Critical Reflection of Project Management / Echo House + Heydar Aliyev Centre

Project management can be tough to get right, and as with the external brief Covid restrictions have continued to add pressure. Even so, my organisational skills have continued to develop to the point where I have managed to juggle and complete two projects at the same time. A monumental task that I am looking forward to adding to my growing portfolio and proud to have accomplished.

Heydar Aliyev Centre

The Heydar Aliyev Centre has been a passion project for me. Allowing me to develop my Rhino / CAD skills to an advanced professional level through the modelling of a building by one of my favourite designers, whose world-renowned free form architecture has been both challenging and exciting to recreate.

Whilst this project has gone extraordinarily well, especially in terms of the skills I have learned and demonstrated through coding in Grasshopper, there are a few things I would do differently if given another chance to repeat the project. For me, this would be outsourcing my 3D prints to a company with a larger printer bed in order to produce the entire model as one uniform piece. This would remove the need of filling, which although helped by the development of a bespoke filler containing the same material the model is made from, did cause some issues in terms of seam lines and trying to add in the panelling detail in these areas.

Something else I would do differently would be to order a more powerful lightbox that is clearly visible even in natural daylight. I feel as though this could really help to better celebrate the free form structure without the need for studio lighting or a dark room.

My favourite parts of the model have to be the Rhino / Grasshopper files, panelling detail, and contrast between the white of the building and icy blue base board. The skill and determination it took to develop the Rhino model, particularly the panelling is an immense achievement that I'm particularly proud of. Demonstrating my love of learning new skills and ability to research, whilst providing me with a talking point in my portfolio that I am particularly passionate about for future employers.

Echo House

The Echo House has been a great opportunity to demonstrate and develop my skills for presentation models. Particularly spraying techniques to achieve colour accuracy and material representation through speckling, manipulation of spray gun settings and paint viscosity. Although not a famous building, the design really resonated with my own personal taste in architecture, being very contemporary and full of natural daylight.

One issue that has come up during the making of the project is my ability to hide a few of the joints in components. Whilst this hasn't been too big of an issue, my decision to build the model floor by floor, painting and assembling components as I went has meant it's been harder to fill these joints without the need to re-spray some components. Causing me to spend more time spraying than originally planned.

If this project were to be repeated, I would cut all necessary components, assemble, fill and then spray everything together. This would streamline the process by allowing me to focus on one thing at a time. Spending less time going back and forth from the workshop and allowing me to deal with errors without the need to re-cut and spray components.

My favourite part of the model has to be the spray job. It's something that can be extremely difficult to get right, and a valuable skill to have when entering industry, especially in architectural practice.

The Echo House project has developed this skill to a professional level that I am looking forward to demonstrating to future employers. The representation of material and texture is something that has gone particularly well, especially on the brickwork as the dry spray texture really adds a finer level of detail, boosting the overall aesthetic and feeling of authenticity. Further aided by the speckling of lighter and darker tones broken up by the laser etched brick pattern, which adds another layer of realism whilst helping to tie it in with the contrasting blue of the building next door.

Overall, this process has taught me a huge amount in terms of research, planning communication and technical ability. Further boosting my confidence and realisation that I am now a professional modelmaker.