Our 2010 UNSW Built Environment Graduand Catalogues have been released for viewing. These catalogues showcase the achievements of our 2010 of our graduating students – congratulations to all those involved.
If you would like to view the various graduand catalogues, please click the links below.
Architecture (BArch)
Master of Architecture (MArch)
Half way through this semester and ready to pull my hair out but there is only another half and another five assignments to go. The second half is always easier because you have become comfortable with your subjects and you now know what is expected from you. My Digital Collaboration Studio class is the most stressful but also the most insightful. The image below is just from one of the assignments that needed to be completed, we had to remodel the UNSW campus and then place our models in a gaming engine to be able to walk through our buildings in real time.
New College Village (Postgrad Housing) UNSW
My other classes are going steady, my Textiles in Interior Architecture class is all about how textiles can be used in design and the importance of textiles in interiors. Multimedia in Design Presentation’s final assignment is group work but it is interesting to work with people that are not in my course because I am able to learn things about other courses.
Looking forward to enrolling for my graduation project next semester but before going too far ahead of myself I am looking forward to going on an Europe trip for end of semester break to calm my nerves ad prepare myself for the most important semester in my course.
So my final year is off to a hectic start, it’s week three already and the work is piling up as expected. I’m currently 3rd Year Architectural Computing so the excitement of graduating is gradually growing, I’m definitely keen to start looking for employment especially with our final grad project next semester.
The summer went very quick as I completed 3 summer courses to get ahead and free up some time this year. I also moved out of college and into a 5 bedroom place in Randwick.
Third Year really only has one core subject which is Digital Collaboration Studio, so I don’t get to see as many familiar faces as we are all doing electives. I chose a 3d object and space elective at COFA where we are using formZ to model and print in 3d. I’m also doing Multimedia in Design Presentation with Dean Utian from BE (Built Environment) and we are currently learning Director which should be interesting.
Probably the most interesting part of this year will be that I’m starting to tutor Experimental Modelling for Jeremy Harkins. It’s a bit daunting at first but I definitely feel comfortable standing up in the labs and running the tutes. It’s a weird change going from student to teacher but I could see myself tutoring in years to come, hopefully I can tutor more subjects next year.
Here is an image i created at the end of last year in Design Information Modelling, we were using Autodesk Revit to create a BIM (building information model) and upload to a model server! exciting stuff 
Hi!
My name is Nikolina and I am in my 3rd and final year of architectural computing and really glad to be finishing but also feeling a bit down having to leave the Built Environment. During my long summer break that consisted of sleeping, beach, going out with friends, designing visuals for my family, and a little bit of studying and an interesting summer course, I was eager to get back to my studies and start my final year.
This year my classes consist of mostly electives that allow me to broaden my knowledge, not just about architectural computing. I am doing very unusual courses (Property assessment to textiles to multimedia) that do not relate to one another but will be very helpful once I am in the field and give me a competitive advantage against others. I am really enjoying my first weeks of the semester and looking forward to developing my skills further and understanding what is needed once I finish. Once I finish I would like to go into visualisations and am currently looking for work experience for this year.
I hope that this year will be interesting and different and hopefully not too difficult.
Wishing everyone luck for the year.
After what seemed like a long and enduring period, graduating students of Architectural Computing 2009 had finally accomplished their goals and dreams.
We held our Graduation Project exhibition on 12th of November. Overall the night was very successful with a huge turn out of people and delicious catering which ran through the whole evening.
The evening was organised by the graduating students, displaying our final graduation projects. Each student had chosen their subject of interest within the specialised field of Architectural Visualisation. Projects were based on real world clients and real world building and architectural projects this allowed students to present their compatibility with working in the current industry.
Displays ranged from interactive real-time projects to 3D still visualisation and 3D animation.
A huge applause goes to all the students involved in preparation to the event and the hours they had put in to make the exhibition evening a success. Also many thanks to the program head Stephen Peter.
Hey all,
Second year, second semester… The end is in sight, but still a fair way to go before my grad project at the end of next year. I’m happy to say that all my classes seem to be quite good. I’m especially keen for my first ever University elective, which the Arch Comp guys are pretty happy to see, I chose Design Modelling- Time Based with Jeremy Harkins. I took a bit of a stab in the dark in terms of choosing the elective because I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d be in for. After my first tutorial, it appears that the course is mainly 3Ds Max, which I am really excited for and hopefully I can build on my skills from 1st year. Other electives chosen by Arch Comp students were Advanced BIM (building information modelling) and Advance Multimedia… (and others).
