@l i am said:

As I have said before nice work. I am curious where did you source the trees and you created the grass in sketchup, how?

Thanks Liam, the trees and grass both come from Enscape. Anything named grass in the sketchup material will generate grass and the trees come from their Asset Library, which is similar to Lumion.

@l i am said:

All your images have a slight, warm, sepia tone. Was that in post processing or acheived some other way?

There is a slider you can adjust on Enscape to add warmth to the image. I also put a warm filter over the hdri in photoshop.

@pieterv said:

Thanks everyone for the compliments!

@pixero said:

I think the modelling and idea is very good.
The first image though, I feel, is a bit boring.
No dramatic lighting, no dramatic compostion.
What is the "story" you want to tell?
Is that told in the most effective way?

I don't mean to sound harsh. Just some ideas how to improve.
...and I could be totally wrong.

@pieterv said:

I think you have an interesting point Pixero and I actually agree. I think if I would do this project again I would do it differently and think more about how I could tell the story in an interesting, probably more dramatic way.

This is what I was thinking of when I created the concept:

All kinds of changes are happening in our world today:
molecular nanotechnology is rapidly evolving, our climate is drifting
and artificial intelligence might take over the world.

Most people feel small and powerless facing all these big changes.
Do we have any influence or are we just spectators who sit and watch?

I created the concept of a sinking cruise ship as
a metaphor for our society as a whole.

I think this is a very strong and beautiful project. The textures look absolutely amazing along with the modeling.

I think if you want to enhance the "story" that most people feel small and powerless, I would simply add a small silhouette of a person against the ominous sinking ship. That little add in composition will allow people to draw that connection and relate to it. It's such a simple and effective strategy, look at how the CG artist "beeple" has done this.

Otherwise, great job overall on the images you've produced

Steve

Thank you for all of your kind comments! The client loved it and we're moving on to Construction Document phase

Here's the new design iteration! Decided to change the light composition to the render and I think it made a huge difference. Also used a tree to hide the imperfection of the projection mapping of the contextual house.

Cheers,
Steve

Thanks Tuna! Thanks Bryan!

Thank you guys!

@l i am said:

@pilou said:

What is French inside this ?

It instantly looked French provincial style to me it is the first thing that came to my head. Or at least what people perhaps outside France would condider it to be.

[attachment=0:1zun84k0]<!-- ia0 -->French Provincial.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1zun84k0]

Hmm, very interesting. I guess I was thinking provincial had more of chateaux appearance with typically 2-stories.

Thank you! The interiors are next on the agenda!

@l i am said:

Hi mate interesting to see how the building morphs into the landscape infrastructure. Very innovative makes me want to play with that concept, very cool. It is rare that a project of Architecture and landscape Architecture does that that is a rare client and a rare Architect.
However I am uncomfortable with this transition. As much as I love the concept could it be turned around and perhaps the retaining material wall could infiltrate into the foundation courses of the building? So the Landscape is the foundation for the building not the other way around. It seems upside down to me. Hope you find that opinion costructive and nothing else:)

Thank you very much for the comment Liam, I welcome the opinion graciously. I believe I understand what you are saying and I agree this should happen for most projects, the retaining wall should look as functional as possible and align parallel with the ground plane. The oddball here is that the clients have an RV that they want to be able to park in the garage behind that wall. This, in turn, requires a significant ceiling height of 12 feet in the basement which pushes the shed roof above to a certain height. To add a cleaner look, we wanted to lift the retaining wall and terminate the garage roof into that on the backside.

There is no landscape architect on the project yet, but I can imagine the being certain organic elements to hide that awkward spot and look naturally cradled.

Best regards,
Steven

Hello all!

Over the past six months, one of our clients asked us to design a new home for them in the Hudson Valley area. The unique style came out of various preliminary sketches, multiple plan and elevation configurations, and finally, 3D modeled and rendered in order to understand the relationship between the building and site better (the best part!) Here is one of the first renders to come out of the 3D model!

Enjoy!

Steven Garubba
DeGraw & DeHaan Architects

Programs:

SketchUp Pro 2018
Enscape v2.52
Photoshop CC 2019 (used Material ID layer for color grading/lighting)