value engineering perhaps. The windows were replaced at some point, with an odd design, in my view. Not very Soane-like. I haven't tackled this one, but I did get quite a long way with St Peter's, Walworth. That's my favourite of the three.

The drawings can be found online in the Soane Museum archive. They hadn't been digitised when I built my model, but I was prompted by an email request by the curator of drawings (in relation to Project Soane) to look again. You can download medium resolution images of each drawing for free. It's time consuming and the dimensions are illegible. Ask very nicely, or cough up some money to get the hi-res versions.

It's a wonderful resource. Visit the museum for free, with some queueing. Well worth it. Soane's old house and studio.

 

It's very much a first pass, but I decided it was time to venture into sheet layouts. Still working on the Revit model of my local church, but approaching the time when I can set this aside for awhile. A couple of sheets like this, with the model developed a bit further, and I can take a break.

Sheets are sometimes said to be obsolete in the age of BIM. I have never subscribed to that view. A well thought-out sheet set, sensibly annotated, adds value that an interactive 3d model, on its own does not have. The two are complimentary. My opinion.

 

 

Bus trip, unplanned. I went to the hospital to collect my cancer meds. It's taken 3 months to sort that so I celebrated with an extended bus ride, picking up two churches.

St Paul's Tadley is a modern church. Lucky break : Monday coffee morning. The rector was very friendly. There was an original dyeline floor plan up on the wall. I got lots of photos.

I have to say, I don't always like modern churches. There are some good ones of course, but lots of cringe ones too. This one is definitely on the better side.

 

 

 I have to say, I don't always like modern churches. There are some good ones of course, but lots of cringe ones too. This one is definitely on the better side.

 

SAINTLY VIEWS

 

More progress on the Revit model of my local church. All Saints Basingstoke, a late example of Gothic Revival. Built to serve the southwards expansion of the town in the early twentieth century. There is a red-brick school close by for similar reasons.

Barely a century has passed but the society this church was born into is hard to imagine. First the decline of church going then the influx of other religions. I wish I could say this is all positive. I lived in a country of migrants (Dubai) and it was OK as long as you accepted that you were only a guest and that there were no safety nets and no tolerance for dissent.

This church was built when Britain was heading into the first world war. Still an empire, a cohesive society, not always fair, but what society is? I love the sense of history in living among these buildings, love the craft skills on display, the architectural flair. I just hope these churches will still be in use when my grandchildren are my age.

 

 

Turning my attention to the interior of my local church. It's actually quite interesting, both from a Revit family and an architectural design perspective. Two families developed so far.

A Wall hosted GM archway/recess. This cuts away the wall at the lower level to create freestanding columns on the diagonal. Also an arch with mouldings that disappear into the splayed sides of the column. I found that one quite tricky at first.

Above that, within the same family, a recess cut into the upper wall, with splays to match the column. Now I realise for the first time, the reason for the shape of the clerestory windows.

The second family is a wooden truss with vertical stone ribs acting as support brackets. Actually there is a little more to it than those two families, and more to come, but that's the main story.

 

 

Further work on my local church. Various adjustments including more windows. The families need to be customised to suit each case, but let's get something in there first. Added more gutters and horizontal sweeps.

After that I chose one of my perspective views and worked on the view settings. Lineweights including an "outline" setting. Line extensions and some view specific linework using invisible lines to clean up stubborn wall join conditions.

 

I'm quite happy with the progress here, so I decided to try the AI feature built into my Samsung phone. Quite a pleasant watercolour effect with no effort at all.

 

I thought it would be interesting to try combining the two images. I don't have Photoshop on my new laptop, so I decided to use Gimp. Struggled for a few minutes with the interface being messed up, but soon got back on track. Sadly the alignment of the two images is not good.

A special case of AI just making stuff up I think. Maybe if I knew what I was doing this could be sorted with a suitable prompt. But I don't think that's possible with the simple AI features built into Samsung gallery.

Worth a try.

DIFFERENT STROKES (IMAGE MAKING)

 The marvels of mobile computery.

I didn't use text prompts, still seems a backwards way of approaching visual thinking to me. But I did use the AI features built in to Samsung Gallery, which at last gives me another way to create collages, now that PIXLR wants to limit my free quota to 3 per day.

I use collages habitually now to condense the images I create, ideally down to 4 per day, which is one row at my normal zoom setting. I have a text diary app which I use most days to summarise my activity, but the image gallery is vital to flesh this out in visual terms.

Dubai is not experiencing a heat wave. The temperatures are moderate for this time of year. But it's still a few degrees higher than UK. Of course I don't have AC here. Should I get a fan? Would the few days of heat relief justify the storage space in my small glat. (isn't it revealing that LLM jiggery poker still can't auto-correct an obviously first letter typo like that... Even when the correct letter is right next door on a standard keyboard)

Something about the arrow of time perhaps. 👀⌚ 🏹 🔙

 

Nesting my infill family into a Wall-hosted Window template. It's all fixed size for the moment.

Bring in the nested item and lock it in place. Delete the cut opening that is supplied by default. Replace this with two voids: an extrusion with stepped corners, and a blend with pointed head. I need to find a better hatch pattern for flint cobbles (plus render image) but it's getting there.

How to achieve the lime finish across all interior surfaces is a bit trickier. Maybe I won't worry too much about that for the moment, just paint the reveals, head, sill and give the wall an internal plaster layer.

 

Whenever I go to catch a bus, or to cross the road into the park, I glance down the road and see this picturesque group of cottages huddled up together quite close to the road edge. I get the feeling that they once stood on their own, a small hamlet, just a short distance from town, on the edge of the Goldings estate.

I decided to venture a bit further into the AI features that Samsung have given me, then used some of my old PIXLR tricks to tone down the saturation, and give some gradation from left to right, also a bit more black outlines feeling.

Why bother? Well partly because the photograph was all in shadow. Also the hand-drawn look conveys the mental impression I have rather better. It's a bit like the Gordon Cullen townscape books of yesteryear. Less is more. A stylised sketch communicates on a human level the emotions we feel about a familiar picturesque view.

I still have reservations about doing this with AI, but I'm not a puritan. I've been using graphics software for 40 years now, so it's really a question of clarity. Do you know why you are doing it? Are you getting some value? Do you still control the process and use your visual experience to shape the outcome?

This was not just "a button push." Probably a dozen clicks and two or three slider adjustments. Ten minutes work including reflection time. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, but I'm happy with it and it took much less time than the process I would have use a year ago

 

 

8.45 Sitting in the park, quite cool with a moderate breeze. Hence the later start for my morning walk. I passed by the butterfly garden again. Took a photo, slightly more zoomed in than last time. Processed this to create two versions. One is just a crop, the other an AI assisted re-imagining.

Close by, I took a shine to the tree roots cracking up the tarmac. One day this will be a candidate for repairs. Right now I see it as a picturesque reminder of the passing years.

Back home, over a cup of coffee and my daily meds, I fired up Revit. First off, put a bit more work into my collection of Gothic families. This file is in the cloud and should be my starting point for every new variant.

The next variants I need are for All Saints, Basingstoke, my local church. First off is the East End. The size and proportions are about right, but the tracery pattern at the top needs work.