I am interested in studying at Manchester School of
Architecture, firstly because the school sits amongst an iconic, ever-evolving city
with fantastic modern architecture and juxtaposing historical buildings. I
would consider Manchester as the centre of the North West and because of this it is second to none for career prospects. It is clear to see that
because of the two merged schools, there are excellent resources and facilities, which was evident when I visited your end of year exhibition.
I am excited to follow in the footsteps of the outstanding alumni that have
left the school and create just as much of an impact on the world as they have.
I recently visited an exhibition at the Tate Modern in
London, where Roy Lichtenstein’s work was exhibited. As a central figure of
American pop art, Lichtenstein influenced and inspired me, during one of my
projects at AS level. The exhibition consisted of 13 different rooms, each
showing work from different stages in his career. The exhibition showed that
although it was popular at the time, he struggled with abstract expressionism;
so instead, he broke new grounds by using a controlled act and experimenting
with cartoon imagery. I was especially drawn towards his ‘Whaam’ painting where
Lichtenstein told the story of a dog fight. By removing detail, using speech
bubbles and painting a horizontal rocket trail rather than a diagonal one, it
gives much more weight to the enemy therefore creating more drama.
Norman Foster is one of my favourite architects, who designed
one of my favourite buildings (30 St. Mary Axe, The Gherkin). Norman Foster has
had an extremely successful career, creating ground breaking office buildings
throughout the world. 30 St. Mary Axe was London’s first building of the sort.
The building broke both ecological and architectural grounds. A column free
floor space was created by the tower’s diagonally braced structure hidden
within the building’s triangulated skin. The building’s reliance on air
conditioning is reduced as well due to the use of atria between the fingers of
each floor that spiral up the building. These spaces also form a place for
social focus. As well as maximising the usable space within the building, the
slimming of the tower at the bottom, maximises public realm. It is because of
these pioneering features, that I believe 30 St Mary Axe is one of the most
fantastic works of architecture.
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| Being one of my favourite buildings in England and in my opinion one of the most significant in recent architecture history, I thought it would be appropriate to sketch 30 St. Mary Axe and contrasting the three different types of architecture seen in this image. |
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| The two interior sketches above were completed during my work experience with Firth Associates. I was given the plan of the rooms and told to sketch and furnish the rooms. |
The following pieces are all part of my visible sound project. As music is close to my heart and something I love doing, I thought it would be appropriate to explore this creative subject in another sense.
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| Visible Sound 1.0 This piece was part of a project where I aimed to make sound visible. I looked at the way it travels and progresses through the air and aimed to recreate that using parts of instruments. |
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| Visible Sound 2.0 Sound travels in all directions and the idea came about for this piece by looking at mobiles and the way that they are spread and hung. |
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| Visible Sound 3.0 By studying Braille, I discovered how the visually impaired use their sense of touch to help them see. The idea for this piece was to create an image that could not only be seen by eye, but by the sense of touch. |
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| Visible Sound 4.0 The two images above use the idea of making sound visible. The top image shows the piece being exhibited using hung manuscript to symbolise the sound that would come out of the bell. The piece below it is an experiment using a compressor, which blows air through the tuba to create a stream of powder emitted in the same way that sound would be when it is played. |
The two pieces below are part of my 'Heroic Figures' project, where I studied Comic Book artists, Pop Art, and Figures of importance and how they were portrayed artistically.
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| The Iron Lady I studied political leaders which drew me to Margaret Thatcher as it was the time of her passing. I tried to portray several opinions of her including my own. |
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| Local Heroes For this piece I studied the local heroes that we come across everyday, who might not get as much recognition as they deserve. I was also studying pop art at the time which gave me the idea for the four paintings with bright, individual colours. |
This pen and ink sketch of hands through bars is part of my observation and experimentation so my current project, Caged.
This CAD work was completed during my weeks work experience at Cassidy and Ashton, where I drew a plan for a house using AutoCAD and then used Sketch-Up to create a 3D image.
