BIM-MUSIC-LIFE

Six weeks ago I was working on the Red House, home of William Morris and a response to the Industrial Revolution which was turning life inside out across Europe.

Since then I have upgraded the models of two Modernist buildings from the 1930s, attempts to embrace the new technologies and the social transformations that came with them. Links to ideologies well to the left and right.

 

Artistically they represent attempts to sweep everything away and start afresh, repeating cycles of innovation and disruption. Looking back we can see the beginnings of the art scene of today, where conceptual statements and shock value have largely replaced the search for beauty. Shock value trumps gradual evolution of traditions that stretch back hundreds of years.

To be clear, I am not pointing the finger or suggesting I know "the solution". Seems to me it's just a feature of the pace of change in society and technology, the dominance of consumerism and fashion.

I don't have the answers but I am interested in exploring the cultural history leading up to the mid twentieth century when I was born.

 

 

This is pretty raw. Trying to sing and play along to an old cakewalk backing track. It's too fast for my current skill levels, but it was fun to have a go.

Leaving Trunk was an old Taj Mahal number that really caught my imagination. I have tried very hard to "do it my way" many times with different bands, in different countries, at different stages of my life. Rarely felt that I was doing it justice.

Will I find time to do more of this kind of thing and ramp up my musical fluency again? Difficult to say. I'm trying to balance competing claims on my diminishing energy levels.

But I do plan to carry on sharing whatever I can that at least seems interesting.

 

Friday night out. My old Crocs had fallen apart so I wanted to get some new ones. Nearest dedicated shop is in Festival City. After that we found a place called Eataly with a terrace overlooking the creek and the Laser Light Show.

It's a pretty spectacular view with Al Jaddaf on the opposite bank and Burj Khalifa in the distance. We timed our arrival pretty well to get a full range of sky colours. It's been a while since I came here and I think perhaps the first time to come for an evening meal.

 

Many of my previous visits to Festival City were to kit out my apartment. Walking around the IKEA superstore. That was before I discovered online shopping. Before I even had a smartphone, in fact my visits to Festival City span almost 20 years. From the time whem Burj Khalifa was just coming out of the ground, driving around using a physical map book to calling up a ride with the Careem app.

Dubai seemed like a science fiction theme park even then. It took me a long time to adapt, moving from Africa. Now it's been my home for so long, I tend to forget how crazy the pace of change has been. A night out at Festival City helps to remind me.

 

 

WHAT DID DE LA WARR ?

In 2014 I was given a guided tour of the recently renovated De La Warr pavilion in Bexhill, a seaside town on the South-East coast of England. It's another classic of early Modernism, with a dash of Expressionism thrown in for good luck. 

Eric Mendelsohn was a German Jew who fled for England in 1933. Both he and his client were sympathetic to Soviet Russia in those heady days, and to some extent the building was intended to be a "palace for the people. The client was both Mayor of Bexhill and a member of the aristocracy.

I started building a Revit model as soon as I got back to Dubai, but it hasn't moved forward very much in the last ten years. So I decided to have another little go. The photos on these sheets were taken during that 2014 visit. And I've claimed the model up a bit.

The intention is to spend a few more days, then move on to another neglected building from my BIM pencil studies of architectural history. There is no way I can tie up all the loose ends in the time that is left to me but I do hope I can hand these models on in a usable state with some educational value.

 

De La Warr pavilion. First pass at the glazing was mostly LOD100. "there is a window here of about this size". You just need a single family, fixed glazing in a frame, no internal subdivisions.

Moving on to second pass, the sides of the auditorium have three sets of double doors with fanlights for each of the original rough openings. I have a ready-made family for the double doors with fanlight in my library. So fastest way to move forward goes like this.

Swap the fixed glazing family out for an empty opening. Place a glass wall within that space. (disallow joins) Place three double door families in that thin glass wall. Make a group. Copy around. Use new group types for raised sill conditions. Update the glass wall to a "subframe" wall type using the same material as the door framing.

The results are not 100%. That is left for another iteration. But it does the job quickly and effectively to move my study forward. Note also that the curtain walling on the rest of the building is represented by that same plain glass wall on first pass.

 

 

FASCIO FINALE

 Giuseppi Terragni was just 28 years old when he started working on Casa del Fascio in Como, Italy. He was the archetypal tragic hero, producing a remarkable body of work before being drafted into the army and sent deep into Russia. His physical and mental health were shattered and he died in Italy before he was 40.

