FRANCISCO ROCHA
BROOKLYN APARTMENT
Francisco Rocha is a Portuguese architect based in New York, where he is currently a project leader and architectural designer at Fernando Romero EnterprisE (fr-ee). Since joining fr-ee in 2014, he has been involved in over fifteen projects, leading teams to create architectural and urban designs in Mexico, Europe, and USA. Most significantly, he worked on fr-ee’s competition-winning entry for Hyperloop One Global Challenge in 2017, and led the design of a new Chamber of Wonder at Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Austria.
Prior to joining fr-ee, he worked with Studio Christian Wassmann in New York and fala atelier in Portugal. His work has been published and exhibited in KooZA/rch, Beta Architecture, Atelier Drome, 0047 Oslo, DogA Oslo, Bergen Arkitektskole and KTH Arkitekturskolan. He holds a Masters in Architecture from the Architecture School of Porto in Portugal (FAUP) and completed a scholarship year at KTH Arkitekturskolan in Stockholm, Sweden.
Francisco, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.
I have a fervent passion for minimal design, natural beauty of material, and attention to details. From ideas to shapes, there should be no space for doubts or concerns.
I truly believe Architecture is about making assertive choices in conscience, and take them as a learning process that grows from project to project. I see Architecture as a manifest, an intention, a vision—a way to design space and relate it to people where function and aesthetics come seamlessly together.
Is there anyone in particular who influences you graphically? Why?
I believe that the graphic communication of a project is key in any architectural project. From a sketch of a preliminary idea to the final presentation for a client, visuals dictate the understanding of a project.
A writer uses words and phrases to express his ideas and thoughts; for an architect, sketching is the most natural way to process ideas and communicate them.
There are many Architects and artists that have definitely been influencing me over the past few years. Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto Moura had a huge impact on me as a young designer and serve as a point of reference in my practice. I am grateful to have studied under these two amazing architects who were my teachers at the Architecture School of Porto (FAUP).
I have also been lucky to cross paths with very experienced people—fala atelier, Christian Wassmann, and Fernando Romero have showed me various ways of design, experiment and communicate ideas.
The list can go on and on, as architects Richard England, Michael Graves, Peter Märkli, Aires Mateus are definitely big references to me, as well as the work of many artists, such as Edward Hopper, Scott Burton, Sol LeWitt, Jonas Wood, Sandra Shizuka, Andy Dixon, among others.
It’s also on my own practice that I find space and freedom to explore more, and push myself out of my comfort zone—by trying new ways of express ideas, that in the end also influence the project itself. I am deeply inspired by the beauty of basic shapes and geometric forms—and those we can find anywhere around us in our day to day life.
So, in the end, my influences come from what surrounds me, the people I meet, things I see, places I visit and simply things that I like.
“A writer uses words and phrases to express his ideas and thoughts; for an architect, sketching is the most natural way to process ideas and communicate them.”
What advice would you give to young designers?
While in school, please take advantage of all the tools that are available.
Get yourself involved with projects outside the regular curriculum of the school, participate in competitions and workshops, work and meet other people, and allow yourself to experiment and try as many things as you can.
After that, just keep challenging yourself, push your own limits and explore! And during that process you will be able to gradually start finding yourself, understand what makes you happy, and where you want to see yourself in the future.
And most important, have fun doing it!
1 | PROJECT OVERVIEW
The client requested a proposal for a renovation of his 500 sq. ft. two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment into a one-bedroom with larger spaces, before making a decision to either keep his current place or move to a new one.
We were able to achieve this by removing many of the non-original walls, creating a more straightforward layout that takes full advantage of the natural light and opens up the space into a large studio, composed of a small entrance hall, bathroom, kitchen, and an open living area.
2 | IMAGE WORKFLOW
This is one of the four views produced to illustrate the concept for the renovation of an apartment in Brooklyn, NY. This type of visuals are an easy, quick, and graphically appealing way to illustrate your ideas.
A | RHINO MODEL
First things first, a base model was generated on Rhino based on the 2D drawings. In this specific project, some of the furniture was also modeled in order to keep it consistent in all views.
Basic lighting and some materials were set up.
The main space—Studio—has a base geometry of a square. Keeping all the views at the same height, and framed into a square helps emphasizing the concept. The yellow bar at the center of the image also creates a continuous element that is consistently in the same position throughout the four images.
B | BASE RENDERING
I’ve decided to keep it as simple as possible, so the base image was rendered using the default Rhino Renderer. This give us a pretty clean and simple base image to start with. We could also have used Vray, that would allow us to save the VFB channels which are normally helpful during post production.
C | ADJUSTMENTS
Let’s open the file in Photoshop.
I normally like to start by doing a first round of quick adjustments:
Color balance—I tend to go with whiter and cooler tones;
Levels—adding more contrast and brightness;
Noise/grain—which give us a nice texture through the whole image.
D | TEXTURES
When I’m happy with the overall image, I start adding a few more details.
In this case I overlaid a pine wood texture on top o the yellow bar, and added a black terrazzo texture to define the small entrance hall.
E | ENTOURAGE/DETAILS
Some details were added as collages from different paintings.
This is definitely important to provide scale to the space. Introducing other elements that are familiar to our day to day life also makes it more relatable and transports ourselves into the space that's being created.
F | FINAL ADJUSTMENTS
At the end, I like to do a few fine adjustments on color balance, exposure and saturation.
Our final image is ready!
“ just keep challenging yourself, push your own limits and explore!”
Francisco, thank you for taking the time to interview with Arch-Vizz!
You can find more about Francisco’s work at Francisco-Rocha.com and on instagram @franciscomprocha
Interview & Images Courtesy: Francisco Rocha
Interviewer: Stefani Fachini