Gurley-Stradford

Gurley-Stradford (2016)
North Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
Hotel

Gurley-Stradford is a 26 story hotel building, composed of a parking deck, a conference room level, a café, and hotel suites. The hotel is to commemorate Black Wall Street in the community of Greenwood. If this hotel were to really exist, it would not only be one of the tallest hotels in North Tulsa, but it would be the tallest building in Greenwood. The building takes up little area which is a reason, but a different reason, was to raise the amount of hotel rooms, and also because Stradfords hotel was mentioned to be the largest black-owned hotel at its time. I used a mix of blue and lavender for the buildings cornice color, and also aligned the building with vertical steel metal, to make the building look taller than it actually is. I used the material of two colors of bricks, tiles, and also gray painted metal. 

History; Besides the achievements of Edwin McCabe and A.C. Jackson; O.W. Gurley was a black land-owner from Arkansas. Around the mid 1900s, He purchased land in Native American Territory, and started to build businesses and residences on the site of what was then called, Greenwood. Gurley follows after another black entrepreneur by the name of J.B. Stradford. Stradford came to the territory around the late 1890s. He built what is known as the Stradford hotel. Stradford believed that there was possible success in the future of blacks. Like Gurley, Stradford owned an incredible amount of land. Unfortunately, due to the Tulsa Race Riot, The two business men, including many other black citizens of Greenwood, lost all that they had owned. Greenwood, the city in which blacks prospered, was destroyed. The history of Black Wall Street is rarely mentioned as of now.

My purpose was to design a large hotel in the neighborhood, dedicated to the two men, along with many who had suffered harshly through the final ambush of Greenwood.
       

The front entrance is composed of two doors, one of them is automatic. An alternative to the signage would be to expand the letters so it can take up the sun shader.

This hotel giant that sits off of E. Archer Street, one of Greenwoods main roadways, is large enough that it wasn't easy for me to get a snapshot of it, without taking snapping parts outside of the set. On the top of the hotel is this roof arc which holds windows deep inside of it.

The purpose of the sun shader is that many hotels have clearance shades, most for the pedestrians and the cars. Due to the baseball fiend being on the other side, I only made the shade for the pedestrians, and the parking spaces in front of the hotel could just be drop off spots, or spots to check-in.

The building to the right is a parking deck ramps, however, most of the parking deck goes straight into the building. Look below at the directory to see what I mean.

The buildings rear has this large sun shader that is composed of tiles. The parking deck is on the second floor and lodged in the area. The parking deck ramp is on the left of the image (far end). This area is also capable of dumpster space.

The hotel can be seen from Interstate 244. As of what the image shows, The hotel brings a large focal point into the neighborhood. The hotel sits in front of the ONEOK field. To the right, the city of midtown Tulsa is visible. The image only shows what might be possible.

The video is a 360 degree view of the hotel. I also did close ups so people can see the details on the lower levels.

This is the directory of the hotel. The first level houses the café, a possible indoor pool, a fitness center, smaller conference room space, the lobby, administration, etc.. The basement level, and the second level are parking decks. The third level is a hall of conference rooms. The fourth level through the twenty fifth level are just regular hotel rooms (Some studio, some with bedrooms). The twenty sixth level is the Black Wall Street Exhibition which just has pictures and historical tales of Greenwood, even there could be artifacts and historical props. The hallway in the twenty sixth level goes all the way to the windows guided by the arc roof. On every hotel room level there are rooms which employees could use, and those rooms have their own elevator. The building has three public elevators, and two stairways (there's a third stairway from the basement level to the first level in the rear end.

The building sits at the west end of Greenwood District in North Tulsa. The hotel was for the figure purpose to bring back what had been lost for a long time, and that was the success of workers such as Gurley and Stradford. From left to right, on the bottom left, I placed images of Gurley and Stradford, next to the hotel logo. This is to be a typical hotel room, not too fancy, but just a significant hotel to bring back to life.

