Catching Up

With just one week until I take flight and make my way to the UK, it's been quite the...experience getting all my affairs in order. Making sure I have all the necessary documents ready, all my bills and bank accounts taken care of, and just generally my head firmly on my shoulders has been a lot to juggle. On top of that, I've been working on an updated portfolio of my strongest work. Basically, it's been the week for lists on lists on lists.

Trying to update my portfolio has been especially challenging. For obvious reasons, I'm trying to get that done before I leave next Monday. A week is honestly plenty of time to put together a sample portfolio, but it's been difficult for me to weed out what projects have been more successful than the others. Obviously, I'm proud of all the work I've done, but they sure don't say "kill your darlings" for nothin'.

After hours - literally - of thinking about this, I finally narrowed it down to about five projects that I'm SUPER confident showcase my skills without eliminating variety in my portfolio. Now the real challenge is to show those projects in a way that really sells me as a designer. That means, dun dun DUN, more editing...

Fitting my projects in one or two pages maximum has been, truthfully, a pain in the you-know-what. Giving enough context so the viewer understands the project without being a complete overload is a delicate balance I'm still trying to figure out. Hopefully, with a some perseverance and a little bit of luck, I'll get it all together and sent out to a few firms before my little Eurotrip. 

Until Next Time!

From Houses to Homes: Guatemala

¡Hola design world! Let me start by apologizing (again) for completely falling off the face of the planet for the past months. It's been a whirlwind of a semester - not that it's any sort of an excuse for my absence. There's so much to update on but there's one aspect of my life that I'm really excited to share with everyone.It's been a semester full of opportunity for me, and I'm feeling truly blessed to be able to participate in it.

Way back in early September, Syracuse University alumni, Maureen Baker, approached the interior design department looking for a group of students to work on a real-world design project. The project was to help design a Montessori style school for the New Jersey based organization From Houses to Homes (check out the school under the "education" link). The school, called Kemna'Oj, is currently being built in Santa Maria de Jesus, a rural village just outside of Antigua, Guatemala and is scheduled to be completed in April of 2013.

At the beginning of this project, I was excited to participate in a project that would actually be applied and built. As a design student, it's very rare that any project I design would ever be constructed. Now, with the project nearly at its end, my excitement stems from so much more. What I've come to realize over the past few months is just how much of an impact design can have on those who inhabit it. It's one of those ideas that, as a student, you're aware of, but really have no idea how true it is.

In Santa Maria de Jesus, the literacy rate is at a meager 69% and of the few children who attend school, many don't make it past second grade. What Kemna'Oj will do is allow students to attend the school completely free. With the nearest public school being about an hour away, this is a coveted opportunity for most children.

The Kemna'Oj Design Team from left to right: 

Lex Struble, Erin McCarthy, Meghan Thomas, Me, Jessica Greenlaw, Emily Groemmer

Now for the part where we step in...

Starting off, we had ourselves a full program. We not only were tasked with designing the entire interior of the building, but also most of the furniture within it. After months of tirelessly putting ourselves into this project, we came up with a solid, cohesive design for the classrooms, cafeteria, and courtyard of the building which fueled the design decisions in the secondary spaces.

We took the idea of a huipil (traditional Mayan garb seen above) as well of the name of the school itself, which means "weaving minds, weaving knowledge," and created an overarching motif of weaving, diamonds, and thread. The diamond motif was first established in the courtyard and hallway railings. These elements referenced the diamond pattern seen on Santa Maria de Jesus's huipil. You'll also notice a sculptural string element located in the cafeteria as well as the entrance of each classroom. This element gives the school an identity as well as serving as the identification of each grade (the threads are different colors for each grade). Obviously, this was a very brief summary of our design intents and processes, but I'd rather you see the results than me describe them (:

Upper Level Classroom

Pre-K & Kindergarten Classroom

Courtyard Area

Cafeteria

I'm so proud of these renderings and all the effort that exists behind them. The team I worked with faced numerous challenges from language and measurement barriers, to changing deadlines and time shortages. What's even more thrilling is that we'll soon be able to see our designs come to life. With construction underway (the roof of the building went on just a few weeks ago!) we'll be seeing images of color and life coming into the building very soon.

Most spectacularly, drumroll please...

...the six of us will be going to Santa Maria de Jesus, Guatemala in May to do a post-occupancy study. I still cannot wrap my head around just how truly blessed I am. Being able to design the school was enough of a blessing in the first place, but actually being able to see it is beyond what I could ask for. Not only that, but I'll be able to see just how much of an impact the school will have on the children who attend Kemna'Oj.

And on that note, I'll leave you with these amazing faces and a little video: