The Internship

The initial idea of the film is that two guys in the prime of their life (between 30 and 40) get an internship at google where they have to put up with "modern" young adults and all kind of "modern" stuff like internet, apps, instagram... And the film succeeds in using most of the subject that comes out of this comical situation to turn it into a quit good film. But the initial story idea which is phenomenal funny in my opinion turns into a worn down, often used story line where the underdogs built a team and the group has to compete in a (ala hunger games, or as it is said in the film "mental hunger games") competition. And in the end they magically win it even though it is often pointed out that they have no chance to succeed or what so ever. But all together the story is still good for a film with heart and a message which is transported to the audience in a comfortable way. Something many films do not succeed in at all.

Explaining my graduation project 2.1: 1/200 plan, living unit organization design, design development.

The independent living units were designed to take place in the larger tower. Here they could evolve around the courtyard opening. In the first few weeks this arrangement of living units around the courtyard was planned as a rectangular. Meaning that all the 4 sides of the courtyard are filled with living units. But after quiet a short time I had the feeling that there is a better, more beautiful and more architect like solution.

The improved idea was to arrange the living units in a U-shape. By doing this the badly situated north side earth faced units were eliminated and all the other units had direct connection to the sun at least some hours during the day.  İn the higher stories of the building the U-shape was rotated. By doing this the feeling of a more open and comfortable space was increased as the sun could reach down into the courtyard and the whole body of the building was more fragmented. Also a more straight forward connection to the walking paths was created by bringing the blank side of the U-shape to the steep hill of the walking paths.

The relation of the outside walking paths to the living units was in general a very important part of the project. As you may see in the diagram the aim was to create not closed up, tube like corridors but opened corridors with light and space for elderlies to socialize, wait, talk and walk. Therefore most of the corridors have two components. The first one is the inside corridor where the inhabitants can reach to their private living areas and the second part is an outside equivalent to the inside park where on good weather days the elderly can also walk outside and make horizontal connections with the elderlies up or downstairs.

A definite problem while designing this rotated U-shape tower was the vertical circulation. A situation that was even more problematized by the different user profiles, the need of administrative spaces and community socializing. I already explained the need for community socializing in the first part of the series and about how I want to achieve it in the part before this. Just to explain the general approach to the vertical circulation I have to say that i tried to design it in the easiest and most simple way possible. But that is often times the hardest way to do it. Creating 5 staircases all around the building for every different user without considering the general design is easy but connecting all the users to 2 staircases whose situation is chosen precisely is quiet difficult. I am not going lie to you and say I found the best solution for this problem but from the plan views you can read what I thought was an adequate compromise for the project.

In the next part we are again going into more detail and look at the detailed drawings and design of the living units.

Knights of Honor

Before I start reviewing this game I think it is important to state that I did not play this game when it first came out in 2004, just recently while I was looking through steam I found it was on sale and thought it was worth a shot. So there are no nostalgic feelings attached to the game which concludes that the review is not clouded by overpowered childhood memories. To my own astonishment I was positively surprised that its quiet a good game and still playable even if it is already more than 10 years old.

I think it is also important to state some other games published in this years to be able to make better comparisons and really look at games place in gaming history. Other 2004 releases are: Lords of the Realm 3, Settlers: the Heritages of Kings, Rise of Nations and Rome Total War (of course I only listed other strategy games). Moreover I think it is good to also state some milestone games in the strategy genre and their date of publish: Europa Universalis 3 2007, Crusader Kings 2 2012, Hearts of Iron 2009, anno 1701 2006 (in my opinion some of the most important strategy games for the genres development)

The step back sequels of warlords

The King was lying on his bed his once black hair was grey like ash and also his face did not hold many similarities with the beautiful face of the once young prince. The face looked like a carving wood as so many deep wounds were covering the lines of the face. İt was clear that the king did not have long to live. And it was in question how long the empire would survive without him. After his father had lost so badly against the undead army it was the former prince who succeeded in driving back the enemies.  After many years of hard war the greatest enemy was defeated.

During the long war many human kingdoms joined the union of the west as they saw the greatness of the King. Also some orcish factions were more than willing to join the human alliance. But their Chief forbid it. That was reason enough for the young hotheaded king to make what he would claim was the biggest mistake of his life, to attack the orcs. The monsters stood no chance against this perfected warmachine and after a short time all the land was gathered in the hands of the young king and the empire was build.

Männerherzen

The first thing that jumped into my mind while thinking about writing an review for "Männerherzen" was that the character development is phenomenal and therefore I think it is only just to start this review by mentioning it before getting into the details of the different stories. In my opinion the very good in depth character development is achieved by the great script. Each character is full of live, authenticity realism.

Another point that stands out is how the 5 stories and main characters are connected to each other. The good connection of the different stories in the film is mainly due to a good storyboard and scene design. For example the gym scenes where all 5 man go and workout without knowing each other, the "fight Tommy fight scene" where a swift shift between the Philip and Roland storyline is achieved.

Warlords Call to Arms

The prince was standing on the balcony of the place. The guards of "The West Men King" were practicing in the courtyard below him. On the left side was the long sword guard. The man hat huge swords about 2 meters long and this sword were heavy. The prince new that because as a child he once tried to lift one but the sword was so heavy it fell on him and he could not move under the weight of it till a solider of his father’s guard rescued him. That was one of the most embarrassing moments in the life of the young prince. He still did not like to use the long swords. But he loved to watch the skilled men while they used them. And as his trainer often said "watching someone use the sword is as vital for training as swinging it yourself". So the prince watched the heavy blades looking like long feathers in the hands of the guards and he was astonished how precisely they could hit. Of course he could make it better with a short sword but that was not the point, the young prince knew. With a long sword it was possible to kill a man without him even getting in the ranch to strike, even without being on hundred percent precise with the placement of the blade.