The central space at Casa del Fascio is a re-imagining of the renaissance cortile. An internal space, but with light penetrating from all directions and galleries around the edge. The ground floor opens across its entire width at the press of a button, connecting to a public plaza.

It doesn't seem to have aged a minute. Is that important? Not sure. I'm all for buildings that have a timeless beauty but this one is firmly situated in the industrial era. All the same, it's quite remarkable.

My rendering technique in 2013 involved combining a shaded image with a quick Render using Revit's internal engine. The images aren't hi-res but they are quite effective for most purposes.

This is a building that is difficult to fully grasp by looking at images, however well thought out. For me there is nothing to compare with building a model, pondering over difficulties, composing sheets, adding annotations. That's the experience I crave.

Studying history with my BIM pencil.

 

 

Last two images of Casa Fascio. The exterior is a pure Mental Ray render. Remember the excitement when Autodesk bought that software and bundled it into Revit with a simple interface designed for people like me with low expertise in the complexities of high-end rendering.

External views render quite quickly to an acceptable level. Interiors, not so much. But they can be good enough to provide the extra materiality in one of my composite images. Meanwhile the black lines give extra definition to the glass blocks and the floor tiles. You need to set the Revit materials up properly so that the appearance image and the hatch pattern line up. Hard won trickery that is already slipping into the memory hole. 

 

 

The interior view is looking towards the back of the building. The internal elevations of the atrium are almost as varied as the external facade. Meeting spaces on the left, cellular offices elsewhere. Complete transparency to the outside world, front and back.

The sides of the building face onto relatively narrow alleys. Hopefully this render conveys that fact. Different fenestration for the stair, the vertical stack of washrooms, and the cellular offices.

How many modern buildings draw on the geometry games that Terragni pulled here? More than a few. I'm not sure how to assess Terragni the man. Was he a naive young idealist carried away with his belief in abstract ideas? Was he an opportunist, willing to trample over the rights of lesser mortals. I really don't know. But I do think that the self reflection that goes along with researching and building a model like this, helps me to put my own failings in perspective.

I need to tidy this model up a bit and add it to thewaywebuild.io   So much unfinished business.

 

 

KING BEE IFTAR ... +

 

GAJ iftar at One Za'abeel, The Link. Great crowd of people, classic Dubai "wow factor" design. World class food, of course. It's nice to do this kind of stuff, once in a while. hashtag#how-the-other-half-live.

The views are beyond spectacular. The interior design is what you would expect. Maybe I've seen too much of that kind of stuff, but it doesn't do anything special for me. Creative and competent, but not as impressive as the architecture. Just a personal view.

To be honest I think "groundbreaking modern" is a bit of a dead end, but like I said it's fun for a special night out. I've enjoyed my time in Dubai. It has its contradictions, but I honestly think it's made a huge contribution to the Middle East and to the world beyond. I'm glad to be living in an unspectacular suburb with low to middle-income residents from all over the world, looking to support their families back home.

Still it's good to experience the extremes. I'm reluctant to leave this place completely. Let's see what the next couple of years has in store for me.

 

I'm trying to share more of my musical history to the cloud. My life has not been earth shattering. No fame and fortune. But looking back now, it's been much more of an adventure than you might have predicted say 50 years ago.

And there's a balance of creative endeavours, from my early obsession with painting and drawing, through successive bands in Sheffield, Harare and Dubai... to the BIM pencil / WayWeBuild work of the past 20 years or so.

It's been a great pleasure to rediscover these old cassette recordings, to convert them to mp3, and to explore ways to add visuals. This one uses an online tool called FlexClip and the open source video editor Lightworks. Pretty basic but everything worthwhile begins with baby steps.

 

More slides from RTC 2023 in Auckland. Casa del Fascio by Giuseppe Terragni modeled by me in Revit to illustrate my idea of "The Way We Build" - studying history with BIM. History/Culture /Technology it's all of a piece in my mind's eye. The journey of humanity in the long age of settlement, shelter, specialist skills. .

It's a fascinating building from a turbulent time in the history of Italy. It reworks the Palazzo form of the renaissance but in a totally modern way. Lots of subtle geometric games here. For starters all four Elevations are totally different... while still fitting together quite seamlessly.

