In Pursuit of Thesis: Week Seven

Every once in a while, a magical thing happens where I have a three-day long burst of motivation. While I'd say I certainly have no problem buckling down and working on something for an extended period of time, actually being excited to do so, for so long, is a much more uncommon experience. Anyway, last weekend was one of those rare phenomenon - pretty much every minute I had, I spent working on thesis, enthusiastically I might add.

In a few short days after my last post, I managed to pump out a pretty holistic and thoughtful floor plan for the majority of my space - the whole space. There are definitely some minor tweaks to be made throughout the classroom spaces, but I'd definitely say I hit that 75% mark that I was talking about last week. Plus, I made some serious headway modeling the changes I'm making to the space digitally and physically. Check it out:

Purple: Classrooms      Yellow: Student Lounges     Green: Public Spaces    Blue: Group Spaces

First Floor Plan

Second Floor Plan

Third Floor Plan

Compare that to this current moment, where I can barely motivate myself to even talk about my lack of motivation and work flow. Unfortunately, the one part of my space I've been struggling to solidify is probably one of the more important ones - the main reception and gallery area. Something about essentially designing blank wall space in a thoughtful manner is really giving me headaches...maybe literally. My biggest issue is that the initial entry space is so strong in comparison to the gallery area. It's the "second impression" of the design you get, and figuring out how to make it equally, if not more, impressive has landed me a ticket on the struggle bus.

I've spent a large part of this week creating a second model of just those two spaces in an attempt to figure out how to arrange the gallery in response to what I've designed in the entry. I think a lot of my decisions will be based on my inclusion of the angular forms seen in the entry space. After talking to a few classmates about it, it'd probably serve me well to figure out where seating areas should be and then plan the wall space around that. I'm currently toying with the idea of moveable gallery wall systems as well (especially considering I might be using some sort of a portable practice room in my classroom spaces). Also, I think it might be a good choice to allow for the students to arrange the gallery in addition to what is displayed in it, giving them another facet of the program to take part in and control. Hey - it goes with the concept of empowerment in a way.

Anyway, I have my second review this week so I'm hoping to get back on the productive streak this weekend. It's hard to believe it's already the midpoint of the semester! Can't wait to show you everything I have next week (:

Until then