 I purchased my bungalow around ten years ago with the intention of converting the loft one day. As an architect, I could see the potential. Usually, when you convert a loft, you end up trashing the floor below because you need somewhere to put the stairs. Often people end up losing a room or reducing a room below. I had a big square piece of corridor where a stair could fit. Then if you want to add bathroom plumbing you need somewhere below for water and waste pipes to connect. I don't mind having one bathroom. Bungalows can be more tricky in a way because you don’t have somewhere to take pipes straight down as the roof space is sloping, unless you dormer the new bathroom. A dormer is essentially a pop-out where part of the roof is replaced with a new flat roof and walls with a window to get more head-height. My loft also already had good head height and an open roof structure of rafters instead of trusses which infill the space with structural members. It took me however, ten years to actually execute this project. Why so long…? ….cost and bother. Starting with bother. My house had already given me many problems. There’s the classic issues caused by the previous owners. These included; them having put nails in the electric consumer box because safety is worth less than £1 fuses, not painting windows so that they were riddled with wood worm and had to be replaced, sellotaping curtain rails to the wall. However, the worst issue was subsidence which occurred one year after purchase, caused by unmanaged oak trees and drought. My insurance company monitored the house movement for two years, got planning permission to remove the protected trees and did extensive repairs which meant that we had a bathroom in a trailer on the driveway for a month. I didn’t want any more hassle. And then there’s cost. I got quotes for a simple conversion with no dormers and just two rooms, no bathroom, for around £60k with tax. This did not include electrics which I was planning on doing mostly myself with a qualified electrician plumbing in, or stair railings or balustrades which would not be compliant with building control. It did likely include a lot of ‘fat’ such as management and design fees. I would say that two extra rooms would add around £80k to the value of the house which didn’t therefore make the conversion work financially. But then I got an offer from a contractor to reduce their overheads, do simple welfare and very little management as I had done basic drawings and could engage a building control company myself. They had a spare month in April and needed some work and so the offer was just over half of other companies and I could do the electrics and decorating myself. The conversion could be done under permitted development and didn’t require planning approval. Always check whether approval is required. Once the price had been agreed, I had a few weeks until they started. I had to quickly book in a building control company without any prior check of plans. I settled on doing an open playroom space and one more bedroom. This meant that the stair would receive more natural light than having two closed bedrooms and two bedrooms would ‘over-bedroom’ my house in relation to the one bathroom I have.  The loft before conversion with struts running diagonally and a central tie beam. CREDIT: Amanda Moore So how did it go? Structure They cleared the loft of the existing insulation and started reinforcing the structure. I had already commissioned structural calculations from an engineer who recommended new deeper joists spaced between the existing ceiling joists and tied to them as well as two glulam beams and dwarf walls to replace the existing struts. I would then insulate within the existing rafters and to the inside of the rafters.  Converting a loft is a major structural change and requires professional engineering calculations. The structure turned out better that I had hoped as the existing purlins which ran around the middle of the rafters were able to be removed which gave me even more internal space.  View of one of the glulam beams with dwarf wall sitting on it. An existing purlin running horizontally and strut seen in the image, later removed as not needed. CREDIT: Amanda Moore  The inside started to open up once the central tie beam was removed. CREDIT: Amanda Moore Insulation I worked on the basis that the insulation would only need to comply with building regulations as a 'renovation'. However, when building control completed the first inspection, the officer stated that it counted as a new space even though it’s within an existing roof, so I had to work to a higher standard. I called a thermal foil quilt company who looked at a calculation for me, working with the 50mm of rigid insulation already installed between rafters, (which allowed an air gap below the existing felt to reduce condensation risk), and recommended two layers of their thermal quilt with battens and counter-battens, then a plasterboard with 10mm of insulation on the back to get me to the very low ‘U-value’ calculation required. I ended up spending about £2k extra on the quilt and the labour required to install it, an expensive variation but probably worth it.  