Assignment 2: Revisited

During the Recess Week, I chose to re-do my Assignment 2. Mainly because I felt it lacked the potential in abstraction despite it being unique and all. So I chose the Istana! I know, I know... People may not recognise this at a glance, but it's a place that every Singaporean should visit, as it is a national heritage. It is also the home of the President of Singapore. You'd probably recognise it if you have been there. Yep.

I picked the Istana because to me it had something special. It had a blend of 'British Colonial' feel to it and at the same time, has something that's quite 'traditional Singapore'. I'm referring to the architecture of the building. Notice the windows and how they are patterned in such a way that makes you have that 'kampung' feeling, a remnant of Singapore's fishing village past. But, at the same time, there are columns that look liek they belong at the White House. Thus, to me, I feel that the Istana is a buliding that has captured and retained the beauty of Singapore's colonial past (despite it being a  tad dark due to the Japanese Occupation and all).

So my first abstraction was a black and white outline of the whoel structure. I tried to be as detailed as possible when it came to the windows as I really thought they were unique, and made the Istana.... the 'Istana'. But then I figured it may be too detailed for a simple abstraction, so....

I took out the details on the windows. It looks a lot simpler now. Though I would have love to keep the windows. But the requirement is to simplify it as much as possible, so I had to remove it I guess. What do you think? Plus, I took out the unecessary details around the building as well to simplify the whole design.

Now I realised that there are too many vertical lines running down in the building. Pretty unecessary as even without them, it still looks like the Istana to me. I also removed a lot of the extra lines and dimensions that make the design 'pop', and kept the lines that kept the building's shape.

The design looks a lot cleaner now. I modified certain elements like the top of the building, changed the many lines to simpel rectangles to maintain the overall look, so that I do not lose the Istana look. Although there are a lot less lines, there is room for more simplification. I do intend to keep the columns, but I may want to modify it to make it simpler, merely a representation of a column...

My final abstraction! The columns are still columns as you can see, but simpler. Plus the details on the first level of the building has been simplified as well. So voila... my new abstraction :)
This time, I will comment about my design process as I go along. :)