Krislynne Aguillon

Taal Observatory

Taal Observatory is a viewing platform of the Taal Volcano located in Batangas City, Philippines. For the brief of this project, we were required to create a type installation that is inspired from our hometown. Having lived in the Philippines until 11 years old, there were two things we were proud of – coffee and the Taal Volcano. Hence, drawing from the inspiration of the volcano, Taal Observatory is created.Upon research, I found that there are no proper observatory dedicated or designed for viewing. With this in mind, I decided to design the form of the observatory to this function. On top of this, drawing from the forms of layering lava to the design that functions as the stairs leading to the top of the observatory. Taal, as my chosen word is then typographically formed in the shape of molten rocks.The process of this project took several steps. To decide on the final form, I have created 30 typographic iteration of the word Taal. After, I had to decide how the stairs is going to form – first, making it sit on top of a rectangular stairs or the stairs taking form from the organic shape of the word. In the end, taking the shape of word. In order to bring it to life, I rendered it in Photoshop, saved it as an obj file and stacked them in Adobe Dimension completing the layered element of the platform.