revit rendering study

one of the main advantages of revit over autocad is instant visualization.  basically you can work with the visuals at the same time you're doing the planning.  this one was a preliminary "look" study of a boutique hotel, rendered natively in revit.  i read somewhere that there's a (3rd party?) rendering function that uses cloud-accessed files, but i don't think that's a particularly good idea for now, because basically it means you'd be limited by your internet connection.  it's bad enough that so many things can go wrong with windows while doing a complex rendering, and the occasional power failure, with cloud computing you'll also have to worry about internet connection.  soon maybe, but not tomorrow, and definitely not today.

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the gayest usb hub of all

© Joselito Briones

i bought this one last weekend, made by LaCIE, because i can imagine the effort that the designer must have gone through. ha!. it also comes with a usb lamp and propeller at the end of those stiff cables. seems to work, if a bit difficult to set up. i can return it within two weeks if it turns out it doesn't do its job, so i thought I'd show you now, just in case. ah who am i kidding, i'll prolly keep it.


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To the devil, you say!

"Spring in Upper East Side, Manhattan"
© Joselito Briones

You notice that new logo on the upper right corner of this page? That's what's new. I've taken so many photos and I've decided to offer some of them for sale for commercial purposes. I'm trying out iStockphoto. It's a slow process, it takes their staff about a week to review a photograph and approve it for inclusion in the portfolio. It's a good thing, probably, at least they're screening carefully.

Now about your photos. Don't worry, I'm not including personal photos. Although am not really sure what non-personal photos are, I'm sure I know which ones are personal. Pictures of friends are definitely personal, I'm not including them even though I have a signed model release that says I can. Well, unless you're an attention ho' like me and you write to me saying you don't mind if your photo is plastered everywhere. Once I put it out there though, there's very little I can do as to control how people use it. Your photo may end up in an advertisement showing the wonders of life, or it may be used to endorse laxatives. Hey!

Anyway, if you just want to have a print of your photo, I'll look for website I can upload high-resolution versions of "friendly" photos, so you can order directly from them.


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US$45 M

© National Properties Holdings Ltd.

This news clip featured a project I worked on for a couple of years, mostly design, when I still worked in Hong Kong for Mr. Joseph Fung's Studio Pantheon II.

The newsclip, from Hong Kong's "The Standard", describes the property, located in 37 Deep Water Bay road, as "Hong Kong's Chateau de Versailles" and reports that it changed hands a year ago for "the astronomical sum of HK$350 millions" (about US$45 millions). Imagine that.


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At what cost?

© Joselito Briones

This month's issue of VF confused me. I immediately flipped through the pages upon receiving my mailed-in subscription copy, and what did I find? The hotel project that I was working on in New York before I moved to London. I stopped working on it when the owners started failing to pay me - unfunded checks, and after so much trouble trying to collect, a discounted final bill, the works.

And now, one of my favorite magazines has a full page spread calling this hotel "sexy", and a couple more pages of photo spreads and write ups about it. W-Wh-What? At first I thought, how could I NOT have gone through a project that VF would eventually call "sexy"? And then of course, upon reflecting back, I remembered that the idea of the project was sexy to begin with - it was interesting - and that was why I was so enthusiastic to work on it in the beginning. A hotel in an interesting neighborhood of New York, starting to get all the buzz, close to the birthplace of punk BCBG, just north of Soho, and south of East Village, to be opened by the same people who own a happening hotel/club in the meat-packing district.

The work I did (basic floor planning and room layouts), of course, by now would've been totally altered, as is common with any architectural projects. Still I wonder if any of it - hedonism being my guiding idea when working on it - remained. It's burning through my head. Do I want to kick myself? You betcha. Would I have done differently knowing what I know now? Absolutely not.

For one thing, I ask myself, "How did they get away with it?" They were extremely tight with funds (or so they claimed) that they cut at all the not-so-visible proverbial corners. The project was basically a retrofit of a newly built students' dormitory, and the carcass was done - exterior finish and all. The image above, taken with my old cell phone showing the dormitory before it was converted to its current condition, is the only image I have of the project now (I thought it tacky to show you a scan of the bounced check instead). Given, it was the ugliest building in the neighborhood when they started, and they wanted to make it fit to the neighborhood character by making it look like an old brick-faced factory. But the way they had it done! They kept the fake finish, and on top of it, stick flimsy fake bricks. New Yorkers are fond of old utilitarian brick buildings gentrified into a new functional, hip, even sophisticated, use. But if a new ugly building was covered with fake bricks, promote it as authentic, and have VF call it sexy... What's going on?

