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Architectural Design: Jeff Livingston

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Gunawan Mansjur
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91 views

Architectural Design: Jeff Livingston

gfeuigreguyeyf

Uploaded by

Gunawan Mansjur
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Architectural design

Jeff Livingston

About the author

About the author

Jeff Livingston was born in Lompoc, California


in 1976. An avid swimmer and aspiring
architect, Jeff joined the University of Texas
men’s swimming team to pursue his Olympic
dreams in competitive swimming and later
pursued his master’s degree in architecture at
the Georgia Institute of Technology. He
currently lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife
Ariadne and their three children. Jeff is a
registered architect with over 10 years of
experience. Over the last four years, Jeff has
called GRC Architects in Ottawa his home, and
has been engaged in a wide range of
recreational, institutional, university, and office
projects. With the design of recreation centers
and natatoriums, Jeff has been able to
combine his love of competitive swimming and
sports with his passion for designing buildings
and spaces.

Architectural design | 1
Architectural design
I have used CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT for over 10 years in the design and production of
architectural representation because of their speed and flexibility compared to other graphics
programs. The following design was created for a proposed natatorium in Northern Ontario. The
design concept was to create a swimming and leisure pool in which the skin of the exterior echoed
the interior of the building.

After various schemes, I began to look at the structure and appearance of the water bubble as an
inspiration. I used a 3D modeling program to develop renderings with generic materials. With the
use of CorelDRAW, I was then able to explore various materials and color palettes quickly, as well
as add plants, environments, and general entourage within CorelDRAW to make the rendering
come to life.

In this project I am focusing on developing two perspectives, one for the exterior entry (Figure 1)
and one from the interior pool deck (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Exterior view

2 | CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7


Figure 2: Interior view

Setting up the sheets


First, in CorelDRAW, I created the title block that would appear at the bottom of the design by
importing the GRC Architects JPEG logo, adding text using the Text tool (Figure 3), adding some
line work, and then sizing the layout space based on the output size of the final images.

Figure 3: Creating the title block

Adjusting the original images


The original rendered JPEG images were brought in to begin the post-production process. The
exterior shot was taken at dusk, and it appeared a little too dark. I adjusted the JPEG images by
changing the brightness, contrast, and intensity (Effects  Adjust  Brightness/Contrast/

Architectural design | 3
Intensity). I also used the tone curve (Effects  Adjust  Tone curve) for further adjustment (Figure
4 and Figure 5).

Figure 4: Using the tone curve

Figure 5: Adjusting the brightness

Correcting modeling mistakes


There were some details in the rendered images that I wanted to change, which could be done
quickly in Corel PHOTO-PAINT instead of spending time re-rendering. For example, I wanted to
remove the figure of the man in the image. One very useful tool for fixing modeling errors in
renderings is the Clone tool, which lets you edit the bitmap directly in Corel PHOTO-PAINT (Figure
6). After various adjustments, including painting areas with multiply transparency, I brought the
image back into CorelDRAW.

4 | CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7


Figure 6: Correcting modeling mistakes with the Clone tool

Importing additional line work


In CorelDRAW, it is useful to create separate images for the line work in order to adjust the lines
more freely. Line work is an important element in architectural design. Due to its ability to read
vector-based images, CorelDRAW allows me to use wire-frame modeling and create crisp, clean
lines, which are usually blurred or lost in bitmap-based programs.

Line work is usually saved as a PDF or other vector-based image and then imported into CorelDRAW.
In this case, I imported a PDF into CorelDRAW and adjusted the color and line weight. CorelDRAW
is also able to break apart PDF, EPS, or similar vector files so that individual lines can be adjusted or
even deleted as needed. I deleted any unnecessary interior building line work and adjusted the line
weights, the line color, and the transparency, all within the Object properties docker (Figures 7-9).

Architectural design | 5
Figure 7: Importing line work as PDF

Figure 8: Making adjustments to the lines

6 | CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7


Figure 9: Making adjustments to the line work on the building

Adding material patterns and perspective


Material patterns such as grass, tile, and other textures can be created to add further detail. In
rendered perspectives such as the one in this example, I can use the perspective effect in
CorelDRAW (Bitmaps  3D effects  Perspective) for larger perspectives or the Free transform tool
for more detailed perspectives. For the pool floor tile, I used the Rectangle tool to create a
rectangle, and I set the fill to a bitmap pattern fill. I selected a tile image from my office library and
adjusted the scale as needed. This image was then brought into Corel PHOTO-PAINT in order to
adjust the tile to fit the perspective. Finally, I brought the image back into CorelDRAW to be clipped
and trimmed as necessary (Figures 10-13).

Figure 10: Creating a pattern fill

Architectural design | 7
Figure 11: Moving the rectangle

Figure 12: Adjusting the perspective

8 | CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7


Figure 13: The finished tile

Adjusting the colors


The colors of objects can be adjusted by placing new objects over the rendering and applying
transparency with the Multiply merge mode. These objects can be converted to curves and then
nodes can be added and adjusted with the Shape tool to suit the underlying objects. In this case,
I created a rectangle (Figure 14) and converted it to curves by right-clicking it and choosing Convert
to curves from the pop-up menu. Then I was able to reshape the rectangle (Figure 15), adjust the
nodes with the Shape tool to match the underlying object, and adjust the transparency (Figure 16).

Figure 14: Creating a rectangle

Architectural design | 9
Figure 15: Reshaping the rectangle

Figure 16: Adjusting the shape and transparency of the object

Different color schemes can be created quickly by simply changing the fill color of the various
objects. In this case, I applied a red color by clicking the red swatch on the default color palette.
Then, I right-clicked the “no fill” button on the color palette to remove the outline around the
object. This ability to control the line work color independently of the fill color is a great advantage.

10 | CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7


Adding entourage
The final touches of the rendering are then added by importing images of trees, plants, people,
and other elements. There are two tools in this process which I could not live without: the bitmap
color mask and the Drop shadow tool. After importing the image of the woman and child (Figure
17), I used the bitmap color mask (Bitmaps  Bitmap color mask) to quickly delete the white
background (Figure 18) and placed the entourage within the image.

Figure 17: Importing images for the entourage

Figure 18: The white background is removed

Then, by simply using the Drop shadow tool and adjusting the shadows to match the perspective,
I made the people appear to blend into the landscape (Figure 19 and Figure 20).

Architectural design | 11
Figure 19: Adding a drop shadow

Figure 20: The drop shadow helps the figures blend into the environment.

In order to create further depth, I also selected images in the background and added a Gaussian
blur (Bitmaps  Blur  Gaussian blur) (Figure 21).

12 | CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7


Figure 21: Applying a blur effect to objects in the background

After the final touches are added to the perspective, it is now time to produce the images which
will be sent to the printer and finally presented to the client. Due to the availability of paper
selection and the quality of printers, I often have these images produced at a professional printing
office. I have found over the years that publishing the images to PDF provides the best results. As
mentioned earlier, the vector line work and line weights created in CorelDRAW are retained best
within PDF images, since bitmap images blur lines when they are produced. In this example, the
page dimensions were set to 11 x 17 inches for the presentation boards. The design was now ready
to be presented.

Copyright © 2014 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved. All trademarks or registered trademarks
are the property of their respective owners.

Some of the images of people were provided by skalgubbar.se.

Architectural design | 13

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