Harmondsworth Barn

chedda

Time for some heritage work for my portfolio. This is the Harmondsworth Barn once described by Sir John Betjeman as "the cathedral of Middlesex". I found a scaled PDF on the English Heritage site which was a great help. This one is dedicated to you Tadema !

Modelled in Sketchup rendered in Maxwell

tadema

Wow Chedda I'm honored, thank you. Beautiful job, the lights perfect
John

chedda

Thanks John, i will try and make something more dramatic and taller next, i will also populate the barn with farmyard objects.

dale

I love this. Everything about it, it has a really great presence.

chedda

Thanks Dale, it's a great example of form follows function.I think Mr Betjeman said it right.

Daniel

Looks great, Chedda

Bryan K

Very nice. You've definitely captured an atmosphere.

chedda

Thanks Daniel & Bryan.

Roger

Look forward to the render when all the farming entourage is in place. An excellent render to be sure.

It also reminds me of going to a breakfast restaurant with a girl friend's parents in central Pennsylvania when I was in high school. The disposable place mats had a map of the local area and without thinking I started reading the names of surrounding towns out loud - "Middlesex, Intercourse, Blue Ball." I looked up and everyone at the table was staring at me in total silence.

If you don't believe me, please check the area on Google Earth.

the.pjt

wow ..... very impressive work ...

chedda

Thanks PJT to be honest sketchup & maxwell is a joy to use. Only the time factor of maxwell is a bit annoying but the quality and predictability is worth it. On my 12 core beast it was reasonable quality SL20 after 24 hours of rendering. I let it continue for another day for some extra clarity it got to SL22.5. Now i am dreaming of a Quad socket E7 system with 40 cores (80 with hyper threading). But the 17k price tag is hard to swallow !

Roger i can well believe the address, i remember Lower Upham being funny as well, i think there is an Upper Lowham somewhere as well.

On a side note i'd love to live in a barn conversion, they often translate into great living spaces.

Roger

Did you build your own bump map for the floor or was that a commercial mat?

chedda

I think i got it from CGtextures.com, the sketchup maxwell plugin generates a bump map from the texture. To be honest i think there is too much bump i have toned it down now.

chedda

And the populated image, with a taller aspect ratio:

Roger

I really think this is a superb render, but there is a major technical problem. If that was a real Manchester Terrier, there would be chicken blood and feathers everywhere.

chedda

Thanks Roger, is manchester terrier slang for doberman ? Everything looks small in this huge space. Perhaps he is wary of the owl ? Or maybe being a farm dog he is well fed with poachers. If there is enough interest in this model I will strip out the textures and post it here. Is there a size limit for skippy files ?

pilou

Beautiful wood frame!

pbacot

Very nice. All the timbers-even the low rails are huge.

Maybe this is a case of showing the moment just before the action--was that a Mannerist notion, I forget.

chedda

Yes the timbers are massive, I suspect this building is reaching the limit for timber construction. The main verticals are .37m square. Maybe only old galleons of the period used this size of timbers. I believe it is all oak, these agricultural or even industrial buildings are often overlooked in architectural history. English heritage are doing a great job protecting them. It's amazing how something designed purely for structure & space can be so beautiful, much like a bridge. The designers never addressed the aesthetic it just arrived by design & necessity.

pbacot

Just for structure? Was it necessary to shape the braces-or is it just that this was the gothic culture and they wouldn't have it any other way?