After first semester with the Arch Studies students, we have broken off and gone our separate paths. We are doing a Computation Studio, which is the equivalent to the architectural studies design studio (or so I am told ?!). We are currently looking at Shape Grammars, learning to script with Java*sigh*, and processing.
My other subjects include Structures and Construction and Design Information Management, both seem fairly beneficial and interesting. I’ve included some images from last semester that I submitted which you may not have seen yet… I was very happy with my results (though my WAM has dropped 1 point). Stay posted for more….
Stadium
New skin
Stadium interior
Second semester beginnings are always a rush. You’ve just had time to relax from 3 or 4 weeks off when you turn up to your first days of new class, only to find that the professors haven’t had a holiday and are still in full swing, giving you a dozen assessments due before you’ve even had time to work out where all your classes are.
This semester we’re looking into some of the more technical aspects of the building side with a Structures and Construction course which is basically there to stop our ideas getting too imaginative and unreal (as previous works of mine started to get). It’s still pretty interesting though, getting a Structural Engineers perspective on all the crazy schemes architects make (and that architectural computing students envision). Otherwise there’s the ever fun design courses which continue to push my ideas to go further than I’d actually thought through (which at the time just makes me feel fairly uninspired, but when I get home and start thinking about how I can solve the problems my designs get new levels to them).
This course is pretty cool, and knowing that the technology we’re using gets more advanced, innovating and interchangeable every year is nice. Last semester the Building Information Modelling course went really well until we had to try and import our models into other programs for analysis, and in order to do so the models had to be destroyed and turned into simple geometric shapes, thoroughly ruining my aesthetic. Just to my annoyance, 2 months later, the new versions were released with about twice the compatibility, meaning my hard work could have been about half the effort if I’d been doing the course this semester, and probably about one quarter if I did the course next year. Still, that’s the fun of being in the every changing technology industry, and also the reason why this course will take me far, because no one knows these programs like we do!
Well hopefully I’ll see you at the open day and you can bug me for tips on how to get into this course!
Throughout these last few weeks of Semester 1, I have been quite busy with my final assignments, preparing for exams etc…so basically just the normal…
After a solid 12 weeks of uni, I must say that I now have a greater understanding of what my degree involves, compared to the first few weeks (when I wrote up my 1st blog!) as a 1st year student. It has been quite hectic, but definitely rewarding as I have gained invaluable skills regarding Architectural design. We have been using a range of softwares and programs throughout the courses, including Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Unreal Tournament and Google Sketchup.
A major assignment I did for BENV1080 Enabling Skills & Research Practice involved designing and putting together an A1 & A2 panel (poster) with text explaining a specific theme of interest regarding the Sydney Opera House, which was also accompanied by a 3D extruded model of a section of the Opera Theatre. It was the first time I had ever made a model! I found it extremely fun, as I have always had a strong passion in craft and modeling…but at the same time, I discovered that it was terribly time consuming. The main aim of this assignment was for us to integrate our Academic, Visual and Computing Literacy skills acquired throughout the duration of the course.
When I first started the course, I was clueless with these programs as I had never had much contact with them. However, through tutorials and lab sessions, I was provided with an overview of the basic tools in each program, which had allowed me to produce these final posters. On a side note, through this course, I have achieved a greater appreciation of the Sydney Opera House.
Right now, I am looking forward to Semester 2…as I am sure that it will be as enjoyable and rewarding as what I have experienced so far at UNSW.
Russell Lowe, Lecturer in Architectural Computing
Recently I was asked “how can animation help me as an architect? Is it a worthwhile investment of my time and money? Is this the future of architecture?”
As a lecturer and researcher in architectural design and computing, my reply was, well, no. Animation was a great step forward but if you want to see the future of architecture you have to take a good look at the world of computer games.
This answer might raise more questions: How can shoot’em up games which lure tens of millions of people into online cyber battles help architects? Should architects spend time and money understanding products marketed as entertainment? And are computer games really the future of architecture?