 

Each window opening is in fact a complex, multi-layered affair. A combination of slender masonry slabs and posts, operable steel windows and external blinds. Security, shading, ventilation, light. We tend to have a narrow conception of what a window should be, based on standard practice in the place we live for the last couple of decades. But the possibility space is huge and Terragni has come up with fascinating examples here.

They are quite difficult to make as Revit families. Do you cut out a rectangular opening and then put back bits of wall as extrusions within the family. You will end up with lines where you don't really want them. I opted to delete the cut opening and use voids. Also tricky, and the wrapping of finishes will never be quite perfect.

I don't really do these conference talks any more. It's a huge amount of work. My age and my health issues force me to focus my attention very carefully. But for ten or fifteen years they motivated me to really push the envelope on my vision of "the BIM pencil" and "the Way We Build"

 

JADDAF-FASCIO

 Al Jaddaf is /was a historic area along Dubai Creek. When I first moved here it was a large expanse of sand where traditional Arab Dhows were built. Just how authentic the construction methods were, I wouldn't like to say. But it was a fascinating relic of old Dubai, before the incredibly rapid modernisation process began.

Jaddaf Waterfront was the choice for my Friday night out this week. It's still under development, but shaping up well and within striking distance of International City. I don't know what the Masterplanning guidelines are, but the styles range from contemporary takes on Arabic and Classical, to "irregular rhythms" modern. Breaking up the grid and varying the spacing of elements from floor to floor.

I don't know if there is a other name for this strategy, but it seems to be "of the moment" and works quite well in this kind of development. The colour palette ranges from off-white to strong ochres, contrasting well with the blue-grey reflective surfaces of glass and water.

You could suggest that this style has had its day as the backlash to globalism sets in. Maybe so, but the paradox of Dubai is that globalism is part of its local brand. It is an international city with laws in place to ensure that Emirati identity and control are never threatened.

These are policies that don't translate directly to Europe or North America, but surely have something to offer. Certainly I question the attitude of many who sneer at the Gulf States as some kind of affront to the "human rights" mantra of the EU.

Something about glass houses and stones perhaps. More importantly, for me, Dubai is a beacon of hope in a deeply troubled region.

 

The conference theme was Embracing Change. Time to stop grumbling and show what we can really do with BIM. Of course I took this to mean CLextending its reach beyond the narrow confines of commercial work. I unveiled my vision of "the way we build"... Studies of the history, technology and cultural meaning of selected buildings.

I chose three Office buildings from the twentieth century. Compare and contrast, like a modern day Bannister Fletcher, but with the passion of a Vincent Scully, a Lewis Mumford, or perhaps a Reyner Banham.

The three slides shown here were created with Revit. Off-label, experimental use to create diagrams, such as we might include in a concept design report. BIM from cradle to grave, not just a tool for production drawings.

As I remember, the continents are floor slabs and the passage of time is captured with phases. Pushing the boundaries.

 

2013 seems a long time ago. I still had a gigging band, but it was coming to an end. I was starting to explore YouTube as an alternative outlet, but making the mistake of investing far too much time adding visuals to the recording.

I say too much because I couldn't keep it up. On the other hand I'm glad I did these few carefully produced songs. My musicianship was at a peak, as you would expect from the regular band practices and gigs. My guitars and amplifiers still worked. Whatever video editing software I was using gave me what I needed to tell a story in a much more sophisticated way than recent efforts.

I was also on the edge of obesity related diabetes as you can see. That's such a common problem these days. One of the down sides of an affluent society. I was lucky to find a path out of that trap, but my food addiction is still a huge issue. Just about keeping it under control.

I haven't played "walking the dog" for some years now, but it's one of those numbers that kept reinventing itself as my musical journey took new directions. I have performed it in Sheffield, Harare and Dubai, the three cities that defined my adult life. I saw Dr Feelgood tear through it in a gig at Sheffield City Hall. A splendid edifice in the Greek Revival Style.

Distant memories but powerful still.

 

What young man could resist the idea of contributing to the rise of the "third Rome" What young man of extraordinary creative talents would turn down the commission to design a new Party Headquarters in his home town in the foothills of the alps? What young idealist could fail to believe in a party that claimed a respect for tradition alongside a commitment to a modernised Italy, with control over the Mediterranean Sea?

It's difficult to see beyond our revulsion for the term "fascist" even though the Fascio is a symbol of ancient Rome, a bundle of reeds, "unity is strength". The same idea expressed with different words can have almost the opposite emotional impact.