'Spaceship mode' with the foil quilt installed. CREDIT: Amanda Moore Stair I decided on a double-winder stair to fit in the space I had below. The contractor recommend a local supplier and I bought the stair kit directly so that they didn’t need to charge me overheads for ordering. The company sent a sketch with dimensions and I purchased softwood, not a combination of softwood and MDF as I wanted to just varnish it. I hate carpet. The stair came in many parts and the contractor installed it in two days, I’m happy with it. The key with stairs is getting a stair which is comfortable to use but not so big that you end up with a large opening in the floor above and loss of space. The opening in the ceiling will occur at about the 3rd step before you hit your head on the ceiling. The stair needs to arrive at the highest point in the roof so you don’t hit your head as you go up.  Stair installed. CREDIT: Amanda Moore Flooring I just left the structural 18mm plywood and varnished it with yacht varnish.  The flooring is not fancy, just varnished structural ply. CREDIT: Amanda Moore Roof lights I went with the smallest number I could to allow in light but reduce cost and maintenance, one in the open living room and two in the closed bedroom for cross-ventilation. One had to be an escape window for fire safety in case people are asleep when a fire starts. I’m not sure what would catch on fire up there but it’s safe. I also bought blackout blinds which have to be installed with special frames to make them work on a sloped wall/roof - and they were ridiculously expensive as I couldn’t get the sizes from a cheaper company, worth checking that your roof light size isn’t bespoke. In terms of other openings, I added a couple of access hatches in the walls. One was to get to my bathroom fan and the other to get into the remaining area of roof to use as a loft for storage. Leaving some of the roof as loft allowed me to retain my brick chimney without knocking it out as it would have been in the way in a new space. Electrics, etc. I didn’t add central heating to save cost. I plan on buying a couple of small ceramic heaters for winter which are cost-effective to buy and run. I reused the existing lighting wires which were in the loft for new spotlights and mains smoke alarms, required by building control. I added to the lighting wiring when the contractor had framed out the internal walls. When they cut the hole in the ceiling for the stair, the existing wiring running across the loft fell down like a spider web which I needed to disentangle and extend around the opening. I also ran a new ring main for sockets behind the dwarf walls with double sockets and USB outlets. I ran the wires to the fuse box downstairs and trunked them in at ground floor ready for a qualified electrician to plumb in. This only cost me an hour of their labour and they issued me with a minor amendments certificate for building control approval. A couple of things which were complicated were getting my wires and joint boxes into one spot where I could access them later and I made a little access hatch to get into it. Another thing was adding two-way switching to be able to turn lights on and off at the top and bottom of the stairs.  Electrical wires previously resting on the ceiling after the stair opening was cut. CREDIT: Amanda Moore  Breaking back into the location of the joint boxes. CREDIT: Amanda Moore Once the contractor finished their work I installed light fittings, sockets and smoke alarms. Something which worked well was buying ceiling lights with a rectangular rose so that they could be fixed to one side of the ceiling ridge, remembering there is no flat ceiling to fix to.  Spotlights with a rectangular rose were installed to one side of the ridge. CREDIT: Amanda Moore Decorations I decorated. Not to a high standard. But I decorated.  And so the plaster sanding began. CREDIT: Amanda Moore I was going to plaster skim all 80 sqm of wall using a pre-mixed product. But instead I actually worked a bit more to sand and flatten the infilled joints the contractor installed between plaster boards. I then primed the walls with a watered-down PVA glue and painted. The paint product was a heritage paint which replicates natural plaster and has a texture. You apply it in different directions and it hides the imperfections. In terms of storage, I bought the IKEA IVAR units and cut them down in half to make dwarf wall storage along 6 metres for under £200.  Low-level storage on a budget. CREDIT: Amanda Moore So what do I think?
The space is great. I have an extra play/TV room and bedroom for about £40k all in which maybe adds £80k to the value of my house. The living room is being used as a movie room and it now houses my son’s drum kit. I can now say ‘I’m going upstairs’, ‘are you downstairs?’. It does get hot in the heatwaves and I will need to add some external shading to the roof lights and install wall fans as AC is expensive to buy and run. The sun, especially the western sun, hits one of the roof lights hard at a 90 degree angle in summer. I will never get that build cost again as things are getting very expensive. Also, my building control officer noted that soon it will become very hard to do a loft conversion without insulating the outside of the roof which is much more expensive with all of the retiling works. This is because of overheating concerns and legislation which will require so much insulation, unless insulation suddenly becomes much thinner, that you won’t have enough head height inside. So my advice would be to go for it now. Check planning restrictions, check with building control, tell your insurer and mortgage provider and don’t do any DIY such as electrics which you aren’t confident about. But it will only get more expensive and more restrictive.