Let's assume for a while that the VF writer who wrote it completely missed the fake bricks. The interiors after all, at least from the photos in the magazine, really look great. Maybe that's what they meant when they say sexy. Maybe, since I was involved with the project, they have changed the fake plastic mullions of the huge windows into real metal ones. Surely VF wouldn't have praised it if they had stood by the window of a typical bedroom and find that the mullions supposedly holding the glazing together is just a stick-on piece of plastic and can be pulled and flicked on the glass like rubber band?

Or maybe it's just true, what another article in the same issue of the magazine discussed - about media manipulation. The owners of the hotel, who were also owners of the hippest SOHO clubs since the 80's, after all, are extremely media and PR savvy.


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Announcement

© westerndesign

Dominic, a friend and colleague from Hong Kong who has since moved back to Paris and cofounded "western design " with his friend, especializing in retail shops (including Nickel in Chelsea, Manhattan, among other equally fabby ones in Paris), has announced recently the creation of "Building", its "filiale de Maîtrise d’œuvre". I won't even try to understand what that is. Sounds exciting though, doesn't it? I guess it's because it's in French with all those weird letter combinations and accent grave, and I don't understand it. I'll ask him to explain later.

Here's a portrait of him, from when we still worked together in Hong Kong.

© Joselito Briones

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The Spider's Parlor

© Jane Guevarra

Remember I told you that Jane, my good friend in New York, said she's finally done with her living room? Well, she's sent a photo of it, so I thought I'd show it to you. She's naturally very proud of it, she took more than the usual effort in making it look good... The sofa and the table are new, so's the carpet... the eames chair on the left was from me, and the curtain and the fortune plant are also new (or at least new since I was last there, March this year)


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Herbst

© Joselito Briones

I went to Frankenlabor again today (I'm becoming some kind of a daily fixture there) to bring the film rolls from Prague. I like this lab, I think they've got really good and professional service, and Andreas, the guy I always deal with there, is very friendly. I only had a couple of rolls for processing, it was way too dark and gray in Prague the whole day that we were there, I only took pictures mostly of Fred and Ginger.

As if the color shift on the leaves everywhere isn't enough to show everyone that autumn is here, the clouds thought they'd reinforce the season by going crazy (pictured, left). It's nice and cool again, but I'm apprehensive about the coming cold season. This will be my first winter in Bavaria, I'm just hoping it's not gonna get any worse than New York. Eric told me that there's a mild winter forecast in your side of the pond this year.

© Joselito Briones
Btw, about the lamps that we installed (pictured, left), It was a nice surprise to see that even during daytime, when the lights are off and there's brightness coming from outside, the lamps still look nice and very light and not chunky at all. Am very pleased with the result.


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Let there be light

© Joselito Briones

It looks like we're gonna go ahead with our small lighting-above-dining-table project after all... I stayed late last night trying to configure in AutoCAD a random-look in hanging the paper lamps without them bumping into each other (we have 27 of them in different sizes).

Of course I could've just waited until the frame is ready and adjust and cut the cables while they're installed, but that would leave too many unknowns. Like, what total length of electric cable is needed, would they constantly need readjusting so they won't bump into each other (the 3d simulation is not realistic image-wise, but accurate geometry-wise), etc.

Photo above, random weeds I pass by while walking around, belongs to the "Everywhere Objects" series.


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He just had to be in the picture (A major disappointment)

© Joselito Briones

So I was taking this small gate of one of my neighbors, and this kid just sped through, which is just as well, the version without him had absolutely nothing going for it.

You'll just have to get used to these pics. I haven't been doing anything else lately but take pictures and scanning them, so if I don't write to you about them, I've got nothing else to write about.


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Oh yeah, major disappointment yesterday. I did this competition piece for a furniture design. I finished it yesterday, after about two weeks on picking on the details. Surprise, surprise, when I went to the DHL center they told me they don't have overnight delivery. HA! I shoved my entry in the bottom drawer.


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Don't you just love it?

© Joselito Briones

It's brag time!

Don't you just love it when you see something that is very similar to something you've thought of first a long time ago? Six years ago, when the Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) animation technology was still relatively new, I did this animation, simply called "Portraits", to show my work in portrait photography. A year later I did another one, "Portraits 2". It was something new then, and obviously not done before, that I had plenty of email inquiry about it. I did a search of the topic in Google groups and this came up. Trust Google to find proof that you're not just writing BS.



