Starting With Bold Ideas

Through the course of UD 663 conducted by Prof. Michel Mounayar, we worked on a fun exercise called the "Killer Shot". A Killer shot is the selling image in your presentation or design submission. The course introduced us to the fundamentals of creating an attractive, memorable and convincing still images for our projects. However, back then, we did not have any readily available design to work our still images of. Instead, we created collage images for what we envision to happen on our sites, and that was the game changer.

Usually, a perspective or views will be limited by the project realities such as heights, typologies, visibility issues which will be a result of typical spatial planning such as master plans or site designs. However, in our exercise, we did not have any tangible restriction or limitations. Thus, We kept experimenting in terms of activities, skylines, visual axes, main connections, and several other elements.

The still image went through several iterations before we reached our final alternative. In each discussion, we exposed the proposal to a group of principals and common sense reaction such as the importance of context or sense of place in areas where no recognized can be spotted.

To my surprise, this still image acted as a guiding factor when going through the detailed design of my project master plan. Even though the final masterplan did not have the same bridge elements nor the massing typologies of the buildings. Yet, I had no reservations to present this still image along with my presentation.