0 Comments
 CREDIT: Amanda Moore (public art workshop) I’ve been applying to do public art commissions for at least ten years now. These have included temporary installations, permanent sculptures and graphical murals. Most have been commissioned by local authorities using funds from central government or monies levied from developers in relation to new housing. These are a great opportunity for artists to work outside of the gallery space and be paid to produce new work. They also offer the public access to conceptual art outside of the traditional gallery space.
I usually find these opportunities on artist sites such as Artists Newsletter, ArtQuest, Royal Society of Sculptors and Instagram. They are often open call and ask for information about previous work and examples, and then an initial idea of how you would approach the commission. Usually there is a shortlisting stage where the client pays around £500 for an initial concept and interview. Art commissions have formed at least 25% of my yearly income over the last decade with the rest coming from other freelance or PAYE work. However, I have noticed some shifts over this time and not for the better… Budget: Commission budgets are often now very unrealistic. I’m currently working on one commission for a permanent sculpture with an £8k budget. This includes my artist fee, engineering input and a design safety check. At least installation is by the council and they are procuring items incurring tax so that the budget isn’t taken by VAT. With all fees and expenses, this has left me with a design fee of about £2k to include site meetings and travel costs. On other projects there seems to be no cap on endless meetings and public consultation workshops or additional fee for these. Application Process: The shortlisting fee seems to be vanishing. The project briefing often requires an initial concept design as part of the process. The right thing to do is to shortlist artists based on past work examples. Then pay a few of them a fee to do an initial concept to determine which one to choose. The client could then incorporate some of the initial comment seven for unchosen projects as they have paid for them. Programme: Programming on my recent projects often drifts on without any additional fee. The projects often require sign off on concept designs by a stakeholder group. Unless this group is small and decisive, artists can end up making endless changes to designs. Responsibility: Artist contracts are now looking to sit back to back with building contracts. Artists need to read contracts very carefully as their responsibility is being increased. This often includes being responsible for coordination with consultants like engineers and health and safety and making sure contractors installing artwork have all pre-construction information they need. This could include below ground services surveys and could eat a lot of the project budget and require most specialised input than an artist can likely offer. Terms surrounding Principle Designer roles, Construction Design Management role all have significant responsibilities in terms of safety and could carry statutory consequences. I’m not even sure that artist insurance covers these responsibilities. I’ve even had a contract which includes Limited and Ascertained Damages for lateness of almost £1k per month when there wasn't really any significant loss to the client financially. What’s the answer…? I’m now having to think very carefully about which commissions I apply for. Those are the ones with a decent budget and the least amount of risk pushed over to the artist. Many of these clients are large councils with the ability to provide engineering resources, directly procure fabricators to recoup tax and bear more risk than a single artist can. I’m also pushing back on these more risky risk clauses around health and safety. Artists should explicitly mention how many site visits or workshops are included with the additional ones being offered at £x per day plus travel. If commissions keep going this way it could be that the only people able to apply for them are experienced fabricators and the quality of the ideas may suffer as artists are pushed further outside of this public art space.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore Working as a freelancer - especially with tiny human dependents - can offer a lot of flexibility but presents many challenges including; finding new work, programming workload, actually getting paid and earning a regular income. Here are some tips to keep you safe and sane:
Realise that your work is valuable and it takes very little to impress people. Just turn up on time and do what you said you’d do. When working at a large architecture practice, I remember going to an interview where we were shortlisted for a student services building project and I offered to collect the competition submission my practice had entered, and not won, for a another project within the university. I entered the room to collect our physical model and saw that there were dozens of models waiting to be collected. Each one was beautifully made, crafted from wood veneers and etched metal shims. Some had lights within them and model trees. These sat alongside rolls of drawings with well-worked out plans, elevations and hand-sketched views. Each set of information was good enough to at least be submitted for a pre-planning application.  CREDIT. Amanda Moore And all of this work had been completed for free.
