Week 1: Research and ideation

Module: GAR106 environment art 2

Brief: “Model, texture and present in UE5 a Victorian three-storey terraced building with a shop on the ground floor facing the street.”

House: Gryffindor

Plot number: 16 (corner)

Week one: Mon 23rd Jan to Sun 29th Jan 2023

The Harry Potter franchise has a significant amount of ground in the media despite the last book of the main series, Deathly Hallows, being 16 years old this year. Fortunately, this does mean that receiving it as the basis for our project brief gives us plenty of material to experiment and play with, especially regarding the structure and design of the infamous Diagon Alley.

To begin with, I collated references for Diagon Alley as well as The Shambles in York*, a historic street that is often regarded as the closest real version of the fictional Alley. However, it is important to note that The Shambles is distinctly medieval in style, so I was careful with which elements I chose to integrate into my own shop to ensure that the design remained closer to the brief.

Then it was on to references of Victorian architecture, particularly of 1800s Victorian London which, with the Industrial Revolution happening, saw the rise of closely packed, terraced houses** very similar to the ones we see depicted in Diagon Alley.

I then further explored more defining features of Victorian Architecture, most notably ornamental rooftop finials, stained glass, and canted bay windows*** to try and get a better feel for the various and often intertwining styles that were present during the 1800s.

Combining various references as well as my own ideas that I had previously brainstormed, I eventually settled on the idea of creating a magical antique shop named “Ahlquist’s Animated Antiques”. This idea would allow me to combine several of my other ideas together in the window displays, such as including dragon-themed and plant-themed items rather than basing an entire shop on one of those themes. It also allowed me to create a link to one of my original characters, Karel Ahlquist, who just so happens to be an antique store owner and could therefore be a fun way for me to add little Easter eggs later in development (mostly for my own amusement).

While constructing the shop I had to keep in mind that my plot on Diagon Alley is located on a corner, so I decided to make use of the unique position and place the entrance on the corner at an angle. Victorian era buildings located on corners were angular in design (unlike the smoother and more rounded architecture that is often chosen today) so I made sure to pay attention to that during the design stage.

With the building mostly finalized, that marks the end of this stage and onto the next one!

REFERENCES * VisitYork. ca 2014. 'Directory/category/Shambles'. VisitYork, Make it York Ltd [online]. Available at: https://www.visityork.org/business-directory/category/shambles [accessed 13 April 2023].

** Art in Context. 2023. 'Victorian Architecture - 19th Century British Building Styles'. Art in Context [online]. Available at: https://artincontext.org/victorian-architecture/ [accessed 13 April 2023].

*** MasterClass. June 2021. 'Victorian Architecture: 3 Characteristics of Victorian Architecture'. MasterClass [online]. Available at: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/victorian-architecture [accessed 13 April 2023].