C'est fini mes amises!

Hi one and all,

I know it has been a while since my last blog, but the end of the course proved to be a little time consuming to put it mildly.  Most work pinned up at the marked crit 3 weeks earlier either needed more doing to it, changing completely or .....well getting done in the first place!!  However, I was very pleased with my final show and quite proud of myself that I could put it all together in time.

I've got a few bits and bobs below to show how it looked as I know alot of this work hasn't been seen on my blog before.  Hope you like it.

I am very pleased to have also been asked to display my work as part of the Masters Exhibition.  This will be open from this Saturday 23rd June and Sunday for previews, open to the public on Monday 25th with an official opening at 6.30pm.  The exhibiton can be viewed by the public until Thursday 28th.

It is incredibly gratifying to be one of the 5 degree students chosen to exhibit; almost as good as the feeling of finally discovering I have a 2:1 for my degree!!!  Hoorah!!

Overall the course has had many ups and downs, but it is all about learning from it.  I think it safe to say there have been moments when I could not see this and it is good to finally have time to stop and think about it and realise what I have achieved and what areas I still need to continue to develop.

It is fascinating to see how my fellow colleagues have managed too.  There are a number of  people who I consider to be close friends now, who have started with far less skills and fought to the end triumphant.  For these people I congartulate you.

Finally I would just like to say a big thanks to our lecturers who have had to put up with us for twelve months, which probably feels like the whole three years!!  Without your expertise, industry knowledge and sheer determination for us all to succeed......well I don't think I would have for one.
And to all my friends on the course who have supported me and put up with my stresses and sulking when they had plenty on their own plates........I thank you.

Lastly, thanks to my wife Lucy for all her support, (god only knows how she has put up with me for 3 years), and my son Max aged 15 months, who arrived in the thick of it and who's little smile could always make me calm and rational once more. x

Keep a look out for a new blog link as I will be starting fresh soon, but will keep attached this blog and others for you all to read back on.

The little people arrived!!

I received my little people today.  Funny I was expecting a big bag full of these things since I ordered 50....and well ....it's quite disappointing.  One tiny little sachet of white characters didn't seem much really.......waffling....tired.....I'll move on.

I have discovered I have two means of calming myself and making me smile. (apart from the obvious cheesy grin from Max the one year old and me wife)  I have to catch the 6.45 episode of Shaun the Sheep firstly which always makes me laugh and secondly.......... I read Lissy's blog. ...

....even when she is narked off she makes her words sound beautiful and enchanting.  Every entry has something in it which enlightens you or makes the corner of your mouth raise just that little bit even when you feel like crap.  Thanks Lissy....the oracle of wise words.


Anyway.......

I've spent today re working my CAD drawings, preparing annotation for my 1:200 plan and 1:50 plan as I have been completely re sorting them.  A little worried about my sequential sketches which aren't going well for 1:50.  Wish I'd just gone straight down the boring sampled photoshop route now as I am loosing more and more confidence about my drawing skills.

Tomorrows...or later todays tasks! ...are to finish rendering my 1:50 plan and get the trace scanned in so I can titalate it a bit in photooshop.  I have to redraw and render my 1:200 plan and annotate both drawings for printing........the 8th is a painful thought.  I have almost given up hope of getting everything together, but we'll see.  I only have so many hours left.....I can only do what I can do.  If I miss getting something pinned up, I'll just have to grin and bare it and pray I get a better mark from the examiners.

Here's to the light at the ned of the tunnel.....which is just a mere spot in the distance at the moment, but I feel it geting closer.

Night all.
x.....for the ladies

Website Done!

Well the websites done.  I like what I've put together, but my branding isn't great, even though our lecturer thinks so.  But the format of the site works for me and I think I can easily build on it and add to it.  Well done to everyone else too as everyone seemed to pull it out the bag.

Here's a link to mine.  www.wix.com/pauljohnsongarden/design

Pictures of my model!!!

Needles to say the week ends weather stopped me from taking photographs until right at the end of Sunday.  Below is my 1:500 model.  All that is needed for this one is the sea, which I hope to achieve as I have in the 1:200.  So here is the 1:500....and I have to say it's not as perfect as I would have liked but I am quite proud of the outcome.

To follow is the 1:200, which if I can sound my own trumpet, I am very pleased with too.  Still want to replace the seating with white blocks rather than the wood sticks and I have some lamp posts to add...not to mention the little people on there way to me in the post as we speak.  I felt I wanted to create the model as realistic as possible as the examiners have not seen the site and it will help me explain all the different elements.

I do have a question for who ever is reading this though.  Do I need to add in the changes that I have done on my 1:50??  Not that I have the time for 8th May, but maybe for the examiners?