There was no shortlisting process, a winner was selected based on the information submitted and fee proposal. The cost of our submission likely ran into several thousand pounds for the practice in staff fees. This process differs vastly from the majority of art competitions I enter. Usually what’s required is a written response to the brief including an idea of how the artist will approach the brief, along with images of relevant work and a CV. From there at least three artists are normally shortlisted and paid a fee to do a more detailed proposal and attend an interview, a final artist then being selected. The shortlisting phase often includes a workshop where more information is given and there is an opportunity to ask questions. This seems a fairer process, paying artists for their time to come up with a submission. If the ideas are used at least in part by the client, at least the artist has been paid for their time. And surely the client gets a better deal as they get 3 sets of worked up ideas over many multiple stabs in the dark regarding what the client is looking for? The client also gets to meet the shortlisted artists and get a sense of what they will be like to work with. I recently completed a submission for a community centre, producing a plan and 3d views on the back of a very brief brief which listed the spaces required. Months later we were informed that we hadn’t won the project and were given a score out of 100, a very low score. This was based on many aspects regarding form and views out. The selected architect looked to be less of a design-led practice, suggesting that the project was won on fees which may or may not offer best value for the client. It seems likely that if we had won the project and were appointed, we could have discussed all aspects of the brief with the client and worked from initial sketches through to more worked up designs, rather than submitting developed designs for a competition without much of a detailed brief. Not all art competitions are the same and many simply select a winner from multiple entries. However, I’ve not yet worked on any architecture competition which has gone through a paid shortlisting phase. Surely a client should be able to shortlist or select an architect based on their fee rates and portfolio of previous work. Unfortunately, architects have no choice but to be compliant and tender for these competitions as others are willing to do it. However, a good idea may be to publish the submissions at least to prevent ideas being used if they are actually appointed.  River Droplet Installation on Closing Night: CREDIT: Jayne Jackson Photography Public artwork is usually commissioned and exhibited in non-arts spaces; town centre spaces, estate gardens, hospitals, commercial buildings, new housing estates, etc. This differs from art exhibited in galleries which may already exist and it is meant to be site-specific. I have applied for many temporary public art commissions within the arts sector, commissions with briefs written by arts organisations. These commissions have often been designed to frame a piece of public space which will then be activated with other events such as temporary sculpture, performances and music. The ‘River Droplet’ commission I completed in September 2024 was in collaboration with Lorna Rees/Gobbledegook Theatre and was commissioned by Dorset National Landscape. There have been some interesting advantages in being commissioned by a landscape organisation rather than a body within the arts sector. ‘River Droplet’ was the pilot for Dorset National Landscape’s ‘Sitting Spaces’. The aim of ‘Sitting Spaces’ is to connect people to the local geology of a place and the landscape along with historic food production in that landscape and increase dwell time. We chose to focus on the River Frome which is a chalk stream running through Dorset and provides the perfect conditions for diverted water to be used to grow watercress. Dorset is one of the world’s largest producers of watercress. We suspended 600 bottles of water from the River Frome in a droplet formation from a temporary scaffold. The work was installed in Frampton, Dorset, on their Millenium Green and the structure became a room which hosted a range of events and music. The project was not dissimilar in form to ‘Art Vaults’ shown in Canute’s Palace, Southampton in 2018, commissioned by A Space Arts. This involved hanging 1,000 bottles of water from the Solent which related to the fact that the Old Town in Southampton is reclaimed land, once flooded by the sea. The space then hosted a month of events including live bands and temporary sculpture and performance, many related to water or seafaring.  ArtVaults 2018, rope installation and workshop under the exhibit. CREDIT: Amanda Moore The main comparison between the Dorset project and the Southampton project was the key outcomes. Dorset National Landscape were aiming to highlight ‘specialness’ of the area and to attract new visitors to the Food Trail, a cycle route which runs past the location. The project was not designed specifically for arts visitors, those who are already interested in the arts. It was installed in an unexpected location, not close to an arts organisation, and did not have an invitee mailing list from an arts organisation. Although this meant a smaller attendance, partly due to the rural location, the advantage here was that the project attracted an audience organically over the month, from local people within the village, to cycle trail riders and those hearing about it by word of mouth. The positive feedback about the project was hard-earned and developed over time, often coming from those who were initially sceptical about art. The audience later included those with a special interest in the history of the river including farmers and geologists. That's not to say that art organisations aren't aiming to attract a diverse audience. The installation itself was extremely site-specific as the water displayed above peoples’ heads was taken from the adjacent river which is sunken down in the site, thereby showcasing it. The chalky river sediment could be seen in the bottles. The events and music put together by Gobbledegook were also incredibly site-specific and stepped outside of the art world into the world of scientists and geologists. Songs were written which could be played via QR codes in the space. The first of these was a folk song about watercress production in the chalky stream. Later, additional versions were produced which sampled the voices of local watercress growers, local residents and recordings of the river. People smiled when they heard a recording of their voice worked into the tracks when they were played via mini-rig speakers. Lorna had recorded people talking about tasting watercress and had interviewed specialists including the director of a local watercress company.  