"The end of Black Wall Street is forgotten, and that's why it's not yet been forgiven"

K. Ammons Lava Lamp

a lava lamp (2016)
Object, Miscellaneous, Diffusion


This is just a regular lava lamp. I only did this to test my object designing skills. I used the colors green and blue, because those are my major colors. If you look at certain art pieces that I do from other websites (my kitten for example), you'd know green and blue are my colors.


The lamps interest me and are pretty cool. As of now, I don't have one, but I did decide to design one. I have taken 6 pictures of the lamp, from latest to earliest.

 Picture 1

 Picture 2

 Picture 3

 Picture 4

 Picture 5

Picture 6

Villa Italian Kitchen (Perimeter Mall)

Villa Italian Kitchen_ Perimeter Mall (2016)
Dunwoody, Georgia, U.S.A.
Commercial, Eatery, Pizzeria, Restaurant

 The current Villa IK sits inside the food court inside the Perimeter Mall. It takes up two spaces, and does get some attention, quite well. They have their backdrop in their current store designed like one of those medieval Italian kitchens. I wanted to design one of those European style homes with the middle part of the building. I also brought my own style into this building with the Italian flag metal cladding, where the sign boards are. There is mostly stone, red tiled roofing, and a brown cornice. I also placed a real fireplace, just for show. It can also be used for real fire. Below the sign boards, on the metal cladding, I did a small text mural where it says "Pizza, Pasta, Stromboli, Salads", and Yes, That's what the employees would shout out in the mall to get customers. If you've work in the PM food court, You'll hear it. But, overall, I wanted this pizzeria to have a Central European feel to it. 

 The front of the building has an entrance, with outside tables. The entrance is thus walkthrough wall, and then you get to the doors of the middle part of the building, and this entrance wall is covered in grass and vines. 

 Like I mentioned earlier, The front entrance has grass and thick vine in the front. At first, I kind of thought it was disturbing, but since Varasano's Pizzeria (also opened at Perimeter Mall) has plants growing on their walls, I decided to have Villa's entrance wall grow with the thick coat of grass, as vines grow sobre the grass wall.

 BUY ONE, GET ONE, FREE!!! You will hear this walking into the Perimeter Mall Food court!! I know, I've worked at the Subway for 2 years, and heard this over and over again. There's no excuse on why I wouldn't put a flashing GIF of this text on the sign.

I decided to just do the image views instead of the 360 degree video. I felt that the genre of the building goes better with just the image view sides.

This is just a directory. I only put the basics, because I'm not familiar with what materials the franchise uses.

The new building would sit in front of the Perimeter Mall entrance. It's left to the main roadway, and right to the main sign. I also made a convenient walkway for those walking along Ashford-Dunwoody Road.

For those who want to buy one get one FREE, Here it is!

VideoForever

VideoForever (2016)

Portable Video Device

VideoForever is a modern parody ripoff of VideoNow, you remember, the 2003 device that hit the spotlight as it played TV shows from Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc. It would upgrade every one-two years, and the audience lost site of it later in the decade. VideoForever is a hexagon-shaped device that just plays videos randomly. Just speak into, or text, what you want to watch and it will scroll onto the video. The crisis is that once a video ends, it will automatically scroll to a random video (unless you adjust the options). If you also keep tapping and scrolling on the screen it will just keep shifting up, down, left, or right, a pool of videos.

  

THIS IS ONLY A 3D DESIGN PURPOSE! IF THIS WERE A REAL PRODUCT, IT WOULD HAVE ABOUT SEVENTY BAD REVIEWS IN ONE DAY!!



 

VideoForever has 5 different chrome colors; Cyan, Pink, Violet, Green, Yellow

 The front image is just the screen that's edged by the color chrome.

The back image shows a plain plate with my symbol (Apple does it with their symbol as well), and also the power button, with the adjusting buttons. Those buttons either adjust the volume, contrast, brightness, and yes, color! (If you hold the + button, and scroll, you can move around parts of a video you can't see, without shifting to different video.)