Hardworks and Softworks Plan

Well, I'd been working on these plans for ages.  The soft plan I have not been happy with as it was really busy, but worst of all at the crit on last Monday, I was told if I can't fit the writing in there, you've got too many plants.  I had a big isue with this comment as we are ment to be designing a fully successional planting scheme.  You can't do that with six plants......well you could I suppose, but it would be pretty boring.

Anyway here is the first pinned up planting plan which I showed at the crit.....

I don't know whether if you will be able to see the detail on the blog, but here is the refned version I made after a inspiring tutorial by Julia Fogg and my colleagues.  There is still ore to do, I need to increase my numbers and place the text into the boxed areas.  This will make things even clearer to read.

I then tackled the hardlandscape plan which I thought was there, but I realise I need to still improve a few line weight issues, add my detail markers and change the hatching to actuall paving showing how it would be laid.  so here is how it stood today befor I make these changes.

I actually really like the technical side because I like to solve design problems.  There is the nice part of creativity and pretty pictures, but knowing something is going to work and that somebody picking up your plans gets it, and can transform those ideas into reality is great.  So 'BIG UP' the technical side of things!!!

Anyway....off to upload the images of my model at the end of a very long day, yet I still have loads of drawings of plants to to scan and get onto the computer.....the night has only just begum!

Hope is a wonderful thing....and 'Phurt' is funny!

I read Lissy's poem today......and that is L i s s y by the way!  Sorry couldn't resist.  The Hope poem very calming and so true.  We need stuff like that in our lives.

Anyway, tutorial was good today, even though I felt like a stomach ulcer coming on with the stress.  An incredibly stupid amount of work to produce in the next week or so, but felt good.  Went home and have re assesst my planting plan and have now made the changes on paper.  Just need to get the info on to my CAD drawing which shouldn't take too long as I am simplifying the annotation and hopefully it will read better.

I'll post the plan tomorrow and will photo and publish my two models which I told everyone I finished two weeks ago and still haven't put on the blog, so you'll get a glimpse of them too.  Waiting for the little people in the post still.

I was singing my baby boy a song to calm him down tonight, but I think he has finally worked out that a rasp noise is funny .......so it didn't really calm him down.  Here it is......

"There was a little fly
who flew into the grocers store.

He 'PHURT' on the ceiling
and he 'PHURT' on the floor.

He 'PHURT' on the bacon
and he 'PHURT on the ham.

And he 'PHURT on the head
of the little grocer man."

What a way to end the day.......and yes he did end the day with a 'PHURT'

Until tomorrow one and all.

Spray on Solar Cells

I came across this a week or two ago and have been meaning to put it on the blog.  Has anyone else seen this.  This could be the way forward, just think of the apllications we as designers could use this.  No more ugly panels on rooves we could put the technology anywhere!

Spray-on solar may be future for green energy

As Japan seeks to optimize its use of environment-friendly energy sources in the wake of the nuclear crisis triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a company here may just have come up with a major breakthrough: spray-on solar cells.

Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. has developed technology that enables solar cells to be applied to buildings, vehicles and even clothing in the same way that paint is applied. The breakthrough means that the places where energy from the sun can be harvested are almost limitless.

The new solar cells utilize carbon compounds which, when dried and solidified, act as semiconductors and generate electricity in reaction to being exposed to light. Most existing solar cell technology requires crystalline silicon to be sandwiched between glass sheets and positioned on the roofs of homes and office buildings, or in space-consuming "solar parks."

Scientists have been attempting to increase both the energy-gathering efficiency of solar panels and make them easier to install and use.

Mitsubishi Chemical is the first company to create prototype spray-on solar cells, which at present have a practical conversion level of 10.1 percent of light energy into electricity.

That figure is still some way behind the 20 percent that is standard in traditional crystalline silicon solar cells, but the firm expects to be able to improve the efficiency ratio to 15 percent by 2015 and is aiming to eventually reach 20 percent.

The company said the new painted-on solar cells would be particularly effective when applied to round or curved structures, such as chimneys or the noise-reduction barriers that line many highways in built-up areas of Japan. 
It could also be applied to the exteriors of cars and theoretically used to help power the vehicle and even to such flexible surfaces as clothing.

The sprayed-on solar cells are less than 1 millimeter thick - far thinner than existing solar cell technology - and weigh less than one-tenth of crystalline solar panels of the same size, the company said.

Mitsubishi Chemical said it plans to work with domestic carmakers to build a car coated with the new solar cells with the aim of giving the vehicle sufficient power to travel 10 km after being exposed to sunlight for two hours.

The spray-on solar cells are a breakthrough concept, but other organizations are working on similar research to get the most out of energy from the sun. Scientists from The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, the University of Melbourne and the University of Padua in Italy are collaborating on 'printable laser' technology which could impose nano-particles onto wafer-thin panels which could then eventually be developed into into paper-thin solar panels.

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