Explaining my graduation project 3.2: 1/100 plan, detail design, courtyards, design development

In the last 3 parts I often talked about the 2 courtyards and the 2 towers evolving around this courtyards but I never got much into the details. This is going to change in this part as I want to show you my detailed design of the courtyards and what influenced my design. Therefore I am going to show you the detailed plans of the courtyards and what space were planned to be around them.

For these thoughts it was important to choose spaces with need of natural light and fresh air so i could arrange them around the courtyards. And most of these decisions I am going to talk about originate in the first diagram I made and which I explained to you (the diagram about activities, spaces and connection between spaces) in the first part of the series. The final decision was twofold.

Firstly I decided to arrange the wellness center and sport facilities around the smaller courtyard. This had defined benefits like:
-The ability to make sport in the open air and then use the wellness center facilities.
-I decided to evolve the assisted living units around the smaller courtyard as they would take less space and combine better with the smaller courtyard and the assisted living units had secondary relations to the wellness and health center.

3 websites for Game of Throne fans

http://www.theoriesarecoming.com/#/ (series based)

A great little website because it gets into totally unknown fields and opens the door for many new thoughts and ideas. Sadly it is only series based which makes the explanations oftentimes quiet shallow and disprovable by the huge amount of detail in the books. But as I explained above it also has some very good solutions.
I especially liked John Snow / is a time traveling Bran as the explanation states:

"When someone is the only product of ice and fire in history, and the key to defeating the White Walkers, can he be allowed to die? That’s why Bran from the future intervened when Jon was in that Schrödinger's Cat state between dead and alive. He warged into Jon to bring him back to life and will control him till the end of the story. As the three-eyed raven told Bran, he will fly when Jon (controlled by Bran) rides one of Dany’s dragons."

Stronghold Legends

In Stronghold Legends with the good, the ice and the bad faction a whole of 3 new factions are introduced.

The good faction is rather boring, flatted out and pretty straight forward as only about 5 heroes with special abilities and better fighting powers are added. Even the connection of the heroes to the King Arthur saga cannot save these new additions from feeling very unnatural to the game. And it is clear that this faction was not enough to fill a whole campaign as the story is progressing very slowly, thinning out quit fast and concluding in boring economy and badly scripted fighting (and special ability using) missions.

Explaining my graduation project 3.1: 1/100 plan, Detail design, walking paths

In the last text explaining my graduation project I told you about my obsession with the green space connection of my building. This time I want to show you my detailed design about these outside walking path and my ideas behind it. If you payed close attention you may have noticed that i preformed a jump in the time line here (title 3.1) because the detailed design is generally a part of design which is concluded in the late phases of the project. But for the architect it is important to always think about these detailed designs and what he wants of them. As each little detail can and will affect the whole project. It is not like "oh let me figure out the general form of the building and I can add details afterwards." this is not how projects and design process work. So as I told you this is the first time we are getting out of the chronology as i am going to present the final product of the detailed design but during most of the project most of this part was only in my head and just the general assets were included in the design.

Stronghold 2

"Sire, you look different today"
"Realy! I also feel different. Its like the whole world has changed."
"Thats the exact thing my wife said in the morning Sire! We live in a new world."
"Yes looks like the grapich has changed. You know I am an 3D lord now. But let me walk in and out of the keep as i have done it in the 2 stronghold games before"
"If you wish Sire! I have nothing to do than siting here around the fire. But if the green bar here turns red I am going to be the first one to run away"

Stronghold Crusader

"Infidels are attacking oh Caliph! And they are led by the famous Christian Crusader. Richard Lionheart!"

"Nooo!" the cup of the kalif flew through the dark room and the content of it spilled on the floor. The ice water formed a growing small lake but steam rose quickly as the water evaporated in the unforgiving summer sun.

"General what shall we do?"

"Oh great Caliph! It would give the troop great courage if you were to show up on the battlements. All other preparations are made. The archer are already taking position on the towers and the flam throwers are also ready"

It took a time to convince the Caliph but after some time he agreed to at least go on the top of the keep and let himself bee seen by the archers. But as the general and his master got out into the open air it was already to late. Thick black smoke was covering the whole castle and the tops of the huge towers could not bee seen through the smoke. And the noise was unbearable the fire was ever growing and it made a sizzling noise and the screams of the castle inhabitants filed the courtyard. One of the flame throwers must have lost control over his pots and the content which was bound to hit the for coming enemies now destroyed the castle from the inside.

Learn Architecture Through Films: Mon Oncle

The difference between deifying the designer and using the designed object explained by the film Mon Oncle.

In the house designed by the most up o date technology the artistic spirit of people is lost. Because if every move is planed by the designer and by deifying this arrangement the user of a space losses his ability to rearrange the space to his personal need. This condition is visualized in the film called Mon Oncle. The space change needed due to the broken fountain, which makes the former designed space unusable, dramatically finds an end in the same space in a rather comical scene. The total lack of creativity (skill, knowledge or what you want to call it) to design spaces according to personal needs makes it impossible to shelter somewhere else as just one place is designed to do the job of sitting with guests.