My passion for merging music and architecture has followed me throughout my professional career and I have shared that passion with everyone that I have come across. The project below is the work of one of my former students, who was visiting America as a Polish Exchange Student, Monika Michalik. During my time as an adjunct professor at The University of Detroit's School of Architecture I taught two undergraduate architectural graphics courses each semester which focused on Autodesk AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit and Autodesk 3ds Max. For a well rounded experience in architectural graphics, I also incorporated various components from the Adobe Creative Suite, with an emphasis on Adobe Premier to assist students in the editing and production of architectural videos and animations created during the course.

Unbeknownst to the students, the final project for my course started on the first day of class, as I had each student describe to me their favorite song. The final assignment required students to pick a strenuous or mundane task associated within the typical architectural studio design process and create a mechanical apparatus capable of making that act more enjoyable. The item was to be modeled, animated and rendered using 3ds Max then each student was to produce a two minute commercial using their favorite song as a emotional guide.

Take a look below for Monika's still renders and final video.

Favorite Song: Yael Naim - New Soul

Monika's Most Hated Task: Cleaning her desk and surrounding area of various scraps of small paper after creating a physical model by hand.

Functionality Statement: An inconspicuous paperweight which spontaneously grows limbs at the sound of falling paper and is capable of maneuvering any space to hunt and gather those paper scraps. Once the various scraps are in it's possession, the paperweight disintegrates the materials and its limbs retreat to its core.