For those video addicts, this could be enjoyable, but I can't be positive. I mock-branded this as for fun.....from work. Again, I give credit to Autodesk Maya, which was the site I used to design this device.









Full Gospel Church

Full Gospel Church (2016)
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
Church, Restaurant Prototype

 The modern way church is being handled too much. All people do is go into some auditorium, whether big or small, and just sit down and watch the pastor (or whoever) talk, and there's also the offering plate, and the praising (which isn't that bad, but it's nothing new). I tried to get with the church environment, but all I do is daydream and think of doing something else. There are some things a pastor would say that interest me and get my attention, but in general, just sitting in a building, A BUILDING, and looking around is the typical way churches are being handled. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure not all churches follow this protocol. Anyway, I decided to design this new church in the form of a restaurant, so instead of feeling like going to a typical church, you can feel like you're going to a restaurant to eat for free (If the food's not free, than this wouldn't be church!) I also designed a podium for the preacher, or a speaker, to teach the eating congregation, hopefully, words of wisdom.

 Full Gospel Church was a church in New Orleans, known as Full Gospel Church of God in Christ, [sigh]. How did I get info of the current abandoned church? Thanks to this linked video by Pimp Preacher.com. The websites host, T.J., showed a tour of the current church building back in 2015. He mentioned that the bishop, Charles Brown, sorta abandoned this church after Hurricane Katrina. The building is a complete disgrace! The current building looks like sh*t! For this to be a church building, The church might as well leave the building and have no building at all! I was so curious, I went to Google Maps to look this building up. As I went back in time on Street View, the building did have a little work done to it, but it looked more like they had skinned the front off the building, and that's it. I didn't even want to show the current buildings picture on this post! If you want to watch, click on the 'video' link in the third sentence. The address is also on the directory and bottom image if you want to see for yourself. This second paragraph was more of a mindless rant, than the description about the my design.

In result of what I witnessed on the video, I decided to design a new building for the site. I removed the church building, and the small garage buildings that was near it, for space. I also refurbished the larger garage building, because the side walls would have to be ripped out. I liked the palm trees, so if this were a real project, I'd keep those trees in place.  

Like I mentioned on the top paragraph, I wanted this to have that restaurant feel to it. So, I designed it like a restaurant. My goal for this is to take the church in a completely new direction.

Here's my 270 degree video. I also placed plaques of my harsh Full and Gospel mnemonics!  

So, this is the directory. Full Gospel Church is a small building. It's purpose is to serve and give(Hopefully, No Soliciting from the Preacher). The speakers pulpit is small, but as long as the speaker has a microphone, it shouldn't be hard to hear them. As long as the congregation reads the Bible, and/or knows the TRUTH!

I dropped the 'COGIC' title from the project because it's ridiculous. For those who attended this church, This was just a gift for you guys. For those who know someone who went to this church, Feel free to show them this.

I give thanks to PimpPreacher.com for this opportunity.  

Overall, This is just a building. The people of the ecclesia, are the church.

Microsoft Bottle

a bottle (2016)
Object, Miscellaneous


This is just a design of my reusable bottle that I did in Autodesk Maya. YES! My bottle really looks like this. The difference is that the top is broken. I designed how the bottle looked when it was first given to me. I also put water in it, just to make it more realistic. It's just a plain 'ole bottle with a 2010s Microsoft logo on it, nothing new.


History: I received this bottle at a concert at the Perimeter Mall back in 2014. You know, The one when the Microsoft store first opened, and everyone made a big party celebration out of it. The opening was so big, people were wearing t-shirts with Microsoft, the lines went all the way to the north wing of the building, there was a disc jockey, and this was actually one of the days my Subway employer wanted me to relax. The concert, itself, that evening, was when I got the bottle.

 Picture One

 Picture Two

Picture Three



This picture, above, is just the beginning design back when I first shaped up the bottle without the caps top. This was so easy, a low-budget animation studio could model this in an hour. It was everything afterward, which was hard.