Let’s look at the games first. Computer games have come a long way in the last few years. Games such as Valve’s “Half-Life 2″, Epic’s “UT3”, Crytek’s “Crysis” and Media Molecule’s “Little Big Planet” represent the current generation of offerings where avatars – representations of human participants – can interact and assemble objects that have real-world mechanical behaviour such as weight and inertia.
Animation, on the other hand, doesn’t require your participation – you sit and watch passively.
When you play a computer game, objects can be opened and closed, pushed and lifted, often in quite complex and sophisticated ways. We have virtual electronics, sensing and control systems at our disposal. Natural systems aren’t left out – water, fire, wind, snow and rain are all present and working as you would expect.
How will this help you as an architect? Well, if you’d like to show someone what you believe to be true, use animation. But if you want to find out whether the architecture you’re creating is going to behave in a certain way – and you haven’t made up your mind beforehand – you’ll need to experiment with it using the mechanisms above.
You might think computer games are all bloodshed and gore – gratuitous violence between Zombies and AK47 wielding maniacs. That’s true. But the “theme” of a game is in no way dictated by its underlying structures.
The best computer games can be modified so that none of the original visual content of the game remains – leaving an interactive, real-world environment.
The opportunity for architects is to utilise the underlying capabilities of the computer game for a purpose beyond the scope intended by the game developer.
The most progressive clients, architects, engineers and developers see computer games as advanced simulation tools.
So, should architects be spending time and money understanding games, that is products marketed as entertainment?
For my friend asking the questions above, I would say no. I mean, if Architect X is still wondering about getting into architectural animation there is a long way for him to go before he could be a proficient computer game modder. It’s not that he’s not smart enough: 13-year-olds teach me new things every day (true story, Coen is from the Netherlands and wants to be an architect when he “grows up”) but from experience it takes my final year masters students the best part of a year to get really good at the more complex stuff.
Architect X should instead get someone to do the modding for him (and if he is interested in learning animation, a good starting point is Google SketchUp 7).
So are computer games – and game mods in particular – the future of architecture?
Innovative firms such as LCA Architects, leading developers such as Brookfield Multiplex and the Queensland Health Board certainly think so.
Sydney-based LCA Architects used Crysis to win the Greentech ‘Eco House of the Future Competition’. Brookfield Multiplex think that a simulation created using Unreal Tournament 3 will give them the edge in bidding for an upcoming project. And the Queensland Health Board is building a massive hospital on the Gold Coast and my research (along with John Mitchell, Vinh Nguyen and Jules Cromarty) is helping them simulate and test clinical environments before the first sod has been turned.
For these companies the future is fun and definitely now. If we take a look at their present we’ll get a pretty good idea of what the future holds for the rest of the profession.
Hey everyone, my name is David Butterworth, and I’ve just started my 2nd year of the Bachelor of Architectural Computing program. After the 4 month summer break, I was keen to get back to uni and start class again. BArchComp is one of the best courses at UNSW, which makes it easy to get ready and excited! (I’m actually serious, even with a 100 UAI I’d still do the same course, and I tell this to everyone!!)
I graduated from Cowra High in 2007 (rural town near Bathurst) and was focused mainly on doing mechanical engineering. After coming along to an open day at the uni I found the UNSW Built Environment stall and checked out all the stuff the BArchComp guys had done in the past. I figured that engineering was too much maths so I decided on BArchComp. After the very first lecture I knew that this was the course for me, a mix between computers, gaming, 3D visualisations and creative designs.
The best part of BArchComp is the fact that from day one, the skills I was learning seemed highly applicable to the industry. For example, I was working freelance for clients using tools I’d learnt in class after 10 weeks! The lectures are fascinating and interesting as the lectures are always in touch with the latest technology; studying BArchComp really feels like I’m part of the cutting-edge progressions in digital architecture.
Outside of class, I can be found at College on campus which is where the sleeping, eating and socialising gets done. I just recently got a job in Maroubra at a pizza shop for a little extra cash on the side. The hours of my degree are pretty good – usually only 15-20 contact hours per week – but it’s important to keep up assignment work at home obviously.
The projects I’m currently working on (actually just finished) are:
-Arch Design Studio: balsa wood Model of Venturi’s Mother’s House
-Generative Components research paper on generative form and organic architecture
-Thai House Revit 3D Model (Building Information Modeling)
-Business Report for my COFA design subject (general elective)