People tasting watercress and being recorded inside 'River Droplet'. CREDIT: Jayne Jackson Photography Every Tuesday night we hosted ‘Glow-ming’ events which celebrated sunset and highlighted how much shorter the day became throughout the month. These events included a talk by geologist Dr Anjana Khatwa one evening, storyteller Martin Maudsley another and expert nutritionist Dr Sumanto Halder on another. The attendees all talked about a very specific aspect of the location which gave more variation to the project outside of the arts, but did rely on the visual spectacle of the chandelier of water droplets in the background to elevate the talks somewhat.  Talk with Dr Sumanto Halder. CREDIT: Amanda Moore  Bookmark hand-outs I created relating to different aspects of the installation during the month, commemorating the different talks. The closing event included new songs developed through the month being performed and also a fire juggling act which lit up the droplets of water with a golden glow. The performer even sourced a white outfit to represent the chalk. Throughout the events, Lorna had produced costumes including overalls for us to wear with elements about the work and local geology embroidered onto them and a chalk head piece for her to wear one evening. People became more and more engaged and were encouraged to sing or to light candles in the space. The project aimed more and more to deepen people's understanding of the location rather than become of showcase of artist's work.  Fire juggling on closing night. CREDIT: Jayne Jackson Photography Another interesting aspect of all of this was that the installation became a project which evolved over the course of the month. More and more audio recordings taken were worked into the songs written for the installation. Artworks were made in the space including photographs of it lit in different ways. Events had been partly programmed at the start but also developed and changed in response to what had worked well. Even times shifted for Glow-mings due to changing sunsets and a celebration of the Harvest Moon was included with costumes and props when we realised that it was occurring whilst the installation was open. The legacy of the project is that more Sitting Spaces may be commissioned and ‘River Droplet’ is well documented and will be included in the village archives. Deeper legacy includes greater appreciation of the local landscape by residents and visitors and memories of the spectacles seen and songs played. We jotted down reactions and comments by visitors throughout the month which form part of the documentation of the project. Working on a commission with a landscape organisation over an arts organisation meant attracting a wider audience than an arts audience and improving perceptions about the worth of art and what it is for. The project also included collaborators outside of the art world who in turn brought their own wider audience. The project also had the freedom to develop over time and respond changes in the site and audience feedback, it treated the audience as participants over an audience being performed to.  Dorset National Landscape attended all events as hosts, providing a welcome to visitors and tying the project back to its purpose. CREDIT: Jayne Jackson Photography
 River Droplet installation. CREDIT: Amanda Moore ‘River Droplet’ is a temporary installation in Frampton, Dorset, that shines a light on the unique character of chalk streams in Dorset, due to open for the month of September 2024. This project follows on from the installation I completed at Canute's Palace, Southampton, in 2018. This involved hanging 1,000 bottles of water from the Solent in a wave formation from a scaffold structure. The installation referenced narratives around Canute who was said to have demonstrated that no man can hold back the tide. The bottles displayed the clay sediment found in the Solent and interestingly, brought water into the town in an area which would have belonged to the sea, this area of the Old Town being reclaimed land. The installation was activated by a series of events and performances as it allowed full use of the ground floor of the palace below and many events related to water and seafaring. River Droplet has has been commissioned by Dorset National Landscape as the first installation for the 'Sitting Spaces' project. Sitting Spaces aims to encourage a wider range of people to visit the countryside by creating temporary structures to sit and enjoy the special qualities of the area. Sitting Spaces supports the new Dorset Food Trail, which highlights the food heritage of the Frome Valley between Maiden Newton and Dorchester. The brief was to design a sitting space which highlights local geological properties of an area and relate them to food production. This encouraged me to think about the project I did in Southampton as part of a possible series, rather than a one-off. This is a new way of working for me and shows that you can often do something once, and then disregard its potential value in a different context. This installation consists of 600 bottles of water taken from the adjacent River Frome. The chalky bed of the river can be seen through the sediment in each of the bottles. Chalk streams are perfect for the production of watercress which is grown locally and shipped around the UK and across the world. It is also giving me an opportunity to work with an artist I've wanted to work with for a while, Lorna Rees of Gobbledegook Theatre, https://www.gobbledegooktheatre.com/. Lorna is bringing the installation to life with events and recordings that explore the story of watercress production and what makes chalk streams so special. She is crafting songs based on folk songs about watercress, recording audio from people including scientists and growers, and we are holding 'glow-mings' where we celebrate sunset and the illumination of the installation. Audio can be played via QR codes online. Pretty much every town and city in the UK has been created around a river and each river tells a different story. This model of showcasing the water, slowing creating a physical installation which the local community grow interest in, and activating it by telling stories, is proving to to form an interesting and valuable model for outdoor art. https://dorset-nl.org.uk/project/sitting-spaces/  Canute's Palace, Southampton. CREDIT: Amanda Moore
 PHOTO: Amanda Moore In how many industries would you question whether you are going to be paid after doing some work?
