Like a Hill Sticking Into the Ocean

Monday, 06-february-2023

Forest Pack

In this article, Javier Feijoo Ortiz tells us more about "Like a Hill Sticking Into the Ocean", his impressive final assessment for a course in architectural visualisation at the Madrid-based school 24studio.

The main purpose of the final master’s project was to go through all the stages involved in developing architectural visualizations by replicating in 3D real photographs of a built architectural project.

In my case, I chose a house designed by the Japanese architect Ryūe Nishizawa and located on the rugged Chilean coast.

As an architect by training, I had already been attracted to this project in the past. It is striking for its particular spatial conception of a home as a single linear and continuous space that protects its different uses under an undulating concrete roof that is materially heavy but which in landscape terms conveys lightness thanks to its geometry and its subtle implantation in the territory.

Similarly, the almost mimetic relationship proposed between the architecture and the abrupt and imposing environment of the Chilean coast is extraordinary. In words of the architect himself: ‘‘Like a hill sticking into the ocean’.

In terms of modelling and rendering, I was particularly interested in the challenge and complexity posed by the project in many aspects, from the undulating architectural geometries to the great diversity of materials and vegetation present on the Chilean coast, as well as the marked rocky and sandy relief that ends up submerged under the Pacific Ocean.

The huge task that has supposed to bring into the model such amount of vegetation, rocks and vegetable debris on a very abrupt relief was really simplified by using Forestpack. It would be impossible to model and render such a complex and overloaded scene without this plugin and its functionalities.