LOCAL STUDIES

 

I was working on a new sheet today. Quite enjoyable. I like to add some non-revit images to my sheets, just to give a flavour to the experience of the building which is hard to capture in a BIM model.

Often I use photos (my own if possible) but this time I opted to go a step further and do some restyling of my camera snaps with Samsung AI. Watercolour seems to be the best style for adding clarity.

 

I took a first crack at the recesses in the outer wall of the aisles. It's a fascinating detail, quite inventive. Makes me a bit sad to think that modernism took the fore (after WW2 in Britain) and stifled creative work of this kind in the Gothic idiom.

All in the name of honesty 👀

 

 

One of these days I will do a comparative study of typical nave bays for various churches that I have studied, as a homage to Bannister Fletcher, whose work has inspired me since I was a teenager. This image was taken as I was adding the recesses and starting to judge the adjustments to proportions that needed to be made once I reflected on the result of that addition.  I love the process of unfolding that happens as I work on these models

 

  

Samsung gallery AI feature is helping me to look more carefully at my surroundings, specifically nature as found in War Memorial Park, formerly Goldings Park, a semi-urban country estate. It's where I get most of my daily exercise.

These images aren't intended as an end in themselves. They are steps in the process of looking ever more closely at the world around me. Drawing and painting do the same thing, as does a model: cardboard, plaster or BIM.

There are two pairs of images here. The photographs transform reality in one way, the watercolour reconstructions abstract and clarify, help me to focus on essentials. At some point I will start to paint again. That's a process where you are very intensely absorbed for a period of hours, perhaps days, and constantly making decisions.

The result should be a personal expression of what you understand about a specific place and time, informed by an overall world-view formed over decades. You can talk about it perhaps, but you can't put it into words.

 

SHERBORNE BY BUS

 

Sherborne St John village. The church is dedicated to St Andrew. It's a medieval foundation with some alterations and additions in the 19th century. Flint cobbles with limestone dressings like so many churches around here. Also some brick appendages. In fact it's quite delightfully irregular in external finishes and window placement.

 

 

I don't mind finding some village churches that have been completely tidied up in Victorian times. But it's also good to have others like this one that lack the unifying vision of an artist-historian. They all have different stories to tell.

The Windows have the usual deep-splayed internal reveals. Where the external treatment is arched. Flat external head leads to segmental arch inside.

 

 

More details from my recent bus trip to Sherborne St John. I'm guessing the mosaic tiles cradling the holy water receptacle (does it have a name?) I'm guessing they are a modern touch.

I love the way the structural timber work varies so much from church to church, expressing the creativity of the artisans involved. No structural calculations, just the accumulated wisdom of generations.

 

While we're here I have a thing for perspectives that pull the eye in two directions. For example the end-on view of the line of columns between nave and aisle. Also the shot of the pews, where the tension is top v bottom.

Which brings us to the monument peeking over a bouquet of flowers. Imagine a world where people express their privilege by paying for tickets to the afterlife in the form of artistic embellishments to the spiritual meeting place that they share with commoners.

A far cry from the 'luxury beliefs' of today's pop stars and footballers.

 

 

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.