In architecture and other creative industries this issue seems to be fairly prevalent. Architecture involves expensive costs such as insurances, staffing, administrative fees, software costs, etc, etc. It can be very disheartening when a client says that they will not pay your invoice. But why does this happen? I’ve seen it happen when the client is having a financial dispute with the contractor and they withhold architect fees ahead of the value of any dispute with the contractor. They want to hold onto any money which they may have to give the contractor in a contractual dispute. But how is this fair as the two relationships are separate? They may feel that the client could have avoided the contractor dispute somehow. Sometimes the client’s project funding is in jeopardy, according to the AJ, this is one reason along with projects being held up in the planning process. Other times it is because the client simply doesn’t like the work that you’ve done. Architecture is complex but it doesn’t always look complex. If you ask an architect to produce a design which meets your needs and will get through planning, should you trust their opinion as much as any other professional? I have had a similar experience with public art projects where the commissioner hasn’t set a very defined brief to respond to. You try to produce concept designs which meet their need but all they know is that they don’t like this particular idea and they are not paying until they get an idea they do like. Or they are made up of a panel of people who are all disagreeing about which ideas they like and don’t like. Recently, I’ve also seen clients proposing that you get a fee if you get planning permission. But you can’t guarantee this, just as you can’t guarantee that a particular medical treatment will work or that the value of your pension will go up. General advice appears to be to try and resolve things out of court which only incurs fees. My own view is to take regular stage payments and to stop work if there are non-payment issues. As an Adobe Creative Cloud user I’ve been very impressed with the new Generative Fill tool within Photoshop. The tool allows you to select an area of your image and remove items with a patched background generated. It also allows you to add items to images and looks to put them in in the correct scale and perspective. I guess that this is an AI tool and AI as a topic seems to have blown up over the last couple of months. As an architect and artist constantly trying to put together photomontages of buildings and artworks in their context, this tool seems incredibly useful. Gone could be the days of removing left over construction items from photos of finished buildings, adding people to mockups of concept designs of buildings or artworks. Even shade seems to be matched in and you can type in quite detailed descriptions of what you are looking for such as ‘people having a summer picnic’. Here is a base image of Herzog and De Meuron’s ‘Stone House’…  … and then with ‘people having a summer picnic’ added to one side and then the other. Oddly there are different choices of people with the same search term but different parts of the outdoor space selected, the left and then the right. The faces of the people are also blurred a bit and I have a floating leg on one.   About the tool, Adobe say: "Generative Fill—part of the revolutionary and magical new suite of Firefly-powered, generative AI capabilities—is grounded in your innate creativity, enabling you to add, expand, or remove content from your images non-destructively using simple text prompts in over 100 languages. Use this feature to automatically match the perspective, lighting, and style of your image, make previously tedious tasks fun, and achieve realistic results that will surprise, delight, and astound you in seconds. The new content is created in a Generative layer, enabling you to exhaust a myriad of creative possibilities and to reverse the effects when you want, without impacting your original image. Then, you can use the power and precision of Photoshop to take your image to the next level, surpassing even your own expectations." Thankfully, this tool is designed to help image editors rather that replace the creator. But I thought I’d see whether the Generate Fill tool would design an extension for me. I got these three variations for ‘house extension’, selecting the right side of the outside space.    I then got something lightweight when asking for ‘glassy house extension’.    I then selected the whole right hand side off the building space beyond and got a few other variations for extensions...     There are some pretty interesting and impressive results. Some slightly odd things happen with the perspective of elements in you look at the colonnade parts. But there are some interesting design 'thoughts' from the AI tool such as windows aligning with the external wall above.