Just so, no one thinks I'm playing games about this bottle story, I took a picture of my actual bottle. I still have the cap, but forgot to put the cap on the top. On the other hand, you would know how the cap and everything would look on the bottle. I also filled it with water(that I didn't waste, I swear), just to show the comparison to the 3D model.

"Model the Bottle"



Pio Nono Plaza

Pio Nono Plaza Center (2016)
South Macon, Georgia, U.S.A.
Mixed-Use, Media, Conference, Office etc.

Pio Nono Plaza Center is a huge redesign that is done in a 15-story tower. The original building is just your average everyday lower-class shopping center, which has a Pawn shop, small markets, beauty shops, and things of that nature. If this were a real plan, I would hope that the current tenants occupy the space in the new building because it would be interesting to still have the same businesses but in a different environment. Inside this building are commercial businesses, studio apartments, a media center, office space, and conference space.
If this were a real project, This would be one of Macon's tallest buildings, as a matter of fact, this would be the largest building in it's neighborhood. The green metal cladding makes the building stand out.  The building is alongside a five store parking deck, which could vary due to inconvenient issues. The style of the building would be pretty foreign to the neighborhood, which is why I chose the location. 
Personal Touch: My childhood came up in this part of town and being in the metro-Atlanta environment, I wanted to bring something back with me, but somewhere one wouldn't guess. Rocky Creek/Pio Nono location is not really known for any glory, and some cases was in pretty bad shape, especially after Mothers Day Tornado in 2008. My goal is to 'Perimeter Center-ize' the neighborhood, or for a formal term, Update.
 

This is just a simple skyscraper. I used the round tactic that I did with Sierra, one of the earlier designs. I am fan of the curve horizontal faces style, and the last statement is just an opinion.

These are just regular images I did right off of SketchUp. I made a few adjustments so they would look more decent. The top left is the front entrance where the possible anchor would be located, the top right is the top view of the roof all the way down towards Rocky Creek (I also added the antenna later on), the bottom left is just the rear of the building all the way down to the parking deck (somewhere around here could be the garbage dump), and the bottom right is just the logo. 

 I'm trying to make this clear as possible to locals. For those familiar, or who want to be familiar, with how this building would look, I took Birds-Eye camera shots like from the Sierra project. The small formal bank, north of the building, was ignored and untouched.

 As I mentioned earlier, The building is composed of commercial, residential, media center, conference rooms, and offices. There is also the parking deck. The image is facing West.

The directory goes from the first to the fifteenth floor(top left to bottom right). Some floors origins are structured alike so some of the floors have the same floor plan, so I did one plan for those floors. Few notes; The anchor is not publicly conjoined with the tenant spaces via inside. You would have to go back and forth into the shaders to go from anchor to tenants. There is an escalator from the first to the second floor. The elevator only goes to certain floors, for example one may only go to floors 1-6, while others can go to floors 1 and 7-12. Therefore use of the elevator can be fair and limited. There are five public elevators in the commercial zone, in the residential zone upward to the top, there are only four public elevators. My idea would be to follow a similar protocol that North Atlanta High School goes by with their elevators; They have a row of elevators and their's a pad of numbers you press on the outside that opens the elevators, however in NAHS, no buttons are in the elevators, but in this project the open/close would be an optional button in the elevator. The 15th floor has roof doors to the top of the roof like normal houses have to their attic, this could vary however. The stairway between the 6th and 7th floor shift directions.

A 360 degree view of the building. This is to show as much of the exterior as possible.

The Pio Nono Plaza Center wouldn't be the first idea on the block. Just up the road, I designed Seed of South Center from last year (2015). That year, I also designed one of those unique Dairy Queen buildings just across Pio Nono Avenue. Years ago, I designed a Publix right across Rocky Creek Road, and a Einstein Bagel Bros right nearby. So, K. Ammons Renderings and this area go way back!
The current shopping center on the lot is where Pio Nono Plaza got it's name from.