Inspiration-Architecture research

Once I chose my buildings to begin my project I went and took images of them, however took them from a bit of an angle (looking up) to create a more interesting image to analyse and take inspiration from. This made you see more of the building rather than just a front eye-level view, gave more awareness of the spatial view. Although I haven't focused on this aspect massively I still found it interesting; the use of angle and perspective.

Ricardo Bofill (Architect) states, 'People who go to a place, look up and understand the space and people who just look at the floor and walk through it, don't have a spatial sensibility'. This compares the types of people that see a building or walk way and just walk through it and the types of people that will look up and around at the actual space their in and what's above their eye-level, beyond just a normal building. It's interesting to see and to realise the different concepts that come with one simple building and how much thought the designer has had to put into this, accounting the right materials, space within the building, plan of the interior, height of the building, the specific windows etc., there's so much thinking and work behind just one building. However, I feel that Ricardo Bofill is stating that unless you're aware of this concept or understanding of design you won't realise and appreciate the space or building that you're seeing.

Ricardo Bofill was 'born into a family of builders in 1939 in Barcelona' and since 1936 he 'continues to lead the international architectural and urban design practice'. One of Ricardo Bofill's projects shown on his webpage was made in New York, USA, located on '220 11th Avenue'. Bofill created this with thought; looking at the locations industrial past, making it link to this rather than being a random designed building, it has some meaning to it's location, 'the design makes extensive use of glass and resonates with the industrial past of the area'. This building is shown below:

This project produced '71 condominium residences and a gallery/museum area distributed over three floors, featuring soaring 20-feet ceilings.' and also, 'wrapped up in a glass façade, the building's podium extends the gallery/museum area into the public realm.' This project was a huge success from what information I have gathered, creating a museum and some places to live doesn't sound that exciting, however from how Bofill has designed this and thought about every concept within architectural design it's become a 'public realm'.

Although this artist doesn't link hugely to my work on architecture, I still found his work and ideas interesting and the ways in which he thinks and works are quite inspiring.