Screen capture from DG website

I was going through my email subscriptions when this popped up from the Dolce & Gabbana newsletter (and don't even ask me why I'm subscribing to D&G, they should just keep me informed automatically, considering the money I spend buying their stuff). The technology obviously has advanced since then, because it's so much more interactive, but still...

What do you think?

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Designing stuff

© Joselito Briones

Finally I've thought of something to do with Ernst.

Last night I thought of a way to do a folding stool/side table, that, if I may say so myself, is ingenious. HA! I know, modesty has never been my best trait. As in any clear ideas, it was finished almost as soon as I thought of it. I sketched it in my little notebook, and as even it was too late, I couldn't sleep until I've drawn it up properly, I got up and did the drawings in CAD. So now it's just a matter of refining it, and explaining to Ernst how to do it.

Now the question is, will it work? I'll keep you posted.

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Photo Finish

© Joselito Briones

I could've spent my last day in New York just relaxing and waiting for the time for me to go to the airport. Instead, I spent it literally running around in Manhattan with Eric, who decided to do a hooky today (I'm sure if he had known how today would turn out, he'd have gone to work instead).

I had two last things to take care of before leaving, to go to the bank to inquire about an erratic letter that I got from them, and to go to a notary public to get some documents sealed and faxed. An optional thing I was going to do was to take photos of 1 Astor Place, a project I worked on while working for Ismael Leyva Architects.

A friend, who shall remain anonymous due to his refusal to make public the fact that he's indulging my materialistic side, gave me a digital camera (WOO HOO!) last night for my forthcoming birthday, so I thought, what better way to break it in than to do the optional photo-taking in Astor Place. The memory card that came with the camera was too small though, so I decided to get a bigger one at J&R today. Before we left, I received an email from Mati with a couple of purchase requests for kids in Germany: a pair of trainers and a Knicks cap, with instructions as to where to get them. So a to-do list of 2 items within 2 blocks of where Eric lives became a 6-stop task all over the place. And we had a maximum of 2.5 hours to do everything.

First stop. The bank. Fast walk. Non-conclusive. I was advised to check the internet for answer. 10 minutes

Second stop. Fast walk. Notary public. Everything went fine. 15 minutes

Third stop. J&R. It took 40 minutes just to get there by subway, running to and from the station. Ended up buying a leather case and extra battery for the camera in addition to the memory card. 55 minutes

Fourth stop. Astor Place (Cooper Square). Subway. Missed the stop and ended up in Union Square because I was too busy installing the new card in the camera. Had to take another train back one stop. Running at this point. Click. Click. One photo above. 25 minutes

Fifth stop. Urban wear/shoe store in 34th Street, as specified in the email. Took the subway again. They don't have the shoes, nor the Knicks cap. The sales clerk looked at the photo of the trainers (I printed Mati's email) and looked at me incredulous, as if to say, "Why the hell would we sell such shoes?!?!?". I tried to defend myself by saying that the shoes are not for me, but he wouldn 't hear any of it. He spoke politely though and said they don't carry this brand. 15 minutes

Last stop. NBA store, 5th Avenue. Took the subway. Ran 3 blocks. Ran into Dermot Mulroney. Stared for about 5 seconds, but only because he was staring back, as if to say, "Well, either say you recognize me so just go ahead and ask for my autograph already, otherwise go on along and don't look at me all disappointed because I'm not shaven and my hair is not fixed and you can see all my gray hair and gray beard stubble". I did the latter. I looked back and saw him cover his head with a beanie. Store didn't have the shoes either, nor the Knicks cap. They had lots of Knicks cap, but not the one in the picture. "Must be exclusively an online product from our store", clerk said. 20 minutes

Grabbed a couple of sandwiches and drinks on the way to the subway to go back to Eric's. We were both running and panting and sweaty at this point. Subway took some time. When we got off the train we ate the sandwiches (either they were really good or we were really really hungry) while running to get back to his apartment. 25 minutes

Okay, so we weren't able to do everything in the alloted time, but I think it was still good. I had to hurry collecting all my stuff so I won't be late getting to the airport. I was in such a rush that I wasn't even able to thank Eric properly, or say goodbye properly. I expected him to just give up at this point and be glad to get rid of me, but, good friend that he is, he walked me to the train station.


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