The Sustainable City Update

The Home Depot Foundation has completed the updated Sustainable Cities Institute website which I wrote about in a previous post, and can now be found online here.

Randal Birkey created the base map illustration that the interactive Flash application is structured around.

Sustainable Cities Map

Sustainable Cities Map - illustration by Randal Birkey

Randal also created the site plan for the City Hall section of the application.

Sustainable City - City Hall Floor Plan

Sustainable City - City Hall Floor Plan - Randal Birkey Illustration

Finally, he created the view of how transportation could be integrated in more sustainable and environmentally friendly ways by city and urban planners.

Sustainable City Transportation

Sustainable City Transportation - Randal Birkey Illustration

City Hall Floor Plan

On the Sustainable City project mentioned below, a close up floor plan of City Hall was required to illustrate how a municipality need to allocate political resources and energy toward building a more sustainable community. Randal did a floor plan of a typical City hall building to illustrate the office space dedicated to a city sustainability manager.

City Hall Floor Plan

City Hall Floor Plan

The Sustainable City Map for the Home Depot Foundation

Through a web search, Randal was contacted by Idea Engineering out in Santa Barbara, California about doing a map for their client, the Home Depot Foundation. Through email communication, a project scope, fee and timeline was established. The objective of the project was to create a generic city map that could be used on a website to highlight various “green” and “sustainable” features that Home Depot Foundation promotes as good city planning and public policy.

Based upon the resources that Idea Engineering and Home Depot furnished, Randal first created a digital “pencil” of the line art for “The Sustainable City” map. This pencil was created using Corel Painter software, running on a MacBook Pro, using a pen stylus on a Wacom Intuos3 Tablet.

home-depot-city-small

This linework file was reviewed approved by Idea Engineering and Home Depot Foundation so that Randal could then continue the digital map illustration process.

Home Depot Foundation - Sustainable City Map - Final File

This is the final illustration as delivered to the client. The line art was kept on a layer by itself floating above a base layer used to paint digital watercolor and pencil shading that gives the map its dimensional and textured look. The developers of a new website will use this map to highlight various areas to provide greater detail and content about:

  • Wastewater and Sewage Treatment
  • Truck Weigh Stations
  • Solid Waster Transfer and Recycling Facilities
  • Eco-Industrial Parks
  • Wind Energy Generating Farms
  • Multi-Modal Train Facilities
  • Wetland Areas
  • Parks and Recreation
  • Water Treatment Plants
  • Water Reservoirs and Storage Ponds
  • Green Roof, Green Buildings
  • Rivers, Bridges and Forest Buffer Zones
  • Neighborhood Shopping Districts
  • Cultural Districts
  • Financial Districts

When the final client website goes live, I’ll add a link to the finished product.

Randal's MacBook Pro, Extra Monitor, Corel Painter, Wacom Stylus and Tablet setup

Randal's MacBook Pro, Extra Monitor, Corel Painter, Wacom Stylus and Tablet setup