Valentines Day, Cities Need Love Too

 

City life

The Drawing Room event at Herman Miller in San Francisco

The Drawing Room held a second event on Tuesday evening ...

“From the Inside looking Out”

The treasures and energy of the city of San Francisco are right outside your window...

Let’s take the time to look out, to see and to draw...

Oakland discussions and the future.

Oakland has long held its own unique character, but will the high-rises and office buildings sprouting up around the city jeopardize that character? How can a city preserve something intangible, but so incredibly important, while continuing to grow in order to provide homes, services and employment? Join us as we discuss how Oakland can expand its capacity without compromising the key attributes of its neighborhoods.

+ Roberto Bedoya / City of Oakland
+ Doug Wittnebel / Gensler
+ Cindy Ma / KTGY Architecture + Planning

And here are my visual notes from the event...

Painted view of the Chicago River with Marina City towers

Zocalo urban space sketch study

Sketch study of the main urban square, Zocalo, in Mexico City 

Mexico City view

Painted view looking to the south west from the 21st floor of the Torre Diana building, where the AT&T Foundry is located.

The pointed top building is by LBR + A, the tallest in Mexico City.  It sits triangular in plan and features two perpendicular concrete elevations and one glass facade of the hypotenuse of the triangle.  https://www.archdaily.com/office/lbr-a

The BBVA building in the middle features a distinctive fuschia and bright yellow exterior spiral staircase element, and designed by Ricardo Legoretta. 

Cityscape 9

Another version of the cityscape series, a set of paintings that explore the landscape of cities and urban environments ...

...for the love of a Flatiron building in Oakland, a greytone version...First National Bank of Oakland...1907

...all for the love of a Flatiron building in Oakland, a greytone version has been created and tested for a possible larger scale print version or maybe a wall version installation in downtown Oakland...

 

http://www.spur.org/publications/article/2014-03-10/urban-field-notes-new-drawings-old-buildings

 

 

Above San Pablo and Broadway stands the premier flatiron building of the West Coast, a younger sibling of the more famous Manhattan one. Most of the stories in this building are woven into the exchange of money and finance, Wells Fargo being the most recent bank tenant. The original tenant was the First National Bank of Oakland, in this building complete with safe deposit boxes and a full basement for secure storage of valuables, furs, jewelry and paintings.

 

Built in 1907 after the great San Francisco earthquake, the building was designed by architect Llewellyn B. Dutton, who chose white granite for the lower floors and warm terra cotta tiles for the upper story enclosure, which wraps smoothly around the acute corner next to Frank Ogawa Plaza.

 

Bank of Oakland Building on Broadway

 

This building sketch/painting of the former Bank of California building.  this was featured in the article from Urbanist magazine, published by SPUR.

http://www.spur.org/publications/article/2014-03-10/urban-field-notes-new-drawings-old-buildings 

At the corner of 12th Street and Broadway stands the original headquarters for the Bank of Oakland, a unique combination of lower masonry block muscle and a taller decorative tower. The main building went up in 1907, and the tower portion was added later, pushing up to the height of 225 feet (18 stories). Now the bank occupies the building with other tenants and histories. A series of Corinthian columns and pilasters support and frame the top levels of setback windows. The top-level spaces must have terrific views of the adjacent Tribune building. Perhaps the two towers wink at each other in the early morning hours.



Speculative drawing of Oakland interventions and additions, progress stage

An aerial view framework of the city of Oakland, with speculative urban interventions and designs.

Work in the city 2

Work in the city 2, a photo by douglaswittnebel on Flickr.

Progress on concept sketch aerial view of Oakland environs...

Oakland urban field notes

Oakland urban field notes, a photo by douglaswittnebel on Flickr.

Mock up of folded field notes of four Oakland historical buildings, illustrated...

Checking into very simple GIF format files...

The GIF file format has always intrigued me ever since I saw some really cool ones on a Japanese illustrator site.  Now i am somewhat addicted to the simple LOOP program app.  Cool....

metropolis edge scene

... have not been traveling to other areas or cities lately, but have been visioning and dreaming about scenarios of what could be or what has been and what may be elsewhere...this scene was created on the ipad with the use of a brushes app and artstudio app, and chromatically narrowed to a cool grey blue scenario...