 

I built simple block models with black and white cubes, to understand the basic space planning as it developed from a simple renaissance courtyard form into highly nuanced modernist expression. Another abstract analytic model focused on the usable floor plates and placement of vertically connected functions within this scheme.

Sadly this kind of schematic work is rarely done in Revit. But that was my dream and part of the meaning I ascribe to the term “BIM pencil”.

 

LATE HARARE, EARLY DUBAI

 

2005 was an interesting year for me. I started to settle down for an extended stay in Dubai. I had no idea that I would stay for another two decades, but I was adapting, finding my feet, building a life.

These two images are from late in the year. One shows me waiting in line to renew my Zimbabwe passport. It took me best part of two weeks with multiple sessions of queuing for several hours to get that new passport which was vital to continuing my work in Dubai.

I was very proud to be a citizen of Zimbabwe by registration, meaning that I chose that path. Ultimately it had involved renouncing my British Citizenship so there was no real alternative to the queues. Despite the pain and bureaucracy involved in keeping a Zimbabwe passport, I was very reluctant to give it up. Being Zimbabwean by choice was such a big part of my life.

The other image is from the second office Xmas party where our band, GAJ rocks performed. Running that band really helped to integrate me into the practice and it was a great source of stress relief while putting in 50 or 60 hours a week to keep up with my responsibilities.

2005 was also the year that I started to use Revit. What a journey!

 

When we first acquired Revit licences, I was in the middle of a project using Autocad. The site was around the edges of Emirates Golf Club. Several parcels of land that were underused. The aim was to build residential units and generate income.

The top image is a hand drawn perspective of the CAD scheme. We had a couple of guys in the office who specialised in creating these images. Some use of photoshop of course to "colour in" the initial line drawing.

That scheme went out to tender, but the client was unhappy with the prices when they came in. The office manager came up with a strategy for rescuing the project while giving me a chance to get my teeth into Revit.

We reused a villa design from another site. I learnt about linking multiple instances of a project into an overall site file, and very quickly we had basic construction drawings plus rendered perspective views. I had picked up a tip online that involved generating a black and white image plus a render at the same resolution and combining these in Photoshop.

So that's the lower image. Not quite as seductive as the hand drawn sketch, but twenty minutes versus a couple of days. Now we have real-time renders like Enscape of course.

 

I have been converting old cassette tapes to mp3. Turns out to be pretty easy, although the quality is variable. That's mostly down to the condition of the tapes to be honest and the random balance you get by placing a cassette recorder in the middle of a rehearsal room.

I rescued the original tapes from my house in Zimbabwe earlier this year when we cleared it out for sale. Bought the Walkman style player last week on Amazon and set to work.

 

There are tapes from my Sheffield bands in the 70s and from a blues band in Zimbabwe around 2000. Also some solo recordings from the years between, including multi-track work in the 90s.The styles vary I always drift back to the blues, but the Sheffield band used a lot of 60s material, gravitating towards punk and new wave which were in the air.

In Zimbabwe I was inevitably drawn towards African styles. Wonderful dance music. Repeating 4 bar patterns. I hope to gradually add visuals and upload some of this to YouTube. A bit of personal history.

 

Going back to 2000 (Y2K) and I was effectively a single dad with a day job as an architect. For severaI years I had been playing music with a bunch of loosely connected musicians. Three of us coalesced for a while and played regular gigs at bars and cafes. That lineup had very divergent musical tastes which was a lot of fun, but it came to an end.

Out of the blue, one of the musicians in that wider circle phoned me up and proposed forming a blues band. It was a challenge. I had never fronted a band vocally. And never been in a specifically 'blues' band. I was used to taking lead vocals on a couple of songs, lead guitar on most and some backing vocals.

Neville had developed a couple of dozen rhythm guitar parts and practised these up with a bass player and drummer. We had a first session at his house where he played these to me and I allowed a song to well up from my subconscious based on three decades of improvising around blues standards.

It worked. We refined those raw beginnings with more deliberate structure and variation. But those first intuitive takes held true.

Highway 51 is a song I picked up from Bob Dylan. I played it on a beach in Turkey in 1971 then off and on over the years but never on stage with a band. This version is very different but shares a fast driving rhythm, somewhat synchopated.

We called ourselves King Bee.