The tool will continue to improve, I don't believe/hope that AI cannot be used to generate design and take into account all of the information we use such as sun paths, internal room sizes, adjacent views and properties, etc, etc. However, it is certainly a powerful image-making tool and could be worth using to create inspiration images and references for designers.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore I’ve been working freelance as a creative for almost 3 years now and some obvious pros and cons have become apparent:
Pro: Making your own Decisions You can decide which projects to work on, when to programme them in and set up your own terms. You might have to take on projects you don’t want to in the beginning but then as you get a bigger client base you can start to choose. For example, if you’re an architect you might not want to design houses, or you might only want to design houses. You can also choose to work with nicer people, and people who pay on time. Con: Finding work You have to find your own work and schedule it in so that you have an even workload. Clients will sometimes hold on projects because of funding when you were banking on that project to pay your bills. You might be too busy at times if too much comes in at the same time. It might be best to start working a consistent number of days for your previous employer on a freelance basis, adding in the one-off projects on top. As an artist you may have to apply for 10 times the number of competitions you want to win and you have to remember if not selected that your work isn’t bad, they were just looking for something different. Pro: Making your own Routine No 9-5 may be the main reason people want to work freelance. You can take your kid out on a Monday and work on a Sunday, you can eat your lunch when you want, you can fit your hobbies in, and chores. You can work where you want, if your kid is sick you can have them at home with you. Con: Having no Routine You need discipline and a calendar to get your tasks done which is hard. You will need to impose a routine. I like to start with an hour of my hobby first thing before my kid is up so that each day starts with some kind of routine. Meetings can be all over the place, and people will think that you are sitting in an office all day and cancel a meeting about to start online when you’ve geared your whole day around it and you could have done something else. Pro: Becoming Entrepreneurial You will be more self-sufficient because you will have multiple clients and hence income streams. You will look out for opportunities but you have to stay in contact with people to hear about them. Con: Loneliness No work friends, no work friends, no work friends. I used to hate being in an open plan office, (25 people asking you every Monday whether you had a nice weekend), but no contact can be depressing, even during COVID times there were a lot of online meetings. You could do some work in a work hub with others in similar fields to have some contact, or work for a client in their office once a week for contact. Listening to podcasts while working or having a lunch break out can help if you work at home. Pro: No cap to your earnings If you work harder you make more money, in theory, rather than working harder hoping someone will give you more of the money they are making. Con: No guaranteed earnings - or benefits. You will need a reasonable emergency fund, ie, an amount of money you can live off until you can find a job if needed which may be 3-6 months. You will need to pay your tax, national insurance, set up a pension or long-term savings. You will need to take care of your own sick pay, holiday pay, software costs, training and a decent chair to sit in. Don’t use a wonky IKEA stool. Calculate a day rate of your previous gross PAYE salary x 30% to cover other benefits like pension, then divide by 220 days.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore I spend a lot of time mocking up artist impressions of projects I’m working on. I’m no good at photorealistic images and so a filter which makes them look more like hand sketches saves me the time creating a hand sketch and also doesn’t look like an early 2000s computer game still. The most useful Adobe Photoshop filter I’ve found is the ‘find edges’ one which creates a version of an image which looks like a pencil sketch. When desaturated and overlaid onto the original image, it creates a kind of watercolour effect. Here is an example of an image I did for a commission during the Covid lockdown era for People United. I designed a floor mural which could demarcate social distancing in lockdown times, and in non-lockdown times it would make a public space more interactive. You can see the difference before and after using the filter:   CREDIT: Amanda Moore I created the image using a photo of the place and adding in people and the design. I then saved a copy of the layered Photoshop file and flattened the layers. I went to Filter > Find Edges to create the line drawing. I then used Mode > Grayscale to remove the colour, although you could also use the Hue/Saturation settings to just reduce the colouring.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore I then copied and pasted this layer onto the original file as the top layer and played with the transparency levels. You may need to cut out bits in places using the wand selection tool if the white background is too much.
The other thing which you could add to de-realise the image further is a watercolour layer. You can find a watercolour image online and copy and paste it into your image file. Desaturate it and then reduce the transparency to around 10% or below and this adds a mottled texture. This filter has allowed me to produce many last-minute artist impressions. |
AuthorWhat am I doing here? I'm collecting sea water to fill 1,000 bottles and hang them from a scaffold inside an old ruin. Why? Why not? Archives
October 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
Proudly powered by Weebly